#cotrk ideas

[ianmalcolmptsd]

Crafting my ideal Manfred/Grimwald situation inspired by the convo with @dagbert-endless and I think it’s gotta be Grimwald taking Manfred back to his island/castle as a sort of son-exchange with the Bloors. On the surface it would be because he has access to some magical healing tool to use on Manfred, but it’s actually as insurance so that the Bloors don’t try to turn Dagbert against him (so the alliance between the Bloors and Grimwald is clearly more tenuous here).

He’s delaying actually healing Manfred because he doesn’t really have an excuse to keep Manfred there afterwards, but the longer Manfred is there the more obvious it is that he is interested in Grimwald’s power and eager to start making a name for himself in the wider endowed community versus just terrorizing some local kids and Grimwald can make that work for him too. When he does eventually heal Manfred, he makes a big show of it as a way to awe Manfred and overwhelm whatever superficial loyalty he might have towards Ezekiel or Harold, but sort of misjudges just how effective it’s gonna be. Very intense healing scene, starts to up the physicality of their relationship tho not sleeping together yet. Manfred feels fresh and rejuvenated, but the ocean-based healing had dampened his fire endowment (see what I did there) and so he is also determined to get both it and his hypnotism back, which gives Grimwald something specific to assist with and keep Manfred close and interested.

Since the timeline is so tight for books 6-8, this would all have a pretty quick turn around before Grimwald has to go back to Bloor’s with everything in bk8, so their relationship grows in intensity quite quickly, but Grimwald sort of expects that Manfred will go back to how it was before, but the time away (+transformative healing + just Grimwald himself) has made Manfred resent the way Ezekiel and Harold still treat him more as a lackey than equal partner. In a fit of irritation he complains about this to Grimwald, who seizes the chance to strengthen his hold on Manfred and takes him to bed. Very gross “I’m making you a man” vibes, he’s intentionally preying on Manfred’s insecurities and desire to be seen as an adult. Neither of them are attracted to the other, but they both see this as a way to get what they actually want.

Still figuring out where it goes from here but I am having Ideas

[ianmalcolmptsd]

Cotrk AU ideas bouncing around in my head:

1902AU- fun mostly because of the ways the stronger class separation/differences would impact the relationships between the characters.

DæmonAU- honestly doesn’t change much, except Ezekiel is definitely trying out some dæmon-related experiments. Mostly I just like assigning animals to characters and it is fun to think about how endowments can interact with dæmons (like the endoweds’ dæmons can’t settle until their endowment manifests, for example)

Carnie/FreakshowAU- the Bloors own and run a carnival instead of a school and they collect endowed children (through various means) to be the staff/entertainment. Heavy focus on the exploitation aspect of it all, since the Bloor’s are really explicitly taking these kids to make money off of them. Possibly also an AmericanAU just due to that being the creepy traveling carnival aesthetic I’m more familiar with, and definitely a different time period, probably the 1950s.

[ianmalcolmptsd]

No but imagine shit hitting the fan between Grimwald and the Bloors and Grimwald immediately holding his involvement with Manfred over Dr. Bloor’s head. Like they’re alone and he’s like “guess what your son’s been up to >:)” I could see it quickly becoming blackmail and a power play. Especially if Grimwald suspects the Bloor’s are turning Dagbert against him.

Our minds are connected through space and time we are living in this vision together

Literally as soon as they sleep together Grimwald is insufferably smug because he’s now certain that Manfred is his. Honestly with his ego he probably wouldn’t even wait for Harold and Ezekiel to actually do anything, he’d be the one causing problems between them. Maybe the Bloors can ignore the first few times Grimwald gives Manfred a job to do when he was supposed to be doing something for his family, but once it’s an obvious pattern? Once they start to see how close the two are? How comfortable Grimwald is with touching him?

I think Ezekiel and Harold would tolerate Manfred temporarily favoring Grimwald over them—it’s their nature to scheme and make alliances, this could be good practice for him. But Grimwald isn’t being at all subtle about the nature of their relationship and that makes Manfred an embarrassment to the Bloor family.

