An Offbrand Milkshake

the bright, colorful, happy autumn with pumpkins, apples, candles, and great food

the dreary, dark, creepy autumn with overcast and rainy skies, scary forests, cool temperatures, and halloween

- Trying and failing to whittle with a dull pocket knife.

- Trying and failing to climb a tree in semi-formal dress (while waiting to be taken to class).

you gotta digest it.

“oh man im so sorry i sucked some fairy dick once and now i have to keep coming back to do it again– its a long story”

Like, this analysis treats it as a substance problem, i.e. “edible matter from fairyland has properties that, if ingested, physically prevent you from being able to return to the real world.”

But OTOH, a recurring theme throughout fairy stories is that they’re all about…rules and exchanges and agreements with really steep interest rates:

“I’ll do you this favor, but if you don’t guess my name you’ll have to give me your first-born child.”

“You’re gonna be real good at everything but when you’re 16 you’re gonna prick your finger and die.”

“You loaned me $2 for the bus when I looked like a beggar, so now here’s a literal pile of gold and shit.”

Not to mention that in Childe Rowland, one of the central “if you eat food from fairyland you’re stuck there” stories, Rowland manages to retrieve his siblings despite them all presumably having chowed down on fairy food – all it took was beating the Fairy King in a swordfight and threatening to chop his head off.

The takeaway, I think, is that the food thing a matter of implicit exchange: if you get your grub on in fairyland, you’re accepting their hospitality and eating food that they own. This means you owe them, which the fairies can magically leverage to prevent you from leaving.

(You can probably get around this by explicitly agreeing to pay for your meal before you sit down to eat. From what I remember, fairies don’t seem capable of pulling a “Haha, we had an agreement but you’re fucked anyways!” maneuver, so if they agree to let you leave they might even be forced to help you leave.)

Which brings us to the matter at hand: if you blow a fairy you’re doing them a favor! They owe you.

And…they’re a fairy, so if you didn’t agree to terms beforehand they might not repay you in a way that’s ultimately helpful or safe, but it certainly doesn’t seem like they’d be able to, like, pat you on the head and be like “Thanks, you’re really good at this buuuuuuut also you’re stuck here forever now.”

“you wanna come over for the weekend?”

“oh man I’m so sorry i sucked some fairy dick once and now he always comes by over memorial day weekend and helps me out with minor home repairs.”

Do you have a shitty homelife? (and do you know a fae who knows about said homelife and feels bad for you?...) Eat the food and get away from it all.

Did you make a terrible mistake?... find the right Fae and sell yourself (via eating their food) as a temporarily or perminantly contracted servant of their household. 

a group of furblets encounter a fearsome beast.  kinda like a scaled-down version of this

….

I am never one to post about things like this, but I am 100% on board with Jim going back in time to try and prevent all the innocent casualties with the Arcane Order. I am not on board with giving Toby the amulet though. As much as I love Toby and wish him nothing but happiness, think of what an experienced Jim could accomplish?

He comes back to the day he gets the amulet with 2+ years of trollhunter experience under his belt. Consider what he could change:

- The bridge is recovered early on because Jim knows where it’s being held.

- Bular, Gunmar, and Morgana are still defeated.

- Toby, Nomura, Nari, Draal, Strickler don’t die.

- Vendel doesn’t die because Jim knows who Gunmar’s spy in trollmarket is.

- With possession of the bridge, all of the Trollhunters go into the darklands together, freeing all of the babies and Gunmar’s prisoners, and kill Gunmar without the unnecessarily casualties in trollmarket. Jim made the mistake of going in alone, he wouldn’t do that again.

- Because the fight is taken to Gunmar, trollmarket never falls and Jim and Claire don’t need to leave Toby.

- Jim doesn’t need to become half-troll because why would they need to go reawaken Merlin until the events of Wizards?

- When the Arcane Order attacks, Douxie is with Nari, and Jim doesn’t get corrupted by the Green Knight. So the seals are never lost. The amulet doesn’t break, and Jim is able to hunt down and destroy the Arcane Order with the full team from ROTT.

I SERIOUSLY NEED THIS AS A FIC!!!!!!!!!!!.

(I need to see Jim break down in front of his parental figures, I need to see Blinky, Strickler, and Barbara be fluff supporters. I need to see Draal and Nomura as concerned Wine Aunt and Himbo Brother respectively, I need to see everyone doing THE THINGS!!!!!!!!!..................)

Jim and Claire being badass together?.... YES!.

Toby and Claire being bros?.... YES!.

Jim and Toby being bros?.... YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!.

Vendal being Goat Grandpa who doesn’t want to be a Grandma but get’s stuck being one anyway?.... OH YES!.

Like, the first time around, Jim does everything he can to be the best wingman to Toby and help him succeed, which he does, until at some point, something inevitably goes wrong, and they have to start all over again. Only this time, Toby also has his memories of both previous timelines. 

And so Claire is called and fails and remembers. Then Blinky. Douxie. Draal. AAARRRGGGHH. Steve (that on unsurprisingly only lasts a few days. Still more than the betting pool Toby had set up). Barbara. Nomura. Strickler. Archie.

So it goes, on and on until the whole family is back together and traumatised by reliving just five hellish years for some, but also puberty for others. Each time another has failed and regains their memories, they have a remembrance-party.