#au: exsul

[bastiandawn]

rambling about my sebastian """redemption""" au lest it consume me alive: part 2 of ??, characters (minus sebastian) and my thoughts on them

disclaimer: same as my last post, which you might want to read if you haven't. no sebastian in this post because everything that's wrong with him is filling an entire other future post on its own. also i was asked to tag this person in my future posts, so here you go: @jonathanspenguinboxers

CONTENT WARNING: mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation (skip max lightwood paragraph 5, maureen brown paragraph 3), harm towards infants (skip jocelyn fray paragraph 1)

PART I: The Main Cast

1. clary fray morgenstern fairchild

for being the main character of the series, clary is personally the hardest to wrap my head around. i can't describe her strengths or her flaws, i can't tell you anything she does for herself that isn't a reaction to a plot event or done because of jace---and i don't know what sebastian was talking about, but she does not "have a dark heart". she doesn't even make a single narratively-acknowledged mistake or bad decision throughout the series, when everyone else does. clary never stands up for simon when any of the others pick on him for being a mundane, then a vampire. and she doesn't call simon out for cheating. clary doesn't struggle with being valentine's daughter the way jace does. and her relationship with jocelyn isn't complicated because of her mother hiding things from her, but because clary likes jace and jocelyn doesn't! at the risk of sounding harsh, clary's incredibly... nothing to me, which is so disappointing when she has a lot of potential!

to me, clary is someone who should feel completely lost at sea, someone who is constantly reaching for a lifesaver, only to have it ripped out from under her time and time again. this makes her cling onto whoever she can grasp and cling onto, even if it means dragging them both underwater. clary should be selfish, and desperate, and by all means codependent when it comes to jace or simon. let me have a clary who once wanted to be special but becomes special in the most twisted way possible; clary who once trusted but learns that none can be trusted; clary who is hurt and learns to hold onto that hurt; clary who ends up with a dark heart, because that is how she survives in this world. clary, who is far more like her brothers and father and especially more like her mother than she thought, because even if jocelyn left the circle, there was a reason she joined in the first place. clary, who might end her story a war hero, but she resents the ones to asked her to fight in the first place.

but i also think clary is someone who learns to choose herself first, to forge her own kind of peace in the thrashing waves, who learns that silence in the face of tyranny is cowardice and complacency, who rejects the instinct of revulsion in the face of what she doesn't yet understand, and people, unusual though they are, who are still people just like her. clary who once pushed herself down, but learns she deserves to take up space; clary who once held her tongue in fear, but learns to raise her voice to defend others; clary who is beat down, but learns to keep going no matter what; clary whose heart might be dark, but it isn't hardened and cold. clary who wants to help, not by wielding the tools of war, but reaching out her hand to pull someone back up.

my main arc for clary's story has her "fall" in the first trilogy, becoming more and more like a shadowhunter (which, as jace and jocelyn and valentine display, is not exactly the best mindset to have). in her search for identity and stability, clary is beckoned in by shadowhunters, given a place to belong, a goal to seek, family and friends she didn't know she was always missing... much like how valentine lured in the members of the circle. as i will forever continue to state: the circle is a symptom of shadowhunter culture as a whole, not an abnormal outlier. eventually, though, clary realizes the true darkness of the world she's found herself in: a world where those who aren't nephilim are automatically lesser beings; where even nephilim themselves, if they don't fit the mold, are cast aside. and by city of glass, clary has decided that, if simon or maia or magnus are not her equal, then she doesn't want to be worthy. the next trilogy is her and the others unlearning what they've been taught, becoming better and facing down the past in the form of sebastian, jace, and the endarkened circle. but as they've come to find out, there is no equality if they can't stand beside and uplift the downtrodden: if heaven cannot be moved, then they'll just have to raise hell.

2. jace lightwood, b. herondale

jace... was never my favorite. i found him exceedingly annoying, and i never got the satisfaction of seeing him knocked down or actually apologizing (to anyone but clary, anyways) and changing his ways. in fact, i still refuse to read city of bones or city of ashes because he's incredibly insufferable in both of those, and i have no idea what clary saw in him, other than him being allegedly attractive and being the first guy she ever kissed. (who then turned out to be---and still is in my eyes---her brother!) thankfully, i'm not cassandra clare, so i don't give a shit about keeping jace's humongously unearned ego in tact! have i made it clear i'm not his biggest fan? i don't hate jace, of course; i see a lot of potential in him, especially for his character arc, that was just left hanging in service of... well, you also know my thoughts on clace.

