I've been rewatching TTS episodes (the youtube Disney Channel finally released all s1 episodes in my country!) and I realized that in Painter's Block, Xavier explains that Demanitus captured evil spirits and kept them prisoner in the hidden mountain chamber that holds the Demanitus Device.
We see this scene:
Sugracha's spirit was released after the "block" in the middle of this screenshot was broken. We see that there's more "blocks" beside it, so this combined with Xavier's explanation leads me to believe there's more spirits (people?) like Sugracha and Tromus kept prisoner inside them, and the fact all of them most likely have Zhan Tiri's crest on them implies to me that there are way, more followers of Zhan Tiri than we saw in the show.
Sugracha and Tromus may have been only two of her Disciples, the only ones who previously followed Demanitus.
I wonder how many Disciples he locked inside that chamber...
Wips of the same project I think (I no longer know how to draw, what a tragedy)
Both say roughly the same thing but in different ways:
"Lord Demanitus and his pupils decided to trap the great demon Zhan Tiri in the only possible way: keeping her prisoner inside Demanitus' mind. Through their wills and sacrifice the world remains intact."
"Lord Demanitus & his pupils work together to trap Zhan Tiri in the only place she could never escape from: his own mind."
I've been playing too much Hollow Knight. I'll be describing the concept I had in mind under readmore because it's a long-ish post hehahhe
I headcanon that Zhan Tiri's "true form" is her spirit ghost form, so even if her physical body was trapped or destroyed, she could just reform in a new vessel if she had enough magic to do so. So, logically, I made an AU where sending her to the Lost Realm didn't work/couldn't work and Demanitus had to find another way to keep her in check, and the only way to trap a being who can canonly manipulate/enter dreams is by trapping her in your own head. Forever.
It does also remind me of Gravity Falls, hehehe.
This AU would fundamentally change lots of things. The only viable way for them to be able to keep Zhan Tiri trapped forever is if they were immortal, and so far the only ways to do so were to [change bodies with an immortal monkey apparently], [use the Sundrop to stay alive for millennia] or [pledge themselves to Zhan Tiri and become spirits]. I do think Demanitus might be able to use Science™ to put them in a state of [cryogenically frozen], but even then I don't know how they'd stay alive for Eternity unless they were actively using the power of the Sundrop to keep themselves alive.
Zhan Tiri is currently trapped in Demanitus' mind, but he isn't strong enough to keeo her bound all by himself. Hence, the aid of his Pupils is essential for their plan to work. All four of them should be in a state of comatose, as they would be sleeping in the physical realm and Fighting To Keep A Demon Trapped in the dream realm.
For a while everything was perfectly fine; Demanitus and the Pupils were able to keep ZT in check. But, a couple thousand years later, Queen Arianna got very sick while pregnant, and the King felt as though there was no other choice other than use the Sundrop to save his wife, despite being warned not to... Little did he know that by removing the source of power of the Dreamers (yes I am calling them Dreamers too), he'd be unleashing not only the Black Rocks, but also Zhan Tiri herself.
Isn't that just so fun?
The other massive change to the story is Cassandra. If Gothel is in a state of comatose, basically, as she's helping her master and pupil fight a demon in the dream realm, then she wouldn't be able to make Cassandra at all. So, either Cass outright doesn't exist, or she is the daughter of someone else. My vote is to make her Edmund's daughter. Moon child!
Maybe I'll play around with the concept another time. For now this is what I had in mind!
I have a question that I don't know if you can answer, but I'm asking, anyway!
In Moonlight, have you any plans for any of the disciples to return?
In canon, Sugracha was yeeted into a portal and Matthews promised to return before turning to dust. Neither felt too permanent and seeing how you utilize so many under-utilized characters, I have to wonder.
What about the not-so-loyal disciples who found eternal life?
I definitely plan to play around with the Disciples in Moonrise! Zhan Tiri is an extremely important character in the story and to me it makes no sense for her not to have her Disciples back at some point.
In my AU I made it so that Sugracha wasn't sent into the Lost Realm with ZT because it'd be bad for my storyline, so she was arrested in Painter's Block and escaped when Ruddiger's monstrous form damaged the dungeons, allowing her and many others to run away.
I won't be saying much else besides the fact that both she and Tromus will show up eventually :] !!!
