Well, here we are. Two and a halfish years. Somewhere around a million words (I haven’t actually added them all up at the time of writing this).
Thanks everyone for reading.
Void Domain has ended.
Honestly, I don’t know what to say. I’ve done nine of these Author’s Note segments. This one feels a bit different though. Probably because there isn’t a ‘tune in next time, same bat time, same bat channel’ feeling anymore. People who read these author’s notes are probably aware that I write several chapters ahead of the currently posted chapter. As such, I’ve actually been done with Void Domain for two to threeish weeks before you’re all reading this.
Let me tell you, it’s an absolutely eerie feeling waking up in the morning and not having Void Domain to write.
Anyway, I suppose we could start out looking at Book 10 in particular.
The ritual occupied almost the entirety of the book, minus a few chapters right at the start and at the end. I worried a ton over focusing so much on the ritual, but it was a huge part of the overarching plot that’s been hanging over the everyone’s shoulders for several books now. I think it turned out quite well though. There was a lot of standing around and talking, but I think it was an interesting sort of talking. Though the few fight scenes, mostly those with Gertrude, were good as well.
Of course, I might be biased.
The ending… Oh boy, I had a fairly concrete idea of how I wanted the series to end ever since I started writing. When I finally got to the last six or so chapters, I was stressing out quite a bit. Enough so that I actually dropped both of my fanfics (which I’ll talk about later) to focus on Void Domain. Fun fact: I scrapped more words in the last ten chapters than I had over the entire rest of the series.
I started out just continuing. Nothing resolved and everyone was all ready for Book 11. It wasn’t until I realized that there really aren’t any major villains left and I don’t have anything planned past this point that I went back and properly fixed things towards how it ended up going.
Then I started worrying about how I was ending it. Should Eva have ended up stuck in Hell, seated on a throne of blood with her eyes brightly burning red as the very final scene? Should Brakket still be open or closed? Does Arachne come back? Should this or that and everything else?
After settling on what happened, I started on character epilogues.
All but one of which I ended up not writing. About five hundred words into a Juliana chapter with her pretending to be Indiana Jones and maybe going slightly crazy in attempts to entertain Zagan, I decided not to do the epilogues and to leave things up to readers’ imaginations. The only epilogue that I actually finished was Nel’s chapter and that one ended up slightly altered and eventually became 010.033.
A few chapters ago, there were a few comments of lists of things they wanted to see before Void Domain ended. Some of those things I hope I answered with some satisfaction. Some of those things I deliberately left vague or unanswered. Some of those things just didn’t fit in the scope of the ending (mostly the things related to Sawyer and Griffin and their actions in Book 1).
And some of those things I had forgotten I added entirely. Which was a problem in the early books. I kept thinking ‘Oh, this [concept] is cool, I should write this in somewhere.’ And then I would write it in, fully thinking that I’d use it more later, only to not. I think that stems mostly from my inexperience as a writer. I didn’t keep a list of things that needed addressing and just kept adding them.
Because of all that, if people want to post questions in the comments, I’ll try to answer them. If the questions relate to things I’ve deliberately avoided or kept vague, I’ll probably skip over them or mention as much. If a topic is big enough, I might write an extra-style mini-chapter. Might being the operative word.
Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed the journey! The rest of this Author’s Notes will be more administrative matters and thoughts about the future.
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Administrative Matters
First, I’d just like to say thanks again for reading. And a special thanks to everyone who has supported me on Patreon and PayPal. I really appreciate it.
Regarding Patreon, I will be leaving my account active. If you are a current Patreon of mine, you might want to adjust your donation. There will not be a new writing project immediately following Void Domain (which I’ll talk about in a paragraph or two), so take that into consideration. This is mostly so that if someone starts reading in the future and decides they want to donate while reading, Patreon can handle that alongside PayPal.
As for the site, I get an email for every comment posted, so no matter how far in the future you’re reading this, I should notice and be able to respond. If you’re a first time commenter, your comment will be in the moderation queue, but I get emails for those too. The only exceptions are the comments that get stuck in the spam list. There have only been about five legitimate comments stuck in spam ever (and several hundred actual spam comments). I do not get emails for those. If you want to avoid being automatically flagged as spam, I’d advise against posting links and short messages (less than 20 characters). That seems to be the thing that hits first time commenters the most.
While I’ll likely be checking the site (and the spam list) regularly for several weeks, I imagine that I will slowly stop checking as activity decreases.
And isn’t that a sad thought.
—
The Future!
As I mentioned up above, I don’t have anything planned at the moment. I really wanted to have something, some other serial such as those I posted on the preview site, but I don’t.
I don’t think I’ve talked about this before, but Void Domain is actually about the sixth iteration of the same story/world/characters. I wrote between 1 and 10 chapters of the other versions and ended up scrapping them for various reasons. Maybe I didn’t like the characters I had chosen to focus on, maybe I thought the demons were too traditionally demonic. Whatever the reason, they all got scrapped.
That same problem is happening with pretty much everything I posted on the preview site.
Currently, I’m working on a story similar in setting to the project Demi-God. The new project is titled Toxiphobia currently, though that is subject to change on a whim. It is similar to the point where I might wholesale steal the intro to Demi-God (the bit with the war versus a god) for this project and that there is still a heavy Victorian theme, but otherwise it is a whole lot more subdued. More realistic. And no inhuman companion character. At least for now. If I count Demi-God in the same project, Toxiphobia would actually be the third iteration. I think it’s pretty solid so far and hopefully I don’t have to go all the way to six to get it finished. It’s actually become something of a spy thriller.
I’m around 25% of the way through the first book. I’m writing much slower, partially because the rate at which I was writing Void Domain was getting a bit much in recent months, and partially because I want to write it a bit better from the start.
Aside from me having to go through these iterations before I know I want to stick with a project, I want to maybe try my hand at publishing. Maybe. After finishing Toxiphobia, I think I’ll try shopping it around to some agents. If there aren’t any takers, I think I’ll try self-publishing it on Amazon or something for a few dollars while also posting the story for free on WordPress. Perhaps one scene a week or something like that.
Don’t know, that’ll be probably a year from now at the earliest. I have to finish the story before anything.
If publishing doesn’t work out and self-publishing does well enough, I’ll probably do it again with a second book.
I think the serial format is great, but I also think that it caused a lot of problems with Void Domain. There were several points over the course of Void Domain where I had to keep writing even though I really should have paused to reevaluate what I was writing. This wound up with several chapters that were filled with essentially filler or poor quality writing because I didn’t know how I wanted to get from point A to point B.
It hurts to lose the regular readers. I’m no Worm, but I think I’ve gathered together a fairly sizable readership. But I hope that writing an entire book at once will alleviate the above problem, resulting in a higher quality end work.
We’ll see how it works out I suppose. If you have questions or comments about any of that, feel free to post in the comments.
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Fan Fiction
This section is about my fanfics, not about any fanfics about Void Domain. I’m not aware of any Void Domain fanfics, though I did get a PM on SpaceBattles about someone wanting to use the setting. Don’t know if they ended up doing so or not. I should probably check my SpaceBattles account. It’s been a while.
