ithiliensmenagerie

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Part 2:

So, Arthur is fighting his neighbours and his council, re-introducing magic and raising his daughter with Merlin's support. Merlin's magic is mostly still kept secret. When Arthur rides to war, sometimes Merlin shows up to help, but usually has to return to take care of Ygraine.

When Ygraine is three, Arthur returns home to find Merlin with her and a one-year-old called Melisandre. Turns out, the last time Merlin returned from the front, he passed by a village and found a woman mistreating a small child. He quickly found out that the woman was not the child's mother, but had taken her in (reluctantly) after her mother had killed herself very recently. The father is most likely a passing saxon; Melisandre is a child of rape. When it became very clear that the woman is not interested in raising the child, Merlin decided to adopt her.

He brought her home and introduced her to Ygraine, and the two immediately became fast friends and started sharing a bed - for a year now, Ygraine has her own bed. Merlin still has to share Arthur's. Just in case something happens.

So Arthur comes home, sees Merlin with their daughter and a cute baby, and gets heart-eyes. He immediately drags Merlin and the girls into council and announces there that he intends to marry Merlin. He already gave him two heirs, so he fulfilled that part, and Merlin can do every other part of being Queen without issues; he's already doing several.

The council is not given opportunity to object, neither is Merlin, who had neither been warned nor asked. It's not that he objects, rather that he thinks Arthur is joking.

He basically believes that until their wedding half a year later, at which point their relationship had already taken a turn for the much more physical.

Arthur tries to make Merlin court sorcerer, but he objects, wanting to reserve that role for Morgana, who they are trying to reach out to.

They actually do manage to find Morgana in the next years, together with Aithusa, who becomes Ygraine's and Melisandre's favourite pet.

That last addition to the family comes seven years later, when Arthur and Merlin find out that Melisandre and Ygraine have been keeping a secret: they found a five-year-old orphan girl and tried to hide her in their chambers. The girl is seeemlessly adopted when it turns out the only people who would want her are abusive.

Her name is Sophia. Merlin teases Arthur endlessly that Arthur named his youngest daughter after the Sidhe he "fell in love with" and who tried to drown him, and no amount of reminding him that Dophia came already with a name helps.

I'm currently on Merlin season 2, impatiently waiting for Gwaine, Elyan and Percival to show up and Lancelot to return, and in the mean time thinking about my (fanfiction-informed) dream ending:

Uther dies. Shortly afterwards, during one of his trips through the forest, Arthur and his knights find some bandits attacking a young couple. They manage to kill the bandits, but the couple is already dead. They do find a very young baby hidden in the bushes though. Arthur takes the baby and sends Sir Leon to find the baby's next of kin.

In the meantime he declares himself responsible for the baby's survival. He finds a wetnurse, makes Merlin responsible for changing the diapers and taking care of her when she screams, and in the meantime carries her with him absolutely everywhere. She even sleeps in his bed, and to make sure someone else is there in case something happens during the night, Merlin has to sleep in their bed, too. It's fine, it's big enough.

A week later, Sir Leon returns. He found the village the couple came from, but nobody wants the baby. Turns out, the couple was driven out after being accused of magic and now noone wants anything to do with it.

Arthur is remarkably fine with that and immediately declares that he's adopting the baby, naming her Ygraine and making her his heir. The council is shook, what if it's a witch? Arthur is confused, magic is a choice, after all. You can't be born with magic, then it would be something natural. If people did magic not hurting anyone without choosing it, then it can't be inherently evil, can it?

The council admits that people can be born with it, but magic is power, and power corrupts, so killing everyone with magic, even if they aren't evil yet, will in the long term defeat evil. So it's for the greater good. Arthur absolutely disagrees. He immediately declares that in that case he is legalising magic, tasks everyone with developing suggestions for how to police it until the next day, and sweeps out, baby Ygraine in his arms.

In his rooms he finds Merlin and asks him without any introduction "Did you know people could be born with magic?". To which Merlin blurts out: "I did magic since I was two months old!"

The resulting argument is thankfully interrupted by Ygraine starting to scream before Arthur can find his voice again.

