u/-Dunnobro

I have tried several versions of this protagonist. The primary one i’ve tried to make work was planned to be a genuinely good and intelligent scientist who developed ‘Desalinating Seaweed’ to solve ‘world thirst’... By using a Kelpie Fairy’s seaweed corpse. To keep using it, he accidentally revives it and becomes forced to raise the newly incarnated child or reveal his questionable scientific process.

But it took a lot of set-up and jumped really hard from scientific/legal scenes to magic/comedy. I could maybe tighten it up, but I also found he just didn’t contrast the antagonists I developed very well. (I’m probably just not the ideal to write an intelligent character either.)

Now, he’s a serial hustler and pathological liar from Florida who tried to coerce an AI Datacenter into buying his energy drinks that he makes from seaweed overgrowth caused by them dumping their cooling water into a Miami Beach. (In exchange for keeping their involvement a secret)

They initially refuse and laugh him away since they legally proved there’s nothing (scientific) in the water causing the seaweed which can be traced to them, but the owner of the datacenter is actually an Alchemist obsessed with resource control who later notices the drinks have 'magic' in them that can be used to fuel alchemy.

This is due to the water having been infused with trace amounts of human memories/knowledge from the computers, and is slowly reviving an ancient Kelpie that feeds off said energy and concentrates it into the seaweed there to try forming a new body. (Alchemy and Unseelie Fae both use human memories as fuel for different kinds of magic)

When they go to collect it themselves; It’s no longer magic though. Because the hustler had found the Kelpie’s incompletely revived body and ‘Named’ it, believing it just an interesting but normal formation of seaweed into a ‘horse’ shape (after it followed him to shore and was waiting for him to come in the water so it could drown and steal his body). 

The Kelpie was actually a Fusion of One Adult Kelpie, and an unnamed child Kelpie the adult had consumed to empower himself. By naming it, it allowed the child to gain sentience, a body of his own, and control.. (The adult is another later antagonist, wanting to flood the planet)

The hustler simply thinks the child goes to the summer camp he’s currently living and working at. (Young Fae look like human children, ears grow pointy after puberty. Or he just innately uses shapeshifting iunno) While the alchemy family believes the hustler is trying to threaten their monopoly on magic and trying to 'activate' other alchemists with his drinks.

He also gets accidentally ‘contracted’ by the boy to never lie again. Forcing him to slowly become a better person, and also contrast the final antagonist who has a contract that he can only tell lies. (The protagonists contract actually lets this antagonist gain relevance and power quickly since everyone thinks he has the same truth contract, as the marks look almost identical)

It’s only recently i thought of the AI Datacenter Wastewater = Memories/Knowledge to feed Fae twist so i wondered if anyone else thought that was better than just gene editing/intelligent scientist? The more propulsive and aggressive nature of a hustler has let me introduce magic as early as chapter 1 and start getting into fights around chapter 5.

The old version i was touching on chapter 15 before fights and that was after extensive restructuring/condensing. It's frustrating to lose much of my progress in the other version but this is going much faster and i think 'feels' better, though i wonder how utilizing an AI Datacenter rubs people too.