If he'd stop trying to add something about Shirou's life with Rin and Saber, then he would have cut his chapter length by a third. Throw out all the useless info about Shirou's proficiency with magecraft and there will be another third. I skipped practically everything about this chapter simply because it got too boring to read through. Was seriously disappointed by this.

 

Meh, people've been harping at him in reviews to explain Shirou's combat capabilities for some time. The filler in this chapter was a necessary evil to establish some boundaries. Also, Akitsu is awesome; you can't deny that.

 

Akitsu is hella awesome, for sure.

But as I read this I could only think that there's too much introspection and not enough actual plot/substance/whatever. I mean, it's amazing that we as readers know every little thought that goes through Shirou's head, and it offers some great opportunities for characterization, but damn. Like laziboi said, for the same word count/invested effort, this story could be so much more.

Even with those gripes, I'd still give this story a flat 5/5. It is well written and the integration of the two universes is practically seamless (so far). Also, I've had absolutely no exposure to Sekirei prior to this fic and I'm having absolutely no problems understanding what's going on.

Character interactions are fun. The mutual respect Shirou's built up with Miya is cool, and his ongoing obsession with her 'mask' is pretty funny. And his Sekireis' reactions to UBW!Shirou are :awesome:awesome:awesome.

Now if he could only figure out how to wing Akitsu then he'd be sitting on the strongest Sekirei in the tournament.

 

Supposedly we're going to see more of Karasuba/Musubi in the immediate future. So, yeah, shit's getting kicked into high gear.

 

I'm going to flat out disagree. The gag with Miya's mask stopped being funny the moment it was written and I'd wish he would stop with it already.

After going through the ridiculous effort to reread that chapter, I also have to ask why he decided to make an OC from the Archibald family instead of simply making his own. It's not hard to take the Archibald character and give him a different name, especially when he clashes with what's already known about the family's current predicament.

 

I disagree. It provides a levity to the proceedings that isn't as ridiculous as the slapstick comedy provided by the more retarded sekirei and Yukari. It gives us another angle on Shirou's personality, showing his manic obsession with learning a new technique. It also provided a necessary diversion from Shirou's otherwise boring life of collecting sekirei, and his day job during this introductory arc. Now that the war's about to heat up, we don't need that diversion any more, so Shirou's almost finished with his recreation of it.

IIRC, Gabriel created an OC of the Archibald family because he didn't want to mess up canon. He managed to do that anyway. Apparently the necessary info on the Archibald's is buried deeply on the wiki so he missed it.

 

This was already pointed out to him on his forum. Though now that it's written and uploaded, I doubt he's gonna go back and change anything.

 

I've never known Gabriel to edit an old chapter, no matter how egregious it is, in the entire time he's been writing fanfiction.

 

I'm almost wondering if gabriel's new writing style is him trying to stay true to the theme of FS/N. Practically 70% of that visual novel seems to be plot exposition, technique explanation, and/or introspective conversations. The remaining 30% being sheer badass fight sequences, of course. (and smut)

Let's not forget all the strategy meetings/dinner scenes also.

 

Story was updated with chapter 18. I'm one part disappointed, one part frustrated, and a last part excited.

I just got done marathoning the Sekirei series (seasons 1+2) so I have a better idea what's going on here. That said, the disappointment comes from how slowly this story is developing, the frustration from Shirou's inability to open up to his Sekirei, and the excitement from what these deviations from canon could mean on later plot points.

All in all, good update but things need to get rolling.

 

I haven't received any email updates from ff.net for several days. Weird. I just checked my Alerts settings on ff.net and everything seems to be setup fine.

edit: Nevermind, it looks like it's a wide spread problem affecting different people in different ways. I'll just be patient.

 

19 is up, and the truth about Homura is out

 

Absolutely nothing interesting at all this chapter. Last chapter was at least partially interesting due Karasuba.

As Sin has said, things need to start rolling.

 

Ch19 is definitely a character development chapter. The Shirou/Yukari, Shirou/Uzume, and Shirou/Homura relationships are all advanced. Plot, what plot?

 

Once again, I find myself disappointed by the word-count:shit-happening ratio. I mean, the character development is awesome and all (it really is!), but to spend an entire chapter on nothing but that? A very lengthy chapter?

I stand conflicted. Is it wrong to complain about lack of movement when the character development is so well written?

 

The author's experimenting with a new style - none of his other fics are like this [except perhaps the Kim Possible stuff which I haven't read]. We've given him latitude for doing that, but after 300k words of glacial pacing, criticisms are definitely warranted. He's written almost as many words as he did in the entirety of Hill of Swords, and comparatively sweet-FA has happened.

 

I'm hoping that the interlude is over, now. We've had this constant build-up of tension, with the threat of the various organizations that have it out for him. It's time for Shirou to get out there and start taking names; though, admittedly, I'm still enjoying the slice-of-life comedy routine.

 

As a bit of a tangent thought, am I the only one who wants Rin and Saber to show up at some point? I mean, I know they should stay out of the story and leave Shirou to his business in the Sekirei universe, but I can't help but wonder how they would react to a) his leaving and b) his involvement in the Sekirei Plan. Not to mention how Shirou's little birds would try to settle the score with the two 'heartbreaking witches.'

Perhaps as a tangent story or interlude chapter.

 

GB said that Saber and Rin will be showing up later in the story. Rin's not stupid, the moment she found out about the Sealing Designation she probably figured out what Shirou did. My guess is she's working on her end to solve the problem.

 

Ch 20 is a welcome step up in the right direction. It was interesting to see the Noritos in action. The confrontation with the bounty hunters was a decent warm up to what I hope are going to be more powerful fights soon.

The ending scene was a bit of face-palmy, cheap humour, but at the same time I was sniggering. Poor Shirou, eh? What a problem that must be to wake up to.