No fryer, more like a stew pot.
You totally lost me on that first paragraph. So... whatever floats your boat.
I think we should do a fantasy version. Otherwise that would land us right before WWI... do we want to use that somehow? Like, we could have a WWI equivalent in a fantasy land. But it may be too much to handle.
The ruler wants personal gain, methinks.
Umm... witch hunts were way over by 1913. That's why I think we should do a fantasy world, so we can manipulate history without confusing ourselves. For instance, I think it would be cool if the past was somewhat medieval.
What if... the kid from the present ultimately tries to fix the huge mistake that happened and caused the witch hunt? That way, the ruler of the present wouldn't be able to use magic to his advantage, since everyone has it. Just a thought, don't know if it's a good reason. He/she needs to fix something, and I suppose that would be one way to do it, although it would dramatically change the present.
In some ways, the past should be more sophisticated than the present, since it has magic.
I think the plan is to send some magicians back in time to salvage spell books and other things that could be used by the ruler to conquer other lands. Maybe the kid from the present has to stop some of these agents.
The ruler is definitely worse. The magicians are greedy, but the ruler wants to take over the world. I think they're regular people who have dabbled in the lost art.
I think the main character should be the person from the present. Because we start in the present, yes? And it's about how he/she has to stop the magicians. But that kind of goes against your original idea, now that I think of it. We could have both be the main, and switch perspectives when needed.
Who do you think should be the girl, and who the boy? And about what age are these kids? 15-16? Also, we need to decide if there are going to be any romantic interactions between the two. Which could get tricky, since there's a 100 yr. age difference. But I suppose one of them could eventually choose to stay in the past (or the future).
Also, what is the means of traveling through time? I said vortex, but I really have no clue. Somehow the magicians must have searched high and low for relics and charms that, combined, would generate enough power to send someone back in time. Once someone is in the past, can he/she return at will, or do they have to be summoned? Is there some sort of amulet that lets them do this? If so, how did the kid from the present find this thing, when it would be guarded by the magicians.