Don't Listen to Kafka: summary of what would have happened next
So my laptop’s harddrive got wiped for the second time within a year. And while I do have a lot of DLtK notes and writing backed up, the truth is that between the first wipe circa October 2022 and the second time I fucked up my computer at the end of July, I didn’t touch DLtK at all. At this point I don’t even know if I could figure out how much I lost the first time.
The name of the game is perseverance; I don’t want these incidents to kill all my WIPs, I don’t want to give up. But. I don’t think I have it in me to try to salvage all the WIPs I’d been working on, and Tales of Arcadia hasn’t been my hyperfixation for a while now. I keep waiting for the wheels of my fandom interest to turn in that direction again… but they haven’t, and there’s nothing I can do to make that happen on purpose.
So I’m going to share what I had planned for this series, because I still love it dearly, and this wonderful fandom, and if you want to comment or ask questions I welcome them! I am going to be writing this summary from memory, because tracking down and going through my story notes just depresses me.
First things first, I need to address the fact that Claire does not know that Enrique is trapped in the Darklands. It was on Jim’s mind in Metamorphosis, and he decides to enlist NotEnrique’s help in introducing Claire to the idea of changelings (Incidentally, NotEnrique hasn’t had a moment to cement his loyalty to Team Trollhunter, since the battle at the bridge didn’t happen the way it did in canon. So at one point I thought about writing a sort of prologue, in which Nomura drops by to talk to him - she’s not trapped in the Darklands, but she’s gonna nope right out of Arcadia now that the Janus Order is in disarray with Strickler’s defection. Because I am nothing if not preoccupied with typing up any and every possible loose end ;P And I wanted to address whether RealEnrique would be in danger, since in this AU the babies in the nursery are hostages for the changeling’s loyalty and good behavior. So if NotEnrique defects, that would put Enrique in danger - unless the Janus Order’s ability to convey kill orders to the Darklands was stopped. And since I never said how they do that, I think the Fetch will do very nicely. Better keep a tight hold on that, Team Trollhunter)
Right, so Jim tells Claire who does not take it well (oh, and there’s a whole thing about what does Barbara know, because like hell would she not tell Ophelia and Javier that their kid was kidnapped, so does that mean Jim is keeping secrets? I think I found a solution I could work with but I can’t remember what it was). Claire doesn’t take it well, and it affects rehearsals for the school play - I found some lines Juliet could deliver with scathing sarcasm. The romance is dead, and Ms. Janeth despairs.
Jim is in a serious funk, because some of the insults Claire threw his way unknowingly hit some seriously sore spots. He wants to come mask-off clean to Claire as part of his apology efforts, because Claire put it into his head that Not Telling her things is exactly equivalent to Lying, and he doesn’t want a repeat of her anger if he waits to tell her too long about being part changeling. Toby is not a fan of this idea, and goes to confront Claire about the fact that Jim is planning to be extremely vulnerable to her and she had better take that seriously, just because Jim hurt her by not telling her about NotEnrique does mean she is entitled to all his secrets, he’s going through a rough time and she’d better not hurt him back Or Else.
I… can’t remember what leads Jim and Claire to reconciling. I know that they do manage it in time to save the school play, huzzah! Around the same time as opening night, Jim’s horns finally break through, and this is something of a momentous coming-of-age moment in a young troll’s life. There’s a whole ceremony, and Claire is invited, cementing her inclusion in Team Trollhunter. (The ceremony involves digging a hole in the ground in a shady spot and burying Jim in it up to his neck for a day. It’s a test of courage, and to show that he’s ready to come to the surface on his own. Mostly Jim thinks it’s a test of his patience)
And that concludes the first act!
Next, the effort to rescue Enrique begin in earnest. See, the thing is, unlike in canon they do not have access to a complete Killahead Bridge; Otto absconded with the keystone before the bridge was recovered. So they will need to find a different way into the Darklands. Now for a bit of worldbuilding. Because Killahead Bridge is an example of Sealed Evil In a Can, right? (Keep in mind that this was drafted before Season 2 of 3Below had aired, let alone Wizards) I asked why wouldn’t you obliterate the bridge more thoroughly than just breaking it into pieces, if you really wanted to keep Gunmar in the Darklands? And the answer I came up with is that Killahead Bridge functions as lock on Gunmar, so that it is the only way for him to leave the Darklands. If you pulverized the bridge, it wouldn’t trap him; it would release him, because then he would be free to seek out another passage out of the Darklands.
