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mayflowers116 · 1 month ago

Text

Being continued now.

Grace & Noah

These two share some very similar yet opposite canon circumstances, with notable similarities and contrasts that make them perfect for swapping like this.

Grace is the adopted child of the half-immortal Greg. She was raised in a cult, until that cult's creation- Damian- murdered everyone in it, with Grace being the sole survivor to escape. I'm not quite sure what happened after, but eventually, she wound up in the custody of Greg. After a few years of trying to find Damian (for reasons I have yet to fully decode, POSSIBLY to kill him) while training to grow stronger, she found out that Damian had been killed. She learned vague hints about who the killer was, and resolved to find them; her goal is to learn why they killed Damian, and to apologize, as she harbours great guilt over his existence. She was raised as part of a group that worshipped him, and which created him; she sees herself as culpable for all the pain he caused, and presumes that whoever killed him had at least some personal reason to.

She attends Moperville South where Greg teaches, and is very social (as we've seen canon Grace be as of late). She is fairly popular, and although she hates hiding who she is (a human/uryuom hybrid seyunolu who knows magic), she still manages to make friends in spite of this. The one friend who does know a decent chunk of her secrets is Matt Cohen (taking canon Melissa's place), but we'll discuss him later (he's not terribly important anyway).

Noah Scuridae, on the other hand, was born as part of project lycanthrope, alongside Guineas, Hedge, and Vlad/Vladia (they might be sex-swapped and trans in the other direction in this universe, IDK). Scientists tried to train him to be a killer, until Damian came along and took possession of him and his siblings. Under these conditions, he learned to hold his tongue, and choose his words carefully; he faced a great deal of stress, trauma, fear and abuse, resulting in a fierce angry hatred as well as an ability to control himself to avoid "punishment" (we saw in canon how saying the wrong thing to Damian could result in getting hit).

Eventually, he somehow escaped, and after finding out about some kind of "goo incident" involving Nanase, went and met with her, resulting in him coming into contact with the Verres' parents as well, and him official going into hiding for now. While canon Grace wanted to stop her siblings from hurting people, Noah's goal is to kill Damian (out of perhaps justice, and definitely vengeance). Eventually, shit happens, and Noah ends up responsible for Damian's death in some capacity, and from there, re-evaluations of some sort and a lot of issues I'm not yet certain of, but that sort of "how would they develop differently" is part of the point here.

Some other things of note: Noah eventually starts attending Moperville South with Susan (and Tedd and Lucy); Noah and Nanase start dating early on, with Noah desiring physical affection (see: Archie from Ellen's second life, and Noah's canon relationship with Melissa), and Nanase wanting to prove that she's not a lesbian (this will fail). Part of what inspired this whole AU was just the premise of "Noah and Grace swap places," and I'm excited to play more with it.

Matt Cohen & Melissa

AKA "I needed to make Justin's backstory make sense when that story is applied to Lucy (a woman)."

Matt Cohen is a minor character in canon, most well known as Moperville North's student body president and that guy who (quite respectfully) asked Susan out on a date (and was rejected). Here, he attends Moperville South, and was childhood friends with Lucy... we'll discuss what happens there shortly, when Lucy comes up. Otherwise, he's friends with Grace, and is basically the only one of her friends to know her shit, so yeah.

As for Melissa... I guess she's Mopereville North's Student Body president? I guess she's gonna ask Elliot out at some point and get rejected? This swap is really just supplemental, meant to help support other characters... so yeah.

Lucy & Justin

Oh look at that, time to explain Lucy and Matt's history!

Lucy was bullied as a kid for being such a tall girl; then puberty hit and she was harassed for having big boobs. She gained a generally negative view of others, but had a few friends, most notably Matt Cohen. Eventually, in late middle school, the two tried dating, and Lucy realized she was a lesbian; she told him in confidence, they broke up, it was all fine and well but Matt was sad about the whole thing. A friend of Matt's asked him why he was sad and single, kept pestering, and Matt eventually told them why he and Lucy broke up. This friend (I don't know who they are) then proceeded to maliciously (for as of yet undetermined reasons) spread around the fact that Lucy was a lesbian. This not only destroyed Lucy and Matt's friendship, but largely ended all of Lucy's friendships, and resulted in even more bullying and harassment than before. That negative view of people grew far worse, she suffered isolation, depression and abuse, and it frankly all sucked.