So, if you found Void Domain through my SpaceBattles fanfics (either Clone or Ziz), you probably have noticed that I haven’t updated either of those in a while. That started out, as noted above, because of a bit of stress regarding ending Void Domain.
However, it’s been some time since then and I really haven’t felt any real drive to return to either of those series. I’m sorry for that. Maybe I’ll come back some day. I did write the first few chapters of Ziz nearly six months before starting it as a proper series. However, I’ve no plans at the moment to return to either.
Neither do I have any other fanfics in mind. Every time I think about starting something, I keep thinking that I should be working on my original fiction instead. Which is a problem I had before starting Void Domain—despite wanting to write a few casual fanfics, I couldn’t. Maybe after I get Toxiphobia going at full steam, I’ll get a drive for fan fiction again.
Though I have had a few thoughts about writing a quest. Just a few though, I doubt anything will come of it.
—
Reading Recommendation
Oh! Almost forgot about this section.
Think of something to recommend before posting.
New Danganronpa V3 is actually the thing I most recently read. I say thing because it isn’t really a book. It’s a visual novel. If you don’t know what a visual novel is, it’s a book with pictures. Typically of Japanese origin.
DRV3 is the third mainline series, though mostly unrelated to the rest of the series. Actually discussing the series is a bit difficult as just about everything is spoilers and spoilers will hurt your enjoyment of the series as a whole.
So if you haven’t heard of Danganronpa, it is essentially a cross between murder mystery and Battle Royale/Hunger Games. 16 students (give or take) are locked into a school and told that the person who successfully gets away with murder will be allowed to leave. The gameplay is actually most similar to Phoenix Wright in that you go around detectiving murders and figuring out whodunnit, but it is mostly text that you read with the occasional choice of what item or person to interact with before another item or person. Features a great soundtrack, fun characters and character designs, and people filled with Pepto Bismal instead of blood.
If any of that sounds interesting in the slightest, I highly recommend not looking anything up about the series (don’t visit wikis or YouTube). All three of the mainline games and the action game spin-off are on Steam as well as the PSVita. Some of the games might be on PS4 as well.
Though, you should be aware that the series has a bit of a weird spot after the second game. You’re supposed to play the spin-off then watch the anime.
So the series order is as follows:
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Game (or anime but the anime is pretty meh))
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Game)
Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (Spin-Off Game)
Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Highschool (Anime, you’re supposed to alternate episodes between the Despair side and Future side (Example: Watch Despair 01, then Future 01, then Despair 02, then Future 02, etc.))
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (Game)
Then, if you get really into it, there are a few actual novels that you can read as well, but I’ll leave it there for now.
—
Special Thanks
Special thanks to x for the typo reports on every single chapter. No idea who you are but I really do appreciate that.
And thanks to everyone else who commented on the chapters as well. I didn’t usually reply all that often; I was never sure if I should answer things or leave them as speculation, so I usually ended up doing nothing at all. However, it was fun to read all your thoughts as the story went on.
—
What else?
I’m probably forgetting a million things that I want to say. Luckily I’m writing this in advance of posting it so I have some time to think of more things to write. Hmm…
Thanks again to everyone who made it this far! There were a few rough patches, but it turned out alright I think.
If you are interested in any future projects I might have, consider clicking the follow button somewhere on this page (top right?). It sends an email when I make a new post and I’m sure I’ll make a post if I publish a book or just decide to serialize something else.
—
Statistics
Number of updates late or missed: 0! Yay!
Book Ten Stats:
Chapters: 37
Wordcount: 126,539 (according to WordPress’ built in word counter)
POV counts (max of one count per chapter):
Eva: 30
Zoe: 6
Devon: 5
Juliana: 4
Catherine: 3
Nel: 2
Genoa: 1
Riley Cole: 1
Total Stats:
Books: 10
Chapters: 257 (+7 extra chapters)
Wordcount: 1,034,914 (including extras)
We made it!
Thanks for all the writing, I enjoyed it a lot.
I use an RSS reader to follow the site- so in the (somewhat far-off future) I’d appreciate it if you posted something to let people know.
Ah, that’s a good point! Didn’t even think of RSS. I don’t use it myself much, but any new posts on this site should show up there as well.
Great story. Eva is one of my favorite female characters . The character epilogues would be great though. Sad they were scrapped.
Glad you enjoyed it! The epilogue chapters just ended up feeling like they were dragging everything on longer than it needed to be without really adding all that much.
Congrats on finishing. It was enjoying to read though I wish we had more Eva living her life as a demon. Feels like she got a little lost in all the characters and pov’s you created. If you decide to continue this story in the future then I’m hoping for a timeskip!
Thanks! And yeah, that’s something I’m trying to work on in my current writing projects. Most have one or maybe two POV characters at most. While it offered a good amount of views, the 30+ POVs that Void Domain has are a bit much I think.
Thanks kindly!
Welcome!
I would like to thank you for all the work you put into this story but words are sometimes illsuited to convey something so let me rephrase it. You made me happy thurstday had come.
I really enjoyed a story with new ideas, inhuman actors and more. As a binge reader i am sick of “find the magical stone”, “save the world” type of stories or authors that seem to copy paste the current trends by letter.
Your story will remain in my head for quite some time, please excuse the typos i am not a native speaker.
Thank you for the genuine fun read Anon
Glad you enjoyed!
Gonna miss this story =( I truly enjoyed it! thank you so much! i hope one day you write a sequel, and i cant wait to see what else you write. thank you again for years of enjoyment.
Don’t have anything of a sequel planned for this, but who knows what the future holds! Glad you enjoyed it!
I can’t believe this is complete. Over the past few years, I’ve gotten so used to being able to just type in the url of the index page and read whatever new chapters there were. It became a habit.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read the earliest chapters, and I missed most of the conclusion to the necromancer plotline – that was book seven, I think, possibly parts of book eight? At any rate, I’ll have to read this again some time.
I actually liked the way things ended. The conclusion to Eva’s story didn’t feel abrupt (not sure how much of that is because of the pause between chapters) and detailed the future, Juliana just leaving is open-ended in a good way, and while the Elysium Order bit did seem to come out of nowhere, it makes sense in hindsight. We can very easily guess at the rest with the information Zoe gives. All in all, it’s good, very good with a bit of editing.
As to questions: Did we ever get an explanation for the blood leaking from the walls? I don’t remember questions I might have had several years or even several weeks ago, so that’s the only one I’ve got. Could you give some examples of early ideas that you forgot about? I’m curious about what might have been.
Thanks for writing this, and sharing it here. It was something new and interesting in a very well-worn genre.
Oh yeah. Definitely a strange feeling. I turned off an alarm on my phone last night that I’ve had for 2.5ish years warning me when new chapters were going live. That was like… kind of weird. I suppose it will be weirder in a few days when a chapter would normally go live but there won’t be one.