jace calling valentine his father, being raised as a fascist by a fascist, being further raised by the once-willing lackeys of that same fascist who themselves never learned to be better, being taught to find his peace in war and bloodshed, that he was special and above downworlders and "mundanes". jace and the lessons he is taught are never proven wrong or dangerous by the narrative; all the guilt he feels is only because he was the son of the wrong shadowhunter, not because looking down on others is wrong, or that his instinct of violence is deeply, deeply messed up.

my ideas for jace are largely covered in my post regarding the main plot of this au (him becoming the ultimate big bad and eventually choosing to be deruned), so i'll talk instead about his emotional journey. jace throughout the first trilogy remains largely the same as canon, wrestling with valentine being his father, then with himself having demon blood---but, like in canon, he doesn't delve much further into the true damage valentine dealt him, or his deal with the roots of his real character flaws. in the second trilogy, his inability to properly change results in him becoming a danger to the people he cares about: he is now the second leader of the circle, valentine's heir.

it is impossible to believe yourself entirely changed in a month; when you are entrenched in a belief system your entire life, you can be years away from leaving it and still find yourself parroting words from your childhood. unlearning is a lifelong process, and something where you must actively hold yourself accountable, as well as listen to others who point out your mistakes. jace's arrogance holds him back from ever listening; his pride keeps him from doing better; his self-loathing makes him believe he is incapable of change. and the symbol of all this, to me, is in fact the blood of the angel that valentine poured into his veins. when jace is living proof of valentine's success and favor, though the man himself is dead, jace cannot ever escape from his father's shadow---unless he cuts it out from him. in an act of symbolically bringing himself from heaven down to earth, jace is finally more human than he ever has been.

3. alec lightwood

so if i say i'm also not a fan of alec---okay, please don't quit reading! it's also because of his missed potential! i like alec fine enough later in the series, and i actually think his earlier character arcs make sense for his character (though i've also never been a fan of break-up arcs that don't last; just personal preference). but him becoming the liberal "we'll change the system from the inside!" consul did make me a little mad. i mean, i wasn't expecting cassandra clare to suddenly go full anarchy and destroy the shadowhunters, that's not the point or tone of the series (i hold out feeble hope), but this is my au, and i can do whatever i want with it. and alec!

alec is interesting as a gay shadowhunter who knows he's hated by the system he's put so much faith and blood in. but i don't think he should change because he falls in love with a downworlder, but because alec sees the problem with the system he once trusted, and chooses his true self over a mold to fit. i genuinely like malec, but for one, given shadowhunters have licenses to kill downworlders and lie about them being a threat while also claiming to protect them (so just like regular cops), and magnus has witnessed alec's parents commit murder because of their own bigotry, it kind of puts them on a weird, weird footing. and for two, magnus is 400 years old to alec's barely 18 when they first start dating... if alec had gotten a few more years on him to change and grow as a person, figure himself out, then i would have zero problems with malec as a whole.

which is what happens in my au: alec's arc over the first trilogy is coming to terms with his own sexuality, first afraid of being found out, and ending up still worried but willing to take a leap and chase after happiness. now, i don't think alec starts dating magnus right away---as i said, he has some changing to do---because alec's parents were important members of the circle, and while he was victim of their careless bigotry, he also isn't incapable of perpetuating it himself. if alec had stayed a shadowhunter and tried to change it from withn, he would be battling a thousand years of systematic privilege from within a crowd of thousands more unwilling to change what benefits them. though he might move an inch forward, even as consul, he will still be the head of an organization that has systematically stood on the backs of dead downworlders, while asking those same downworlders to accept him as their leader---and what of the one after him? but those are my two oversimplified cents on the matter.

in the second trilogy, magnus is an important part of getting the nephilim-downworlder alliance off the ground, and alec, with clary's encouragement, steps up as the nephilim representative. he listens, he learns, he reaches out to prove that people are capable of change, that being born into a horribly system doesn't absolve you of personal responsibility, but it also doesn't mean you can't use your privilege to help others.

4. isabelle lightwood

izzy is perfect: no notes! no, i'm not even kidding. isabelle is the best written main character in the mortal instruments, and i am so mad she barely shows up in any series or short story after that. we barely get anything on what she does after the series other than "goes travelling". what are izzy's goals in life? what does she want to accomplish?! why won't cassandra clare tell us anything?!? i'm so roadblocked on figuring out where isabelle goes in this au, and i am sending out a psychic message to all the izzyheads out there to help me! if you can stand the sebastian-clogged cesspool, that is. so sorry to our queen. so far, isabelle has some tentative story hooks in fairie, some in the downworlder-nephilim alliance, some with the praetor lupus... a woman who dabbles in many things, but hasn't yet found her true calling, i suppose.

her emotional arc through the trilogies has to deal more with grief and keeping it inside; max isn't dead, but in choosing her loyalty to her older brothers over her parents, her family, life, and everything she believes in is split in two. isabelle feels the weight of this loss so deeply, and though she knows alec would understand, even comfort her, izzy does feel a certain responsibility to stand upright and hold her own. they don't have their parents to fall back on anymore. all isabelle has is herself, especially after jace is gone and worse and it's not fair to burden alec. but she's eventually reminded that it isn't just her and alec and jace anymore: now she has clary, and simon, and magnus and maia and jordan. for all the family she's lost, there's more that she's found.

