{application} - somarium
[Character name] Jace Wayland
['real' name: Jonathan Christopher Morgernstern; aka Jace Lightwood, aka Jonathan Herondale; it's, er, complicated]
[Age] 17
[Canon] The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
[Point in time taken from canon] After Book 2: City of Ashes
[Background] The world in which Jace lives is divided into those aware of the 'hidden world', in which exists demons, faeries, vampires, werewolves, magic, and more, and those who live their lives without even realizing any of it exists. This 'hidden world' is protected by Shadowhunters (or Nephilim), who are basically its secret police, and who battle demons, and uphold 'the Accords'. This is the contract between Shadowhunters and Downworlders (warlocks, vampires, etc) that allows for a tentative peace between them.
The man who raised Jace was Valentine Morgenstern, an ambitious Shadowhunter who created a group called the Circle. They were a group of Shadowhunters looking to wage war on Downworlders, and destroy anything not fully human, though their planned Uprising failed, culminating in a bloody struggle between Shadowhunters, Downworlders, and the Circle members in the Hall of the Accords. All members of the Circle were punished; those with children suffered exile from the Shadowhunter homeland of Idris. Stephen Herondale, a member of the Circle was killed in a raid, and his wife Celine, whom Valentine had all but forced Stephen to marry, killed herself, though she was 8 months pregnant with Jace.
Valentine surgically removed the boy from his dead mother and took him to raise as his own son. Valentine killed another member of his Circle, Michael Wayland, as well as Michael's infant son, and assumed his identity, as well as giving Jace the identity of the now-dead Wayland boy. Given that Michael had suffered exile (since he had a child), Valentine was able to lead Michael's life in the Wayland manor, without anyone realizing that he was still alive. Jace spent his entire childhood believing that he was Jonathan Christopher Wayland (Jace from his initials), and that Valentine was actually Michael Wayland.
Jace and his father led an incredibly secluded life, and the only contact Jace had with anyone else was with the servants who also lived at the manor. His father was incredibly strict, and even physically abusive towards Jace, though that was nothing next to the intense emotional abuse he suffered as a result of the twisted philosophies his father sought to instill in his son.
When he was ten years old, he watched his father killed in front of him. He believed that it was by agents of Valentine, and spent years afterwards wanting justice for the death of his father, "Michael". Jace was sent to live with the family of Robert and Maryse Lightwood, who ran a Shadowhunter Institute in New York City. They were both actually exiled members of the Circle as well, though Jace did not know this. They took care of him for the next seven years of his life, and he came to view their children as his siblings: Alec, one year older than him, Isabelle, one year younger, and Max, several years younger than them all. They were all tutored at the Institute by Hodge, who was yet another exiled Circle member (sensing a pattern here?), in the ways of Shadowhunting, and from a very young age, Jace has been actively fighting and killing demons in New York City.
His life significantly altered course when he met Clary Fray, a supposed mundane (someone blind to the magical world) who could actually see all of them, even when they were covered in a 'glamour' which should render them invisible to regular people. Together, they discovered that Clary's mother, Jocelyn, was an exiled Shadowhunter, who had been Valentine's wife, and had run off, taking with her the Mortal Cup, which Valentine needed to create an army and finally follow through with his evil plans. Jocelyn, however, was kidnapped by Valentine, who was apparently back and active, even though everyone had thought him dead. Clary, Jace, and company began searching for the Cup, and in the process, Jace fell in love with her. Unfortunately, when they found the Cup and returned it to Jace's tutor, Hodge, Hodge betrayed them, and gave both the Cup and Jace to Valentine. Jace, however, was shocked to find out that Valentine was actually his father - who was alive and kicking. Unfortunately, Clary had also found out that Valentine was her father as well. Sickened by his own feelings, and desperate to hang on to the father he thought he had lost, Jace was almost ready to join Valentine, but in the end, turned away from him, and stood with Clary and their friends.
