The Student AU is an informally defined alternate universe where many characters from the world of Offetstine are reimagined as students, often with completely different backgrounds to their canon selves.
Setting
The Student AU is set within and around Cedar Crest University, in an indeterminate mid-late 2000s timeframe. With very few exceptions, each character has had their occupation replaced with studying a relevant course. Many characters have also been relocated to nearby student accommodation, with others usually somewhere else within Winthorpe. The nearest student accommodation, Randolph Hall, is located just across the road from Cedar Crest and is where most characters reside. Others live in the Swallow Block, closer to Winthorpe town centre but still close to campus.
Character Changes
Clover Lamont
Lamont is no longer a vampire or associated with firearms, instead studying mechanical engineering while taking part in inter-school MMA events (a sport which, in this universe, got as out-of-hand as football did with American schools). She is frequently seen wearing workout clothes under a zip-up hoodie, and at least one visible injury, often bandages on the eyes or face.
Compared to canon Offetstine, Lamont has far less pre-existing funds and instead makes most of her money through fights or assisting other students with ideas for things like bake sales (for which she is usually given a decent cut). This often comes in the form of curated tea blends, a hobby of hers that she rarely has the chance to discuss with others.
Similarly to Modeste Daniau, Lamont has a connection to supernatural-linked organised crime (though, unlike Daniau, Lamont is unaware of hers). Her biological parents, Abner and Julia Charron, were members of an ill-advised but well-funded lycanthropy cult known as Golden Night. Both coming from a medical background, Abner and Julia's main focus was originally in relieving the physical and mental pain that was especially present in the one strain of lycanthropy discovered by the cult. Upon having Clover the two chose to raise her as a soldier, using a specially-tuned version of a memory altering drug refined from plants in the area to remove the memory of being trained while retaining the muscle memory, technique, and instincts gained. The drug was administered every night between Wednesdays and Saturdays (and any other dates unplanned training occurred), with Lamont often waking up with only half an idea of who she is.
When Clover was 10, the local branch of Golden Night was raided by police. Her parents escaped into nearby forest with her, before deciding to go back for their research. To avoid letting Clover be questioned, they chose to clear her memory entirely with the drug. She was eventually found the next morning by one of the policemen involved in the raid, Peter Lamont, who took her in for questioning. Peter and his wife Marie Lamont would eventually adopt her, naming her Clover as she no longer had memory of her birth name. Throughout the rest of school Clover would get into a number of fights, usually as a result of being bullied. At first she often went too far, leaving others with injuries and finding it physically difficult to hold herself back. Eventually, around the age of 13, she would discover professional wrestling on television and quickly become addicted, as well as discovering how to restrain herself through showmanship whenever there was an audience of any kind.
At 19 Lamont would enroll at Cedar Crest to study mechanical engineering, where she would be quickly pleasantly surprised at the presence of the aforementioned MMA sporting events. As a result of often participating and always doing well, many other students at least know of her (though are most likely vaguely intimidated by the idea of her). basically shes kbity
Serena Markov
Serena in the Student AU is notably alive and exists independently of Modeste. She lives with Clover and studies computer science (from which she often has to be reminded to take breaks). Serena's appearance is close to that of Modeste's, but with glasses, neater and/or shorter hair, and blue eyes.
Modeste Daniau
As in her respective canon, Modeste Daniau is the assumed vampiric identity of Serena Markov following a bout of amnesia, she is represented in the Student AU as two individuals rather than one. In the AU, Markov and Daniau are twins who take their surnames from their parents, as neither of them wished to assume the surname of the other, as is otherwise common in marriage in the English-speaking world.
In the Offetstine canon, Daniau has criminal ties with the Coalition due to being groomed by the organization official Athena as an assassin. However, in the Student AU, Daniau and Markov owe their wealth to their mother, Stirling Markov. Due to her name, she was often mistaken for a man during her life, and quickly became a formidable force in the Winthorpe criminal underworld, before voluntarily turning herself into a vampire after learning about demi-humanity. She was allied with the Ringleaders since her transformation and has amassed a significant amount of wealth, generally suspended in stocks and non-liquid assets, before bequeathing it to her husband and children following her death in a motorcycle stunt crash. The father of the Daniau-Markov family is Clément Daniau, who in Offetstine canon is Modeste's father.
Much like her canon self before her death, Markov is studying computer science, specializing in scientific computing, as her introduction to the field of computer science was through the video game market of the 1990s. Despite being human, she has a brash and outspoken personality, and as such is frequently mistaken for her younger twin, the more soft-spoken Daniau. She is not shy about her parent's criminal ties and figures that while it may endanger her as a survivor, she has no reservations about living life to the fullest especially with her inherited assets. Despite this, she is reputed as a loyal and dependable friend.
In contrast to this, Daniau is reimagined as having been turned into a vampire by Stirling. Her cautious and soft-spoken nature are more prominent in the Student AU than in canon, and she attempts to live as human a life as she can, though she is not unwilling to use her powers to defend her friends and family, including Markov. Daniau is studying the culinary arts and aspires to be a chef. She openly denounces her mother's criminal ties and ill-begotten wealth, and is ashamed of her vampirism, though it has led her and Markov closer to the magical scene in Cedar Crest. Daniau shares a small apartment near campus with Constance Vivas.
Constance Vivas
Vivas is mostly similar to canon Offetstine, but with more of a general interest in magic itself rather than demi-humans or other magical beings. At the age of 14 she was given a silver ring with a small blue (sometimes appearing as a different ) gemstone embedded in it. This ring would allow her to sense magical 'Energy', though at the time she assumed it was just a high-quality mood ring. Three years later she would be told about the magical properties of the ring. She struggled to believe this at first, until making the connection with certain unexplained phenomena tied to certain locations that she had only noticed after acquiring the ring. From then on, she spent most of her free time studying the ring and noting down any magical locations in her home town of Offetstine, resulting in her not keeping many friends before moving to Winthorpe.
In Winthorpe Vivas began to study illustration at Cedar Crest. With this becoming her main focus, she invested a lot less time in mapping "Mana Veins" (as she had started calling the lines magical energy tended to follow) and eventually found part-time work as a barista. A few months into the course, her ring would be noticed by a mage studying alongside her. Vivas would eventually be invited to learn some simple magic from this mage, which reignited her interest in magical study (though she is a lot better at balancing her life than she used to be). This has led to her assembling a small collection of assorted magical objects, including multiple temperature-activated cat mugs.
Midori Nishikawa
Midori is working towards a PhD in aeronautics (a much higher level of education than most characters). She is also farsighted and uses reading glasses.