#maybeanidea

"No, Byler Tangled!Au"

Hear me out... both Elmax and Byler Tangled!Au at the same time!

Henry as Mother Gothel (obv).

The Wonder Twins as Rapunzel (kidnapped together because Henry hoped that Will, whose hair he had cut, would recover his powers but it didn't happen or maybe yes, just in another way, who knows!).

Max and Mike as Flynn/Eugene or, better, Max as Flynn/Eugene and Mike as Maximus (the human version, the young royal guard who has quickly risen through the ranks and dreams of finding the lost twins).

Mike chases Max to the tower and Willel knocks them out, then the twins make both of them promise to take them to see the outside world/the lantern festival. Mike agrees, hoping to bring Max to justice and suspicious of the twins' identities (it will then be Mike who will be threatened in the Snuggly Duckling pub as he will be recognized as a royal guard)

Dustin and Lucas as the Stabbington Brother, who sacrificed themselves to help Max escape from the royal guards (Mike and the basketball team).

Byler as two young boys from the Northern Water Tribe, with Mike as the non-Bender Crown Prince (Nancy is rightfully angry because she should be the Crown Princess but the tribe is so bigoted) and Will as the son of a healer who lives just outside the tribe's borders after her divorce from Lonnie (who tried to teach Will bloodbending because he thought his passion for healing was feminine).

Will whose soul is kidnapped by some spirit (the same one that later kidnapped Barb's) and he gets lost in the spirit world.

I have this Will Byers NeverFound!Au from 2022 that features Will's return with no memory in an alternate season 4. Will, in truth, isn't so NeverFound after all, as he ended up in Russian hands shortly before the gate was closed in '84 (yes, the Russians got to Hawkins first for some reason I never figured out). Because of his time in the UD/that damned vine in his throat, Will gained powers, and the Russians, having discovered this, imprisoned him in their base beneath the Starcourt.

In the story, there was this sort of "Russian Brenner" who, obviously, had been experimenting ever since the UD was discovered (especially because he had managed to intercept classified information on the existence of El and the other kids in the lab), and therefore obviously "marks" Will as one of his experiments. I initially considered calling him Seven in Russian, but perhaps it would be more angsty to have him called One in Russian? Just to increase the parallels with Henry Creel.

To be clear, I doubt this fic will ever see the light of day. It's too long (113 pages of scattered individual episodes, without even a single complete chapter), and I couldn't possibly write such a complicated project in English, but, for fun...

I was joking yesterday, but today I'm quite serious! I've tagged all my rambling and ideas with MaybeAnIdea (sorry for the name).

I don't know if anyone will like them, but if anyone wants to check them out, welcome! I'm also open to similar reading suggestions 👀

A quick recap of what you can find among my ideas:

Will Byers NeverFound!Au;

Mike is not Will's Tammy;

Will's health consequences due to the destruction of the Hive Mind;

Movie/other media-inspired AUs (Just this morning, I was thinking about a Detroit Become Human!Au again, so it's coming sooner or later)

13 Going on 30: with Mike as Jenna and, obviously, a slightly different plot (Mike finds himself working in a publishing house on the verge of bankruptcy and then finishes writing his novel Cleradin while returning to see Will, who in the meantime is almost married to Chance, who helps him with the illustrations...);

The Little Mermaid : with Byler and Henderhop as the main ships;

Atlantis: The Lost Empire: again with Byler, Henderhop, and also Elmike.

Enough! Please, save me.

Or maybe not...Which one should I fantasize about more? I've realized I can't write so many (hello, Tangled! Au with Byler and Elmax, which is still on hold).

[Part 1]

I keep thinking about this Au, I can't stop so other random things that came to mind. Be prepared, though, that I'll be straying a bit (a lot) from the Tangled canon!

A little background for today!

First, I thought about Henry as Mother Gothel. What if he's not? What if Brenner is Mother Gothel? And Henry? *evil laugh* Henry as a "trusted" noble at the royal court, but maybe he's not so trustworthy (did he help kidnap the twins? Did he want to take over the reign? Who knows!)

Lonnie and Joyce were married for much longer than in canon. Lonnie died of illness (but is it true?) a few years before the story, and since then the advisors (except Hopper, the paladin in charge of the royal guard) have been urging Joyce to remarry. And if Henry is Henry and not Mother Gothel... he's probably just looking for a way to take power.

Meanwhile, the demos infest the forests, making them unsafe and, despite the knights' work, unleashing chaos and poverty in the small, defenseless villages.

Madwheeler was supposed to end up in an arranged marriage, but the Mayfields went bankrupt (for some unknown reason) and the marriage was annulled. Max and Mike hardly ever saw each other while Max was still Lady Maxine, so Mike doesn't recognize her as the famous thief Max Hargrove.

Max Hargrove? Yeah! Because Max was taken into the custody of the Hargrove family for a while, but then a demos attack took that away from her, too, and she decided to turn to theft to help the poor (like Robin Hood). During all this, she cut her hair, and the male-dominated society considered Max Hargrove a male thief, and she... accepted it for more protection.

At twelve, Will escaped the tower but got lost in the woods and was attacked by demos, being injured (give him some scars, please). "Mother Gothel" saved him and brought him back, but from then on, Will never wanted to leave the tower, and for a while, neither did El. But as the years passed, El began to hope they could go out, believing that if they all went together, they would be safe, but is it true? And, above all, how much of Will's escape was accidental and how much was planned by "Mother Gothel" to scare them and keep them quiet in the tower?

What do you think? I welcome ideas and suggestions! First of all...

1. Sean Astin what? Unexpected, but now I'll never be able to watch Sam and Bob without laughing (okay, I honestly don't think I can watch Bob because I just can't watch ST anymore but shhh)

2. When will there be a Byler-style "50 First Dates" fic? 👀

It could start right after Vecna's defeat, where, by killing the Mind Flayer, Will suffers brain damage that compromises his ability to store new memories. Will, unknowingly, finds himself stuck in a loop where every day for him is November 6, 1987 (from the beginning, after his post-Vecna ​​vision awakening, or immediately after the battle against Vecna) and the others must find a way to deal with it. Tell him the truth every day, hurting him by telling him about El's "death"*? Hide the truth from him but, therefore, at least for the party, lose contact with him as time goes by and they grow up? Try to convince him that it's not all Vecna's vision, as happens some days when Will notices inconsistencies in the behavior/physical appearance of his friends/family?

Slow Burn for Mike, who over time comes to accept his feelings for Will. But also angst for Mike, who after losing El, finds himself losing Will every day and who must win him back every day (especially because, whether because of the vision or the conversation at the tower, every morning Will isn't entirely convinced that Mike isn't homophobic/despises him).

Am I the only one who sees the potential? 👀