Since Moonlly doesnât seem interested in continuing the series, Iâm thinking of taking over and finishing the story myself. So I wanted to ask everyone: who would you like Rika-chan to end up withâAiri-chan or Haruto (Raku)?
It could be interesting to have actual tension and conflict in the story, instead of the crap going nowhere we got recently (lol... "recently").
If Rika (formerly Raku) could for example grow a brain and be a real character instead of being such an obvious mcguffin, it would be nice. I know it's kinda part of the genre to consider the main character as brain dead, because otherwise you'd have to find good explanations why a guy would accept getting feminized against his will. But you have to admit it's very far from being satisfying. For example, LilTKit stories check all the lazy writing boxes of the genre : main character either being an idiot from the start or becoming a dumb bimbo for either the sake of the plot or for some kink, "magical" SRS, etc.
There are other authors who have done better. For example CBlack183 in "Arrangement", the main character has his own goal and make plans to achieve it. He has agency, it's just that it backfires quite badly.
To make Forever Summer more interesting, you'd need to have a main character who is not just a passive victim who doesn't even realize he's being used as an object and deprived of his humanity. At the very least, he (the real Raku) should be in conflict with Aiko somehow. Not necessarily in direct conflict, but not what we have right now, that is : the real Raku simply endures the abuse without any real protestation.
Sure, there are some moments where he protests "No way I'm gonna get bottom surgery !" and then Aiko has a let-me-convince-you-real-quick-chat with him, and the poor boy goes "Oh well, I guess you're right. After all, I have no other solution, since I have no money yet to revert what needs to be reverted and you're willing to pay for further body modifications that will need to be reverted later (if even possible, which is not of course)". As if he did not realize Aiko could also simply pay for reverting the changes, so it's quite obvious, even if you're not in Aiko's brain (like we are, due to the omniscient narration), that Aiko is manipulating him.
The problem here is that the author introduces an obstacle for Aiko that he immediately removes. This already happened before, with the Father's main hitman, which I forgot the name. Remember ?
Rika: "Oh no what are we going to do about this guy who is totally close to the father and wants to meet with us ???"
Aiko: "No problem, let's just talk-lie-jutsu the shit out of him, anyway everyone is stupid in this story but me"
There's also a huge missed opportunity to get Raku's father (the real Raku) involved and investigate, to create tension around the question "Will Aiko's misdeeds be discovered?" Chitoge also needs to be part of this, as it was part of the plot at some point, but was quickly dropped for no reason (except maybe a brain tumor - either in Chitoge's or Moonlly's brain).