To expand on this: Shirou not having a goal beyond wanting to help people is fine. that does not set the plot. There are plenty of main characters who's singular goal is very vague or short term. I call these 'Reactionary Protagonists." They tend to stay where they are, until they here something that they need/want to help with, but in these cases, someone, somewhere has a goal. There needs to be a big bad, and he needs to have plans, if the Protagonist isn't going to have any of his own.

What I'd do, is sit down, and figure out who you want to be the big bad of the fic. What is their final goal? What plans will the implement? How do they influence the storyline? This allows you to sprinke hints and clues about what is going to happen. Having an MC with a simple goal as "I want to protect/help these people," is fine, because they are not the instigator of the plot.

So, who is Shirou's ultimate enemy here? What enemies does he have? Who's out to get him, or the people around him?

 

I was happy to see it updated and enjoyed the chapter, but I agree with both of you.

Since it's a harem fic, we're now shifting focus away from that to Kitsune and that's diminishing everything that's happened with Motoko. I got the vibe from this chapter that Motoko is to basically become a cardboard cutout for the rest of the fic - her character development will likely stagnate, she will feature a lot less, etc. So far it's avoided it, but let's hope it doesn't go too far the In Flight route.

I doubt an action-orientated plot will really be an overall focus, but I'm sure the more violent and magical part of Shirou's life will play major parts in each character arc.

 

Yes! This is the kind of criticism I was hoping for. You are ABSOLUTELY right in every aspect. There are two reason why I picked this particular harem setting and they are the following:
1 - I didn't want to close my chance to any FSN originated subplot
2 - It's a cheap way to get a lot of readers. Wish-fulfillment fics draw a lot of attention, and I was hoping to get a lot of criticism too. I got only the former, though.

I understand that lacking an objective for Shirou in a novel-lenght story is off-putting, but he does have one. I just wanted to keep it under wraps as reveal it as the rest of the LH cast comes to discover it. Shirou has been doing things in the years between the HGW and the present story but of course he doesn't speak of them with others, especially not the LH side for obvious reasons. They will come to put the pieces together as people from his past shows up here and there.

As for enemies, both Shirou and the LH girls have some (with the exception of Kitsune and Shinobu). The whole being a Urashima thing has implications that are yet to be revealed, but I'll get there (relatively) soon.

I don't plan for Motoko's growth to stop, nor she's going to become secondary. In time, she has to become a reliable support for Shirou when the shit hits the fan. I'm not having him train her for shits and giggles.

It will be half slice of life, half action with slight a romance undertone. Ultimately I don't think many, if any, of the LH girls are going to jump on Shirou's bandwagon, regardless of what their feelings for him may be. The FSN girls did because it was both something they wanted and suited them to a degree (yes, it's cheapening). The LH girls are nowhere near as broken as the FSN ones.

 

You say you plan to have the LH cast not all hook up with him. Play that up then. Have one of them end up hating Shirou for not noticing how much harm he is doing to other women by knowing he is letting them fall in love with him and fail completely at it. Have him fail at saving the day. Do something that is negative for the characters that can't just be ignored. Illyas death in UTW/HF, Sabers melancholy ending in Fate or her death in HF, or the like.

Do not play this story like a straight harem story or you have failed by writing a straight harem story. Harems are not good storytelling, they are just wish fulfillment as you say. Having Motoko stating Shriou is not her handler is good in this aspect however, as it shows growth that can be independent of Shirou.

 

I like the reasoning of the open relationship/harem you gave in the latest chapter Neo. It's true, the only way for something like that to work IS if the participants are just that in love/obsessed with each other that they would rather have some then none at all. It probably helps that the participants all know each other and care for each other deeply outside of their affections for Shirou. As such, I would say the open relationship is a testament to how much Rin and Sakura are making up for lost time being sisters, and the lengths Rider goes through for Sakura probaly endeared her greatly.

Overall I'd say that this is one of those things you would hear about in the real world that's really weird but somehow is actually true, an exception that proves the rule as it were. It's nicely contrasted by Haruka's failed version of it and the knowledge that, if you've read Neo's spoilers, the consequences of that failure haven't all come about yet.

 

I don't think it's something that would work for actual people in real life. It's something that's feasible only among people who have been through hell and back together. That's why the girls from LH are not able to develop the same type of relationship. They may gravitate toward Shirou but ultimately his lifestyle pushes them away. That is not to say they won't at all, but they would be a small minority of the cast, and there would be outstanding reasons.

 

That's why I said an exception that proves the rule. It's a type of thing that from the outside looks implausible but if you knew the particulars you could see how it would happen. Also, never underestimate realities ability to weird you the fuck out.

 

Let's not pretend we don't know what's going on here. An action series protagonist dropped into a harem comedy setting? C'mon. There is no possible combination set up more blatantly for Suedom. Even an SI doesn't come close.

But that's okay. That's what we're here for. This is peak guilty pleasure, as far as genres go.

I enjoyed a lot more of this than I was expecting to. The supernatural elements were well done, and I'm a sucker for curb-stomp crossovers with a badass post-series protagonist strutting around amongst the mortals.

There was, however, one thing which pissed me off to no end. Shirou scolding the girls for the behaviour. Relentlessly. And then the absurd decision to have certain characters treat Shirou the same way they did Keitaro, the beta-bitch character he's replacing. Sure, it created some plot tension, albeit in a horrendously contrived way, but it wasn't interesting, it wasn't new, and it wasn't fun. And it also was a fairly large focus for the first half of this.

It seems to still be going, with the most recent update only a month ago. I'm a few chapters behind so I'm going to re-read this and possibly re-rate if necessary, but I'm going to give this a surprisingly higher rating than I thought I was going to: although it has flaws a-plenty, they're flaws of the genre, not of the story itself, and a savvy reader would be expecting them.

4/5