Have been chatting with @chaosandtwo about a Trc shadowhunter chronicles au I want to write so thought it was time I shared some ideas / the parts of the outline I’m decided on here
Settings: modern England particularly London (most important buildings being the London Institute and where the London Vampire Clan currently resides) but also other areas such as Sussex Leeds and some rural areas, shadow markets, Idris and the Fairy Courts.
Gansey — Is 19 when the fic starts. His parents were part of the circle and exiled from Idris except for work as punishment, they run the London Institute so that’s where Gansey and Helen were raised. Greenmantle (who is this verses Valentine/Mortmain) did an angel blood experiment on Gansey’s mother while she was pregnant with him but I did not want to give him either Clary or Jace’s powers since neither of them fit to me, so instead have decided that his angelic power is the ability to heal people. He is very fascinated by mundane culture particularly academia and because his parents aren’t the most attentive (read are neglectful) he’s been able to educate himself on quite a lot in that realm. Closest friend in adolescence was Ronan who was going to be his parabatai until Ronan was turned into a vampire (his parents were very manipulative of him and told him that if he reached out to Ronan he would only make Clan life harder for Ronan since other vampires would scorn him for it), had more distanced friendships with the other Lynch brothers, a complicated relationship with his older sister Helen and at different points was very close and less close with Henry due to tensions between their families, but after Ronan was turned they reconnected and he’s currently Gansey’s closest friend (and secret third thing), the possibility of them becoming parabatai was also floated around but they ultimately didn’t go through with it (probably for the best).
Ronan — Should technically be 19 but stopped aging at 17. Niall and Aurora raised their sons in Idris until Niall died when Ronan was 12 and Declan was 14. The Gansey’s were in Idris for important Clave meetings at the time and so Gansey and Ronan had connected a couple of weeks prior and Gansey was already super attached (like with a shelter dog) and begged his parents to let the Lynch’s stay with them, and it was their duty as an institute so they agreed. Niall had a prejudiced view of downworlders (even though he also had a tryst with a Gentry Fairy, Mor, Declan’s birth mother) and Ronan inherited this which caused problems between the Lynch brothers. Ronan does have the Lynch family trait of a heightened capacity for prophetic dreaming compared to normal shadowhunters (Declan does not). When he was 17 he impulsively tried to rescue a mundane girl named Opal who the Vampire Clan of London had taken, but it turned out she was already a vampire (similar design to Maureen) and Ronan was turned by the leader, Bryde. Becoming a vampire was very difficult for Ronan, who loved being a shadowhunter and particularly loved that he was going to be Gansey’s parabatai and mourns that he didn’t get to be, and because of the Catholicism and how Niall brought him up. He has a lot of self loathing about being a vampire (and naturally this ties into internalized homophobia as well) and tries to repress his vampiric urges as much as possible, only drinking the bare minimum needed to survive unless Bryde engineers a situation where that’s not possible. The other members of the vampire clan hate him for all of the above reasons, only Bryde and Opal are at all warm to him. Bryde sometimes takes Ronan with him on excursions to the shadow market and on one of them he met Hennessy, who he eventually started frequently going for drinks at the Devil’s Tavern with and became his best friend, another reason why the vampires hate him since Hennessy is a werewolf. Also at some point down the line in the fic he’ll probably have to drink Gansey’s blood and become a daylighter, and then they’ll hate him even more.
Blue — 19 when the fic starts. Grew up with knowledge of downworld as Maura was a warlock as was her girlfriend Calla (who has talons as her warlocks mark, Blue knits her gloves to cover them as presents), and they took Blue shadow market hopping with their stall. She and Maura are based the rural area surrounding Leeds but Blue has experienced the downworld of multiple cities in England through her Mom’s business. Blue assumes that she is a mundane Maura adopted as do many of Maura’s clients, they do sometimes not that she looks a lot like her for this to be the case but they attribute it to Maura using glamour on her or they think Maura must half a human half sister and Blue is her niece. In actuality Maura is a daughter of an unmarked shadowhunter and a greater demon, like Tessa. Artemus was a Welsh shadowhunter whose family had ghost sight like the Herondale’s, so Blue’s powers are in a similar mold to Lucie’s: general affinity for ghosts and control over dead spirits (but no straight up necromancy in Blue’s case). Sets up a nice contrast between Bluesey if Gansey has healing/life based powers and Blue has death powers. Pre fic she knows of shadowhunters but hates them similar to how Kit felt, before she meets Gansey and Henry. She’s met Hennessy and Jordan pre fic because they trade with Maura and Calla occasionally, and she knows Adam because he’s an apprentice of Persephone, a fairy who is an “old friend” of Maura and Calla so her stall is the one they most frequently trade with.
