Title: Fate or Fortune
Author: Tempest Kiro
Rating: T
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Status: Complete
Words: 102,635
Pairings: Naoto S./Protagonist
Summary: Detective Shirogane is called to investigate a mystery reminiscent of a case that should have been laid to rest. A mystery entwined with a memory she had long since left behind.
Link: ffn

A brief warning: the plot of this story contains some minor but very important spoilers for Persona 4, so if you don't want to be spoiled, then I guess you shouldn't be reading this. If you want to give it a try anyways (maybe because you don't care about spoilers, or you have no plans to play Persona 4), the canon plot points that it touches on are light enough that you could probably follow along perfectly fine after just reading the plot summary for the game (as well as maybe the bio page for Naoto Shirogane).

To briefly describe the actual plot, four years after the events of Persona 4, dead bodies start showing up hanging from high structures in San Diego. Having been credited with solving the original case in Inaba, Naoto Shirogane is flown out to investigate. The primary suspect for the murders? Her ex-boyfriend, Souji Seta (aka nameless protagonist).

This story is a textbook example of how I think post-canon fics should be - a unique and interesting plot that is strong enough to stand on its own, but is complemented by the fact that it follows from canon.

The strongest aspect of this story is definitely the plot. The first half of the story alternates between flashbacks to the past (aka warm and fuzzy feelings) and chapters set in present day (actually a surprisingly good mystery/thriller, with hints of a broken romance). The second half of the story is completely set in the present time. At first I didn't really like the flashbacks that much because I felt that they interrupted the flow of the "main" story, but looking back the chapters set in the past do a lot of subtle work, both in terms of worldbuilding (explaining the exact situation the characters find themselves in, in the present day) as well as some foreshadowing (very important for a mystery story). The entire story really does tie itself together relatively nicely, with even the minor details existing for a reason.

Another strong aspect of the story is the characterization. Naoto, the primary viewpoint for the vast majority of the story, feels like a very fleshed out character, and is a believable evolution of how her canon self could have evolved after getting burned by a failed romance years prior. Souji is also relatively well written, but it's a bit harder to judge with him given his distinct lack of actual personality in canon (since he's the faceless protagonist and all).

The worst part of the story is definitely the technical writing. That's not to say that the technical writing is bad. It's still pretty good, it's just not perfect. There were some times that I noticed the author randomly changing tense, and a few phrases here and there could have maybe been worded better. But overall the plot of the story was strong enough that even with the occasional awkward technicality I was still very invested all the way through.

4/5, maybe 4.5/5 depending on how much you like this sort of thing. This isn't so amazing that I would force you to go and play Persona 4 so you could read it, but if you have already played through the game or just don't care about spoilers and want to go wiki diving, this would be one of the first things I would recommend in the fandom.

 

It took me until I've read into the plot summary given by you to recognise that I've actually read this. Because this is one of those works that don't really do anything well enough or badly enough to stay in the reader's memory. Still, I remember the story was way longer that it had any need to be and the confrontation around the end being really convoluted to give the antagonist a fighting chance.

I've rated it 4.5/10 then and if anything the score would get worse on the reread, so I will stick with this.

 

Opened it up and immediately recognised it.

I think it's a good Persona fic, but not DLP quality. It's main weakness I feel is the technical writing. Strengths wise I never minded the dialogue in this, it was never outstanding but quite well done. My personal biggest issue is I felt it got weaker as the story went on and never quite bounced back.

I'd give it a 2.5/5 and I'll round it to three since I don't think it's bad, just markedly average.