Things went downhill quickly: Maryse kicked him out of the house, suspecting he was actually a spy planted by Valentine. He was arrested by the Shadowhunter Inquisitor and jailed in the City of Bones. He was present there when his father broke into the City and stole the famous Mortal Sword he would also need for his plans (the 2nd of the 3 Mortal Instruments), and he once more denied his father. He was rescued by Clary and his siblings, though it was decreed that he'd be put under house arrest with the warlock, Magnus Bane, until further action could be taken. An excursion to the court of the Faerie Queen ended with her forcing him and Clary to confront their feelings for each publically; afterwards, he attempted to convince her that they could pursue a relationship in secret, but she rebuked the idea.
Valentine, meanwhile, was collecting the blood of various Downworlders to do some evil voodoo, and Jace tortured the location of his father out of one of his demon minions, and went to confront him. His father revealed more about his plans, and allowed Jace a glimpse at the armies of demons that he had at his command. He offered to spare and protect those Jace loved, if his son joined him. Jace refused. He was again arrested by the Inquisitor, who figured he went to Valentine because they were in league. Alec helped him to escape, and he also realized he had powers beyond any he had ever dreamed (he jumped straight out of his holding cell into the rafters). Jace and company went to rescue their kidnapped Downworlder friends from Valentine, in the process of which, he saved the life of Clary's vampire best friend (and boyfriend at the time), Simon, by allowing him to drink his blood. Jace fought his way through demons to face off with Valentine and save Clary, though in the end, they only escaped when she used her power rune ability to destroy the ship that acted as Valentine's hideout.
Maryse changed her mind about letting Jace stay, after this, and Jace talked to Clary, and told her that he would give up on the idea of pursuing anything beyond a sibling connection with her. It was a little bit akin to cutting out his own heart.
[Personality] On the surface, it can appear that Jace Wayland doesn't care about much of anything or anyone. He is capable of being ridiculously stubborn and willful, and he exercises what he sees as his right to be so, often. He's often confident to the point of extreme recklessness. Jace looks at life as a battleground, and has no fear of death - in fact, he might welcome it. He's most alive when faced with conflict, and indeed seems unfit for living a life where he isn't a soldier. He prefers a Spartan lifestyle, keeping everything impeccably neat and shying away from a reliance of material things - just as he shies away from relying on anyone outside himself. This is reflected in his professed religious beliefs: even though he fights demons for a living, he doesn't necessarily believe in God, and thinks that even if He does exist, that human beings are essentially on their own.
Snark is his defense mechanism, and he has a sarcastic, dry wit, that can be distinctly cutting. He shows little to no respect for any authority, though it's certainly an equal opportunity sort of disrespect - there isn't anybody who he completely refrains from showing the bitter side of his tongue, at least once in awhile.
Underneath this, Jace is actually intensely insecure about his character, especially at this point in his life. He deals with a great amount of suppressed anger (which he lets out largely through fighting) as well as emotional torment, that he doesn't like to let on to others.
Jace's greatest fear has long been letting himself love someone, which has been made even worse recently by the fact that when he finally allowed himself to let someone in for the first time in years, the feelings he developed were romantic ones for a girl who turned out to be his sister. As if that run-on sentence of uncomfortableness weren't enough, he also was conditioned by his father in his youth to believe that loving something was the same as hurting it, and finding out that he's the child of arguably the evilest guy in Shadowhunter history, he's become terrified of what he's capable of if he lets himself care for anyone. As a result, he often shuts down, and draws away from others, allowing them to only see his apathetic, or embittered facade.
Jace's second greatest fear - of turning into his father - is not without basis. Raised with no real society beside his father's harsh tutelage, and interaction with servants, Jace has adopted many aspects of his father's personality simply because it was all he knew in his childhood. As a result, he can be incredibly proud, arrogant, and vain, as well as innately prejudiced against non-Shadowhunters (mundanes and Downworlders). He can occasionally have very selfish instincts, and be incredibly jealous, though his jealousy is not a mark of ambition, unlike his father. Given that Jace never really got to be a child, he is occasionally resentful of those who did.
On the flip side, Jace has gained many positive characteristics from the influence of his adoptive family, the Lightwoods. He is capable of fierce loyalty and courage, and can at times be incredibly sentimental (though he won't admit this), and even possesses some exceptionally romantic ideals. He can be very responsible, where anything but his own life is concerned, and even though he talks so much about not getting close to other people, he evidently cares intensely for his adopted family, and would do almost anything to protect them.