Adam — 19 at the start of fic. At 17, he discovered he was an Unseelie Court Changeling, grew up in a rural area of England with an abusive family. His faerie abilities manifested late which is why he could not do anything about the abuse earlier which is something that makes him really angry, he also has anger at his faerie parents (who are dead he never met them) for him having to live with Robert when he wasn’’t even born into it. His abilities did eventually manifest during an altercation, which led to him killing Robert and then being thrown out by his Mom. He has no regrets about the former, but he is upset by how the latter was how he left, rather than what he wanted, which was to walk out after saving enough money. For most of the next year he does what he can to learn about downworld and what exactly he is, transports himself to Faerie a few times for brief periods but that doesn’t go well, and eventually starts to frequent Shadow Markets. It’s there that he meets Persephone (who is an entirely lavender colored faerie like Hyacinth), and she offers him a job at her stall and to teach him to use his fairy magic, which he agrees to. Adam’s fairy parents were a Nixie and a Gentry Fae (similar to Kieran powers wise but not royal and no wild hunt affiliation) so his powers other than the usual swiftness grace etc. are the use of glamour and elemental magic with a particular affinity for hydrokineses due to the water spirit blood, particularly he loves conjuring ice. He’s powerful and a fast learner / dedicated student in these areas, but struggles more with the transporting himself between realms part of faerie abilities. Appearance wise he mostly looks human, his tells when not glamoured are his pointed ears and his eyes change to different shades of blue like the sea (like Kieran’s hair). Oh, and he can’t lie. Which means he learned to get really creative about untruth telling real fast lol. He really loves magic in a similar way to how he feels about his psychic powers by the end of trc, but he does feel conflicted about glamour because he feels he shouldn’t enjoy manipulation as much as he does, and once he starts getting close to some mortals (read: Gansey) he becomes scared of using his powers to manipulate someone unconsciously. Pre learning he was a fairy he was ambitious as canon Adam so his ambitions shift once he enters the shadow world, now he wants to stay by Persephone for a while and learn all he can from her, then eventually try to gain a position in the Unseelie Court and move up in the ranks. Pre fic he knows Hennessy, Jordan, Blue and Declan all through their Shadow Market dealings and he and Hennessy did hook up once. He also has met Ronan a few times because Bryde brought him there and has a hate crush like early TRB, Ronan has a crush-crush like early TRB (and yes he’s still bigoted towards faeries the man contains multitudes).
Henry — Either is 20 or turns 20 in the story. The Cheng’s were also in the circle, but they didn’t comply as easily and offer useful information to the Clave the way the Gansey’s did, so they got the same banished from Idris treatment but were not given the Institute, which Seondeock wants, so this leads to animosity between the Cheng and Gansey families and is why the Gansey’s originally disapproved of their friendship (before multiple downworlders and downworlder adjacents started courting their son and made Henry look like the best of these bad options). Henry is knowledgable about the shadow market because of dealings he’s done on Seondeock’s behalf in disguise (Seondeok has a deal with Neeve that she supplies potions for Henry in exchange for Seondeok keeping her in the loop about all nephilim affairs in addition to money). Henry’s parents are divorced which is another thing aside from their ethnicity that the Gansey’s look down on them for. Seondeok’s mother was killed by a faerie who seduced her so that is where her sentiments that led her to join the circle stemmed from, I have spoken previously on this blog about disliking a lot of stories where a poc is the spokesperson for fantastical racism but I think contrasting Cheng’s vs The Gansey’s vs the Lynches in this regard could potentially be very interesting. For his part Henry is pretty modern and progressive, he thinks mundane culture has it’s pros and cons same as shadowhunter culture, believes downworlders should have rights etc. he also thinks Neeve’s whole thing is really cool and has casually thought being a warlock would be kind of nice. However, he has internalized some pretty negative beliefs about fairies and that also comes out in how he perceives Adam and his relationship with Gansey. Henry and Gansey’s relationship at the beginning of the fic has a bit of the one-person-is-to-repressed-to-acknowledge-their-feelings-while-the-other-is-aware-but-is-keeping-secrets-from-the-other-and-so-can’t-be-honest dynamic Emma and Jules had in LM but Henry is significantly less angsty about it compared to Julian and they’re not parabatai bonded so they’re chiller about it. Henry keeps finding himself feeling torn between loyalty to his Mom and keeping secrets for her and loyalty to Gansey and wanting to be honest with him. There is a mutual jealousy and disdain between Henry and Ronan like in canon. Henry does not see Ronan any differently for being a vampire he hates him as much as he always did, Ronan is still racist (as is Adam). Ronan is jealous because (in Ronan’s mind) Henry replaced him for Gansey, Henry is jealous because (In Henry’s mind) Gansey made Henry a second choice after a man he has no respect for.