I’m biased, but I liked the final segment of the chapter too. It had a certain calm serenity despite Brakket being essentially abandoned and Eva being all alone. The entire story, while definitely fantastical, has had a sort of vague melancholy over everything. Magic and the academy in the Void Domain universe aren’t the whimsical fun-filled adventure that they are in something like Harry Potter. When I started out, I didn’t want magic to be something super easy to cast for the majority of the population. Most normal (non-Eva) mages go to school for years and come out able to cast a few flashy bits of magic like lightning bolts or fireballs, but nothing super amazing. More study beyond the base school years is required to do fun things like spatial expansion or advanced enchantment.
Blood leaking from the walls was mostly a manifestation of Eva’s demonic abilities. Most of which are blood related. Eva didn’t have full control over her abilities at the end of the story. Like the above magic bit, I think that while there is some innate knowledge, she needs time to properly unlock those abilities. She’ll have plenty of time to do nothing but experiment with them while waiting for Arachne to return. Should there be a sequel (which as I mentioned in another comment, I have nothing planned for at the moment), Eva would likely have full control over herself and her abilities.
An example of something I forgot about? Let’s see…
Juliana’s brother. It isn’t one of those ‘oh this is cool so I’ll throw it in’ things, but it is something I forgot about. I mentioned the brother waaay back in something like 001.007 only to promptly forget about it. Somehow, I also didn’t add it to my private character notes for Juliana. A few books later, there was a comment along the lines of ‘So what does Juliana’s brother think about all this.’ I think it was around Book 004 while Juliana was in Hell. I remember being extremely confused about what the comment was talking about and did a quick grep of my entire story to find any reference to brothers. It was something of an shock to realize I forgot about it and quickly wrote Erich into a few chapters. He wasn’t really that big of an impact character because of me forgetting about him, but I did feel it was important to address him a bit.
Anyway, glad you enjoyed! Thanks for reading.
I had no idea this was the last book, so I idly mused that Eva was being fairly more contemplative than usual… and suddenly BAM! I see END. A whisper of denial and dismay escaped me and I just couldn’t believe it. Adios Eva. Still miss our favorite spider demon. Thanks for the fun ride TC :’)
Thanks for reading! I was a bit worried that the final chapter might have come as a bit of a shock, but all my attempts at drawing it out felt redundant and… well, drawn out. I’m actually a bit concerned that it already has dragged on longer than necessary. The climax of the story was like 15 chapters ago with the end of the ritual. But anyway, glad you had fun!
Thank you so much for this story! I really enjoyed it.
You’re welcome! Glad you stopped by to read it!
Well, overall this was quite fun to read. It did have some flaws, as you yourself admit, but I still ended up looking forward to this every monday and thursday. So thank you for this story and I hope I’ll manage to read whatever else you write, whenever that is!
It was my first story that made it past ten chapters, so I’m quite pleased with not only finishing it but how it turned out. At the same time, yeah, I definitely look at some parts and wonder what I was thinking at the time.
Hope you read and enjoy whatever else I write too!
Hi; once again thanks a lot for the story, it was something for me to look forward to for a long time.
Please could you clarify what are you planning with the new book? If I understand it correctly, you plan to split the whole story to volumes, and you plan to try to find publisher based on the first volume; if you fail with this, you will post whole volumes to amazon with maybe posting it chapter by chapter here? Or do you plan to wait until you finish the whole book?
As a sidenote, IMO it would be nice to either create a rss feed for news or repurpose the void domain rss for this; posting update regarding how stuff is going time to time would be great, that is if you are interested in doing that. It would at least keep the community together a bit.
You’re welcome. Happy you were looking forward to it.
You are mostly correct. I’ll finish the book (somewhere around 100k words most likely). After that, I’ll see about shopping it around to some agents for publishing. If that fails within a reasonable amount of time, I’ll see about pushing it out to the internets through an amazon book while simultaneously posting it chapter by chapter on a wordpress blog.
I’m writing it as a standalone book as well, though the ending will have some sequel hooks just in case.
I hadn’t really thought about posting updates, but I suppose that is a possibility. I don’t think I’ll use this site/rss to do so however. It gets pushed out to things like webfictionguide. While I’ll almost certainly post an update here should I publish/start posting a new book, I don’t think it would be good for periodic updates. Good news though, I have that side-site, https://towercuratorpreview.wordpress.com/, that I can use to post updates. I’d subscribe over there if you want more periodic updates. It isn’t really set up for that at the moment, but I can reorganize a bit. Probably won’t work on changing things around until the start of next month at the earliest however.
The End! Congratulations! I have a lot to say about your story, lots of corrections and criticisms, but I will refrain from voicing them. All you need to hear is that you should be proud with what you have written, because you uploaded a complete work that you put out on the most reliable interval I have ever seen, and we your audience enjoyed the ride the whole way through. As someone who struggles with deadlines, I was blown away with your work ethic and output.
Even with the things left undone in your work, there is still an abundance of quality writing, fit for both entertainment and intellectual dissection and analysis. Many of my friends and I are bummed to see Void Domain wrap up, as the absence of its twice weekly updates will be felt, taking with it a fair portion of our water-cooler talk, but hey, at least Worm 2 started up right around now, ready to pick up the slack xD. If you want that constructive criticism, feel free to shoot me a message any time, I do love to share.
Looking forward to your future work! Best wishes!
Thanks! It feels weird to be done. I am proud with what I have written despite knowing that there are plenty of flaws in it. Plenty of things that I look back on and have to shake my head at a bit. While I can proudly state that I never missed or even delayed a post, the reliability of my updates did fall into question once or twice. Notably, when Dark Souls 3 came out. I’ll be honest, I didn’t write anything for about a full week. And when I stop doing something that I had been doing regularly, I find it extremely difficult to continue. But I forced myself through and even got caught up on my missed writing not long after.
On a slightly related note, I’m almost certain that Dark Souls 3 came out at the same time as I was writing the ending to Book 004, one of the biggest points of ‘oh why did I do this’ writing that I’ve written, in my opinion. I don’t know if correlation equals causation in this case or if Book 004 would have turned out the same without me playing games.
Anyway, you’ve been one of the most consistent commenters of thought provoking comments. While I appreciate every reader and every comment, there is quite the discrepancy between how long I think about one of your comments and a comment that says ‘Good chapter’. I would be glad to hear what you have to say. You can PM me on SpaceBattles or I can email you at the address you use here in the comments section. I don’t want to send anything unsolicited though, so I’ll wait for a reply. And if you want to use a different email, just reply with that.
Glad you and your friends had fun discussing my writing. I appreciate it a ton!
Of course it isn’t unsolicited, feel free to use the email linked to my wordpress, I think that will be the easiest.
Wow its over huh… far more open ended than I expected but that works too I guess it certainly leaves the setting open for future works if you so wish to someday in the distant future.
So from this I take it all of your teasers were dropped in the end? A bit of a pity as there was far more originality than a lot of stories have but from my own attempts at writing I understand how they can just end up dead ended. Personally I find world building easy and intuitive but suffer greatly with regards to characters as they just never feel “right”.