In the coming years, Arthur has to juggle raising a child with his magic manservant who kept his magic secret for so long, legalising magic, withstanding the council members who really don't want him to legalise magic, and, to top it of, the neighbouring countries have decided that there's no better time to attack Camelot than now, with a new, inexperienced king and all the chaos brought by reintroducing magic.

Luckily, he now knows about Merlin's magic and they can work together.

Also, of course Merlin has to keep sleeping in his bed.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Gwen becomes a knight

So this veers quite away from canon, but I saw this picture once of Gwen as a knight and absolutely fell in love with the idea.

Let's say, after Arthur opened up knighthood to commoners, there's way too many applicants. Arthur does need more knights, but there's too many, many of them not very good anyway.

So he accepts the suggestion to set up a sort of trials/tournament for absolutely everyone who is interested in becoming a knight and the best ten or so will get a chance at becoming knights.

Then one day Morgana and Gwen are approached by a woman who always wanted to become a knight and wants to know if that means she can also try.

Arthur clearly meant "all men" but he didn't say so specifically, so Morgana decides to train her and some of her friends in secret. Gwen also joins in, to show support. When the girls show up at the trial, they are made fun of, but technically Arthur did say "everyone", so they are allowed to compete. Morgana doesn't join - she has enough to do, or is maybe court sorceress, depending on where and how off-canon we are - but Gwen joins, just for fun, and she turns out to be quite good.

And in the end, among the ten winners are, despite them being singled out, two women, among them Gwen. So Arthur keeps his word and the two are allowed to train with the knights and get a chance to become knights.

Elyan finds the whole thing hilarious.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Okay, let's see how it could work, from James' perspective, a quick day-by-day:

Day 0: James wakes at sun rise. Everything happens as in canon, except while they start planning on getting Elizabeth back, directly before sun rise, James is suddenly in his bed again

Day 1: James wakes up at Sunrise. As noone says anything, he assumes it was all a bad dream. Everything happens as the day before, but when proposing to Elizabeth, he steers clear from the wall and has an eye on her. When he sees that she looks ill, he asks if she is okay. As a result, she faints in his arms. He still doesn't get an answer, but at least the woman he loves didn't fall into the sea. The rest of the day is peaceful, there is no attack. James goes to bed almost having forgotten the "nightmare" from the first day.

Day 2: James wakes up at Sunrise, going for the day as if everything is normal and is very confused when people bring up the ceremony for the promotion. He's steered their bemusedly against his intent, goes through with it a bit absent-mindedly and is in such a daze he doesn't propose to Elizabeth afterwards. She doesn't go to the wall alone, but faints in front of him. He doesn't catch her in time and she hurts her head. The rest of the day us worrying about Elizabeth, being confused and meeting with his subordinates about things he could have sworn they discussed already

Day 3: James wakes, hopes for a moment everything was a dream, but can predict his staff. He skips breakfast, goes to the church and prays for guidance. He's collected for the ceremony and draws it out by repeatedly not doing anything until someone prompts hum, leading to worried questions about his health. After the ceremony he considers proposing to Elizabeth again when he's interrupted by a marine informing him that a pirate sailed into port on a mask and stole a ship of middeling size. By the time they arrive at port, the ship is over the horizon. James still orders to prepare the Inceptor to follow it, even though most people don't think it worth it. They leave a few hours later, but find no trace of the stolen boat until Sunrise

Day 4: James is prepared and delays the ceremony to capture the arriving Jack Sparrow. He declares to the bemused pirate that he will be hanged the next day, ignoring the pirates comments that the next day won't come, then locks him up and goes to the ceremony, during which Elizabeth faints. He manages to catch her, delays the ceremony again to get her taken care of, and finally is made Commodore. The rest of the day he spends very efficiently planning, using his previous experience

Day 5: a bit desperate, upon waking up again, he repeats the previous days, ignoring Jack's constant pleas for a parlay, and his obvious attempts to explain that they're both caught in the time loop

Day 6: this time, he orders Jack hanged immediately, even before the ceremony. It doesn't help

Day 7: he shoots Jack on sight. The rest of the day is chaos

Day 8-20: Jack does not show up again, or at least not to James' information; after a few days he stops asking. He concentrates instead on his proposal, starting of by sending a message to the Governor that he's worried about tight-lacing. After two attempts he manages a message that has (bemused) success, and the proposal goes through without Elizabeth fainting. She still doesn't say yes but asks for time to think about it (as if she hadn't known he would propose). He spends several days desperately changing up his proposak, without success, before he gives up and instead tries to ask her about what she wants. What she wants, he finds out, though not directly, is Will Turner. The next day he doesn't get out of bed.