That being said, there aren’t oodles of ways in and out. Besides the Fetch, the only way that rumors tell of is Morgana’s secret entrance. But no one knows how to find it, because secret map is in two pieces, and one has been in Trollmarket in Blinky’s library and the other has been with the changelings for centuries. But! This time around Team Trollhunter have the evil book they got from Strickler. (Dangit I’m blanking on the name - not grimorum arcanorum, that’s Gargoyles. Not Darkhold either.) The map points them not to the Darklands, but to Morgana’s lair where the key is hidden. Yay Baba Yaga house with chickenfeet!
But before we get to that: you’ve heard of Hybrid Vigor, now get ready for Outbreeding Depression! This is when hybrid crosses are disfavored by natural selection. Like if offspring are infertile, or two subspecies are bred together to try to preserve an endangered species, and instead it makes a muddle of local regional adaptations. Or maybe the offspring only have one copy of a gene that they really need two of to do well. Or the animal lives in an environment where there are a lot of dark surfaces and a lot of light-colored surfaces, so being dark-colored or light-colored provides good camouflage, but being gray just means you show up at least a bit on both surfaces.
All this means is that I am totally justified in putting Jim through the wringer >:) As his human blood cells are replaced with changeling blood cells, their ability to bind oxygen decreases. Oh, time for more worldbuilding: changeling blood edition. I could be wrong, but I don’t think we ever see any full-blooded trolls bleed? This despite Draal losing an entire arm. Tattoos are chiseled into them, and there’s the line about treating wounds with molten metal, so I feel confident in saying that, in this story at least, trolls don’t have blood. No blood, no circulatory system. But wait, I hear you cry, trolls can drown! And they are seen to breathe. How do I explain that?
I decided that the thing being circulated is not oxygen, but rather magic. The same kind exuded by the Heartstone (magic: it’s both a particle and a wave!) Hence troll society being built around magic-dense Heartstones. And water acts as a neutralizing agent, it smothers magic. Changelings live primarily on the surface, and do not have access to Heartstone magic. They also do bleed, unlike regular trolls. I’ve made these two facts related; changelings supplement their magic energy intake with an oxygen-using metabolism. They have hemerythrin as the binding pigment in their blood instead of hemoglobin, which is not as good at binding oxygen (this is true irl) but is capable of binding ambient particle of magic in the air (this has fascinating implications for certain species of marine worm with purple blood!)
What’s happening with Jim is that his mixed blood is getting increasingly bad at binding oxygen, but not yet good enough at binding ambient magic. So he gets out of breath easily; it presents a lot like altitude sickness, being in thin air for a prolonged time. Solution: needs more close proximity to the Heartstone, where magic is denser. He’s out of commission for a couple weeks while his organs rearrange themselves. (I wrote bits of a scene where Barbara and Jim go to a changeling doctor that Strickler puts them in contact with, I can’t remember where in the timeline that was supposed to go).
Oh, speaking of Strickler, he’s doing occupational therapy to adjust to being an amputee. Barbara is helping out, but is extremely firm that she “can’t be his Florence Nightingale.” He’s a good resource when it comes to changeling Jim things. Like when Jim becomes lethargic and Barbara can’t tell if it’s depression or something else.
To summarize the summary so far: there are two parallel plot lines, one in which Team Trollhunter, sans Jim who is convalescing, follow some clues to get to Baba Yaga’s house to find a secret way into the Darklands to rescue NotEnrique. And the other plot line is Jim dealing with continuing changes to his body.
To get Barbara to sign off on Claire putting herself into danger by going a-questing, Claire steals Jim’s glamour mask and poses as her own mother. (What could possibly go wrong!) When they get to the house with chicken feet, it’s not sturdy enough for Blinky and Aaarrrgh to climb up, so Claire and Toby are on their own. Gotta give them their power-ups!
Claire sticks her hand in a box and it gets impaled - yikes! But it’s magic, so the wound heals right up, and, she will later discover, she now has telekinesis. The drawback: she is now claustrophobic. Basing this on how in some Vathara’s fics describe ki-sense as like a fish’s lateral line sense, ‘touch at a distance.’ Basically, I figure that if you’re going to be picking stuff up with your mind, your mind has to be able to ‘feel’ the object. Thus, an awareness of the things around her, including walls. She can *feel* how big or small a room is. Even her own bedroom feels too small, too close; she can’t sleep unless her windows and door are open.
