Julie Plec Names The One Fan-Favorite Vampire Academy Character We Won't See In Season 1

All bets were off when Julie Plec and Marguerite MacIntyre introduced Adrian Ivashkov into the "Vampire Academy" series in Episode 6. Given that he doesn't show up until the second book (via E! Online), fans were shook to see their favorite playboy grace the screens in all of his extra glory. With all of the timing shakeups in the first season, it's anyone's guess as to who might show up and what plotlines will unfold — and that's the fun of TV adaptations.

Both showrunners' work on "The Vampire Diaries" franchise has proven that they'll take a story where it wants to go. While we all might think we want an exact copy of our favorite books on-screen, it's much more fun to play around. Yet the changes beg the question: Which other fan-favorite characters might show up on-screen, and how much of the books will we see in the first season?

The List was invited to a roundtable interview with Julie Plec at New York Comic Con, where we asked if everyone's favorite "Bloodlines" alchemist will show up in the first season. We also inquired how much of the first book and its sequels we can expect to play out this season and whether or not Plec is open to getting some "Vampire Diaries" alums on the show.

No Sydney Sage in Season 1

Sadly, it looks like Sydney Sage won't be gracing our screens this year. "So, we're not going to meet Sydney this season, although certainly, I fully plan on meeting Sydney eventually," Julie Plec promised. "We do meet Adrian, as you've seen already."

Plec also shared why she changed the design of the alchemist tattoo. She said, "The alchemist face tattoo felt — I couldn't quite visualize the, what were they lilacs?" We answered, "The golden lily." Plec continued, noting that she couldn't see the golden lily as a design that would hold up. She's not averse to changing it, though, even if we've seen it on-screen.

"[W]e might revisit that because it's not like I love the one that we did. We might revisit it as we move forward," she shared. "We definitely are teasing the alchemists this year as something that will become more important next year, so we have some room to figure it out and try new things." 

One possibility could be a variation of the Guardian's Molnija (a Strigoi kill, according to Show Snob) and promise mark (a symbol of completed Guardian training) — each one signifying a different milestone. There could certainly be different branches and types of alchemists that have varied tattoo identifications.

Hammering out the timeline

With so much change in the timeline, we wanted to know which books will appear in the final two episodes of the first season of "Vampire Academy." "You'll see surprisingly quite a lot of book one but minus what is really the bulk of book one, which is the party — the teen party and the lust charm and all that, but you will see all the bones of book one," Julie Plec explained at New York Comic Con. "But within that, you're also seeing half the bones of book six."

The whirlwind surprises have been half of the show's fun so far. "So, we are moving a lot of pieces around in different ways, and that's actually been a lot of fun and hopefully will be fun for the audience as well because they don't quite know what to expect. And while if you love a book series, it's fun to see it played out as you remember in your head," Plec mused. "But in this case, we also think it's fun to see where we ended up putting things [so] that you can be at any moment surprised [by] the detail that you thought maybe we'd forgotten." 

Will any 'The Vampire Diaries' actors show up on 'Vampire Academy'?

Now that "Legacies" has made its final bow, could we see any of the "The Vampire Diaries" actors come to play in this world? Julie Plec and Marguerite MacIntyre aren't keen on mixing the worlds. "No, Marguerite really believes, and I agree with her, that we should keep those two universes very separate so that there's no confusion," Plec explained. "And so at some point, in success and enough years have gone by, there might be an opportunity for one of the actors to come play a different character, but we wouldn't do any 'wink wink' or any, you know, 'nudge.' I say that now, but who knows? Who knows?" Well, it seems like that's a no for now and not a no forever. We'll take it. After all, Plec told us that nothing can soften the blow of the "Legacies" cancelation.

New episodes of "Vampire Academy" stream Thursdays on Peacock.