Form the perspective of interfacing between magic and technology I feel this opened quite a bit of ground even though the main characters had little to no interest in such things. The system or rules behind the world itself seem to imply that if the disciplines were to ever work together there might be some fascinating innovations due to cover for their own deficiencies such as wards/runes helping overcome the power crisis in electronics (There is a reason why battery explosions have become more and more common the material is reaching its energy limits and we don’t have a material to replace Lithium ion yet)
I could go on about that and all but I guess this is the point to wrap up this comment and thank you for the great series. Even though you started from a post magic separation veil type world which I’ve never really been a fan of, you managed to make it your own as you went proving to me that the setting actually can work :P. So thank you for taking this through to the end and sharing this story.
I wish you luck in future endeavors!
Open ended, yes. Some people pick up a book and flip to the back of the book before reading it. I’ll be honest, I have a bad habit of doing the opposite. I’ll read from the first chapter but tend to skip out on endings, though that usually depends on the type of story and how the rest of the book had been and whether or not there is a sequel/is a series. A lot of times, I’d rather just imagine my own endings rather than rely on the author getting them right.
Which is probably extremely detrimental to me as a writer and might be why I struggled so much with actually ending Void Domain. I should probably go read some book endings.
As for the teasers, dropped as they are now, almost certainly. They might come back in different forms. The biggest problem I think is that all of them are ‘premise’ stories. Which is a problem with most of the projects I have in my writing folder. I come up with a decent premise, start writing, get a few chapters in, and realize that I don’t really have anywhere to take the premise. Lacking plot, in other words. And I agree completely; world building is easy and fun, but I’ve dropped several projects simply because I decided I didn’t like the characters.
Magic and technology integration is something I feel a lot of works ignore to their own detriment. Void Domain didn’t focus on it, but the magical society was definitely on the verge of change because of it. Which can mostly be seen with Catherine and the tournament later on. Were I to do a sequel to Void Domain (which, as I mentioned in other comments, I have no plans on at this time), I think I might actually feature Catherine as the central character. Or perhaps someone constantly around Catherine, maybe a human like Irene who she takes an interest in. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment. I love all the characters I created in Void Domain equally, but some I like more equally than others. Catherine is definitely one of those.
Thanks for reading, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it! Hope to see you reading future works of mine!
We have glass lithium now, developed by the same guy that created lithium ion. You should start seeing them in a few years.
I can’t believe it. I actually found this series only a month or two back and was instantly hooked. Void Domain was intense and it was dark in a way a lot of books aren’t. Eva was a very pragmatic sort of “evil” and it was amazing. Not to mention blood magic as depicted in void domain was awesome. I bet Eva after a few hundred years of practice will be a force to be reckoned with. (Not to mention holding an entire city in her domain!)
Its a shame Eva never really went back and addressed her father, or made it out to florida to do a little cleanup. Oh well.
Thank you for this awesome series!
Pragmatic evil is the best evil.
Eva’s father… whoooo booooy. That’s one thing that I think I should have mentioned in the actual Author’s Notes but forgot to.
I tried to bring Eva’s father into the story. Several times. He was supposed to have become a minor antagonist. Someone Eva was afraid of despite him holding no actual power over her. Book 002, Book 003, Book 004, Book 006, and Book 007 all had scrapped chapters/scenes featuring Eva’s father until I finally just decided to drop the subject entirely. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but none of the scenes ever felt right and all ended up being sent to my scraps folder. The last bit I wrote was Eva’s vacation in Florida during Book 007; she essentially called the cops on her father and got him arrested for selling drugs, after planting said drugs in the house. Which I had to cut because it just didn’t make sense without the encounters in previous books.
It’s one of the things I’m most disappointed in myself over not getting right, as I think it would have added a lot to Eva’s character. Given her some more visible development.
Anyway, rant aside, you’re welcome! Thanks for reading.
I’m going to be very sad now that this is over. This is one of the few fictions I’ve found on the internet with such consistent upload timing, and I’m going to miss always knowing when I would have something good to read.
I always get annoyed when an author drops a perfectly good work, so I really strove for both regularity and completion despite some bumps (like the one I mentioned in my other comment about Dark Souls; I didn’t write for a week and had a bit of a hard time continuing).
Then I became a perfectly good hypocrite by dropping my fanfics!
Anyway, glad you enjoyed. I hope you’ll be able to read something else of mine sometime in the future!
Congrats on finishing the story. It was a good read the whole way and I expect to see a notification from this WordPress in my email when you get your next project really going. I’ll probably follow that one the whole way too. I guess it’s time for me to check where Taint is again since that one had pretty slow updates. Have a good one.
Thanks, glad you’ve enjoyed! I can’t say when right now, but I hope to have you reading my next project as well!
Thank you for feeding my vice for so long.
Honestly, are few of the stories I read that have had such a end… proper? Probably not the right word for what I mean, but know that I consider Void Domain as one of my favorite stories, along with Mushoku Tensei, Worm and A Hero Past the 25th.
What still fills me with curiosity is about Eva’s dagger. Two things about it, actually. Does Eva (or anyone else) find it? And, in the early volumes Zoe teaches about legendary items (in Extra 003), can Eva’s dagger can/did become a?
Ah, Eva’s dagger is actually something that I’m not going to talk about too much. I’ll say that Eva, at some point after the story ends, went out to the ritual circle and tried to find it, but wasn’t able to. If there were to be a sequel to Void Domain (which, as I mentioned in a few other comments, I have no plans regarding at this time), Eva’s dagger will likely appear. It is not a legendary item, however.
I might actually write a small extra chapter (<1k words) about Eva failing to find it.
Anyway, happy to have fed your vice. It's nice being mentioned in the same comment as other good novels 🙂
Well, there goes another companion of the last year. Curious, how one can miss a story, a series, just like one misses a person.
I’d like to thank you for gifting us with the possibility of getting to know your story and its characters, getting to love them, and getting to miss them now that it’s over.
I can’t promise to remain a reader of yours once you get to come back, simply because some novels just fail to grab my attention no matter what – but once I get notice of you starting a new project I’ll definitely check it out in hope of sticking around
And, who knows? Maybe there will even be a reunion with this story, a continuation of my heartfelt companionship. Maybe not now. maybe far later, but who knows? Hope dies last, and it sure is open-ended enough for it. Even though you have no plans for it now, it would sure be a nice surprise should you ever change your mind.
Fare thee well, Filler of my lonely days. Farewell.
Hey, I completely understand that. There are tons of books that ‘should’ grab my interest but I just can’t get into. Still, glad you’ll give my future works a chance. Glad you’ve enjoyed.
In the wise words of the late Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka quoting Shakespear: Parting is such sweet sorrow! 😛
Congratulations! And thank you!
You’ve created something excellent and I’ve enjoyed every moment. I actually had to take a moment to find the word to describe how reaching this point feels, “Saudade”.
That’s the feeling, where at random moments I’ll think back on this and smile, and be sad, and be grateful to you. So thank you.
Also, remember waaaaay back when I asked if demon hearts would make better blood stones?
Also wow! I created my WordPress account 1 year and 19 days ago… To comment on this.
Thanks and you’re welcome! Glad you liked it.
The tricky part is getting a demon heart to make a bloodstone out of. Eva cheats, but most other demons are relatively attached to their hearts. Also literally attached to them.