5. simon/debbie lewis

here is where i dump all my gender/sexuality headcanons for all the characters, because much like with izzy i also have no notes for simon. okay, well a couple notes: simon's judaism in relation to his vampirism is kind of underexplored. i mean, it's said he still believes, but does he still try to practice his faith? does he seek out other jewish vampires? does he try to keep a vampiric form of kosher... even if blood kind of by definition isn't kosher, but you get what i mean. he does all of this in my au, by the way, and he doesn't stop being a vampire. simon is way, way more interesting as a vampire than he ever is as a shadowhunter, because cassandra clare gets halfway through exploring the dillemma of "why does simon still want to be a shadowhunter when he knows firsthand their bigotry?" and then just drops it. simon doesn't even join or help out the shadowhunter-downworlder alliance. he's a recruiter, which considering he's definitely traumatized by what happened to george, is like if i joined the army, saw my best friend get shot in the head during bootcamp, and went out to recruit more kids! actually, maybe that explains simon... (fuck the army by the way.)

i guess i actually had more notes than i thought! anyway, here's the actual queer headcanons: so you're probably wondering who "debbie" is in the name card---in my au, debbie is (well, was) simon, five-odd years down the line after the mortal instruments and settling into her life working with the downworlder-nephilim alliance. how i use each name depends on where she is in the timeline, or (if like before) i'm referring to canon. my reasoning for making debbie (short for deborah) who she is is mostly just... well, i find it really easy to find trans readings in a lot of places, with a lot of characters. her arc being a fledgling vampire, being not-quite part of her friend group (though they accept her, kind of, she's not really in with them); being kicked out of her home and seen as dangerous; seeking help from people supposedly like her who also see her as dangerous and "other"... not to mention simon's canonical struggle with a shadowhunter's more "traditional" masculinity; how he kind of stands out from eric, kirk, and matt and their painfully heterosexual nonsense (especially eric)---there's so much to dig into. so if a future post of mine mentions debbie lewis, you know who she is!

my other headcanons (although, since this is an au where everything i say goes, maybe they're just "canons") also include transgirl clary, who is kind of stealth-mode during the first trilogy but comes out later. my reading of her is less obvious than debbie's to me, but there's still a lot: clary is raised with a huge portion of her identity forcefully kept hidden; she has no other friends other than simon, especially not other girls, who she constantly compares herself to as being more glamorous/effortlessly "girly"; her act of triumph over valentine is her having her name recognized by the angel raziel himself, and having valentine finally see her. oh and t4t clary/debbie (or lewfray, as is the superior ship name) is real to me for this au. i don't need to explain this to you.

i wrote a lot, so quickfire round: bigender bisexual jace (would find him less annoying if she were a girl sometimes); nonbinary magnus (i know cassandra clare is cishet because otherwise he would be a drag queen); bisexual isabelle and lesbian maia (and they're dating each other); and aroace max lightwood. umm, and if you want to know my thoughts about sebastian: freud would have a field day with him. i'm only partially joking.

6. magnus bane

i also have little to say about magnus, who i like very much even if he doesn't do a whole lot in the mortal instruments. i like him in the eldest curses, and i love him in the bane chronicles. so i'll use this to talk about the formation of the downworlder-nephilim alliance and whoever is in it. as i've mentioned, the alliance was formed in response to jace's assumption of the circle's leadership, whereupon they withdrew to idris to start essentially plotting world domination. in order to defend the world from the endarkened, the downworlders, alongside the few nephilim that left shadowhunterdom, formed a coalition, which then solidified into the alliance. the werewolves, led by luke's pack and the praetor lupus, were the first to agree, then the vampires, after a meeting between maureen brown and simon. the warlocks were then convinced by magnus to lend their aid, and though the fey were somewhat hesitant to agree, sebastian showed back up (after a brief disappearance post-burren) to "persuade" the queen.

magnus is obviously the alliance's main warlock representative, though it's less of a strict role and more symbolic per-meeting; sometimes it's catarina, sometimes it's tessa. for the vampires, it would've been raphael, after maureen stepped down, but raphael doesn't like alec, so he left the table to anselm nightshade. praetor scott has defacto leadership of the werewolves, and the seelie court is represented alternatingly by meliorn and kaelie whitewillow, while the unseelie court prefers to keep their hands out of this.

