Yes, indeed, Professor May really is something else.
She doesn't quite believe in etiquette I think... at least it certainly shows that way... XD You have a very, very good eye for that. Professor May is quite insecure in her position, I would argue, and I'm glad I was able to get that pushed through. I'm excited to get back into this and unleash all the hidden nuances to this story! Ahhh yes Victor, he's a rotten one too, no? He's quite racist, really, as he favors his "own" people to normal humans. Makes him very unpleasant on the very best days...
Ugh Mama be still my heart I love that woman. Abigail had me oozing from her maternal love she dumped onto Robert. Very real love, and I'm so glad someone was able to swoop in, cause people at this school seem to get vicious.
Ha! Poor Stefan I know, right?! It's really the hidden dynamic we don't see. A lot of these kids are so "well educated" due to their parents pushing them harder than they probably should be. Stefan is more a case of his birth state (born a vampire, like his mother) which gives him an extremely long lifespan. His father sees him more as a capable vampire, so he immediately assumes Stefan will be confident and capable fresh rolling out of school. Besides, the company was built on the backs of people far less educated, so I think he sees his son as getting an education will put him WAY MORE ahead of where everyone else will be, so he (Stefan's father) can retire early.
On the plus side, Stefan's mom spoils him freaking
rotten, along with his sister. His parents were not married for love, but his mother is certainly hoping the dreams he's having of this girl will lead him to someone perfect for him.
Sam and Stefan's relationship just makes my life. They're so comfortable with each other that I just become GOO.
Iiisssssiiiiddoooorrreeeee. He's my precious, I don't normally give spoilers, but
we do see him in my other stories... I couldn't NOT take a chance to elaborate him here. I've sworn he'll get his own story one of these days...
When I'm not overloaded with stories that need told, lol! His story is SO freaking wonderful. Hooop it'll take so much to not just gush all about it here.
Chrys the poor baby is NOT an orphan, her parents are just REALLY terrible. Hate her parents. I know I sure do. Her parents would nitpick her to death and she'd think of it as a compliment because at least they'd be
paying attention to her.
Hehe, lots of teenage crushes, so hard to sort through them all! This academy has been so much fun for me to really expand my lore out wide and deep. I've always had these things but had no reason to TALK about them before, so pulling in all these faces let's me dip my toes in this beautiful water we call the lore. Robert actually canNOT be turned into a werewolf in this story, simply because he already has magic in his blood. Short version: unless born a hybrid, a body cannot handle more than one lifestate magic in its blood, so it will start attacking itself mercilessly as one lifestate tries to take dominance which in almost all cases results in death. Long version -
TANGENT TIME:
I naturally do this, feel free to ignore if you're not into this deep of lore, lol. Magic in Atalan (this universe) functions as a part of the blood and DNA. The world naturally has a core of magic (as we've seen with Torig/the Spirit Realm of which the whole of Atalan was produced), but this magic is what we, in this universe, call "Raw" magic. Raw magic is too dangerous and unpredictable to be utilized by a majority of the people in the world (spirits are different, as they're
made of this Raw magic/energy), and that's where the God of Magic comes into play. The God of Magic works as a natural filter, his existence alone already starts the filtering process, however filtering so much magic and information tends to drive that God, well, insane. (This is why the current God of Magic,
if you've met my darling Majnun, is a little on the 'eccentric' side, that's normal. If anything, he's done the best job out of almost all previous Gods of Magics before him at maintaining himself) This is relevant because it's FROM this filtered magic that almost ALL usable magic stems. Other gods (like using one you'd recognize the name of, Lord Aadish, for instance) would take a strain of the God of Magic's FILTERED magic to form their own strain that their followers can use that's specific to them. This hooks up in the bloodstream, basically saying "this person has access to x magic" which allows them to manipulate "x" magic around. When I say "magic" I don't just mean like... witch/wizardy stuff, but Vampirism, Werewolfism, etc all function in here too, as they utilize magic to accomplish the change in their physiology. This change in bloodstream ALSO affects aging, not relevant, but a neat tidbit I thought I'd tack on. Anyways, so once you have one functioning in your blood, the introduction of another will cause the magics to fight for dominance in the body. This is an extremely excruciating thing to endure when done in larger doses. In smaller doses (like a weak vampire's bite) someone who is fairly adept in their strain of magic could likely overcome the foreign magic invasion, but if the dosage is strong enough, it can (and has) killed. On the flip side to this you CAN be born (rarely) as a hybrid capable of two states of magic. This is usually very fragile, often with costs on the health/wellness/appearance of the person in question. Long story short, in this world if you're born with a magic in you're blood, that's what you'll be stuck with for the rest of forever (unless you get it stripped out by the God of Magic himself, but I hear he's a bit hard to get ahold of
). Robert was born gifted with magic, stemming from a line down the God of Magic's (ergo more like witch magic, as opposed to physiological magic).
END TANGENT
Cain and Miiiiiiiiing!
Haha, thank you so, so much! I use GIMP and Autodesk and a combination of a few other things. It gives me a couple nifty tricks up my sleeves (like all the editing I did on the pictures for the Spirit Realm). I can't take FULL credit for it though, as Cain is actually one of my bestie's (Blamsarts) characters from
Light the Way to Heaven, and his gift THERE is seeing emotions, often in rings around people, which I had her coach me through how to do it so we could have a small throwback to her story (since I did steal him AND Mincia from there).
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you! Thank you! I fleshed out this world and spend WAY too much time digging into it. I wanted holidays but I knew they couldn't be like OUR holidays here, as well... there's no Jesus in my story, so Christmas would be strange, but I didn't want to just create totally NEW holidays, so yes, I fell back onto the Roman ones and am keeping similar themes during similar times of the year... I'm just renaming them and taking away any connotation to things that connect it to OUR world Mythology in exchange for the actual Atalan lore. Atalan has been around for thousands and thousands of years, and it's "reset" several times throughout. The Mystic Era's Week of Darkness is VERY similar to what you described. Robert has a fascination for that though, so thankfully I can promise that'll get more fleshed out with time. I was a little miffed that Mincia didn't want to engage Robert in the controversies of Beowulf (given that Grendel would often be referred to as a Werewolf, you know Werewolf = Villain = bad stereotype that would normally inflame someone like Mincia - alas, she's not a big reader so I had to sit on all that fancy lore myself).
YES I had so much fun building that group pose. It took forever and a few bodies got wonky and needed me to start from scratch on but it was SO worth it! Lol! I love this whole family of people. Would you believe me if I told you that originally I planned Robert's life to be kind of breezed by (as, well this is sort of the "prequel" to my actual story I'm planning with the spirits, I was just trying to show the people they touch and who will have big impacts on the future of Spirit-human interaction), I intended maybe 2 chapters for the Academy... then I made the students one by one and they told me their hopes and dreams and made friends and I fell in love so now we're just gonna cruise through this section taking as long as I feel we need. XD I'm not complaining, though... I'd much rather this!
Though I'm a bit afraid that'll happen again with the next character who is meant to be introduced after Robert...
I put this teaser up on my tumblr and I'm really excited for her too.
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