Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet is a Trollhunters Fix Fic by Sakon76
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Picking up right where Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans left off, Jim is determined to make sure that everything goes right in this timeline, that he and the other heroes never screw up in this timeline and that everybody lives. There's just one problem: he's the only one who remembers anything that happened in the previous timeline. Armed with only his memories and the rebuilt Amulet, he goes to the only member of the Ninth Configuration that he can absolute trust with the truth: Douxie. After (accidentally) restoring Douxie's memory, the duo (and Archie) set off on a quest to get the team back together, use their knowledge of what happened to stop the villains the right way, and, just maybe, bring magic back to the world.
The fanfic can be read here on Archive of Our Own.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Downplayed somewhat in that it was never implied to not be the case in canon (considering he was homeless when Merlin found him, was implicitly bullied/abused by Merlin and the knights and had been drifting from place to place for centuries after Merlin left) but Douxie's backstory is further elaborated on. In summary, his parents died from the plague when he was so young that he can barely remember what his mother looked like in the present, was driven out of his village shortly thereafter when he was found to be a wizard and got rescued by Archie a few days later (and didn't speak to him until a few days after that when he burst into tears and apologized for using magic to "protect himself from being injured when he fell down"). He moved from place to place with Archie for a few years as a traveling con artist up until Merlin discovered him and narrowly prevented him from being killed. For the next couple of years, he was abused both verbally and physically by his master and the other knights, acts that Archie only allowed because he knew how vital it was for Douxie to learn how to harness his magic, and then floated around the world for centuries, narrowly escaping death himself more than a few times. It's even mentioned that he has attempted to kill himself more than once in the past. As a result, he has an intense case of self loathing and a general belief that he isn't worthy of anything because of everything that has happened to him, traits that only really become noticeable once people really get to know him. Another layer is added on when he learns that he's actually supposed to be a bardic mage, a supposedly extinct breed, making him genetic throwback to a forgotten era, and that the sheer amount of magic he possesses is the real reason Archie tolerated the abuse.
- Adaptational Badass: Mary, Darcie, Eli and Steve all find out the truth about magic and end up joining the Trollhunters, with Darci and Steve training as warriors, Eli using his technological skill to build enchanted weapons and Mary training to become a hedge witch.
- Adaptational Deviation: The whole story, being a fix-it fic where the heroes work to not screw up this time, including preventing the deaths of more than a few characters.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Justified as Douxie is brought into the story in what would have been the first episode of Trollhunters when Jim finds him and tells him about the original timeline, brings back his memories of what happened by getting him to read the incantation on the reforged Amulet and loops him into the main plot when he becomes the only person he can trust to help him the whole way through, setting the stage for Douxie to become the second most important character in the story.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: As he's undergone his Heel–Face Turn much sooner than he originally did, Strickler has no need to dig up Angor Rot during the timespan of the first season. He actually goes searching for him after rogue members of the Janus Order start trying to kill him, during what would have been the last season of 3Below.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: As the only two to (initially) remember what happened in the previous timeline, Jim become much closer than they ever did in the original timeline. Eventually, Douxie moves into Jim's house and Barbara adopts him as her son and Jim's brother.
- Jerry is casually revealed to be Steve's grandfather (a nod to him being the only other character to use the word "buttsnack")
- Adaptational Sexuality: Douxie admits to being asexual and probably aromantic, considering the fact that he hasn't felt "that" kind of attraction to anyone in the past 900 years, making it unlikely that it's merely a thing that will change with puberty.
- Adaptational Species Change:
- Mary turns out to be a witch (specifically a hedgewitch specializing in technology like Zoe) when Douxie finds out just how quickly she managed to convince everyone that the Goblin rampage was actually from a movie.
- Nana rather casually reveals to Toby that neither of them are entirely human, with his great-great grandmother having had a child with some sort of magical being rendering their family unusually long lived and making them age much more slowly than usual, which would go to explain how Nana served in WWI while still appearing to be in her 70s-80s in what is (probably) the 2010s. Toby lampshades how she never told him this in the original timeline.
- Adapted Out: As he already knows what would happen from last time, Jim never experiences the fiasco in the Darklands. Instead he uses goes during the Final Battle with Gunmar, using the Kairosect to find and rescue Enrique without getting killed by the goblins.
- All Myths Are True: Atlantis was real and gets to play a more important role later on. Charlemagne also reveals that the Dragon St George killed was his wife and Archie's mother, who was killed while trying to collect some form of tax in the Middle East.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Barbara manages to cut through Douxie's insistence that he would be a better wizard if he were more like Merlin by asking why the others specifically chose him over his master.
- Atlantis: Douxie mentions earlier on that it did exist. Becomes a lot more important later on when Taliesin reveals that Atlantis was home to Bardic magic (and therefore Healing magic) thousands of years ago, back when humans had magic. This state of affairs went on until Gaylen, a wizard and Atlantian nationalist, conspired with other wizards to remove Atlantis from the world, turning the country into an entire planet and its' population into beings of light, with that planet later being named 'Akiridion-5'.
- The Cameo: Guillermo del Toro himself appears as the (wizard) owner of GDT Arcane Books and Douxie's Benevolent Boss.
- Cast from Calories: Magic burns off a wizards calories incredibly fast, which is why so many of them look so thin.
