Saint Cyprian Academy Of The Magical Art's

Maybe Melissa's pubescent predictions of the future could serve as a good repository of Chekhov's Gun(s).

And there's mind-link fiction now? Is there any concept that Fandom hasn't used in conjunction with their favorite characters?

Cyril's dad works at one of those middle sized companies that manufactures a wide variety of things, all of which are extremely boring. He's kinda upper middle management, near enough to the top of the hierarchy that he can be quite comfortable; but near enough to the bottom that he's not likely to have white collar crime pinned on him while his bosses run of to a tax haven.

One of those guys who really, really emphasizes family togetherness; sadly whenever he tries to bring everyone a bit closer everyone gets a bit farther from one another. Once he took everyone on a fishing trip, Cyril's mum hated it and spent the three days reading a paperback she brought at an airport and Cyril just got some mer-folk to deliver fish to him; before he just zipped of to Melissa's place. Also constantly takes up new hobbies for the sake of hobbies, needlework, stamps, models you name he just hates not having something to do. Maybe Cyril could inherit that! But in what way?

Also an avid gardener, in fact that's one of the few things that he and Cyril do together, Cyril tends to the vegetable garden and exterminates the pests that are unique to the gardens of sorcerers.

Farley sounds like a better name actually, thanks.

Vampire as a type of faerie, I have never heard that ever! We have a winner!

And if Achilles daughter thought of her patron as her father that could very well be the saddest thing in the world.

And Farley lived next door to Mel, she helped him with his homework... Cyril helped him with schoolyard deviousness.

He's kind of nerdy in that big boyscout kind of way, you know digs up his whole backyard to find a funny insect.

And how do you think he should find out about the magical world?

I just realized that I haven't really thought much about their appearance much. How do you see them?

And it's set in the present and sorceral society has made patching the Masquerade a fine art. And St Cyp's is located in a adjacent dimension, and the government knows about magic and stuff but sorceral society just bribes them to keep it under warps.

And if Achilles narrates one of the books which one do you think would be most suiting?

edited 16th Sep '10 3:29:21 AM by Zolnier

And there's mind-link fiction now? Is there any concept that Fandom hasn't used in conjunction with their favorite characters?

Not a single one. And yeah, mindlink fic is really popular among Draco/not-evil-person shippers.

I think hobby-ADD's magic form would be the ability to see the worth in everything and everyone. Maybe that helps Cyril's character development along?

Vampire as a type of faerie; I have never heard that ever! We have a winner!

As long as you make 'em act like vampires and look scarier than they are hot, I think the entire world will thank you.

XD I can just see the Unseelie being absolutely appalled at modern vampire fiction - "How dare those mortals write stories about us and call us by the name of our most diseased!"

He's kind of nerdy in that big boyscout kind of way, you know digs up his whole backyard to find a funny insect.

D'aww. :3

And how do you think he should find out about the magical world?

Well, if you could kill rabid animals just by touching them, wouldn't you use it to save your best bud?

I just realized that I haven't really thought much about their appearance much. How do you see them?

Mel looks quite a bit like her father; slim, with straight, thick black hair. She wears it down around her shoulders, or back in a ponytail when she's working on something. Her face is pale and thin, and one of her eyes is dark grey while the other is greyish-purple. She refuses to wear socks, yet amazingly never gets blisters. Were she an anime character, she would probably have Tsurime.

Cyril physically takes after his mom's side - he's tan, with caramel-brown hair and a round face with wide-set eyes. His hands are nearly twice the size of Mel's delicate, bird-boned ones. His right eye is very dark brown, and his left is the colour of cocoa. He and Mel have the same determined chin and full lips their mothers share, meaning that despite looking very little alike, they have the same smile.

... I hope that's not too weird, that I thought of all that. Why, what do you imagine Farley to look like?

And if Achilles were to narrate one of the books, which one do you think would be most fitting?

Maybe the last one? I mean, if you cycled through and had Mel be the main character of book one, Cyril of book two, Farley of book three, Achilles, if he's a major character, should be four.

Has there been giant shark/snail-Ron shipping?

And I could so imagine Cyril getting really annoyed when this little "Like Father Like Son" thing play's up when he's trying to be an arsehole.

And the school vampire is NOT going to be alluring. He's not been well fed in over a hundred and fifty years, just enough to suit. Couple that with the constant pain of being torn into and having your blood slowly drained every day, every six hours like clockwork, any sanity he may have had (and remeber he was the faerie eqivelent of a jittery heroin addict) has withered away into a ball of animalistic fear and anger. And the vampire is pretty ugly, fae always marks of their true nature and he's a depraved blood parasite; add that to the fact that he was a goblin and yeah you've got a lot of ugly. Really the vamp isn't really the antagonist, that role belongs to the people feeding kids to it. And what could be a good way of explaining why it's only now loads of students are turning up vampire leftovers?

