Overreaction

Reading further along, I realize I am being overly critical. Much can be salvaged, and quite a bit more is pretty dang good. Of course, the part I've always disliked is still awful, but now looking at it I find I've been aproaching it the wrong way. Yes, otherwise intelligent parents abandoning their child to a completely new town an entire world away is difficult to pull off, but my previous answer was only a bandaid. I think I can restructure everything so the reader won't even find a scar.

And yes, it will still be work. But this is the fun kind. I thought I'd thrash this baby and end up with a mummy. I'm going to end up with a frankenstein, bitches.