- Chekhov's Gun: The off-hand mention of Atlantis earlier on, considering the fate of Atlantis turns out to be the whole reason the world is the way that it is today.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Earlier on, Merlin mentions Taliesin, a wizard and his mentor, and his strange knight companion. This is elaborated upon when Jim and Douxie are thrown into the 6th century, as they disguise themselves as a knight and Taliesin respectively in order to convince Merlin to become the great wizard he needed to be.
- Dumbass Has a Point: When Krel refers to Stuart's ship as a 'junkheap', Steve brings up that as a prince he's probably used to top-of-the-line technology, which would make anything look like junk by comparison. Krel actually concedes the point.
- Everyone Has Standards: Jerkass and absolute pragmatist that he is, even Merlin finds love curses to be incredibly distasteful, referring to them as one step removed from slavery.
- Expy: One of Douxie's former students is a forge wizard named Henry, who has a prosthetic leg and a shapeshifting kelpie he calls "Tanlaus" (which is Icelandic for Toothless). He even has the nickname "Hiccup" and is married to a woman called Astrid.
- Douxie is also friends with a libromancer named Jamie who is in relations with a significantly older ice wizard named Jack, who works at a daycare. They are both, of course, taken from Rise Of The Guardians, specifically being an aged up and powered Jamie Bennett and a slightly more mundane Jack Frost respectively
- Freudian Excuse: Merlin's cruel demeanor is explained during the story arc in 6th century. Basically, he was a noble and a loving father and husband, up until he watched his wife and young son get sick and die while he was unable to do anything about it (as healing magic had been lost). This led to his cynical world view and his callous treatment of Douxie, as he was afraid to have a real father-son relationship again.
- Heel–Face Turn: Strickler turns over to the heroes' side a lot sooner when Jim and Douxie reveal their identities and that they know who he is, prompting him to turn against Bular and do the same for the Janus Order, who are said to mostly not actually care for the status quo changing outside of a few fanatic. Both Nomura and NotEnrique undergo this a lot sooner too.
- Heroic Self Depreciation: Douxie has centuries of mental hangups to work through, not least of which internalise any praise and having little to no sense of self worth.
- Jack of All Stats: Unlike most wizards, Douxie has no specialty, but his tutelage under Merlin and nine hundred years of experience have given him a solid grasp of a wide array of magic.
- Jerkass Has a Point: After an offhand comment from Merlin indicates that Jim's transformation into a troll could have been reversed in the original timeline, Blinky angrily confronts him over it. Even before getting into the actual risks involved (including death), Merlin himself points out that the troll is angry at him for something he hasn't even done yet.
- The Magic Comes Back: This is the ultimate plan for the heroes. By cutting open Gaylen's core, they would bring magic back to humanity and, at the same time, deprive Morando of the The Mac Guffin that he seeks and, hopefully, convince the Arcane order that the world has been rebalanced and doesn't need to be remade. The effects of bringing magic back, such as people dying and having children much less often, are discussed several times.
- The Magic Goes Away: Downplayed heavily, but the results of Gaylen's plan meant that Atlantis, the capital of the world during the Age of Magic was separated into it's own planet, that being Akkiridion-5. The Akkiridions/Atlantians (who were all originally wizards) ended up losing the ability to use magic as time went on, as they had no need to consume food and thus lacked the necessary energy to use magic, with the skill (and the story of the founding of their planet) eventually being forgotten by the present. Not only that, but all but a few humans left lost their magic, and started dying and having children as often as they do today, becoming completely normal. However, the rest of the world remained just as magical as before. This led to humans hating magical creatures out of jealousy and driving them underground, eventually forgetting that magic even existed and why they had hated magical beings in the first place.
- Mistaken for Gay: Barbara initially suspects Jim and Douxie of being romantically involved. Jim quickly assures her that their relationship is solely brotherly and platonic and that Douxie himself is asexual.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Retroactively, but it's revealed that defeating the Arcane Order would have resulted in this. Killing gods always has consequences, with Douxie mentioning that at best doing so would have reactivated a couple of dormant volcanoes in populated areas and at worst would have triggered the apocalypse, which is why he agreed to the time jump.
- Stable Time Loop: Merlin's master/mentor Taliesin turns out to actually have been Douxie under disguise with the actual Taliesin having been killed by Herne after meeting with Charlemagne. Centuries down the line, Merlin would end up training Douxie to be a wizard.
- Was Once a Man: Gaylen, and all of the inhabitants of Akiridion-5, were originally regular human wizards from Atlantis that were transported and transformed into a race of aliens by Gaylen's machinations, him being an Atlantian supremacist. Their transformation into beings of light ironically led their magical abilities atrophying and eventually being forgotten about it entirely, which was most likely not what Gaylen wanted or expected.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- The wizarding community of Arcadia collectively give Douxie the cold shoulder after he is caught on camera using magic to save a co-worker from being injured.
- The above leads to Douxie calling out Zoe and the rest of HexTech over their inability (or failing to even try) to contain the above when a fledgling wizard like Mary could do it in an afternoon. He is especially furious at Zoe given their longstanding friendship.
- Douxie reads Jim and Toby the riot act for having a laugh at Steve falling victim to a love curse, noting they're mocking a person for having their mind warped.
- Wizards Live Longer: It's explained that most wizards achieve functional immortality once their magic surpasses a certain level. Apparently Claire could have run into this in the old timeline, though Douxie mentions she was a ways off before they reset things.