Toby, meanwhile, gets a magical pet bonded to him! In a manner of speaking. I wanted to give him something that would let him fly like his warhammer did, and reached into Norse mythology. No, it’s not mjollnir, though it, too, was made by the dwarves Eitri and Brokkr. It’s Boary McBoarface, Gullinbursti! From the Prose Edda: "It could run through air and water better than any horse, and it could never become so dark with night or gloom of the Murky Regions that there should not be sufficient light where he went, such was the glow from its mane and bristles." Toby is able to ride on its back and charge Gullinbursti into battle against his opponents. Drawback: if he uses it too long, a bloodlust rises in him, and he becomes a proper berserkr, full of rage. Good thing he has a wingman who knows a thing or two about anger management!
Who do they need to use these newfound skills to fight? I’d always planned for Otto to become the main Big Bad, a foil for Jim as a fellow polymorph. Wasn’t entirely sure what that would look like; reviving Angor Rot was Strickler’s plot, would Otto think to do the same?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Jim’s uncle is concerned that Barbara says the two of them aren’t coming to Thanksgiving without giving a reason why (the reason being, Jim is bed-ridden and unable to pass for human). Uncle Mark remembers how Barbara similarly withdrew when she was with the emotionally abusive James Sr., and recalls that she mentioned a potential new beau last time they talked on the phone, so he’s going to come investigate. Just to keep throwing wrenches into the works. For some reason I really really wanted this to overlap with Blinky being turned into a human, but if they aren’t planning on *fighting* Gunmar with their sneek-through-the-backdoor plan, then they don’t really need the Triumbric Stones, do they? Do any of those quests even happen?
Act II ends with Claire and Toby getting power-ups, and Jim finally completing his transformation into a changeling. Yay! Now if he can just figure out this shape-shifting thing…
The first time Jim changes into someone other than himself, it’s after a stressful night worrying about an upcoming Spanish test, and he wakes up looking like Senor Uhl. He gradually gets more skilled and confident in his ability to change shape, and then he gets the bright idea to sneak into the Darklands through the Fetch by turning into a goblin. (Hand-wavy answer about ‘why aren’t they using the method acquired from visiting Morgana’s lair’ now that they have it. Can’t remember why.)
Jim has clearly never read Animorphs, or he would know why shapeshifting into a hivemind creature is a Bad Idea. Waka chakka!
Yeah things get a little silly at this point, but they have to be if I’m going to bring the Creepslayerz in (which, given how this whole subplot is just a tangent that could conceivably be cut without impacting the plot, I’m not 100% committed to bringing Eli and Steve into the mix. However, as I said at the beginning, I love tying up every conceivable plot-hole, and Goblin Adventure answers the question, ‘If you have the fetch and shapeshifting powers, why *wouldn’t* you shrink yourself down to get through that way?’) Toby, in a moment of foresight, writes ‘JIM’ on Jim with a sharpie, so if he escapes their watch, they can find him again. (Creepslayerz, reading it upside-down: “Hi, Wif!”) I can’t remember what’s in my notes for how they finally get Jim changed back, but if I had to guess, it had something to do with Barbara.
Yeah, Act III is where things start to break down for me, in terms of having a clear idea of what I wanted to happen. Partly to make things easier for myself and partly because I think Jim might be slightly more sympathetic to the plight of the changelings, only Enrique is getting rescued. The rest of the babies are just going to stay there for the time being. Gunmar can only be defeated with the Triumbric stones, but is it written that the Trollhunter has to be the one to use them? Can we give them to Angor Rot and unleash him to have his revenge on Gunmar? Does Jim *actually* have to fight Gunmar to achieve his objective? I kind of think things have changed enough that he doesn’t have to, and Morgana doesn’t rise again, and Merlin stays asleep, and Douxie keeps on trucking. Yeah, figuring out endings is hard. Mostly I figured I’d need to write the rest of the story first, to even know what the right ending should be. A lot can change between drafting an outline and writing a story…
So there you have it! Everything I remember (and don’t remember) off the top of my head about where I was planning on going with Don’t Listen to Kafka. Gosh I just, I appreciate so much all the love that this fic series has received over the years, and I didn’t want to leave you all hanging indefinitely.