Day 21: after being declared sick and left alone in bed, he's surprised by Jack climbing through his window. An argument ensues, but Jack escapes before he can arrest or kill him. His doctor is very worried about his hallucinations

Day 22-30: he tries to go through with the day again, but starts collecting additional information by doing things slightly differently every time, and talking long with different people. His communications with Elizabeth are short and stiff. The second he's alone, he's always ambushed by Jack and they get in a very unproductive argument, where Jack just wants them to team up

Day 31: James gives up and gets drunk with Jack. He doesn't remember the rest of the day

Day 32-60: Jack stops ambushing him, but starts increasingly daring stunts, among them stealing every single ship in the port separately, and gaslighting marines into helping them. Whenever James shows up, they have increasingly flirtatious shouting matches (on James side. Jack's flirting was top notch from day one), which James does start to enjoy, as he is getting very bored (and depressed) by everyone else always being the same and even starting to get over Elizabeth. Their banters start becoming a bit staged, as both are aware that there's no real consequences (though dying hurts, as Jack complains. James does not try to kill him again)

Day 61: during their usual confrontation, James kisses Jack, shocking everone around him and himself. Jack grabs his hand and they flee together into a house whose owners are not there for the day, as Jack ensured in the past. They have sex. Then they agree that the best way to figure out what is going on is to repeat the first day exactly, Jack promises to rescue Elizabeth again. They have sex again

Day 62: James tries to go through with the day as in the original, but panicks when Elizabeth falls over the wall, follows her, falls, too, but unfortunately does not miss the rocks, breaks his neck and dies

Day 63: James manages to repeat day one, but Jack breaks character by demanding to speak with James before he takes his hand. He takes him into his office, where Jack kisses him. He's extremely shook by pulling James' corps out of the ocean the previous iteration. Also, the black pearl arrived the previous day, and Jack, claiming to be a relative of James and not being arrested, managed to sneak on board and find out that the pirates were very interested in the coin of Elizabeth, and Elizabeth herself when she claimed herself Turner. They also are definitely cursed (that, they knew already) and it stands to reason the two curses are connected. They try to get further protection around the governor's house, knowing that the pirates will come for the coin& Elizabeth, but everyone is cut down and the black pearl sails of with Elizabeth and without them. They plan a meeting & planning session the next day, and calculate where they can meet before midday

Day 64: James gets up early, takes a boat and sails off with basically no explanation, to an island Jack can reach with his leaking boat before it's just a sail. They start planning, but decide they need a) the coin and b) the map for further plans. In the mean time Jack suggests a steamy vacation, it's not as if there's consequences

Day 65-70 James tries to find the coin in sleeping Elizabeth's bedroom without waking her (feeling very conflicted about it), but has very little time. He is caught twice and decides both times to run away instead of dealing with the consequences. The other days he goes through the motions, researches the isle de muerta and everything connected, and meets up with Jack in the afternoon

Day 71: James manages to steal the coin, and gets away with a boat to meet Jack. The dip the coin in the ocean and then have another vacation on their island. When the black pearl arrives there, they tell Barbossa that James is James Turner and promise to come in peace (threatening to throw the coin in the ocean) unless they get to know the whole story, at which point they realise they need Will Turner's blood, and also the location of the isla de muerta, which they will each long after sunrise the next day, so they fail

Day 72-80 they try to find a spot to be picked up faster by the black pearl, but still are never able to reach the black pearl, so back to the drawing board: they try to triangulate the location of the island, together with Jack's knowledge, and sail to find it themselves, hut the time is not enough

Day 81-100: James starts stealing the Interceptor to go looking for the Isla de Muerta, together with the marines on watch, who are roped into it. They get closer.