And congrats on your account’s anniversary 😛
Thanks for the phone novel. Something I was just reading on my phone, I’ll probably check this site every now and then it hopes of gaining something new to read, I think I started reading this when you were at vol 6 and I enjoyed most of my time here. Failed to spread it to other people due to simple problems with how you were writing some characters oh wells. Good luck on your next work
Well thanks for trying. Glad you appreciated it at least! Thanks for reading
First off, thank you for all your work, and best of luck in your future endeavors. Now, for my reaction.
This caught me off guard.
The story didn’t feel quite like it was winding down. A lot of new things were put into play, such as the obelisks, Life’s corruption, Ylva’s takeover of the Elisium Order, and further back Eva’s new powers and Arachne’s death. all of those made it feel like the story was going to escalate… and then it didn’t.
On the one hand, it is good to know when to wrap up a story, and I’m glad that you decided not to drag it along. This post may sound critical, but I’ve enjoyed this serial very much and am glad that you chose to finish it while it’s still great.
On the other hand, all the build-up made the end feel abrupt, perhaps even rushed. In a way, this is symptomatic. Void Domain has always felt a bit undirected to me – things sometimes seemed to slip through the cracks, disappearing from the story. Not just stuff like Juliana’s brother. Brakket School itself disappeared into the backdrop, with the most of the students grouped as an indistinct mob and school work rarely mentioned.
As I’ve said before, I enjoyed this a lot. The setting was interesting, the characters held up, and the writing itself was quite good. I look forward to your next projects. Will you post something here, when you publish Toxiphobia, or should I follow something else? I think you mentioned https://towercuratorpreview.wordpress.com/ ?
Thanks for reading!
That isn’t really how I felt though, I felt like the story has been winding down pretty much ever since Eva teleported with the Avatar of Life and Devon sealed the portals. Which was something around ten chapters ago. The obelisk, as Eva speculated about in one of the recent chapters, was essentially a gift from Void. Ylva’s takeover didn’t really have anywhere to go in the short term. Perhaps if the story had gone on for another several books.
Glad you have enjoyed it overall though, sorry about the odd feeling with the ending. I suppose that could be simply because of a disconnect between reader and writer. And there are plenty of things that fell through the cracks. I mostly didn’t write about daily life at Brakket Academy because I was concerned about pacing. While the academy was the setting, it wasn’t exactly a character. The plot and main events often occurred away from the campus. Even when something happened around the campus, it usually resulted in a cessation from regular school activities. Such as the various attacks on the school. Looking back on the project as a whole, there are a ton of little things that I could have done a lot better. I think it’s important to recognize that, but at the same time, I am not going to dwell on it too much.
As for new projects, there will definitely be a post about it here on this site should I release any new works in any form (publish, self-publish, or serialize). It should update RSS feeds and send out emails to anyone who is following. For the preview site, natris asked if I would post updates there. Like “Oh, I’m 25% of the way done and wrote 50 words this week.” I assume that’s what they meant anyway. I don’t know if I’ll do weekly updates or what, but if you follow the preview site, you might get a few more minor things like that. Maybe I’ll also post random thoughts on writing or games/books that I’m reading and use it more like a blog. I don’t know. Honestly hadn’t thought about it before that comment.
Hi, just a note – I did not want to force you to such updates, I just thought that if you ever feel like it and if you reach some kind of milestone or if you ever feel you would like to vent regarding something interesting, you could. Please do not post stuff just to post it 🙂 I have always enjoyed the content of author’s notes for instance 🙂
Oh no, don’t worry about that. I won’t do anything I don’t want to do. 🙂 And I would probably stray away from vapid updates only listing a percentage. That kind of thing could be handled by some sidebar note or something.
First, so what did happen to Sawyer?
Second, you need a me in thirty seconds, and publishers buy concepts not stories. You need something like:
“Hi, I’m TowerCurator and I recently finished an over-one-million-word story with twice-weekly updates that over the course of two and a half years I never missed or was late on. It was about a young girl who becomes a blood mage and was eventually transformed into a demon while attending a magical school. Now I’m looking to pitch a story concept about a Victorian-era magical spy thriller.”
Or something like that. And then you give a similar 30-second spiel that outlines the book, if they’re interested.
See, when people have a book that they’re shopping around, they tend to be super protective about it and they don’t want to make edits. For instance, imagine that they asked you to cut out Eva’s father, or Ylva.
Anyway, you want an advance, enough to live on while you wrote. You want to use your past history of writing and publishing to sell what you are writing.
If you continue down the serial route, know that it’s difficult to get more than about 1% of readers to buy anything, and that if you stop publishing then your readership numbers will drop for a while.
Good luck! Have fun! 🙂
Sawyer died! But he is a necromancer. Surely he planned for such an eventuality. Let’s just say that Ylva won’t be too pleased with his actions when they eventually come to light.
Ah, I had a few elevator pitches for some of my other projects, but I hadn’t considered an elevator pitch for me. Good idea!
Though, are you suggesting I try to shop myself around right now? I was under the impression that most agents prefer to receive the first chapter then, if they’re interested, they’ll ask for the full book. Void Domain, for work ethic alone if nothing else, would probably give me some clout or leeway, but enough to say that I don’t have a full book done yet? Hmm… I’ll have to think about that.
As for editing, I think I could be fairly flexible. Especially early on. For your examples, I would almost certainly cut Eva’s father at any point. Ylva wouldn’t be too hard to cut were I only on the first book. If I were trying to sell Void Domain in its complete state, Ylva featured heavily enough that I would practically have to write an entirely new series just to edit her out. So in that light, selling a story before it’s complete would be quite advantageous.
The main reason I would continue to serialize a project wouldn’t necessarily be about the money. While it would be nice to get paid, and that is the main reason I have been considering traditional publishing, it’s more because if I put time and effort into something, I’d rather people actually read it than have it locked away on my hard drive for eternity.
But thanks for the comment, you’ve always got pretty insightful things to say! And thanks for reading as well!
Wow! What a ride!
Can’t believe it is finished.
Some part of me is still expecting a new chapter to appear on your next release day. Some other part of me is expecting to hear about Eva again in Book 11. Yet most likely it will never come to be.
I think the character epilogues would be nice to read. Just to see what the character ends up doing with the rest of their lives e.g. Shalise or Irene would be interesting. Same with the other demons summoned minus Ylva. Does the Caniverean continue to be under Devon’s ruthless contract? Or maybe it finds a new contractor or something?
Congratulations on finally completing the series. There were a few hiccups along the way, yet it could be considered a major accomplishment.
Good job! I’ll be looking forward to whatever it is you do next.
Haha, yeah. I wake up every morning, sit at my computer, and wonder if it is really alright to not write Void Domain. You do something every day for two years and it gets a bit strange to stop.
With all the comments, I’m starting to second guess myself about not doing character epilogues. Irene would be a decent one. Not sure about other demons though. Pretty much every demon involved in the ritual ended up dying with the exceptions of Catherine and Srey. Devon basically says in the last chapter that he is going to get rid of the carnivean as soon as possible.
But yeah, thanks. It certainly has been a ride. Thanks for reading!
Three questions:
Who’s domains do the other obilisks link to?
Will Eva eventually grow her own limbs back?
What exactly are her demon powers anyway?