Yeah Achilles is part of the main circle of characters and since the fourth book will be the one where he becomes headmaster, it would only be fitting.

No it's not weird at all and those description fit well.

And what cities do you think Cyril and Mel should visit in that short story thing? And I like the idea of it being at the end of the series, a bit of fresh air after the events of the series proper.

In fact it would be fitting since I kinda want to to the opposite of what series like this usaully do. instead of slowly revealing the dark side of a wondrous society over the course of a series I want to start with a seemingly iredemmable society and slowy start showing that it isn't as monstrous and inhuman as it looks. This could be a good way to cap it of/

And do you think that it would be fun for St Cyprian's to function with Magitek, the school being heated by a dragon, clock hands being pushed around the clock by imps, maybe the house-elf analouge could be magic robots that would be awesome! What do you think?

And Farely is freckly, really tall for his age and has a very wide stance, Also has a mullet. That's just what springs to mind when I think of friendly, sporty-kid though.

And for the forgein exchange, what country do you think they should be sent to?

And do you think I should include familiar animals in any way?

edited 16th Sep '10 11:30:17 PM by Zolnier

You know how Saint Cyprian's uses a special interior shifting room to test first year skills? How do you think it test Cyril and Mel? I wonder how it would test Farely?

Also does this sound like a good way to open the second book. Cyril and Mel are experiencing something that if you asked them if possibly much worse then death, summer school. You see their dads wan't them to have a refresher on mundane stuff like maths, art and science; Saint Cyprian has courses on these but Melissa's dad wants to make sure she can still view these things from a mortal perspective and Cyril's just dosen't trust the school to teach it properly.

And Cyril's death touch. Maybe since the harvest cycle is all about life and death; he should be able to bring things back to life. This isn't as great as it sound though since if he want's to do this he has to kill something, life feeds on life and all that. And it takes a lot of death just to ressurect a recently killed, physically intact human being. Maybe a character could die and Cyril tries this, but has to kill an entire herd of cows. Sound interesting?

And what could be a good way of explaining why it's only now loads of students are turning up vampire leftovers?

Maybe Mistress Smith was the one who performed the necessary magic to keep him chained up in the first place, when she was at school. Maybe she's been renewing the seals on him every year for the past hundred years, and now that she's dead her work is coming undone at an excelerated rate, because the contract she made said to hold the seals until she died (typical of her; she's got fae blood to drink, so it's not like she's ever going to just shuffle off the mortal coil like a normal person. And even if she does, if she's dead she won't have to deal with the consequences).

I absolutely adore the getting-lighter-as-you-go idea. It's very fresh; not even CS 'Churchy La Femme' Lewis did that.

And do you think that it would be fun for St Cyprian's to function with Magitek? The school being heated by a dragon, clock hands being pushed around the clock by imps, maybe the house-elf analouge could be magic robots - that would be awesome! What do you think?

I think that if Newberry medals were given out based on the number of magic robots rather than dead animals contained within, elementary school English class - nay, the world - would be a much more badass place.

And speaking of Cyril's death touch, maybe since the harvest cycle is all about life and death, he should be able to bring things back to life. This isn't as great as it sounds, though, since if he wants to do this he has to kill something; life feeds on life and all that. And it takes a lot of death just to resurrect a recently killed, physically intact human being. Maybe a character could die and Cyril tries this, but has to kill an entire herd of cows. Sound interesting.

As long as it only happens once and Cyril almost dies himself from trying to reverse the nature of his gift (you could say it puts a serious strain on the covenant), I think it'd be fine. You don't want fanbrats saying you're stupid for not bringing back all the people who've ever died in the series ever; make Mel threaten to sit on him if he ever fucking tries it again.

And think about the fallout from raising the dead - do the Jesus-aligned kids resent him for getting to do something their patron has told them is way, way too dangerous for them to try? How does the legal system treat this sort of thing? Do some people now fear Cyril because of just how powerful you have to be to perform a master feat of necromancy - not merely controlling a barely-sentient corpse, but bringing a mind back in perfect working order? Do some now respect him? Don't let people just forget about this in the next book - he won a fight with Death! That's a big deal.

And for the foreign exchange, what country do you think they should be sent to?

Remember that list of countries with the highest populations of wizards? Research each of them and pick the one least like Australia.

And do you think I should include familiar animals in any way?

Maybe 'familiar' is the traditional polite term for kami or fae in a relationship with a sorcerer. ^_^; When in doubt, toss in something for the furries.

edited 17th Sep '10 12:40:46 AM by FurikoMaru

Hmm if anyone was going to be part of the secret order of fae blood junkies it would be Smith. And speaking of her; would it be worth keeping her around as a ghost? If played well could be good for drama (and maybe a bit of humor) but it may spoil her karmic (after) death. Do you think that sense of satisfaction at her fate could be maintained if she was still hanging around in a fashion?