Day 101: James steals the coin again, hoping it will help him get to the Isla. He isn't careful enough and wakes Elizabeth, who is immediately on board with the whole adventure, especially if they get Will, and manages to get Will on board in record time. They steal the Interceptor with the three of them, kidnapping the two marines

Day 102-105: James perfects dealing with Elizabeth in the morning

Day 106: James immediately goes to wake Elizabeth in the morning, saying exactly enough to get her quickly on board, they collect Will, kidnap the Interceptor with guarding marines and sail towards the usla de muerta, picking up Jack in his sailboat on the way. They reach it about half an hour before sunrise, find the treasure, and drop the coin with Will's blood in just seconds before sunrise. It works, time passes and they go outside to celebrate in joy as they see their first new sunrise in quite a while. They kiss. Then they have to figure out how to deal with the aftermath, which includes the probably now uncursed but still not in Jack's possession bkack pearl, James kidnapping the Governor's daughter (and some random people) for several days instead of going to his ceremony, and a lot of feelings. But I'm sure they'll figure it out...

The Pirates of the Caribbean timeloop AU

I've recently been getting into PotC, more specifically into Sparrington content. Unfortunately there's not that much out there...but some nice pearls! One thing I've not found yet is one of my favourite tropes though: timeloop/groundhog day AUs!

They are really ideal for any kind of story because they give you all the time in the world for character development and trying things out without any consequences except the mental ones on the main characters.

Obviously, I want Jack Sparrow and James Norrington be stuck in it. There's already a curse, let's use it: the time loop lasts from sunrise of the day James is made commodore and Jack arrives in Port Royal until sunrise the next day, and the only way to break out is to break the curse on the Black Pearl.

At this time I believe neither Jack nor James have been to the Isla de la Muerta, and while both have by now seen the Undead pirates, they now next to nothing about the curse. Also, as James won't let Elizabeth fall again so fast, the Black Pearl won't arrive in Port Royal again, and noone will suspect the coin that Elizabeth wears hidden to have been of any importance.

I'm pretty sure James will try (and once or twice succeed) to hang Jack. It will put quite a strain on their relationship, and not make it easier when they realise they are stuck in there together.

At one point they will both be emotionally depleted. At one point they will give up and let things happen like in the first loop and then start making connections together.

I imagine when they realise the black pearl wants a Turner and the coin, James steals the coin and claims to Barbossa that he is Will Turner Junior so that he can find out more about the curse. I imagine at one point James is not careful enough stealing the coin from Elizabeth, wakes her and is very surprised how much she is on board with stealing his own ship to break a curse, especially if Will Turner is involved! She probably doesn't even want an explanation.

And of course there have to be the obligatory few days of holidays where James just steals a ship in the morning, meets Jack somewhere on an Island and they have lots of sex after they've finally gotten around to each other.

But there's so much potential around that!

[ithiliensmenagerie]

I'm currently on Merlin season 2, impatiently waiting for Gwaine, Elyan and Percival to show up and Lancelot to return, and in the mean time thinking about my (fanfiction-informed) dream ending:

Uther dies. Shortly afterwards, during one of his trips through the forest, Arthur and his knights find some bandits attacking a young couple. They manage to kill the bandits, but the couple is already dead. They do find a very young baby hidden in the bushes though. Arthur takes the baby and sends Sir Leon to find the baby's next of kin.

In the meantime he declares himself responsible for the baby's survival. He finds a wetnurse, makes Merlin responsible for changing the diapers and taking care of her when she screams, and in the meantime carries her with him absolutely everywhere. She even sleeps in his bed, and to make sure someone else is there in case something happens during the night, Merlin has to sleep in their bed, too. It's fine, it's big enough.

A week later, Sir Leon returns. He found the village the couple came from, but nobody wants the baby. Turns out, the couple was driven out after being accused of magic and now noone wants anything to do with it.