Outwardly, Jace is fairly outgoing, though what he allows people to see is often far from the real 'him'. He is capable of manipulating people effortlessly, and often uses the charm he knows he has to flirt with women, and feed his already large ego. When he's not feeling social, he can either come off as markedly stoic, sullen, or dangerous, depending on what's thrown him off.
Above all of these things, and despite what he thinks about himself sometimes, Jace is a good person, and a moral one, and he fights like hell against himself, more fiercely than against any of the demons he's encountered.
[Abilities] As a Shadowhunter, Jace has access to runic magic that enhances speed, strength, dexterity, and more, accessible by drawing appropriate runes on his skin with a magical artifact called a 'stele'. These can also be used to heal injuries, improve eyesight, open doors, etc. etc. Trained since he was a child to use a variety of weapons, Jace is completely at home in battle, though he tends to prefer melee to ranged weaponry. He's killed more demons than any other Shadowhunter his age - which is probably in no small part due to the angel blood that runs in his veins due to experiments done to him by his "father", Valentine. By the point in canon from which I'm taking him, Jace has begun to realize that his abilities far exceed those of a regular Shadowhunter - he can jump many feet straight in the air, fall off multi story buildings and land like a cat, as well as other Matrix-y type moves. He's still getting the hang of this, and testing his limits, however.
As for non-fighting skills, Jace plays the piano quite well. He can be incredibly charming when he wants to be, and good at manipulating people. His father tutored him extensively on culture, ancient languages, demonology, arcane lore, and more.
[Other important stuff] When marked up with runes, Jace is covered in black tattoo like designs. These runes leave really light scars, which can be seen by anyone who has the ability to see beyond the 'normal' realm.
Uh, given that he's in love with his sister, just a warning that his dreams will probably contain incestuous overtones. You can console yourself with the fact that she's not actually his sister...? He just doesn't know that.
Also, Alec and Jace are parabatai, which means that they're basically battle brothers, who have trained together, and always have each other's backs. Their bond goes beyond normal brothers, into best friend territory, but given that it's Jace... that doesn't mean the relationship isn't still unnecessarily difficult sometimes.
[Sample post] Timeline: After the last Jace scene in City of Ashes, when Jace tells Clary that he's basically going to stop fighting her on the issue of their feelings for each other, and resign himself to being her brother.
Jace Wayland (and yes, that was how he was going to think of himself - had to think of himself), knew all about fighting. It was, in fact, what he considered his forte.
What Jace knew little to nothing about, on the other hand, was how not to fight.
He reflected on this as he watched Clary walk away from Taki's, watched the stiff way her shoulders hunched, remembered the way her arms had clung to him too hard, too quickly, lingered too long, when she'd hugged him good-bye. He didn't budge from the spot, staring after her with gold eyes that seemed to passerbys to be entirely impassive, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his black coat.
Jace knew that this was the right thing to do. The selfless thing. The only fair thing for Clary, and for everyone else they cared about.
But it felt so much to him like giving up that every warrior instinct inside of him was screaming behind his blank facade, as he finally turned, and headed up the street in the opposite direction.
People stepped aside nervously to avoid him as he drove a line straight down the sidewalk, face set in hard lines and angles that unnerved even the unobservant mundanes who weren't sure why they were afraid of him, but recognized instinctually that they should be. And it wasn't as if the mundanes usually ignored him anyways - he had the face of an angel, he reflected, and the thought brought a bitter taste to his mouth. The son of Lucifer himself, he thought wryly. But I won't be like him. Not if he had to tear that attractive, angelic appearance off his face with a seraph blade: to repulse Clary away, to separate himself from that man who was and was not a father to him.
His lip twisted as he realized he was back to thinking of ways to actively combat himself again. It was all he knew, it seemed: war.
Well, he reasoned, there was still one war that he could fight, and must.
The next time he met Valentine would be the last.
[Which rule was your favorite and why?] Minimal drama. I'm incredibly anti-wank, so it's nice to see the mods encouraging people to stay awaayy from it, and resolve things like mature grown-up-types.
[Where did you hear about Somarium?] bottleblueyes at App This Plz
[Any questions?] Nope, looks like it was all covered.