Declan — 21. Half shadowhunter half faerie but doesn’t have any physical features such as pointy ears that mark him so unlike Mark and Helen he gets to keep his heritage a secret. Ronan knew about it as they were growing up and has been nasty about it (and yes he’s going to eventually date a full fairy after all that). Matthew doesn't learn about it till about a week after Ronan is turned, because Declan feels it’s important they be a united front. Declan can tell lies (Adam is frothing with jealousy), but he has no magic. He inherited two main traits from his faerie side, the more positive one being immunity to glamour and the more negative one being iron weakness. He wants to keep his faerie blood a secret so that he can be Consul one day. Mor is a high ranking Gentry Lady in the Seelie Court. I wanted to play with the declan-adam foil qualities by having them both be linked to faeries but not raised there, and they’re both characters who value power and status but their specific faerie lineage gives Declan status without power while Adam has the power he desired but not the status. When Declan gets into the Shadow Market he meets Jordan and by the time the fic starts they’re together but keeping it a secret from the shadowhunters (successfully) and Hennessy (less successfully).
Hennessy — 22. Is a werewolf. She grew up in Manchester then was turned at 16 so she’s much more experienced with her downworlder nature than some of the other major chars who are downworlders. She ran away from home, then two years later came back for Jordan. She’s still an artist and does have a regular trade selling paintings and doing tattoos but also has a Shadow Market stall where she sells more nefarious items.
Jordan — 21. Hennessy turned her (ginger snaps core). She was not mad about being turned, she was mad that Hennessy didn’t turn her immediately (Tridentarii core). She moves from place to place with Hennessy and does find the shadow market stuff cool but does eventually want to settle down into her own studio and maybe go to uni, she has her eye on a dream apartment in Sussex. So she’s conflicted about all that, and then she meets Declan and starts seeing him in secret (it’s not actually a secret Hennessy knows and is Not Pleased by it, but she thinks Jordan getting the rebellion out of her system now will be better for them in the future, she figures her interest in Declan won’t last).
Noah — Is still a ghost, his spirit is attached to a watch he wore when he was alive and so it’s in the Shadowhunter Academy as is he. Had just turned 18 when he died. Blue Gansey and Henry journey to Idris and are at the Academy for an event when Blue sees him, and she brings his watch back to the London Institute. He seems to not be able to describe the exact events of his death, but what he has said gives them the impression he was a mortal who died during ascension.
– So as you can see I have Gansey Ronan and Henry coming from shadowhunter families while Blue and Adam come from Downworld, in keeping with the original class divide in trc.
– The first chapter will probably bounce between Blue Henry and Adam’s povs and be about a day at the Shadow Market when Henry brings Gansey there (without telling him how he knows about it) because they need something specific to complete a mission (probably information + some substance or mcguffin that I’ll choose). While going stall to stall they visit Maura’s and meet Blue + visit Persephone’s and meet Adam. Gansey seems very taken with both of them in these conversations and ends up offending both of them, of course. After they find what they were looking for and leave, there is an attack on Maura’s shop (Greenmantle tracked her down). Calla gets Blue to safety, but then does the Luke thing of telling her to stay away for her own protection, she sets her up to stay in the mundane world with someone she trusts (a mundane with the sight named Carmen whose house has protection spells on it done by a warlock named Lilliana), but Blue ends up going to the shadowhunters instead. Gansey and Henry both want to help, and Blue’s regular shadowhunter powers display themselves so Gansey’s parents are very willing to have her stay (right now they think she’s a shadowhunter adopted by a warlock and are just glad to have a nice shadowhunter girl around for Gansey to pair with). Blue has Kit’s reaction to learning she’s a shadowhunter, and she does her best to hold them at arms length she’s only here to find out what happened to Maura and help her, then she figures they’ll run away together. Obviously as she gets closer to Gansey and Henry things change.
– Persephone feels differently to Calla, she instructs Adam to aid Blue in whatever way he can. Adam does appreciate that this is a good excuse to spend more time with Gansey without acknowledging that he would like to.
– Like I said there’s definitely going to be a part where Blue Gansey and Henry spend some time in Idris where Blue meets Noah so they’ll get into shenanigans there while Adam Ronan and Hennessy deal with problems in downworld and have shenanigans of their own. And there will definitely be a part where Adam takes them questing in Unseelie. I need to map out other things plot and chronology wise.
– In terms of relationships the pre fic stuff I have pretty much nailed down, Ronsey pseudo divorce (and when they meet again in canon it’s going to make everyone in the vicinity feel so awkward), Jordeclan secret dating, Chengsey in secret third thing limbo, Adamnessy one night stand, Pynch hate-flirting (Ronan negging Adam badly, Adam negging Ronan well), Jordan and Hennessy fitzgerald sisters ing and whatever Ronan and Bryde have going on. So Jordeclan’s dynamic is the only one that’s settled everything else whether the chars meet in the fic or met before is developing and changing, I think it’s safe to say there will be a significant amount of Sarchengsey and (as you can guess with me) Adansey, Ronsey and Pynch are going to remain important, and Blue/Noah are going to have their own little ghost romance arc. If I wrote enough of this fic there would eventually be ot6 but more likely it’ll just have a little of everything at different points. If it feels organic in the story I’ll have people officially date in pairs at points but otherwise I’ll just have everyone be vibey with each other and go on little side quests. The ronsey divorce left the earth scorched enough that I do not see them trying to actually date for a really long time though, they’ll probably be the last polycule dynamic to get their act together.