Arthur is remarkably fine with that and immediately declares that he's adopting the baby, naming her Ygraine and making her his heir. The council is shook, what if it's a witch? Arthur is confused, magic is a choice, after all. You can't be born with magic, then it would be something natural. If people did magic not hurting anyone without choosing it, then it can't be inherently evil, can it?

The council admits that people can be born with it, but magic is power, and power corrupts, so killing everyone with magic, even if they aren't evil yet, will in the long term defeat evil. So it's for the greater good. Arthur absolutely disagrees. He immediately declares that in that case he is legalising magic, tasks everyone with developing suggestions for how to police it until the next day, and sweeps out, baby Ygraine in his arms.

In his rooms he finds Merlin and asks him without any introduction "Did you know people could be born with magic?". To which Merlin blurts out: "I did magic since I was two months old!"

The resulting argument is thankfully interrupted by Ygraine starting to scream before Arthur can find his voice again.

In the coming years, Arthur has to juggle raising a child with his magic manservant who kept his magic secret for so long, legalising magic, withstanding the council members who really don't want him to legalise magic, and, to top it of, the neighbouring countries have decided that there's no better time to attack Camelot than now, with a new, inexperienced king and all the chaos brought by reintroducing magic.

Luckily, he now knows about Merlin's magic and they can work together.

Also, of course Merlin has to keep sleeping in his bed.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

If Luthien gets reborn

Tolkien made it pretty clear in his works that everything is somewhere second hand, and not necessarily unbiased accounts. Adding that the only people who actually know what happened between Luthien and Námo are Luthien and Námo, and none had a really big social circle, there is nothing to confirm that things actually happened as we were told.

So what it the deal was actually that Luthien could go back until Beren's death, but she could not give up her immortal fate. What if Beren made her promise to give life another chance after him, to get reborn, live again and maybe even fall in love again?

So sometime in the third or fourth age Luthien feels ready and is reborn in a world were she is the mythical figure, where absolutely everyone believes she will not come back, where she is the subject if thousands of songs and very few people actually know her.

(I have to mention that this will fuck with Elrond and Celebrian very specifically, and they deserve better. Poor guys.)

Luthien meeting her father again, who almost got her fiancé killed in trying to keep her, who died over a necklace. Her mother. Finrod who died for her ans needn't have. Potentially the Fëanorians, Celegorm. Elrond. People who knew Arwen. People who believed her a fairytale.

And I'm not sure how equipped she is to deal with any of it.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Avatar!Zuko, and he thinks everyone knows

I've posted a while ago a post about Zuko being the Avatar unknowingly because of a misunderstanding, but I think it could also be funny if Zuko actually knew he was the Avatar from a very young age - say, he bends water at age four, but his mother impresses on him to never do that in front of anyone else because his father wants himto be a firebender first and formost - and he assumes his mother has spread the word, while she actually keeps it secret. So his whole life in the palace he assumes everyone knows he is the Avatar and talks about him behind his bag.

Then the Agni Kai happens and he us banished until he finds the Avatar. He's confused and hurt; he assumes his father wants to send him a message, though he isn't quite sure what. Maybe he's supposed to first become a fully actualised Avatar? Or his father just wants him to die?

And then there's the voices of the previous Avatars in his had, constantly arguing with him.

And it still takes him quite a while to realise that noone was aware he's the Avatar. Now he has to decide what to do about that...

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Bagginsshield: Bilbo the dwarf Gardener

This is a pretty old idea of mine and I don't really think about it anymore, but I used to dream about a plot bunny where Thorin, Kili and Fili survive, but Bilbo misunderstands things and thinks he's not welcome at Erebor. Not feeling at home in the Shire anymore and missing his friends, he dresses up as a dwarf (with shoes, ugh! They are worse than the fake beard) and jouns a caravan from the blue mountains. He's in luck and gets a job as a gardener at Erebor, because the dwarves care very little about gardening, but they want to control the growth on the mountain a little and having a bit of their own grown food is a good idea. That works pretty well - though Bilbo is miserable and the dwarves miss him too - until Thorin, while inspecting the outside of the mountain, meets him, recognises him immediately and just kisses him.