['real' name: Jonathan Christopher Morgernstern; aka Jace Lightwood, aka Jonathan Herondale; it's, er, complicated]
[Age] 17
[Canon] The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
[Point in time taken from canon] After Book 2: City of Ashes
[Background] The world in which Jace lives is divided into those aware of the 'hidden world', in which exists demons, faeries, vampires, werewolves, magic, and more, and those who live their lives without even realizing any of it exists. This 'hidden world' is protected by Shadowhunters (or Nephilim), who are basically its secret police, and who battle demons, and uphold 'the Accords'. This is the contract between Shadowhunters and Downworlders (warlocks, vampires, etc) that allows for a tentative peace between them.
The man who raised Jace was Valentine Morgenstern, an ambitious Shadowhunter who created a group called the Circle. They were a group of Shadowhunters looking to wage war on Downworlders, and destroy anything not fully human, though their planned Uprising failed, culminating in a bloody struggle between Shadowhunters, Downworlders, and the Circle members in the Hall of the Accords. All members of the Circle were punished; those with children suffered exile from the Shadowhunter homeland of Idris. Stephen Herondale, a member of the Circle was killed in a raid, and his wife Celine, whom Valentine had all but forced Stephen to marry, killed herself, though she was 8 months pregnant with Jace.
Valentine surgically removed the boy from his dead mother and took him to raise as his own son. Valentine killed another member of his Circle, Michael Wayland, as well as Michael's infant son, and assumed his identity, as well as giving Jace the identity of the now-dead Wayland boy. Given that Michael had suffered exile (since he had a child), Valentine was able to lead Michael's life in the Wayland manor, without anyone realizing that he was still alive. Jace spent his entire childhood believing that he was Jonathan Christopher Wayland (Jace from his initials), and that Valentine was actually Michael Wayland.
Jace and his father led an incredibly secluded life, and the only contact Jace had with anyone else was with the servants who also lived at the manor. His father was incredibly strict, and even physically abusive towards Jace, though that was nothing next to the intense emotional abuse he suffered as a result of the twisted philosophies his father sought to instill in his son.
When he was ten years old, he watched his father killed in front of him. He believed that it was by agents of Valentine, and spent years afterwards wanting justice for the death of his father, "Michael". Jace was sent to live with the family of Robert and Maryse Lightwood, who ran a Shadowhunter Institute in New York City. They were both actually exiled members of the Circle as well, though Jace did not know this. They took care of him for the next seven years of his life, and he came to view their children as his siblings: Alec, one year older than him, Isabelle, one year younger, and Max, several years younger than them all. They were all tutored at the Institute by Hodge, who was yet another exiled Circle member (sensing a pattern here?), in the ways of Shadowhunting, and from a very young age, Jace has been actively fighting and killing demons in New York City.
His life significantly altered course when he met Clary Fray, a supposed mundane (someone blind to the magical world) who could actually see all of them, even when they were covered in a 'glamour' which should render them invisible to regular people. Together, they discovered that Clary's mother, Jocelyn, was an exiled Shadowhunter, who had been Valentine's wife, and had run off, taking with her the Mortal Cup, which Valentine needed to create an army and finally follow through with his evil plans. Jocelyn, however, was kidnapped by Valentine, who was apparently back and active, even though everyone had thought him dead. Clary, Jace, and company began searching for the Cup, and in the process, Jace fell in love with her. Unfortunately, when they found the Cup and returned it to Jace's tutor, Hodge, Hodge betrayed them, and gave both the Cup and Jace to Valentine. Jace, however, was shocked to find out that Valentine was actually his father - who was alive and kicking. Unfortunately, Clary had also found out that Valentine was her father as well. Sickened by his own feelings, and desperate to hang on to the father he thought he had lost, Jace was almost ready to join Valentine, but in the end, turned away from him, and stood with Clary and their friends.