The other remnants don’t really have obelisks. Genoa mentioned going out to one of the other remnants and finding some rubble that might have been an obelisk, but she wasn’t sure. However, the other remnants of Hell do link to domains. Mostly random demons as that was Life’s plan. Like Eva before she ‘broke out’ with her beacon, the demons won’t be able to actually leave to Earth without outside help.
Eva won’t grow her own arms and legs back naturally. She could get transplants from other demons, but her original limbs were removed before she was properly a demon and Void took Arachne’s limbs. Eva won’t be getting them back without asking for them.
Her demonic power, when she properly grows into it, is absolute control over blood—which she can generate at will in the area around her. She won’t need bloodstones and she won’t need to cut into herself. When she fully stops thinking of herself as a human some distant time into the future, she’ll be about to control her ability completely at will. At that point, controlling the blood of others, even inside their bodies, won’t be a problem for her. She can explode your heart just by looking at you. Not as reality bendingly powerful as Zagan’s ability, but she could probably kill him simply by blowing up all the blood in his body at once. Even Zagan needs a brain.
Aside from that, she is perfectly capable of using thaumaturgy and other ‘human’ magics, but that won’t come to her as an innate ability. She’ll have to learn it the old fashioned way.
God damn I can’t believe it’s finished. I’ve been looking forward to your updates ever since I found this story (around the time Eva joined Brakket). The ending left so many unanswered questions tho, frustrating as fuck but it fits in a way that gives you an aftertaste of closure. Thank you for writing this and good luck with your future projects.
Hey, thanks for reading. I think that’s at least partially the ending I was going for. The aftertaste part, not necessarily the frustrating part. Thanks for reading for so long though! Hope you enjoyed!
That was one hell of a ride. So many questions left which I want the answers to, yet the ending was a nice calm after of the storm Eva went through. Thank you for the great story! I’m looking forward to what comes next, so take your time, but not too much time. ;P
You’re welcome and thanks for reading. I’m looking forward to what comes next too. Hopefully it won’t be too far off.
Hi! Just found this last week and have been reading through it ever since; nicely done.
I do have a question that I’m hoping you’ll answer: Way back in the first year, Arachne repeatedly mentioned having plans for when her contract with Eva expired, but we never got to find out what those plans were. What was her original intended endgame?
Thanks for reading, for your question:
Arachne’s primary motivator is her loneliness. She was born a human but was essentially forced into isolation when she became a demon. Demons don’t tend to socialize with each other unless outside Hell as that requires entering another demon’s domain, which puts a significant amount of power in the domain owner’s hand.
When Devon showed up to offer her the chance to create another person like her, she jumped at the opportunity, hoping to find a companion of sorts in Eva. Someone who had been through a similar situation and wouldn’t enslave her should she visit their domain.
However, Devon, despite his job, really doesn’t like demons all that much. He sends Arachne back to Hell pretty much as soon as whatever he wanted from her finished—usually a treatment session or a mercenary job for some quick money. Devon wouldn’t send her back while she was still contracted, hence her initial contract with Eva. Once that contract ended, Devon would likely try to send her back until the next treatment. Knowing that and wanting to spend more time around Eva and less time moping about Hell, Arachne had been planning to force Eva into a situation where she needed to renew their contract similar to what she did in the initial contract.
Yes, Arachne is somewhat of a hypocrite. She did a similar thing when she replaced Eva’s hands in book one.
But it ended up not being necessary because of how everything played out.
I’ve been reading since nearly the beginning and this is my first and probably only time ever commenting. I felt now was probably an apropriate time to do so. All I can say is that I will dearly miss eva, arachne, zoe, shalise, juliana and all the others. I will miss the joy they brought me each tuesday and thursday. But all good things must come to an end. Thanks for everything
Well, never a better time to comment then. You’re welcome and thanks for reading!
Since the last chapter mentionned it and I’ve been wondering: did you ever decide what made the everlasting bloodstones everlasting? As it is it’s kind of a useless mystery: I think she actually aquires them before readers even learn bloodstones degrade with use. She could have been able to make her own and it would have barely changed anything.
Related critique: the story spanned a not insignificant span of time, but Eva doesn’t really get any better at blood magic despite considering herself a blood mage more than a thaumaturge. I found myself grumbling to myself and wondering if all those books on the subject she owns were ever actually to be useful more than once. As it is, she upgrades her blood sight very early on, does that one scrying ritual against Sawyer and… that’s all I can think of. Sure, she gets fancy demon blood powers, but that’s not exactly the same thing.
The bloodstone storyline was something I tried to follow up on once or twice, but it always felt awkward and out of place whenever I did. Which is a real shame because it tied into your second point about Eva’s blood abilities. Before even starting Void Domain, I created a huge list of blood magic abilities/rituals. Like, seriously huge. It’s over 6k words. There is a ritual that causes those who ingest the blood mage’s blood to fall into a mind controlly trance, a creation of an empathetic bond between two people, a teleportation method that essentially turns any and every single droplet of spilled blood in an area into valid teleportation points, and the cleansing ritual Eva used on Shalise back in Book 001. I think part of the problem was the scope of Void Domain. It just took me in directions away from the blood magic research and use for most cases.
Thanks for the answer, and congratulations on finishing such an enormous writing project. I wish you luck on your next one. 🙂
Oh, right, there was that blood clone thing, wasn’t there? Which she used… once? To bait enigmas. Can’t think of another time that wasn’t practice. The tournament probably didn’t help: that was a lot of scenes where she couldn’t use her blood magic.
You’re welcome and thanks! And yes, there was a blood clone thing as well. That was in my list of rituals. One of the few that actually made it into story even though it didn’t get used as much as I had initially imagined.
I loved your book and I hope to see something new from you soon! That said, Your writing is top notch and beautiful in every way that matters so don’t rush yourself. I’m glad that I read Void Domain and the ending was absolutely superb, told everything of importance while keeping it open to let a readers imagination run wild on it!
Thanks and glad you enjoyed. That was the intention with the ending!
Thank you so much for this story. Loved every second of it! Few authors manage to capture the souls and personalities of semi-humans like you have. Good luck with your next project(s).
I’m looking forward to it. 🙂
Thanks! Glad to have you reading my works!
Damn it’s really over? I hoped it was just the end of the book… but alas I was and still am in denial… this was a pretty good story, even though it felt you were just getting started now…. all the built up for this end is…. frustrating me a bit….
Anyways thanks for the… I think two years worth of “fun” you gave me. I do hope to find your next story, if there will be any, as fast as I did voids domain….
Thanks again and good luck with whatever you are up to now. (No I didn’t read the authors note yet… xD)
Sorry about the frustrating, but I’m glad you enjoyed reading it over the years!
Damn, I just refreshed to check for the next chapter before realizing the site said “A Complete Web Serial Novel”. Somehow I missed the big “END” the first time I read the chapter… also the fact that it’s titled epilogue…
I’ll definitely be following your future endeavors.
Good luck, and thank you for sharing your imagination.
-Phi
Ah, the END wasn’t there for the first twoish hours, so that could be why. Thanks for reading and for following along in the future!
Thank you very much for Void Domain.
