The Risen Tide

Guess what everyone, I've finally published a book! ^.^ This is one that I've been working on for a good few years now, and I'd finally felt like it could be put out there.

"Alexia Windrain once thought that she could learn magic. But when her powers failed to manifest, she lived like a servant under a Master Wizard's thumb, barely tolerated, until one fateful day when she would be viciously betrayed by her old teacher for reasons unknown. Saved only by a twist of fate (and a talking cat), her only hope for answers lies across the mountains into the Forbidden Land...a place from which non-magic humans have been banished. Joined by Kaal, the last of the dragons, Alexia must take an odyssey through a world long abandoned and torn apart, through cities haunted by vengeful wraiths, blistering deserts with mysterious predators, and relentless icy wastes hiding wise guardians. Together, the girl and the dragon will rediscover their courage, protect an ancient magic, and face their demons...if the ruthless Bright Souls don't get there first."

Please, for the love of god, please don’t be this person. No matter how long it’s been since an update, no matter how many unfinished stories are sitting on their account, no matter what - do not be this person.

Not only is it insanely rude, but you also do more damage than you think be being such a self-entitled ass about something someone created for free and for fun. “This author” can see what you say.

I also got a glowing compliment on a fic and went into a flurry of writing, suddenly inspired, then by happenstance got a nasty, impatient comment on that same fic a few days and moved onto writing a different fic that didn’t have that associated annoyance.

Like. I am writing for fun. For me. I reread and enjoy my fics all the time because they’re exactly the story I want to read. I get the same enjoyment out of a fic wither or not anyone else ever sees it or knows it exists.

I’m sharing it for fun too.

I've seen at least two different threads bring this up. It's so pedantic that it's ridiculous. I'll go so far as to say that answering this question will make your story worse. Unless your plot directly hinges upon the agricultural history of your imaginary realm, there is no reason for anyone in the story to know, mention, bring up, or in even the slightest way care about the answer to that question, and absolutely zippo reason for anyone reading it to take time out of their presumably adult life to take even a microsecond to consider it.

Who domesticated wheat in our world? Does it matter? Does not knowing the answer stop you from having a morning slice of toast?

But okay, the CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WRITING though…!  A character trope that I absolutely adore is the “heel-face-turn”, when a villain/antagonist turns into a good/better person over time, and when it’s well-done, it’s my bread and butter (among lots of other well-done writing tropes, but I digress).

We first meet Sesshomaru in Inuyasha as a ruthless demon who hates humans and half-demons, and has designs to build an empire on conquest…but throughout the rather large timeline of the rest of the show, he becomes the recurring B-plot character who goes through a good amount of inner growth, some of which can arguably be more compelling than the A-plot, because he remains a very stoic and enigmatic being dealing with lots of flaws, and the characters and the audience learn to read him through his actions.

When we meet him again in Yashahime, he’s a father, who goes through hell and back to keep his human wife and half-demon daughters safe, and said daughters are the main characters of the show.

Regardless, I love a good debate; so instead of instantly going for the block-hammer, I’m first going to offer some counterpoints, which I feel everyone should have seen if they’d watched the show in its entirety (so, spoilers, kinda).

1. I’m not saying Sesshomaru is perfect.  Nor am I saying the writing is perfect (one thing I don’t really get is whether or not he knew what powers the Rainbow Pearls would give the girls other than enhanced demon abilities (seemingly), and where the heck a portal through time that dragged Towa off came from; I may have to watch the episodes a few more times).  BUT,

2. You have to take a look at his actions from a demon’s point of view, and not a human’s (the characters acknowledge in the very last episode that his actions were questionable, but as a whole they were all about giving them all the opportunity to come into their own strength; the “rite of courage and cowardice”).  He still wanted the girls to live for Rin’s sake, and if you look at it through a demon’s point of view, he was pretty generous in making sure they had the best chance of survival:

3.  Giving them the Rainbow Pearls.  Sealing them away from his ACTIVELY HUNTING FOR THEM enemy’s eyes in a barrier.  Having Jaken watch over them as they grew and then spiriting Setsuna away in a protected half-demon village once she was out of the fire.  All without arm’s reach, because he still had to project an air of ruthlessness around his enemies, and let them believe that the girls were dead, when in fact:

4. Everyone seems to underestimate the powers of a half-demon.  He first-hand knows not to, having his ass handed to him by Inuyasha several times in the original show. xP  Could he have helped the girls out of the fire?  Yes, but that wouldn’t have stopped Zero and Kirinmaru from continuing to go after them with more and probably worse inescapable methods, showing that arguably the strongest demon lord in the show has a weakness.  At that point he had to trust in the circumstances that he’d put into motion and make them believe they’d succeeded.

5. Once they grew up enough to no longer be bystanders to the fight, he still came to help them on several occasions; if not by directly doing so, then by showing his daughters what they could surely do with their abilities (in one notable moment that he DID help, he freaking took a LETHAL BLAST from Kirinmaru, directed at them).  Not once did he ever show that he didn’t believe in them (which, again, was pointed out by Moroha in the last episode when they were doubting that themselves).

One questionable moment doesn’t make character regression; he’s made up for it with plenty of other good actions.  He’s still come a very long way since the events of Inuyasha; even WITHIN the events of it...you don’t even need to look that deeply between the lines.