For extra drama, Gandalf could come back at some point in between and report that Bilbo has been declared dead in the Shire and hasn't been seen in a while.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

If Arthur has healing magic

I have actually seen that in a fanfic somewhere. I'd still like to explore the concept more. I like the parallels: Merlin who is supposed to be a healer's apprentice but can do all magic except for healing, and Arthur, who's supposed to lead the country without magic but can heal using magic. And then there's the Lord of the Rings idea of The Hands Of The King Are The Hands Of A Healer.

I'd like Merlin to start teaching Arthur - as soon as he figures out that Arthur has an affinity for healing, he gets him Gaius books, claiming he wants to study them, but it's actually Arthur who needs to get a better understanding of anatomy to get better at directing his healing.

And of course Morgana gets in on it, so Merlin now has to teach both Arthur and Morgana, in addition to his usual and unusual jobs, and protect Camelot. But at least he has someone to trust and support him.

And of course the whole mess can just get better if Morgana, Arthur and Merlin team up.

And I like the idea that Arthur legalises magic, but noone fully trusts him, until he goes and heals someone using magic himself.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Could Indis remarry?

The answer is probably no. The answer is probably moot, because she wouldn't want to. Even if she wanted to, the stigma, her family, the whole history would stop her. And even if not, the Valar probably would.

But just imagine it. The consequences, the gossip, the reactions.

To be clear, I don't want her marrying Miriel. While I like that threesome solution and have nothing against consensual and equal polyamory, it always sounds like a cheat solution here. People do fall in love with two people, and it mostly ends messy; rarely is the solution "let all three fuck each other" actually working. And it's Tolkien's elves, but I still feel like that's too easy.

So let's say Indis marries someone else.

I have half a story planned out here (not with intentions to write it, at the moment, though). In my head, there's a Sindarin, sunlight-born elleth who was born in the early second age and died in the third. She has no real concept of the trials and tribulations of the first age and the times before, she grew up very liberal and while she does worship the stars to a degree, she doesn't really believe in following rules because the Valar say so. The Valar are very distant entities for her anyway.

I've called her Elariel, and I have not checked if that name already exists somewhere or means something; it's a nice sounding place-holder for the moment.

So, Elariel is reborn in the third age, and meets up with some friends who sailed or were reborn around the same time, and they explore Valinor. They come to Valimar and per chance meet Indis, who gives them a guided tour. Especially Indis and Elariel hit it off, and the Sindar invite her to see their community. Indis agrees.

In the next years, they meet again and again, until Elariel and Indis spend almost all their time together. They get along great. Indis likes that Elariel doesn't judge her past, that she gets along great with Findis and Finarfin (and potentially further children that are reborn), that she does not seem hemmed in by society and expectations, living by her own moral code not to harm anyone else, but to live the life you choose. Elariel likes Indis beauty, her intelligence, her willingness to see things through and accept the consequences, her stubborness and decisiveness, her vast knowledge.

Nothing else happens, until one day they are visiting Findis, who is leading a hermit-life in the mountains (I don't remember if it's Fanon or Canon, it's definitely my head canon), who suggests they get married.

Indis is shocked, she did not even think of that. Elariel takes it in stride, while she would like a more physical side of things, by her people's standards they are basically married, and she is also happy with the status quo. There is not much discussion, Indis leaves very confused.

While she is still contemplating the idea, never mind the implications, Findis tells Finarfin that Indis is remarrying (because Findis is of the house of Finwë, and being a hermit does not mean she never meddles.) Finarfin would have preferred to have heard it from Indis herself, but he really likes Elariel, they get along great and she very obviously makes his mother happy. He gives a dumbfounded Indis his blessing.

So it goes. The house of Finwë is still not great at communication, so it takes quite a while to find out that Indis and Elariel never actually agreed to get married, but absolutely everyone likes Elariel and agrees that this is a great idea, actually. Even Miriel thinks that might work out.

(And Finwë, if and when he gets asked, does not really have a leg to stand on, especially as Indis and Elariel are not going to have any more children)

Now how the Valar react, is a different question. And if it actually gets through, whether Finwë gets reborn, too. And then I think we'll have quite a situation when it turns out Finwë and Miriel can't just get back together. And who's supposed to be high king, anyway?