Also as a Noted Harold Enthusiast, this is such a fun way to explore his feelings for Manfred. Would his care be based in anything beyond his own possessiveness over Manfred-as-resource? Would he actually give a shit if this didn’t affect his own name? Is he confused about why Grimwald thinks he would care about what his adult son gets up to? About why Grimwald would think he cares about his son at all? Or maybe he is alarmed to find out he does actually care beyond embarrassment and greed, that it does matter to him that Manfred is his son and is being used and is in danger. Can he hide his anger?

[ianmalcolmptsd]

So I go back and forth on whether Barley has kids with Paton or Harold, but currently I am finding the kid option fun to play with. More than anything I think it’s because I really want to explore how Billy and Manfred would feel having a younger sibling.

Billy and Manfred each see Barley as their parent, but they don’t see themselves as brothers. Throw another Barley-kid into the mix though and it makes things even more complex because they each do see the new baby as their sister, and as she grows up she sees them as her brothers. The possibility that she could be Manfred’s biological half-sister is also great because it would make Manfred have to think about Harold more than he has been, given their rather estranged relationship in this timeline. And Billy would be so excited to finally not be the older one! Finally he isn’t the youngest, he has someone he can look after and protect just like the older kids looked out for him! Meanwhile Manfred is having an existential crisis about how he even can fit into a family (not a normal family admittedly, but certainly a more caring one than he grew up in) and what is he supposed to do with a younger sibling?? He hates kids and he already doesn’t like that Barley adopted Billy because he doesn’t want to share, and now there is another kid to share with? Worse still a helpless, useless, needy baby? A baby who has never hurt Barley like he has? He’s already an adult, what if (with a sparkly new baby) Barley doesn’t want to be his parent/guardian/whatever they are to each other anymore?

[ianmalcolmptsd]

Btw my Harold/Grimwald vision is largely casual sex when convenient followed by Harold trying to become Grimwald’s pet politician after the Bloor schemes go pear shaped and he has to flee the city.

[ianmalcolmptsd]

thank you for such a detailed response to my musings 🥺. I also love the idea of Manfred running into a bigger baddie. Like what if Manfred went to jail for a few years for (cough, attempted) arson and gets his ass handed to him before some older, Worse inmate takes Manfred under his wing the way Manfred took Dagbert under his own? Or Manfred starts forming his own little gang in prison.

And yessss to Manfred committing petty thefts immediately. I’ve head-cannoned for a while that he never pays for anything if he’s shopping alone or with Asa. I hadn’t even considered muggings. What if when he first meets the Bigger Bad on the street he tries to mug them only to get smacked down and then adopted as the Bigger Bad’s goon? And then Manfred finds Asa and drags him into the scheming too. Like a Russian nesting doll of dependence and thuggery.

Goddd the cotrk space was barren and deserted for so long I love seeing cotrk posting in 2025 😭💕 thank you for pondering the orb & scheming w me.

I’ve been working on a prison fanfic maybe I’ll post it eventually

“Like a Russian nesting doll of dependence and thuggery.” <- YOU ARE SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO MY SOUL

I love all of your thoughts so much your brain is so big and gorgeous PLEASE let me know if you ever publish your prison fic (or any cotrk fic!!)

I haven’t really thought of prison before in this context but now it makes so much sense. Of COURSE he’d eventually get into a situation he couldn’t hypnotize or burn his way out of, especially if he is out there on his own.

And yes yes yes I love Manfred being put in the same position that he puts Dagbert (and Asa to an extent). His relationships with Ezekiel and Harold are so interesting because he is both their heir and their henchman; inherently valuable in the dynastic nature of the cotrk but also the one who is sent out to do any dangerous grunt work they need done. He loves putting someone lower than himself on the ladder because it means some of that work becomes their problem, not his. Him being put into a position he is so used to putting other people in is so juicy, he would be so annoying and insufferable about it. He can see how it could benefit him to be under someone’s wing but his atrocious ego and shitty people skills would make him so unhappy about it at the same time, and he can’t be unhappy without making it someone else’s problem.

Despite being a fan of cotrk for almost 20 years I hadn’t really posted about it until the last few years, but in that time I have found that cotrk has a very small but quite enthusiastic fandom here, which has been so heartwarming! A lot of people are more active in servers/dms, so sometimes the passion doesn’t translate directly into Posts, but posting absolutely catches the attention of other fans!