HALFWAY MARK CHECKPOINT! if thou hast managed to brave all mine insane and perhaps controversial thoughts, it's time to rest your eyes, process what you've read, etc. maybe send me an ask or dm me, i'm always down to hear what others think!

PART II: Everyone Else Involved With Sebastian

1. maxwell lightwood

the real meat of my au lies with maxwell---don't call him max, he's not a little kid anymore, alec---lightwood. as i explained in my previous post, max survives being attacked by sebastian with the help of a rune from a barely-concious isabelle. however, like his father robert, max's body rejects the rune and leaving him in a feverish coma for weeks. when he awakens, it's to a cold and lonely institute: siblings long gone, his parents asleep in far separate bedrooms---and a conversation drifting in from the library... from then on, the road maxwell takes is a little bit fuzzy on the details; this au is still a work-in-progress, after all. but two things are for certain: maxwell ends up reunited with his siblings, with alec and magnus as his new guardians, and he forces his way into becoming sebastian's apprentice. all to learn what sebastian knows, so that one day, maxwell can have his revenge.

this decision definitely wasn't taken lightly by anyone who knew sebastian: everyone did everything they could to stop max, short of locking him in a room---but maxwell would've found a way out, fists bloodied and bruised in determination. i said that max survived the attack, but that's only partially true. max, their baby brother, kind and trusting, ended with sebastian's betrayal; and there is only maxwell, who is angry and distrusting of everyone, who remembers his family only ever pushing him aside, dismissing him as "too young" to know anything. when the one time he knew something they didn't, they didn't listen. alec, isabelle, and jace have a choice, then: lose max to sebastian a second time, or destroy any chance to repair their relationship with their brother forever.

under sebastian's mentorship, maxwell grows up keeping secrets well, learning to hide his anger---though he is not so dishonest as to keep his clipped, monotone sentences away from his family. maxwell learns to be wary of smiles when you haven't seen the worst of what lies underneath: perhaps this is why he finds it easier to talk to sebastian than alec, even when he knows his brother tries so hard to love him. maxwell is quiet, patient, a strategizer; yet he is not afraid to hurt others, or himself, to achieve what his goals with steady, straightforward aim. maxwell is a soldier valentine would have approved of. sometimes maxwell meets sebastian's eyes and wonders if that is what sebastian was seeking when he agreed to pass on what he was taught.

maxwell is lonely, and sebastian is lonely too, and they are almost like brothers, the way they tell each other what they can't tell anyone else. and maxwell is a good student, too; he expects that, in a few more years, he will be able to kill sebastian. but sebastian knows how to cast magic, and perhaps maxwell ought to master that, too, and who knows how many years that will take...

i personally see a quiet tragedy in sebastian and maxwell's relationship, a sad brotherhood that they know should end, that they want to end, right? in my mind, sebastian started teaching maxwell (among other emotionally-jumbled reasons) as a form of extended suicide; maxwell asked to learn, knowing sebastian was fully capable of killing him. it can only end in death. one will kill the other, and didn't they already know that from the start? why are they shying away from the inevitable? i've said so much already, but there's more to be said in the fic i'll eventually write, so i'm afraid i'll have to leave it here for now.

2. jocelyn fray garroway

honestly, i think jocelyn should've been more messed up. telling sebastian "i should've killed you when you were a baby" after calling him a demon-thing---it plays on loop in my head. i have always has a fondness for morally-gray mothers, and jocelyn is by far my most favorite despite the narrative not wanting to acknowledge how kind of fucked up jocelyn can be. i say this with the utmost love in my heart: jocelyn and valentine ended up together for a reason, and there is a reason their children (jace included) are like that in my mind. i don't think jocelyn can ever be counted as a good person, and that's incredibly captivating for me.

thinking about jocelyn and how she interacts with her now-adult children is such a fascinating topic for me, especially with my clary being trans: sebastian is the son she still can't believe is capable of good, and though she wants to be able to love him, she can't look at him without seeing demon blood; clary has slowly distanced herself from jocelyn, though she knows she is loved and still loves her mother... but there are just some things you can't get past. and then there's jace, who led the near second-coming of the circle.

jocelyn is married to the love of her life and they have a little girl together, a girl with flame-red hair and luke-blue eyes, a girl who is nothing like her older siblings and will never know the full extent of the darkness in her family's past... but jocelyn can't help but wonder if, even if she tries her damndest not to make the same mistakes, something will slip in all the same.