It was a fun ride, with good fiction that improved as the tale progressed.
In my opinion the plot got much better after Wayne`s interlude, when we finally saw how your modern fantasy setting worked. How the mundane world came to know about the supernatural.
And I loved this final chapter with the big ritual and Eva becoming a kind of goddess of blood.
Well, thank you for the fun.
Yeah, Wayne’s book was completely unplanned. I used it to reevaluate the main story and to try to narrow my focus a bit. After a few comments disliking Book 004 and personal feelings of it being the low point of the series, I needed some self-reflection time. And I think the rest of the story turned out for the better because of that. Glad to know it worked out!
Sad to see it is over. It didn’t really feel like an ending to me, but oh well.
A comment on your publishing plans. Amazons terms do not allow you to publish a book anywhere else if you choose to have it available for kindle unlimited. That includes online. Every other web serial (with one exception involving the author creating his own publishing company) that I have seen try to self-publish without using kindle unlimited has done poorly. The best results are people who publish via web-serial then once a book is finish on the serial front, they do another draft, and send that to a professional editor, then publish, while taking down the book from the website. Meanwhile they keep posting updates so by the time the first book gets taken down, they are a month or two into the second. I would recommend you look into this and adjust your plans accordingly.
Ah, I didn’t know that. Hadn’t even looked up kindle publishing terms. Good to know, I’ll have to think about that then.
Thank you for writiting this amazing story.
Welcome!
Thank you for the amazing ride! The challenges, setting, and personalities combine to make this one of the most beloved stories I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Awesome job!
I hope you know what you’ve released though. Two forces will become part of your life now. First are the requests for physical keepsakes that we can love and cherish that remind us of this story. Books, shirts, and more!
And then. Then there is another reality you must face. FANFICTION! The Void Domain fanfic are coming!
Glad you had fun! I don’t know about physical knickknacks though. While they would no doubt be fun, I don’t think there is remotely enough demand 🙁
I want to encourage you to attend local cons (conventions). Geek cons, anime cons, fan cons, tabletop rpg cons, general literature cons (https://www.upcomingcons.com/literature-conventions )… Try them out and then consider getting a booth at one that you’re comfortable with. At least hand out cards that advertise your website!
If you go to one of the tabletop rpg cons you could meet someone that will take commissions for limited-amount sales. Maybe you could order Void Domain buttons or character quotes with frames. Another idea is that you could try making friends in the open-to-all gaming groups. Those are people you could tell about your writing, people you could reach out to on Facebook and other social media. The more people that know about your writing means the more likely you are to go viral with a damned respectable product!
Again though I can totally imagine using a few characters as characters for RPGs. Systems like Savage Worlds demonstrate that there is more to rpgs than invading dungeons, exploring space, or the NSFW stuff. I’ve learned of and continue to enjoy at least a dozen webcomics I learned about from conventions so why should a story as great as this one be left out?
If you go to a literature con you could learn tips for writing, publishing, advertising, dealing with Amazon kindle stuff, handing lawyers for if your work is stolen… I want the best for you and I want the best for this story, BUT. But. The benefits of these opportunities don’t have to stop there. You can use those lessons and feedback from anyone that reads your work for anything you write in the future.
Look at all the options (http://fancons.com/events/ ) you can learn about from just ONE website! That’s without bringing up all of the community events or business invitations (like gaming tournaments) happening near your doorstep that you’re missing out on. I’m not saying that the future will be easy or quick, but the path forward is bound to be fun. It will make you grow in ways that will surprise you.
Good advice. Unfortunately for me, I don’t know that local will really work out all that well. I live roughly in the middle of nowhere. But there might be some things I could go to. I’ll have to use those links you linked to decide. Thanks for that!
In your future works, don’t be afraid of letting others than redshirts die. Ten books with Turner being the closest thing to a friendly loss left me without any sense of danger near the end.
Yeah, that was a problem I had for quite a while. It wasn’t until book 6+ that I finally started killing off anyone—villain or friendly. Even then, I think the deaths were a bit few and far between to keep up proper drama. It is something I’m keeping in mind.
Thanks for the wonderful story. I enjoyed reading it. As for future things I know I’d enjoy reading side tales telling the stories of the other major characters. What happened to Arachne and a tale about her getting back to Eva. Juliana’s adventures trying to keep Zagan entertained.
One thing I remembered recently, I think it was Catherine who commented that Arachne was forbidden by Void from having descendants, that was true, and if so, could you explain why Void did it?
I don’t recall forbidding children. Catherine might have said that Arachne didn’t have an descendants. Do you have a chapter for that? I searched a bit and couldn’t find anything.
I only finished reading now^^ sorry about that.i stopped only 10 or so chapters before the end because I didn’t have the time:/
Anyway,great novel:) there is obviously some flaws,flaws which taught me some things about writing so that’s all good. I really liked the concept of the first few books,the whole summoning and evolution of human has always being fascinating for me:)
Anyway,I wish you all kind of positives things and I will try whatever next novel you decide to start.
Ps:Eva never returned in Florida for the bloodstones right? Poor guy
Yep, a learning experience all around. Glad you had fun 🙂
And nope, she never did.
I just finished reading Void Domain and I thought the least I could offer is feedback more detailed than “good 300 chapters!”.
In one of the author’s notes you said you had identified lack of villains as a problem. I’m not completely sure I agree, and I specifically disagree with the idea that Sawyer was not an appropriate antagonist because “He didn’t really care about Eva specifically. His goals and plans were entirely background thoughts in my mind that never made it to the text.”
The greatest weakness in the story was that second part applied much more widely: that characters like Sawyer had goals and plans that did not make it to the text. It’s not just him; the mysterious motivations of characters like Martina, Anderson and Ylva help make the story much more compelling, but they almost all go nowhere. They act mysterious for a while, then it turns out it that their was apparently no hidden agenda; they’re happy to help out for the lulz. The biggest shame is that it sounds as though you did have in your head exactly what was driving them, just didn’t get it on the page. Catherine and Juliana are two of very few characters with real development arcs.
The Wayne interlude might actually be the best part of the whole story insofar as it adds a whole lot to the characters and to the world in quite a short timespan. Getting the same sense of, say, why Sister Cross joined the order or how Gertrude came to be completely bonkers would have likewise done a great deal to make them less cartoonish.
To some extent this also applies to the Powers. You did attribute a vague motivation for Life to attack Void, but it felt a little underdone because it didn’t answer the question of why, after uncounted aeons, this was happening NOW. Was it sparked by some event? What was it? Worm is a nice contrast here: in the end, even the entities have clear motivations driving them, and Gold Morning has a specific trigger both foreshadowed and clearly explained.
Returning to Sawyer, it isn’t necessary that an antagonist particularly care about a protagonist, only that their individual stories intersect in a way that produces conflict. There was nothing wrong with him until you threw him away without resolving a single one of his mysteries.
So much of this story was so good, but I think what comes next will be even better if you can fit just a bit more character work in. I’m looking forward to reading it!
Thanks for this, I appreciate the feedback a whole bunch!