Things went downhill quickly: Maryse kicked him out of the house, suspecting he was actually a spy planted by Valentine. He was arrested by the Shadowhunter Inquisitor and jailed in the City of Bones. He was present there when his father broke into the City and stole the famous Mortal Sword he would also need for his plans (the 2nd of the 3 Mortal Instruments), and he once more denied his father. He was rescued by Clary and his siblings, though it was decreed that he'd be put under house arrest with the warlock, Magnus Bane, until further action could be taken. An excursion to the court of the Faerie Queen ended with her forcing him and Clary to confront their feelings for each publically; afterwards, he attempted to convince her that they could pursue a relationship in secret, but she rebuked the idea.
Valentine, meanwhile, was collecting the blood of various Downworlders to do some evil voodoo, and Jace tortured the location of his father out of one of his demon minions, and went to confront him. His father revealed more about his plans, and allowed Jace a glimpse at the armies of demons that he had at his command. He offered to spare and protect those Jace loved, if his son joined him. Jace refused. He was again arrested by the Inquisitor, who figured he went to Valentine because they were in league. Alec helped him to escape, and he also realized he had powers beyond any he had ever dreamed (he jumped straight out of his holding cell into the rafters). Jace and company went to rescue their kidnapped Downworlder friends from Valentine, in the process of which, he saved the life of Clary's vampire best friend (and boyfriend at the time), Simon, by allowing him to drink his blood. Jace fought his way through demons to face off with Valentine and save Clary, though in the end, they only escaped when she used her power rune ability to destroy the ship that acted as Valentine's hideout.
Maryse changed her mind about letting Jace stay, after this, and Jace talked to Clary, and told her that he would give up on the idea of pursuing anything beyond a sibling connection with her. It was a little bit akin to cutting out his own heart.
[Personality] On the surface, it can appear that Jace Wayland doesn't care about much of anything or anyone. He is capable of being ridiculously stubborn and willful, and he exercises what he sees as his right to be so, often. He's often confident to the point of extreme recklessness. Jace looks at life as a battleground, and has no fear of death - in fact, he might welcome it. He's most alive when faced with conflict, and indeed seems unfit for living a life where he isn't a soldier. He prefers a Spartan lifestyle, keeping everything impeccably neat and shying away from a reliance of material things - just as he shies away from relying on anyone outside himself. This is reflected in his professed religious beliefs: even though he fights demons for a living, he doesn't necessarily believe in God, and thinks that even if He does exist, that human beings are essentially on their own.
Snark is his defense mechanism, and he has a sarcastic, dry wit, that can be distinctly cutting. He shows little to no respect for any authority, though it's certainly an equal opportunity sort of disrespect - there isn't anybody who he completely refrains from showing the bitter side of his tongue, at least once in awhile.
Underneath this, Jace is actually intensely insecure about his character, especially at this point in his life. He deals with a great amount of suppressed anger (which he lets out largely through fighting) as well as emotional torment, that he doesn't like to let on to others.
Jace's greatest fear has long been letting himself love someone, which has been made even worse recently by the fact that when he finally allowed himself to let someone in for the first time in years, the feelings he developed were romantic ones for a girl who turned out to be his sister. As if that run-on sentence of uncomfortableness weren't enough, he also was conditioned by his father in his youth to believe that loving something was the same as hurting it, and finding out that he's the child of arguably the evilest guy in Shadowhunter history, he's become terrified of what he's capable of if he lets himself care for anyone. As a result, he often shuts down, and draws away from others, allowing them to only see his apathetic, or embittered facade.
Jace's second greatest fear - of turning into his father - is not without basis. Raised with no real society beside his father's harsh tutelage, and interaction with servants, Jace has adopted many aspects of his father's personality simply because it was all he knew in his childhood. As a result, he can be incredibly proud, arrogant, and vain, as well as innately prejudiced against non-Shadowhunters (mundanes and Downworlders). He can occasionally have very selfish instincts, and be incredibly jealous, though his jealousy is not a mark of ambition, unlike his father. Given that Jace never really got to be a child, he is occasionally resentful of those who did.
On the flip side, Jace has gained many positive characteristics from the influence of his adoptive family, the Lightwoods. He is capable of fierce loyalty and courage, and can at times be incredibly sentimental (though he won't admit this), and even possesses some exceptionally romantic ideals. He can be very responsible, where anything but his own life is concerned, and even though he talks so much about not getting close to other people, he evidently cares intensely for his adopted family, and would do almost anything to protect them.