3. tessa and jem gray-carstairs

these two are just nice; not too much to say. i need to get around to reading the last hours to get more of tessa as a person and parent, but other than the bits with malcolm fade (and we will get to him), it hasn't quite pulled me in. i think sebastian would remind tessa a lot of her own brother nathaniel, his situation and whether he would've chosen differently if she'd tried something else... and i think sebastian would remind her of her own children, especially the snippets i know of james. i'm generally less certain when it comes to writing tessa and jem, but i'm fairly certain that they have a lot of wisdom that---even though sebastian is too closed-up to properly communicate with them---would help him along his very winding road to... wherever it is he's headed.

they are glad for his help in tracking down the lost herondale, though, even if they're somewhat worried he might be overzealous. after the trouble with sammael and the svefnthorn, sebastian has become a lot more... focused, yet secretive; tessa and jem have asked malcolm to keep an eye on him, as somehow, malcolm and sebastian have sparked a very unlikely friendship. malcolm assures them sebastian keeps out of trouble, but you never really know with children like him...

4. shinyun jung

imagine being a child, rejected by the mother that was supposed to love you, because of something she saw in your face that terrified her. despite this, you are welcomed into the arms of a cult that calls you special, raised to love a father who you would do anything for, molded into a loyal weapon because he is the only one that could love you. you do everything he wants, you kill and lie in service of his plan; you find someone, a sibling, even, who could be like you, but who ultimately disappoints you. and on the day of summoning, when you are supposed to be elevated to your father's right hand---he chooses another, the failure, the rebel, and discards you, who has only ever been what he asked you to become.

now, am i describing sebastian or shinyun? exactly! it's very unfortunate that these two never get to meet in any universe, because shinyun is pretty much everything sebastian could want in "someone like him" (minus the red hair). and she actually does have a dark heart---a particularly dark heart. in this au, shinyun and sebastian's involvement in each other's lives is brief but incredibly torrid: sebastian has everything, is everything shinyun wants and wants to be. he's been granted immeasurable power by sammael and lilith themselves---and he doesn't want it. but he does want her. i think they'd drive each other insane.

in my mind, sebastian has always been a twisted sort of romantic (less in the actual dating sense and more in the poetry / optimism sense) and as we know, he's pretty desperate for connection and understanding. shinyun, meanwhile, is burned so bad from asmodeus, and she's so closed-off in her quest for power, that i'm not really sure who would get their way. unstoppable force meets immovable object. at least up until shinyun becomes a demon and all that. worst breakup ever. (but i bet sebastian still holds out hope for seeing her again.)

i'm mostly waiting on the final installment of the eldest curses so i can finally sink my teeth into shinyun in all her glory. and figure out how she'd fit into the rest of my plans...

5. maureen brown

second part of my "indoctrinating you into character pairs you'd never consider but make perfect sense to me" series! on one of my many rereads of all the sebastian scenes, i began to notice a couple of things: sebastian's unusual soft spot for vampires, and the strange similarity of his "love language" compared to one queen maureen's. now, i've kept her alive in my au basically since the beginning, because there's something just so sad and tragic about her arc that it made me almost frustrated that it just ended with her dying. i've noticed a concerning pattern in the shadowhunter chronicles, and that is characters who aren't traumatized in the right ways (aka non-violent/"disturbing") are basically treated as broken or dangerous and "better off dead". maureen is one, but so is annabel and arthur blackthorn.

but before i get into a rant, let me briefly summarize my plan for maureen: after lilith's death and sebastian's resurrection, maureen scatters to the winds. simon and jordan look for her, perhaps even running into nick, but they don't find her up until word of camille bellecourt's death spreads and maureen becomes queen of the dumort. when seeking help from the vampires for the coalition, maureen refuses until they hand simon over; simon goes willingly, talks to maureen, and apologizes fully to her for being the reason she died, not being there to save her, and again failing her by not being able to keep her from going feral and hurting others. in my mind, maureen acts flighty and playful because she is unable to face her trauma, given how distressing and terrifying it must have been for a child. but something in the apology cracks apart the fragile veneer she's put up. maureen flees into the night once more, and while raphael is able to rally the vampires for the final battle, it isn't until a good few days later when maureen is found.

she's in her old bedroom in her now-abandoned apartment, just before the sun rises through the window. maureen condemns herself as a monster, crying for her mother; by some twist of fate, sebastian is there with the rest who find her. if she is a monster, he says, then he is far worse; and yet, there are people who have not given up hope on them being good, for whatever reason. i imagine he says it in a far more bewildered and self-depricating way, but maureen hears "you're like me." maureen immediately gets a huge crush on sebastian, who has exactly zero opinions on this apart from "this may be useful at some point". now he's got a teen vampire superfan tag-along.

maureen, like any teenager-turned-young-adult, has a lot of insecurity going on: being turned at such a young age makes her panic about not being able to grow up like everyone else around her, being unable to live the same lives as everyone else, chase the dream of becoming a filmmaker that she's always had. i deal with this and more in my fic! but she's such a special character to me: if clary is cassandra clare's self-insert, then maureen is sort of who i eventually aspire to become.