One day, at the mall, some of her classmates started bullying her. Diane happened to be there as well, and started walking over to defend her when Lucy threw the first punch. To make a long story short, police were called ("youth's are fistfighting at the mall!"), Diane defended Lucy's actions, it was a long day, and eventually, Lucy and Diane were both picked up from the police station by their parents, with plans to meet up later. When they did, the two became friends (and Lucy might have started developing a crush on one of the only decent people she'd known in a while), and Diane suggested she join the sword-fighting classes and and Tedd were taking, and thus Lucy started learning magic, swordsmanship, and some type of formal self defense perhaps (she's not as good at the magic stuff as Tedd and Diane, but she is great with a sword- just like canon lol (yes, this is PART of the reason why I swapped Raven if I'm honest)).

She now has Tedd as a friend at school, and is doing significantly better. She's openly gay (not that she had a choice in the matter), and she and Tedd tend to stick to themselves. She has a semi-open crush on Diane (not that Diane's noticed... Tedd knows though), and still generally thinks by default that people are shit. She's been on less dates without Diane's long term influence, and is a bit nerdier nowadays with Tedd's influence (Xena TTRPS for the win I guess, lol).

Also Tensaided might be a family friend and she might work at his video store. I'm not sure.

Then there's Justin, who has managed to hide in the closet... mostly. He has two main friends, as well as two people who know his secret: his bisexual pal Ashley, and his girlfriend Ellen. Ellen is effectively the protector of Ashley and Justin, helping them both hide in the closet whatever way she can, and in Justin's case, it means she's his beard ("beard" meaning a fake romantic partner meant to demonstrate heterosexuality and hide same-sex attraction).

He's got less muscle in this world (no reasons to start martial arts like in canon), but recently had a bit of a growth spurt in any event. Very nerdy in his interests, and spends a lot of time at his uncle's comic shop (not that he works there, or if he does it's less of a thing compared to canon). He's worried about being openly gay, and at Ellen's worried suggestion and her unexamined hatred of status quo change, he's not yet pursued any real relationships. Not sure what else to say with him, eventually he'll break up with Ellen (like, actually break up their false relationship) and come out of the closet (equivalent to when Lucy and Diane started dating in canon, basically), but otherwise, who knows? (Also he is likely going to thirst over Elliot when he finds out about him- "Man version of my fake girlfriend? HELL YEAH!" probably).'

Rhoda & Ashley, Sarah & Catalina

I'll be honest: I have little idea how these ones are going to go.

Rhoda taking Ashley's spot means she wont be relevant to the plot until much later, and I'm not sure how. She'll probably become a "wizard by technicality" like canon Ashley, but who knows?

Next is Sarah (because this order makes certain things easier to discuss), swapped with Catalina. This means she's a student at Moperville North and a friend of Susan Elliot, who eventually asks him out (and gets rejected, because while this Elliot does NOT see her as a sister, this Elliot has his own issues with ANY hypothetical relatioinship right now; if they do start dating (and that could happen), it'll be bad for both of them until Elliot can get some specific character development done). She later ends up in some kind of boar incident or some such with Ashley, and the two become... friends. She'll get a magic mark later probably.

As for Ashley... well, I've already discussed Justin and Ellen. She's the third member of their crew (equivalent to the canon trio of Diane, Lucy and Rhoda). She'll nearly be killed by a boar or something, be given a magic mark by Pandora Jerry, and will turn out to be colossally powerful by surprise. Additionally, the boar incident will result in her becoming friends with Sarah, as well as her developing certain feelings for Sarah; she'll recognize how Ellen would respond to the suggestion of her dating Sarah ("It's not worth the risk, people could figure out you like girls and then you're outed; Justin might even get outed by proxy somehow because of that"), and as such, keeps these feelings hidden from Ellen and Justin (for now). As for Sarah herself, well, the two will continue spending time together, and eventually... something will happen. Probably romance, slim chance it's not, but who knows; they'll play around with magic together in any event. I imagine they end up dating (possssssssibly inspired by a fanfic or two I've read...), but who knows.

Finally, Catalina. She's childhood friends with Diane and has a crush on her, and best friends with Elliot (a chaotic mix to be sure). She'll be in on the magic shit from the get go, but it'll be quite a while before she can have any sort of magic of her own probably... I'll be honest, I thought I had a bit more for her than this. I love Catalina, and am excited to just put her into situations in any event.

To Be Continued

All that's left to explain is Jerry and Pandora, and how Magus' role gets filled here. Alas, I must shower and eat and such, so I shall be off, only to return soon.

Me, writing an EGS Swap AU: "Oh, what if Greg and Raven swapped? That could work, it'd line up well with other swaps, it could be funny... Sure let's do it!"

Me, actually trying to write that swap AU later: "Oh yeah. Raven wanted to be a soldier, but his narrative position prevented that... huh."

#egs swap au #el goonish shive #I got a new keyboard and it's nice #wrote this instead of writing my actual fanfic (I needed a break and was getting stuck trying to write certain scenes)

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