Crowns of the Kingdom

Troper Karalora wrote this fanfic in honor of Disneyland's 50th Anniversary. It probably says something about its scope that it was almost time for the 55th Anniversary by the time she posted the final chapter.

The story begins with a vengeful Maleficent casting a spell to undo all 50 years of Disneyland's development, leaving the park as it was when it first opened in 1955 and trapping every animated character created since then in a limbo between reality and non-existence. In order to rescue them and restore the park to its 2005 state, Mickey Mouse and his core group from the Classic Disney Shorts quest to retrieve five decorative crowns stolen from the turrets of Sleeping Beauty Castle, each one representing ten years of Disneyland history. Along the way, they are opposed by the Dispirations, Shapeshifting beings from the limbo dimension whom Maleficent has recruited. They also frequently find themselves navigating the hazards of Disneyland's thrill rides, come to life as an indirect result of the spell. And then the rest of the Disney Villains get involved...

The result is an adventure much in the vein of Kingdom Hearts--a Disney Animated Canon crossover featuring a horde of soulless, soul-crushing enemies, the threat of the world's destruction, and of course Mickey Mouse as an action-ready hero. But what it really is, is the author's love letter to Disneyland--a nostalgic journey through the park's history, and a celebration of its capacity to blur the line between reality and imagination. It garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews from Karalora's fellow Disney park fans on ff.net, but non-fans may find it less accessible.

But judge for yourself.


 * Action Girl: Minnie and Daisy. Also the Disney Princesses during one sequence.
 * Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Inpotentia
 * Amusement Park of Doom
 * Author Appeal
 * Battle Couple: Donald and Daisy combine this trope with Dance Battler in the jungle concert scene.
 * Big Bad: Maleficent (The showdown with her comes after the one with Chernabog!)
 * Big Boo's Haunt: The Haunted Mansion
 * Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti
 * Card-Carrying Villain: All the Disney Villains, of course
 * Catch Phrase: Mickey deliberately uses his "See ya real soon!" in order to comfort the animated characters.
 * Cerebus Syndrome: The cartoony pratfall type gags taper off as the plot heats up.
 * Chekhov's Gunman: The Queen of Hearts, ,
 * Clap Your Hands If You Believe (natch--it's Disney)
 * Crossover Shipping: The elephants from Dumbo (all female) with the elephants from The Jungle Book (all male)
 * Dem Bones: The skeletons on Pirates of the Caribbean
 * Disney Animated Canon
 * Disney Theme Parks
 * Doorstopper: There are over 30 chapters, totaling well over 150,000 words.
 * Environmental Symbolism: Compare the location of each crown to the type and quality of the light when Mickey finds it.
 * Everything's Better with Monkeys: Both "Jungle Jazz and Jeopardy" chapters
 * Final Boss, New Dimension
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero: Mickey Mouse
 * The Lancer: Donald Duck
 * The Smart Guy / The Chick: Minnie Mouse
 * The Big Guy: Goofy
 * The Chick / The Smart Guy: Daisy Duck (The two of them trade off the two roles.)
 * Team Pet: Pluto
 * Genius Loci: It's hinted that Disneyland itself is one.
 * The Heartless: The Dispirations, although it's not so much that they eat negative emotions as that they crave any thought pattern that might bring them closer to reality
 * Hoist By Her Own Petard: Maleficent falls victim to her own time-twisting spell.
 * Hostage for Macguffin: Averted when Minnie and Daisy flee with the Serpent Crown, trusting the guys to handle themselves with the Dispirations
 * Improvised Weapon: The Disney Princesses storm the Matterhorn to rescue their boyfriends armed with sports equipment and kitchen utensils.
 * Doubles as Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: See entry for One-Winged Angel. Elliot also makes appearances.
 * Jenny Everywhere: A blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the final chapter. (The author had just learned about the character as she was writing it and thought, Sure Why Not.)
 * Jungle Japes: The Jungle Cruise
 * Locomotive Level: The Monorail sequence
 * Mama Bear: Minnie, so much
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover
 * Minecart Madness: Big Thunder Mountain
 * Mix-and-Match Critters: Some of the forms taken by the Dispirations.
 * My Species Doth Protest Too Much:
 * One-Winged Angel: In accordance with her personal tradition, Maleficent finishes out the final battle in dragon form
 * Our Fairies Are Different
 * Plot Coupons: The titular crowns
 * Purple Prose: The narrative slips into this from time to time, usually when describing attraction scenery.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: Mickey's plan in the epilogue to reward for his help.
 * Ret-Gone: What happens to anyone who
 * Reverse Mole: The Queen of Hearts
 * Scenery Porn: See Purple Prose
 * Science vs. Magic: Personified by Ludwig von Drake and Merlin.
 * Shout-Out
 * Shown Their Work
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Matterhorn
 * Sugar Bowl: "it's a small world"
 * Under the Sea: The Submarine Voyage
 * Temple of Doom: The Indiana Jones ride, appropriately enough
 * This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Mickey insists this about the final showdown with Maleficent.
 * Timey-Wimey Ball: complete with some explanatory Techno Babble on the part of Ludwig von Drake
 * The Very Definitely Final Dungeon
 * Video Game Tropes: You've probably noticed several in this list. This is because Karalora initially envisioned the story as a video game that she wished Disney would make, because she would have had a blast playing it.
 * Villain Team-Up
 * What Could Have Been: It's a place!