6. ash morgenstern

last but not least, the son and grandson of the devils themselves! lots of everything about ash are spoilers for the future fic (which is the same reason i'm not adding malcolm), but i'll just say that ash will be a couple years younger than he first appears in canon, and sebastian will have crazy mental illness about being a father. i remember telling a friend that if sebastian getting custody was the worst thing to happen to canon ash, then this au sebastian getting custody is... the most necessary thing to happen to ash. for his character development, you see. ideally, i would write the fic with all of the wicked powers released, so i could see what's going on in canon ash's little brain, but i think with all the changes, it's definitely going to veer far away from canon. we will see!

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MADE IT THROUGH! what can i say? i knew you could do it! no but seriously, thank you if you made it this far, and for tolerating all my ideas. once again, don't be afraid to send me an ask or dm! i am notoriously unable to keep secrets from friends so who knows, you might learn the entire plot to my fic before i write it...

actually i feel like i need to give you an extra reward for sticking it through. here have this basyun doodle from 2023 <3 mwah i love you

[sr116-blog]

Fanfiction Index

These are fandom AU or timeline divergent fics you may consider issuing challenges for.

Animorphs: Andalite Wars

[Timeline Divergent] 

It's been more than ten years since the events of Animorphs took place. Peace never lasts, and humanity seem to be looking for a fight now. We're calling the Andalites dangerous, a sleeping threat.

Andalites have given humans some technology, some we learned based on Yeerk wreckage; still it might actually be an even match.

~CHARACTERS~

Total Eligible: 18

+canon+

Cassie

Dan Bernstein

Jordan Bernstein

Naomi Bernstein

Sara Bernstein

Toby Hamee

+oc+

Devon Anders

Jothorr-Horics-Apudiin

Kilreg

Hiriinn

Awera-Medaff-Tooshin

Exsul-Issil-Impator

Ingari

Uuret

Baslar-Axela-Cenriann

Toraan-Sinfiax-Lanstil

Gloria Hill

Catalina Strauss

Gunslinger Girl: Instrucion

[Alternate Universe]

Everything was fine at the boarding school the girl's attended. Cute teachers, good friends, just fine! But then, in a struggle to keep the school's doors open, the administration decided to let them in...boys. Now the girls must handle two experimental students that may lead to a school over run in the opposite gender!

~CHARACTERS~

Total Eligible: 9

+canon+

Claes

Emilio

Triella

Rico

Patricia

Henrietta

Pinocchio

Jose

Jean

Naruto: Growing Up Tenten

[Age Varient Challenges Accepted][Timeline Divergent] 

No one was sure where she came from when they found her after the Kyuubi attacked that fateful day. She was a girl with no past, and presumably no future. Who would have guessed she'd grow up to be a weapons' mistress?  

~CHARACTERS~

Total Eligible: 21

+canon+

Maito Gai

Hyuuga Hinata

Hyuuga Neji

Aburame Shino

Sarutobi Asuma

Umino Iruka

Ayame

Inuzuka Kiba

Kurenai

Hyuuga Hanabi

Hitake Kakashi

Akimichi Chouji

Yamanaka Ino

Hyuuga Hiashi

Uchiha Sasuke

Rock Lee

Haruno Sakura

Nara Shikamaru

Uzumaki Naruto

Anko

Tenten

Samurai Champloo: Family Trilogy

[Age Varient Challenges Accepted][Timeline Divergent]

This series of stories follows Fuu, Mugen, Jin, and Shino beginning at a point four years after the end of the Samurai Champloo anime. The first story focuses on how Fuu and Mugen come to terms with their feelings for one another. The second follows a time skip of two years, and focuses Mugen and Fuu's family along with Jin and Shino's over the years; as they exchange letters and visit each other. And the third focuses on the children of our original heroes as they set off on their own adventure, leaving worried parents behind for us to check in on. 