There is one issue with this idea, timelines. Remember Justina is Achillies' sister, and since she was around to make his life a living hell as a child she would have to be pretty young by sorceral standards, Achillies doesn't have a sorceral life-span.

And I thought of an interesting way for Mel to express her powers as a seer, she often doesn't know she's foretelling something. Not in the she blanks out when she does way, but rather she unconciously predicts things in casual converstation subtly, you know what I mean.

And does this sound like a good (but not silly or overly cutesy) inversion of new spells only being concocted by old and powerful sorcerers, like it is in most stories . Most new spells spring from newly minted witches and warlocks who, not having much formal instruction in magic tend to let their magic do random things of its own accord. This often results in unprecidated effects, if it garners the child mage's interest he or she may learn to replicate it conciously and voila, new spell.

And what problems (aside from accidental magic) would kids who've just formed covenants would have to cope with. Maybe early on its easier to switch patrons so they have to deal with pestering by other gods? Any thoughts.

I wonder what (mystical) traits Mel might inherit from her parents?

And yeah Cyril ressurecting the dead would be a one off thing. And sorcerers (at least in Australia) don't really have anything against necromancy, partly because when your magic you reaaly start to not pay much mind to the laws of nature, and also because it's mostly a theroetical science whose pratical usage is limited to a few with the right patrons; even then there's usaully so many limitations it is quite useless, it isn't given much thought because it can't affect much. But Cyril's feat may change that view.

Also should I primarily aim for 'adorable' or funny for that short story? Or maybe that weird sort of Nightmare Fuel that manages to be pretty funny at the same time? And should the very end be narrated by Cyril, Melissa, or another bystander?

And how active should the gods be? Should they barely interact with sorcerers or should Mel and Cyril constantly have their thought proceses by their patrons trying to add their two cence?

Also I don't imagine that Melissa would be big enough for that threat to have much weight. Farely however.

edited 18th Sep '10 3:28:57 AM by Zolnier

And does this sound like a good way for Achillies to level the playing fields? One day he skims through a copy of some science magazine Mel left in his office and gets interested in human enhancment through chemistry...

I just think it would be cool to avert No Transhumanism Allowed in an URBAN FANTASY (would you say St Cyps fits into urban fanatsy?) story of all places. Does this sound like a good idea?

And I wonder what could be some in-universe WMG's for the origin of the gods. "They are ascended sorcerers who survived the end of the previous universe!" "They're mystical energy that clumped to toghether and gained sentiance! stuff like that.

edited 18th Sep '10 8:30:37 PM by Zolnier

You know how Pan is apparantly dead, I well thought of a in-story cause of death! The poor bastard stumbled upon his Baldur's plan, so Baldur did something for the greater goood...

If the characters need to rally the gods into action maybe they could such a revelation to spur on the Greek gods, especially Hermes. Could be a bit to rescimant of Percy Jackson though.

Also, does this sound like a good bit for the short story? Narrated by an American expate in Dubai (do you think a pair of eight year olds would be likely to know of the city?) begins noticing that a lot of the people in the district are acting oddly... Arabian. Not like the modern suicide bomber sterotype, but in the old storybook 1001 nights story book sterotypical mold. As he tries to navigate through the chaos resulting from this he increasingly infected by this strange affect, and he soon as he hears his wife being abducted by some thieves Damsel in Distress style he fully assumes the role of The Hero and a mini Rescue Romance ensues. Sound cool, could lead to Unfortunate Implications though; does it sound to risky to use?

Rumania sounds like a really cool place to set a story. Either that or Zimbabwe. All though the latter could become a bad example of Darkest Africa if not to careful. Oh and if I put it Zimbabwe it could serve as a good oppotunity to explore the Reed Richards Is Useless trope and why it exists, why haven't sorcerers used their great power to overthrow dictatorships, why is world hunger still around when there is a population of people with the ability to "magic" food out of (almost) nothing. In fitting with the tone of the series it will be explained that it's probably for the best and not some Complete Monster thing on witch-kind's part.

Does this sound like a good part of Mel's (she's more subtle then Cyril at this sorta thing, he go's for stuff flying around and lighting on fire kinda magic) last day school blow out? You see there's a common sorceal practical joke to put a minor curse on a bit of food so the victem temporaliy becomes the Wolf Man, albeit a less vicous and more annoying version, that night. Just replace "piece of food" with the the school canteen's entire stock, and get rid of the hair and claws but keep the slobbering and mating urge; also replace "that night" with ten miniutes later.

edited 20th Sep '10 8:53:03 AM by Zolnier

Rewriting.

edited 9th Dec '10 1:28:47 AM by Zolnier

Hey I had an idea for another installmant in the series. A book taking place in the summer holidays between the kid's first and second years. Could be good to explore contemporary, Australian sorceral society out of a school setting, Does this sound like a good idea?