My "John lives" (calling him Tarzan's dad every time is too long let's just call him John) AU idea goes like this:
John successfully shoots and kills Sabor
Then skins and cooks it cuz hey HE'S NOT WASTING GOOD MEAT
But uhhh remember how Sabor killed and presumably ate that baby gorilla before going after the Claytons? Yeah, probably not a good idea to eat a leopard that just ate a gorilla, who knows what kind of horrible primate-exclusive jungle diseases you'll get!
Alice ends up dying from some jungle disease as in the book
John blames himself and despairs for his son cuz uh she was his source of food as in the book (never mind that Tarzan is like a year old when his mom dies in the book and thus should be able to start eating mashed up fruit and such).
Kala still hears baby Tarzan crying and comes to investigate, waking up John who's like OH SHIT A GORILLA IS SNIFFING MY BABY. OH WAIT IT'S A MAMA GORILLA. OH WAIT IT'S NOT TRYING TO HURT MY BABY. And they have a cute touching moment where he shows baby Tarzan to Kala.
Kerchak follows Kala into the treehouse in this AU, sees her chilling with John, and goes ape (hehe) on him, knocking him out.
Kala is all WTF KERCHAK HE WAS JUST SHOWING ME HIS BABY, can't wake John up and assumes he's dead, takes baby Tarzan cuz it's kind of partially her fault his dad is "dead" so she should take care of him?
John wakes up, goes in search of his baby, finds him, and realizes Kala has been nursing him. He realizes OH HEY MY SON WON'T STARVE so kind of... gets in a co-parenting Tarzan situation with Kala, where they can visit each other whenever?
End result:
Both dad and son end up learning gorilla language (Tarzan is better at it cuz babies learn languages easier), Tarzan is a bit more civilized thanks to his dad's influence (but still comfy in jungle), John is a bit more wild thanks to jungle's and gorillas' influence. Also when the gorilla researchers show up calling them both John Clayton is confusing so they just use their gorilla names to address them, Tarzan and uh... *throws dice* Shinor. (I really doubt ERB actually made the ape language into a whole conlang so I just made something up. Tarzan means "white skin" so Shinor could mean "furry nose" cuz of his awesome mustache.)
no subject
John successfully shoots and kills Sabor
Then skins and cooks it cuz hey HE'S NOT WASTING GOOD MEAT
But uhhh remember how Sabor killed and presumably ate that baby gorilla before going after the Claytons? Yeah, probably not a good idea to eat a leopard that just ate a gorilla, who knows what kind of horrible primate-exclusive jungle diseases you'll get!
Alice ends up dying from some jungle disease as in the book
John blames himself and despairs for his son cuz uh she was his source of food as in the book (never mind that Tarzan is like a year old when his mom dies in the book and thus should be able to start eating mashed up fruit and such).
Kala still hears baby Tarzan crying and comes to investigate, waking up
John who's like OH SHIT A GORILLA IS SNIFFING MY BABY. OH WAIT IT'S A MAMA GORILLA. OH WAIT IT'S NOT TRYING TO HURT MY BABY. And they have a cute touching moment where he shows baby Tarzan to Kala.
Kerchak follows Kala into the treehouse in this AU, sees her chilling with John, and goes ape (hehe) on him, knocking him out.
Kala is all WTF KERCHAK HE WAS JUST SHOWING ME HIS BABY, can't wake John up and assumes he's dead, takes baby Tarzan cuz it's kind of partially her fault his dad is "dead" so she should take care of him?
John wakes up, goes in search of his baby, finds him, and realizes Kala has been nursing him. He realizes OH HEY MY SON WON'T STARVE so kind of... gets in a co-parenting Tarzan situation with Kala, where they can visit each other whenever?
End result:
Both dad and son end up learning gorilla language (Tarzan is better at it cuz babies learn languages easier), Tarzan is a bit more civilized thanks to his dad's influence (but still comfy in jungle), John is a bit more wild thanks to jungle's and gorillas' influence. Also when the gorilla researchers show up calling them both John Clayton is confusing so they just use their gorilla names to address them, Tarzan and uh... *throws dice* Shinor. (I really doubt ERB actually made the ape language into a whole conlang so I just made something up. Tarzan means "white skin" so Shinor could mean "furry nose" cuz of his awesome mustache.)