Outwardly, Jace is fairly outgoing, though what he allows people to see is often far from the real 'him'. He is capable of manipulating people effortlessly, and often uses the charm he knows he has to flirt with women, and feed his already large ego. When he's not feeling social, he can either come off as markedly stoic, sullen, or dangerous, depending on what's thrown him off.
Above all of these things, and despite what he thinks about himself sometimes, Jace is a good person, and a moral one, and he fights like hell against himself, more fiercely than against any of the demons he's encountered.
[Abilities] As a Shadowhunter, Jace has access to runic magic that enhances speed, strength, dexterity, and more, accessible by drawing appropriate runes on his skin with a magical artifact called a 'stele'. These can also be used to heal injuries, improve eyesight, open doors, etc. etc. Trained since he was a child to use a variety of weapons, Jace is completely at home in battle, though he tends to prefer melee to ranged weaponry. He's killed more demons than any other Shadowhunter his age - which is probably in no small part due to the angel blood that runs in his veins due to experiments done to him by his "father", Valentine. By the point in canon from which I'm taking him, Jace has begun to realize that his abilities far exceed those of a regular Shadowhunter - he can jump many feet straight in the air, fall off multi story buildings and land like a cat, as well as other Matrix-y type moves. He's still getting the hang of this, and testing his limits, however.
As for non-fighting skills, Jace plays the piano quite well. He can be incredibly charming when he wants to be, and good at manipulating people. His father tutored him extensively on culture, ancient languages, demonology, arcane lore, and more.
[Other important stuff] When marked up with runes, Jace is covered in black tattoo like designs. These runes leave really light scars, which can be seen by anyone who has the ability to see beyond the 'normal' realm.
Uh, given that he's in love with his sister, just a warning that his dreams will probably contain incestuous overtones. You can console yourself with the fact that she's not actually his sister...? He just doesn't know that.
Also, Alec and Jace are parabatai, which means that they're basically battle brothers, who have trained together, and always have each other's backs. Their bond goes beyond normal brothers, into best friend territory, but given that it's Jace... that doesn't mean the relationship isn't still unnecessarily difficult sometimes.
[Sample post] Timeline: After the last Jace scene in City of Ashes, when Jace tells Clary that he's basically going to stop fighting her on the issue of their feelings for each other, and resign himself to being her brother.
Jace Wayland (and yes, that was how he was going to think of himself - had to think of himself), knew all about fighting. It was, in fact, what he considered his forte.
What Jace knew little to nothing about, on the other hand, was how not to fight.
He reflected on this as he watched Clary walk away from Taki's, watched the stiff way her shoulders hunched, remembered the way her arms had clung to him too hard, too quickly, lingered too long, when she'd hugged him good-bye. He didn't budge from the spot, staring after her with gold eyes that seemed to passerbys to be entirely impassive, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his black coat.
Jace knew that this was the right thing to do. The selfless thing. The only fair thing for Clary, and for everyone else they cared about.
But it felt so much to him like giving up that every warrior instinct inside of him was screaming behind his blank facade, as he finally turned, and headed up the street in the opposite direction.
People stepped aside nervously to avoid him as he drove a line straight down the sidewalk, face set in hard lines and angles that unnerved even the unobservant mundanes who weren't sure why they were afraid of him, but recognized instinctually that they should be. And it wasn't as if the mundanes usually ignored him anyways - he had the face of an angel, he reflected, and the thought brought a bitter taste to his mouth. The son of Lucifer himself, he thought wryly. But I won't be like him. Not if he had to tear that attractive, angelic appearance off his face with a seraph blade: to repulse Clary away, to separate himself from that man who was and was not a father to him.
His lip twisted as he realized he was back to thinking of ways to actively combat himself again. It was all he knew, it seemed: war.
Well, he reasoned, there was still one war that he could fight, and must.
The next time he met Valentine would be the last.
[Which rule was your favorite and why?] Minimal drama. I'm incredibly anti-wank, so it's nice to see the mods encouraging people to stay awaayy from it, and resolve things like mature grown-up-types.
[Where did you hear about Somarium?] bottleblueyes at App This Plz
[Any questions?] Nope, looks like it was all covered.