~CHARACTERS~

Total Eligible: 9

+canon+

Mugen

Fuu

Jin

Shino

+oc+

Gijouhei Atsushi

Gijouhei Noriko

Hiroshi Gijouhei

Umiko

Jiyuu

[bastiandawn]

rambling about my sebastian """redemption""" au lest it consume me alive before i get around to writing it properly: part 1 of ???, major plot differences

disclaimer: i don't like or pity sebastian as a person. he does compel me as a character, though, in his own twisted way, and that is why the au exists in the first place. many of the things sebastian has done in the books are unforgiveable (his attempted assault of clary is most obvious, and his killing of max lightwood), and this au is not attempting to """redeem""" that version of sebastian. this is a different world, where things are slightly better, for the world and the people in it, and as the late jonathan morgenstern once hoped, "if there are other worlds, then maybe there is one where i was a good brother and a good son." in the case of this au... well, redemption is in heavy quotes for a reason. this au is attempting to explore a sebastian who is, while not (yet) entirely remorseful for his actions, is aware that there is a path laid out for him, first by valentine and later lilith, that he doesn't particularly want to go down. this is also just my own personal playground/rewrite of how tsc handles its sociopolitics. and some of the characters. (other than sebastian, obviously)

CONTENT WARNING: brief discussion of incest (skip past part 1, point 3)

PART I: The Mortal Instruments

1. sebastian and the non-death of max lightwood

the first change that kicks off the timeline is that sebastian, for whatever reason, holds back when attacking max lightwood, and again when attacking isabelle, who is left only just conscious enough to give max a rune that, while it saves his life, leaves him in a feverish coma for weeks. if you've read shadowhunter academy, this would be a similar rune-rejection fevercoma that robert lightwood went through, though exacerbated given max's younger age.

i will elaborate on max's character later on/in another post, but his being alive does affect how much his family and clary are willing to eventually tolerate sebastian. some are still horrified at him attacking a child, but with a guy as messed up as sebastian, you have to take what you can get. their limits are incredibly stretched, though, when maxwell demands sebastian become his mentor in a "teach me everything you know, and then i'll take my revenge and kill you" way. as i said, i'll elaborate more later.

2. the fall of idris

this is not really related much directly to sebastian's character development as it is to the others, but definitely a large elephant in the room. for reasons i will figure out later on (that are definitely related to my exploration of shadowhunter systematic bigotry), valentine partially succeeds in destroying idris, which is now overtaken with demons. shadowhunters destabilized and decentralized, though a good many have relocated to the london institute for safety. also alec, isabelle, jace, and clary are somewhat excommunicated for reasons of clary's alliance rune and rallying downworlder aid.

3. jace and clary are not in a relationship

i wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the character changes, but given the entire tmi series revolves around these two and their weird, WEIRD romance with each other, i'm putting it here. yeah, not a jlary fan. the adopted son of your father is STILL your brother, and jace and clary acknowledge valentine's fatherhood multiple times.

HOWEVER (and this comes with an incredibly huge disclaimer) i am already attempting to explore some pretty heavy topics in this au, and incestuous feelings are one of these topics. while there will be no mutually-reciprocated incest in my au, the fact of the matter is that clary and jace did experience romantic and physical attraction for one another, and sebastian experienced physical attraction towards clary. the thing is that, especially on clary's end, the full psychological impact of these things is not fully addressed in my opinion. her first kiss turned out to be from her brother, and then her other brother kissed and assaulted her via deception.

clary deserves better than to just end up with jace for reasons i cannot fathom. she deserves to process her father being a fascist, her mother lying to her for her whole life, and the fact she can never return to being a normal girl. i'll speak more on what i'm doing with her character later on.

4. the ultimate bad guy of tmi is your own unchecked prejudice and bigotry (or rather, jace's)

a huge sticking point for me with tmi has always been the main characters's pretty blatant prejudice towards downworlders and "mundanes", without ever being properly called out or made to actually sit and think about what they've internalized. they were raised in a society that breeds bigotry like the circle, and the only reason the circle was considered dangerous was because they chose to attack the clave alongside downworlders. and jace was raised by their leader, and then by two of its high-ranking members, and is never called out for his treatment of especially simon. in this au, the demonic parabatai bond, while still favoring sebastian's autonomy, amplifies the similarities between two participants's darkest sides. because jace and sebastian are so fundamentally similar, raised by the same man to have similar values, jace becomes "evil" because those impulses, his arrogance, his unquestioned bigotry, his instinct for violence, are all made even stronger.

at the battle of the burren, jace is never stabbed by glorious, but lilith severs the bond at sebastian's request. (lilith strikes me as a mom who doesn't really understand her child; she thinks sebastian is just going through a phase, and humors him.) however, jace is still consumed by his worst impulses, taking the endarkened circle to idris with lilith's aid. there, clary and the others, alongside sebastian and a newly formed downworlder coalition, face down jace and stab him with glorious. afterwards, realizing all he's done, jace chooses to have his marks stripped from him in order to atone.