And yeah. Character arcs were a real weakness of mine. Roughly a month after Void Domain’s completion, hattrick, one of my readers, sent me a nice big 10k word email (that I very much appreciate him for) analyzing and discussing the story. He also raised that point. So many characters wound up without a real fulfilling ending. He focused mostly on the students and teachers in his comments, but the villains are just as much of a problem. As for Sawyer and Gertrude… in retrospect, I do regret killing Sawyer. His death should have been a “death” and he should have probably returned either in place of or alongside Gertrude. Probably replacing her. While I do like her general theme of things, she was way worse as a personal villain to Eva. Especially after Eva bungled up Sawyer’s ritual that he had clearly spent a long while preparing; while you do mention that a villain need not be personally invested in the protagonist, I think it would have added something for him to get a little personally invested. All Gertrude ever saw was a demon to kill. But I got all worried that people were getting exceedingly fatigued with Sawyer and there had been the occasional mentions of demon hunters since the first book as things to be feared, so I went ahead as if they were a natural segue.
Ahhh hindsight…
For the Powers, this was another thing that I think just never made it to the text. It’s been a while since I thought about Void Domain significantly, so I might be partially wrong, but I think I had thought I mentioned this but ended up not doing so. Maybe I had written it down and then scrapped the section, forgetting to put it back in at a different point. Maybe I just forgot.
Anyway, the idea in my head was that Eva and Devon were the trigger for the whole Life attack. Him turning her into a demon (and the subsequent gathering of far far too many demons in one spot (which was mentioned as being atypical—demons rarely encounter each other on Earth, especially from multiple summoners)) weakened the barriers between the domains of Life and Void. Which, I think in my completely biased opinion, is actually a pretty good trigger and also explains why the events are mostly centered around Eva.
If only that had made it into the story itself.
Motivation-wise… yeah, that one could have used some work. Void is allied with Death, Life doesn’t like Death, Life can’t directly attack Death so Life goes for Void instead.
Maybe someday I’ll work up the motivation (and time) to go and rework several aspects of the story. I wouldn’t get my hopes up for anything soon though. All my current efforts are being given to Vacant Throne. Combine that with the sheer size of Void Domain and I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to it sadly enough.
Thanks for the comment though. I really do appreciate insightful comments! I’m glad that you seemed to enjoy it for the most part despite the flaws!
Thank you very much!
I just finished reading this over the course of a little over a month, taking breaks between books to read other things. It had some problems with pacing, and with loose plot and character threads that weren’t resolved, but the main arc for Eva and the Life/Void conflict was resolved in a satisfying way and I enjoyed nearly every chapter, so I think it’s an overall success. I look forward to reading _Vacant Throne_ at some point.
Just finished reading this and I’ve really enjoyed it. I am keeping up with vacant throne but was wondering if you were planning on making any stories in the same universe, focusing on Eva or any of the other characters.
Glad you enjoyed. No other plans for Void Domain continuations at the moment. Probably nothing in the near future either. Sorry about that.
Wow. That was a very compelling ending – having looked ahead and asked, “How much is left?” (largely because it’s 1am because I couldn’t put the last book down) I didn’t see how you were going to close it off. And while I’m somewhat disappointed that Eva wasn’t in contact with Shalise and Juliana at the end (in an emotional way rather than a literary sense), it doesn’t feel like there’s any other way that it could have ended.
Which I think is the primary metric for whether an ending is good.
I don’t agree that Sawyer was a poor villain, as the fact that he fundamentally didn’t care about Eva was what made him a good foil. I’ll explain: Eva is not a good person. She’s evil. She doesn’t care about anyone outside her small circle, and she’s has no compunctions about torture or the like, with the small caveat that she tries not to kill people – or, at least, people who aren’t themselves evil.
Sawyer is also clearly evil. But because he lacks that particular scruple that Eva has of not killing the innocent, Eva’s vendetta becomes something of a righteous vendetta. It throws into sharp relief the positive traits she has, which might otherwise get lost. I am not generally a fan of grimdark stories, and this is the light which kept me rooting for Eva instead of hoping she’d get obliterated in a heroic sacrifice.
You also mentioned in a comment here that it might have been better to have Sawyer survive and come back instead of, or alongside, Gertrude. But in my opinion, that would cheapen Eva’s victory. Eva defeats Sawyer, but he spites her at the end, and it feels hollow. Again, this seemed masterful to me. Her struggle with the lack of a satisfying victory and her avoidance of the other demons’ blase approach to just about everything made her feel more like a real person. And, of course, it would be weird to talk about demon hunters so much in the first few books and never have one as a primary antagonist.
Incidentally, I think that was the weakest part of Gertrude. She never felt like a primary antagonist because she didn’t have other motivations. Some indication of her reason for being a demon hunter not being solely “demons are bad” would have made her more relatable as well as made her a more convincing antagonist, even if it was never explored.
I got here after reading Vacant Throne (up to what’s posted at this point, obviously). I think it’s superior to Void Domain, so I’m really excited for what’s to come! You’ll probably see me around there. 🙂
I would be happy to help you with typos, but I don’t want to fill your comment section with typo corrections (it feels rude somehow). Is there another way for me to send them to you (unless you’d prefer me to put any that I find there)?
I’m glad someone liked the ending and Sawyer! Thanks for writing this up. I appreciate it. Gertrude could definitely have used some more work. It has been two years since this ended and I’ve got tons of thoughts about every little thing still, and have probably forgotten tons of stuff too. I remember wanting to try to flesh her out a little bit more than she got, but just never found the time for it without stopping everything else. Probably should have introduced her earlier, maybe even well before Sawyer died, and simply kept her mostly in the shadows for a large portion of that early phase.
As for typos, if you’ve already got them compiled up in a list, it is probably easiest for you to simply email it to me (towercurator at gmail). If you were planning on rereading and making note of typos then, the comments section is perfectly acceptable. A user by the name of x has already got a typo post on almost every chapter, so simply replying to that would be fine. Whatever is easiest for you!
Thanks again for your thoughts!
A little late to the party, but at least I got binge read it all!
I’d say the premise of the story is my favourite so far and so is Eva’s character, I really love her.
However I feel incredibly disappointed by Juliana’s character. She could have should have been so much more, she was the mirror of Eva, the talented normal mage, best friends with the creepy half demon blood mage. Sadly she never had any opportunity whatsoever to grown instead from Book 3 onwards she suddenly became very dumb and continued to dabble in demon magic as amateur even after she hurt her classmates.
Then her whole character was delegated to becoming Zagans whore. Zagan came and solved a whole books worth of content instantly, make the whole adventure into hell pointless.
From then Juliana was forgotten until book 9, where once again instead of having a great opportunity for character growth, she solved her problems by whoring herself out to Zagan.
Zagan was a big detriment to the story, too strong and kinda gross and Juliana’s character could and should have been so much more.
Hi there! Just started reading this again after something like 6 years I think? I had stopped at what I think was a mid point. The demon secretary was out and about if I recall correctly. I just finished book 1. I’m excited to read the entire thing now that it’s finished. I did always like the world, so if you ever write a sequel you’ll have fans. I read through some of your AN, and it really does feel like I’m gazing into the past. Super neat. Thanks a bunch.