Now while I thought about this concept a lot, any plans to actually write it currently lack someone to discuss this with, because my life is sadly devoid of people liking both the Silmarillion and Fanfiction, so if anyone would like to discuss the concept or has ideas to add, feel free to comment or contact me! The biggest problem of my world building right now is deciding who gets reborn, and when, but the moral and political implications will make it interesting...

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Jaskier becoming a witcher AU

There's been a few variations of this, probably every one of them better than the one in my head that probably plays very loose with canon I haven't actually seen or read yet, but I've had this idea were post-season 1 some mages got together, got some idea of how the trial of grasses worked, and got the ingredients as well as a lot of money. So they used the war is cover and payed some henchmen to aduct refugees from the road, where they experimented on them.

Huge numbers of people died, but noone really took notice as it's war. Then they actually hit jackpot and someone's kid survived and became a proto-witcher. They kept going with that recipe, and a lot of people still died, but some turned. So there's several hundred dead, and maybe a dozen survivors, nine of them children, three adults, one of which is Jaskier. He manages to get his knowledge of witchers and his charm together and convinces their small group to start a revolution. You might control impressionable children with super powers even while torturing them, it's a bit more difficult with adults.

They manage to kill most of the mages and henchmen, steal what they can, especially all thevresearch, burn down the place and run away.

And now they are on the road with nine children, all twelve of the hurting, and Jaskier tge only one with any actual witcher knowledge. He leads them in the general direction of Kaer Morhen and in the meantime keeps an eye out for any witcher on the road who might help them...

In one version they also kidnap Calanthe shortly before she can kill herself and use her blood for the potion. She's freed together with the prisoners waiting for exoerimentation, and travels with them.

I have no idea how it would turn out (definitely not happy for anyone involved). But the idea has been stuck in my head for months, so now I'm sharing it here.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Very loose Merlin plot bunny: Arthur starts praying to Merlin, as he's a god.

Either he knows that Merlin hears him and uses prayers to long-distance one-way communicate (especially when Merlin is "at the tavern" again) or someone put the idea of Emrys potentially being benevolent into his head and he starts praying to him like a diary, unknowing that Merlin hears every. single. word. Including his forbidden feelings for that manservant of his...

[ithiliensmenagerie]

A very depressing Witcher AU

I had a bit of a depressing phase when I came up with it, and read a lot of fanfiction where at the end of season 2 Jaskier's torture wounds got infected, and the vision I had were exactly that, except Geralt does not find out. He avoids Jaskier (because he feels guilty) and when Jaskier fails to contact him, misses breakfast and is not there when Yennefer, he and Ciri leave, he assumes Jaskier has mot forgiven him yet, decides to give him space and the three leave without him. The truth, however, is that Jaskier's wounds got infected, he got a high fever over night and is basically delirious. The other wolves only find him when Geralt and his companions are already quite a way out abd don't see a reason to go after him when he left the bard in this state.

There is a version where they manage to save him, or save him but he looses the hand, but the most tragic version is the wolves finding him too late - he was Geralt's guest, nobody looked after him - and he dies and is buried at Kaer Morhen. Geralt only finds out a year later when he comes back for the next winter.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

It's not even a real plot bunny, just an idea that I like a lot: James being with the crew at world's end when they go to rescue Jack. I don't know how he got there, and if Beckett still has the heart, but I like the idea of, when Jack goes around pointing at people and telling them he doesn't like them, him pointing at James, going "You tried to kill me thrice! And betrayed me!", and then just kissing him and amending "but you're pretty, so you can stay".

He keeps kissing James in the next days, and James keeps kissing him, and noone gets any explanation for what happened. I have the vague idea that they had an affair before and both finally decided they're not going back to the status quo anyway, so they can finally commit, but that's just one option.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Avatar!Zuko, but he thinks everyone can bend all elements, he's not special

I had a short phase were I really liked to read Avatar!Zuko stories and got the following idea stuck in my head: Zuko is born as the Avatar (Aang is still around, but he's just an airbender who was told he's the avatar and got atuck in the spirit realm for one hundred years). Zuko manages to bend water, air and fire before the age of ten, but because of a row of misunderstandings he believes that a) every bender can bend all elements to a varying degree, b) the Avatar is special as they're the only one able to master all four and c) his father wants him to absolutely master fire first and would get super angry if he found out about him bending anything else, so he keeps it a secret. He still practices a but, maybe from rolls in the library, but it's kind of his guilty pleasure. The only one who knows is Azula, who shares his belief and is very proud that she has an affinity to fire so strong she basically doesn't even manage any of the other elements which obviously makes her better.