5. the formation of the downworlder-nephilim allianceale

alec's insistence of changing the system from within the system... annoys me, for the same reason people who say to reform instead of defund the police annoy me. when the system is so fundamentally broken it enables murderers and fascists, there is no salvaging it. when the barrel is filled with rotting apples, there is no "finding a good one" in it; even the most pristine-looking of the bunch will be tainted by its proximity to the others.

which is why this au is severely overhauling downworlder relations, to be a storyline less about "magic cops are actually the only thing keeping you alive so you need us" to actually empowering downworlders to take care of themselves and each other. there was a world without shadowhunters, there will be one after, and downworlders will continue to exist with or without them. after all, shadowhunters are just an organization at the end of the day.

forming the downworlder-nephilim alliance leads to the defeat of lilith, a victory won through collective community effort rather than just the actions of a handful of people like it was against sebastian. and it's the end of the circle, once and for all.

6. clary joins the praetor lupus

the praetor lupus really show up to stop luke from dying and then get wiped out. this is genuinely insane to me, considering they're the only organization formed by downworlders to help other downworlders, something which apparently has just never happened in all of a thousand or more years? there are so many avenues to go with something like the praetor, like having them help unite werewolves and vampires because of their work helping fledglings, or maybe even starting a vampire branch of the praetor lupus, or expanding across the country. there are characters like alec, who could reach out regarding a downworlder-nephilim alliance, or simon, who was directly helped by them.

but i choose clary because... well, clary is a very directionless character. she becomes a hero, sure, but that's less something she aspired to be and more something she became out of necessity. i don't think she makes many decisions that don't revolve around jace in specific, or another man in her life. i think clary should make a choice for herself, and if she's a hero, then she should aspire to help people, especially people who are marginalized and unsupported like she and simon once were. and yes, i know the praetor lupus only accept, well, lupus, but in my au, let's just say they're eventually convinced to expand their recruiting pool.

7. sebastian becomes tessa gray's apprentice

this might be the most self-indulgent part of the au, and this is literally the au where nobody dies and everyone is happy (well, almost). my biggest problem with the supposed cause of sebastian's evil being his demon blood corrupting him, and not him being raised by a fascist to be a remorseless child soldier, has always been the fact that... tessa and james and lucie exist. sebastian is quite literally not as special as he's been told his whole life, nor is he biologically incapable of anything but causing pain and destruction. i know that cassandra clare probably didn't write sebastian with full foresight of the gray-herondales, but with hindsight, it reveals a huge flaw in the narrative's logic. anyhow, all this to say that i believe tessa and jem could be a good influence on sebastian. also, if you haven't guessed by my url, this au's sebastian ends up something of a warlock.

PART II: The Eldest Curses

1. the morgenstern family european roadtrip

this part is probably going to be the shortest, given the last book of the trilogy won't release for another... 2 years, at the minimum. this isn't technically a change, as we are fully into au territory now, and how shinyun jung got the svefnthorn was (unfortunately) interrupted by magnus (i wish we'd gotten something about it. alas). to make it brief, clary, jace, and sebastian go on a (you guessed it) family roadtrip around europe, just to try and ease the weird and awkward tenseness between them whenever they were in the same building.

it doesn't go great: clary and jace fight over directions while she drives, sebastian starts going crazy hallucinating his father's voice, which leads them to a strange warlock woman looking for a sword sebastian is convinced he was meant to find. their other escapades include getting wine-drunk, becoming temporary babysitters of a very blue baby, meeting a second cousin they didn't know they had... and sebastian realizes whose voice he's been listening to the whole time.

2. sebastian's stepfather tries to recruit him into a doomsday cult

the lost book of the white had me hooked the moment ragnor mentioned sammael was looking for sebastian because lilith asked him to. it got me wondering how on earth that meeting would go, and especially since this sebastian is ostensibly trying not to destroy the world with the help of demonic forces. sebastian is sort of unable to fully refuse, though, but it does help that he's his mother's special little boy, and that sammael loves lilith very, very much.

i have yet to discover anything that would have to change, and therefore until further notice, nothing does, except the lost book of the white has sebastian creeping around in the background. not exactly a major change, i suppose, but better to mention it early than leave it oddly hanging. sebastian and ragnor could have a conversation regarding jocelyn, i suppose...

PART III: The Dark Artifices

1. i'm actually planning to turn this into a fic, so i don't think i can spoil anything in this post

exactly what it says on the tin. this fic is actually the main reason i'm posting on this blog. also this is far down the post enough that i can be more frank with you: i don't really want to have to rewrite city of fallen angels to heavenly fire just to get to the stuff that fascinates me the most, which is what this fic involves. to give you a sneak peek, sebastian joins a necromancy cult, comes to terms with being a father, and helps find the lost herondale; maxwell lightwood and livia blackthorn team up; and a war between the seelie and unseelie court brews in the distance...