WangXian 4 ever.

The Mortal Instruments was not a Harry Potter fanfiction.

 I did write Harry Potter fanfiction, that much is absolutely true. I understand that we live in a world now where people often “file the serial numbers off” their fanfiction and publish it with the names changed. Fifty Shades of Gray is the most famous example. After is another, and so is Beautiful Bastard, and you can find people talking about planning to file off the numbers and publish everywhere now. In every case those fanfics were an AU, or alternate universe, story. Edward Cullen is a billionaire, Harry Styles is a college student, Edward Cullen is your boss. I can’t swung a cat on the Tumblers without running across someone talking about pulling their Avengers AU high school fanfiction to change the names and publish it. (“In which Loki is a hockey player and Thor is a hockey stick.”)The publication of Fifty Shades of Gray has made this common and indeed it’s worth noting I never saw this rumor about TMI before 50 Shades was released.

 Anyway, I did not write an alternate universe fanfiction. I wrote a story about Harry Potter who was sixteen years old and went to Hogwarts and visited Hogsmeade and lived in Gryffindor and had all the same friends and the exact same magic system with wands and Latin spell names and thestrals and what have you. I mean some things were different — Draco was in love with Hermione, etc. — but I could not possibly have turned the fanfic into anything publishable without stripping out the magic system and replacing it, changing the location, making all the characters completely different, changing their relationships, and changing the plot, because the fanfiction story I wrote (“Let Us Defeat Voldemort, Using Wands”) would not make any sense outside the realm of the Harry Potter universe. 

I can’t answer your question, because none of the characters in Mortal Instruments are based on any characters in any fanfiction I ever wrote. When I have run across this rumor I have noticed people cannot even agree on which character they think was which. Simon is often Harry because he has glasses (Simon may also be Clark Kent.). Ron is Sebastian—eeesh, Ron, how could you? (I wrote Ron as a perfectly nice guy as far as I remember, it was a long time ago, but you’d think I’d recall him being the villain.) Alec is also Harry because, dark hair. Not sure how Simon and Alec are both Harry when they are nothing like him or each other but—go with me here! Clary is Ginny because she has red hair. They have nothing in common either but, you know, hair. Tessa is Hermione because she likes books. I don’t recall Hermione liking fiction, but hey, a female-shaped person who likes book-shaped objects, pretty rare, am I right?  I mean, this is a game you could play with literally any book. “Percy Jackson is Harry Potter because they have black hair and green eyes and are heroes.” It is not how books work, though. 

Death. Endgame. Unmaker.

Every death is personal. Every end well-documented and attested to. Impeccable witnesses, unimpeachable evidence.

You’ve been tried in absentia so many times they carved your casefile number on the wooden seat back in the dock. It was impossible to catch you, impossible to stop you.

Granthar, mowed down while he accepted a medal for saving yet ANOTHER orphanage. No one asked him what nightmares he faced from all the kids he hadn’t been able to save. You hope he finds the peace he begged you for when you resettled him on that remote steppe after the furor died down.

Priat, killed along with her mortal enemy Donal while they were locked in another fight in their seemingly unending war. You went to their wedding two months later, pleasantly surprised to see them both enjoying retirement now that no one but themselves expected anything from them.

They said you had no morals. They said you would kill indiscriminately. In a way, perhaps, that was true. Heroes, villains, antiheroes, you would end them all. You had a few lines, though.

No collateral damage. No children left behind. Any family that relied on you taken care of. No one underage without a vetted guardian.

Venerable Mrs. Turner in Alliance, Nebraska had a Roth IRA with a guaranteed minimum lifetime withdrawal benefit that would keep her in style till the end of her days when you were done with her baby boy. And so The Machine exploded while picking up Starbucks for the League of Heroes, before he then retired to a monastery in Nepal.

Inevitable. Obituaris. Murderer.

One journalist had gotten to the truth, connected dots you didn’t think were visible. You’d had a choice; kill or risk the entire operation.

In the end, they asked you to help them as well. Once they saw the entire pattern, they couldn’t betray those who you’d helped before then. They’re raising sheep or something on a Shetland island now, writing books under their new name that sell mildly well. They’re happy, and that’s what mattered.

Their newspaper ran a black banner when you killed them, and has been dogging your trail ever since. One of their own, after all. You don’t grudge them their hate, someone has to stand guard at the door.

No powers, no abilities. Just money, a lot of it. Everyone you helped contributed to the cause, and some of them were very well-off indeed. Buying new lives took money, and good organizational skills. You’d already had the latter, and the former had come easily enough when Dr. Deathwish had been killed, leaving you alone, of all his minions and henchpersons, alive. Bad luck being stuck in traffic just then, you’d thought at the time, but maybe everything happens for a reason.

But people forget that heroes and villains are, underneath the spandex, masks, and makeup, just people. And people get tired.

The sort of tired a red bull and a day at the gym can’t fix. The sort even a month in bed can’t cure. A bone-deep weariness of the soul that no amount of public praise or civic medals can salve. Sometimes they just need to stop, and can’t or won’t explain themselves to the public or their employers.

You’ve always believed no one is owed your labor, so why should heroes and villains be any different? Not everyone will let them go, and that’s where you come in.

You’d started out Nameless Minion #467 in a generic evil lair, and now you were Death Incarnate for anyone who needed your specific brand of help. It was almost admirable, a self-made villain.

Really, you’re still a henchperson. Just helping everyone that needs it, not beholden to one villain or hero. Someone needs to be there for them to kill their pasts so their futures can live.

You stand at the doorway, evil murderer to those looking in, and kindly guardian to those passing through.

A guardian of change. Protector of new identities. That’s why your victims call you what they do, part humor based on the modern misunderstanding of the name, part description.

I uhhhh 🧍 I made another continuation....

A loooooot of people asked me to continue it, and while I usually dislike drawing things just because people ask, I did already have an idea for a part 3 in mind, plus I felt kinda bad leaving it off at a cliffhanger lol

sO I MADE A SEQUEL TO THIS COMIC,,,, cause I was thinking about what would happen if she asked Chat for advice. enjoy <3

so I had the idea that Marinette somehow finds out about Emilie and struggles with how to break the news to Adrien... this is set pre-reveal for maximum miscommunication

edit: now with a part 2!

The owner of the bookstore was this grand old dame of 76 who had been in the business for 40 years. She'd had three kids with a husband who was extremely gay, and as soon as those were old enough, they split up. She read on an epic scale, was an avid follower of the opera, sang in several choirs, and scheduled arts programming for a private club. She had gentleman callers (so they styled themselves) at the store continuously the entire fifteen years I worked there--yah, into her NINETIES. She never took up seriously with any of them, because they couldn't keep up. She was impeccably dressed and put together every single day of her life, drank regularly, and said they would pry her estrogen supplements out of her cold, dead hands. She had a gang of elderly single lady friends, though, and they went out every night of the week. They knew everything and everyone, collectively. She got her first smart phone in her mid-80s and became extremely Online. I bet she's on Tumblr now. She is 96.

This blew my mind. Life didn't have to be over...ever.

We worship youth in our culture. Only the young have futures, and the aged exist to enable the lives of the young. We act as if by the time you hit forty, you've had your chance. You are now expected to step aside and scede life to others.

FUCK THAT. I have a lot of life ahead of me. I have places to go and books to read and people to fuck and food to eat and music to dance to and emotions to feel and nazis to punch and stories to tell and hearts to break and ventures to capitalize and empires to conquer. I am going to be doing this for the next fifty years, minimum.

And

Wow

I am screaming and crying and that was incredible.