Canon proceeds pretty much as usual, except Zuko sometimes gets away to enjoy practicing the other elements and us quite interested in things like waterbending scrolls. I also have this idea where he finds one of these flying sticks Aang uses in one of the air temples and learns flyimg, feeling free for the first time.

And of course Aang has to deal with the fact that he just doesn't manage to bend water, no matter how much he tries. He gets doubts about being the Avatar, but Katara probably gives him confidence.

I can imagine dozens of scenarios of people finding out about Zuko being the Avatar, and him being deep in denial, most of them hilarious. I'm not quite sure what happens if Azula is the one to figure it out first. And whether her father would even believe her...

[ithiliensmenagerie]

If Arthur found and adopted Aithusa

It sounds a bit ooc, but I can't get the idea out of my head of Arthur finding a small Aithusa sonewhere, bonding with her - one dragon to another - and deciding to keep her. She might be magic, but she's also a dragon, and basically the symbol of his family and country, after all. And he desperately tries to keep her secret from Merlin, who is very suspicious what is going on now and who's trying to kill Arthur now...

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Merlin: Everyone has magic

This is obviously more a crack fic idea, but there is this book by Diana Wynne Jones, Witch Week (Spoilers!) where there is a world where a very high percentage of the people has magic, but it is punishable by death, so everyone keeps it secret and thinks they are the only one. I think this would be a hilarious concept for a Merlin AU.

Merlin comes to Camelot and has to keep his magic hidden so he doesn't get killed. Gaius has magic too, but he doesn't use it. But then he learns that Gwen uses a bit of magic when nobody looks. And the cook. Some maids. Morgana starts having dreams and Gaius tells her it's just dreams, doesn't want her to know she has magic. Merlin catches some knights who have magic. And then Arthur, too, has magic. Every single one of them basically thinks they are the only one and have to keep it hidden and suppressed.

I don't know where that would go, and it depends a lot on Merlin's reaction, but I'm imagining a scene where Arthur admits to having magic in front of his father to save someone, and 90% of the castle staff go "if he's guilty, so am I" until there's one knight, two maids and Uther left over who don't have magic, and the maids are fully supportive of the magic-users.

[ithiliensmenagerie]

Supernatural and the Apocalypse being a potential choice

I recently saw a post about supernatural, about how Sam and Dean made a choice against paradise and for the world we're living in for all the billions of people living on earth and it made me thinking, what if this had been the choice, what if they choose differently?

Here is should probably stress that I have seen basically nothing of the show and am not entirely sure if there was more reason behind stopping the Apocalypse than "Apocalypse bad".

But let's say there isn't. Let's say Michael offered everything they wanted, and when you get one wish, a standard answer is "World peace". Let's say Sam and Dean discussed it, thought about it, and qualified, maybe "all humans who ever lived will be fully aware of their situation and happy" or something. Let's say Sam and Dean say yes, there is a fight and the angels win. Let's say Michael is bound by his word to create paradise for everyone.

I won't deny that I'd want it The Good Place style, but that's probably not on their minds. Besides, if you start with making paradise for all people alive, making everyone happy, you'd soon run into trouble, you'd have to negotiate with them, create something that works, but the angels are very powerful and have all humans behind them. And then you add all the dead humans of all ages. And all the demons, who in their current form can't be truly happy.

It would take an eternity, but we have an eternity. It would take infinite space, but I don't think it's an issue. And it would take so much work. But humans, if they have their basic needs met, are happy to help, and you've got all these angels with nothing more to do now the final fight is over...

This is just a lot of rambling. I cannot actually imagine this in a fic. But it's an interesting idea...