We~eell, why don't we get the disclaimer out of the way first?
I do not make any claim of owning Highschool DxD or any of the characters associated with the series, be they from the light novels, manga or anime. Highschool DxD is the property of Ichiei Ishibumi. If it was my property, I would have made Issei an overly attractive male who happens to be homo and have severe gynophobia for shits and giggles… or into Kenji from Katawa Shoujo, for the same reason.
See what I did? I'm a bastard…
Why is it that I feel oddly proud about that? Still, that was time uselessly spent on writing something that only a minority is going to complain about, and especially considering FF has its own rules and regulations, meaning that I have no need to write one.
Anyway, I must say that I'm rather surprised that DxD would be the first series I put up on this site. After all, I've got several other series in my folder ranging from a few hundred word to a near ten thousand. Not much in comparison to some writers, but when considering I have about 40 different stories across 22 series it adds up.
Personally, I thought it would have been something from Bleach, Fairy Tail, Zero no Tsukaima, RWBY or Inuyasha, but I digress.
I'll begin with some information that I myself would like to know when entering a new fanfic.
First of all, this is a self-insert.
Buh-bye some potential readers.
Frankly though, as I write I obviously find it easier to relate with myself rather than some OC I thought up. Lazy perhaps, but I still think you can write good stuff as an inserter.
That may have come out wrong…
Worth mentioning though is that I'm trying to be realistic about the situation, even if it means putting myself in an unflattering light, I've no intention of making myself a sue. That being said, if you read it and you start to see indications of such, please tell me. I want this to be a story that's enjoyable to read, not one that glorify my nonexistent greatness.
Who the fuck am I kidding, I'm the greatest there is! Onto the next one!
Issei will not be the main character in this. He'll still be around, he'll serve a purpose later on in the story, but for now he'll be around to perv on the kendo girls, and perhaps the swim team when summer comes around, and be upset with the rest of the trio about my character's awesomeness. And get beat up…
Thirdly: this will be a harem… I can hear some of you groaning already and I haven't even put the damn series up on fanfiction yet, but give me a second to explain!
First of all, I want to say I agree with you. Far too often it seems like the harem is simply made up to please everyone, or to get that girl the writer likes and then keep the others as sex-slaves. Overly drastic description, perhaps, but the rest of the girls do seldom get as much time to be developed or have a relationship actually develop between the characters. And I don't simply mean the MC and the girls, but the relationships between all of the girls themselves.
It also pisses me somewhat when everybody simply seems to be fine about it without reason. So if you notice one of the girls isn't getting enough screen time or interaction, shout at me and kick my ass and I'll see what I can do to change that.
The second thing I want to say in regards to this issue is that harems fit rather well into devil society. They have been part of a long war and lost a lot of their forces thanks to it, the idea of producing more powerful devils would be a high priority, as shown with the (oh, spoilers… -_-;) arranged marriage between Rias and Raizer. They are a war-like people that can't seem to completely drop the part of their nature that dictates them to become the strongest, hence the rating games, so it's unlikely that they would drop the idea of quickly reproducing by having concubines. And judging from Venelanas wish for Rias to manage Isseis harem, it's an archaic and generally accepted practice to have them.
Thirdly; at this moment I've planned for my writing to follow canon up till season three of the anime, though I'm also reading the novels to get a better read on the world, characters and events. I'm also going to try to marry the anime and novels together to create more depth. It won't be a copy paste and things will change more drastically as we get further into it, the MC is different from Issei and will have his own reasoning, after all. Instead I will focus more on the personal relationships and the action while thinking of how to make things more original on the way there.
And that leads us to the warnings: there may be graphic descriptions of injuries (yay!), lemons (damn FAAAAAR off into the future, this isn't Issei we're talking about) and perceived character bashing.
I say perceived because I have no intention of bashing any character, but that doesn't mean that my MC can't bash them.
Wonderful loophole, huh?
Serious though, you'll know why and probably agree with it when it comes up, I've no intentions of making it sneak up on you.
In any case, I would love some constructive critique to develop my writing some more, I've every intention of returning to previous chapters later on and get my style up to snuff, just tell me what you liked and didn't like or didn't understand. It doesn't take too long to write a short review without giving solid examples or advice, and it also tells me that you like what I'm doing and makes writing more fun. A lack of response can really kill the muse for a person and make them stop writing. Authors post things here for a response and if there is none then there's no reason to write.