Karalora wrote Crowns of the Kingdom
in honor of Disneyland's 50th Anniversary. It probably says something about its scope that it was almost time for the 55th Aniversary 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, reified 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 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.
This work contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Minnie and Daisy. Also the Disney Princesses during one sequence.
- Affirmative Action Girl: Daisy, who joins the party a bit later, no longer making Minnie the only female in the group.
- Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Inpotentia is described as having a colorful sky akin to a kaleidoscope. The final battle against Maleficent takes place in Inpotentia.
- Amusement Park of Doom: Thanks to Maleficent's spell, Disneyland becomes one. The rides come to life and Dispirations roam the place.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: Downplayed and subverted with the audio-animatronic Confucius, who prefaces each of his maxims with "Confucius say," but drops the pretense and speaks normally when Mickey doesn't get the message.
- The Assimilator: The Dispirations take on the characteristics of the land they're in.
- Author Appeal: Disney is awesome!
- Badass Driver: Minnie, who takes control of Tomorrowland's Monorail, an Atommobile, and a Jeep in the Temple of Mara throughout the fic and manages to be completely awesome each time.
- Battle Couple:
- Donald and Daisy combine this trope with Dance Battler in the jungle concert scene.
- Cinderella and Prince Charming as well.
- Big Bad: Maleficent. The showdown with her comes after the one with Chernabog.
- Big Boo's Haunt: The Haunted Mansion.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Harold the Abominable Snowman.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: King Louie and his servants are hypnotized by the Dispirations.
- The Cameo: There are quite a few instances of characters mentioned in passing, who do not play a large role in the story.
- Cats Are Mean: Si and Am the Siamese cats briefly help Maleficent out.
- Character Catchphrase: 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:
- At the start of the quest, the Queen of Hearts gives Mickey her crown to keep him from forgetting that he's looking for the titular crowns. When the Fab Five find the first crown, the Queen of Hearts's crown makes the first crown tangible and reveals what they need to do to recover the rest of the crowns.
- Also at the start of the request, Mickey appoints Jiminy Cricket to help him and the others remember should they lose their memories. After Mickey and Minnie fall into the oubliette, Jiminy helps bring them back by leading everyone to remember them.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Mickey grapples with this, as sometimes he's so willing to do things himself he doesn't know when to let others help or even when to rest.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Everyone believes in Mickey and Minnie to restore them from nonexistence.
- Contrived Coincidence: Neither Merlin or Ludwig believe in them.
- Crossover Shipping: The elephants from Dumbo with the elephants from The Jungle Book.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: From the perspective of the 21st Century, Mickey finds the Confucius presentation embarrassing and inappropriate.
- Dem Bones: The skeletons on Pirates of the Caribbean.
- Distressed Dude: The villains capture all the Princes except Charming at one point.
- Door Stopper: There are 33 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.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: The Disney villains find this out when the summon Chernabog.
- Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Averted, it's made clear that the villains are willing to betray each other to achieve their goals. In particular, many of the villains are ticked at Maleficent for her spell nearly destroying them.
- Fastball Special: Goofy throws the heroes across the river in Frontierland. Including himself.
- Final Boss, New Dimension: Mickey confronts Maleficent in Inpotentia.
- Frying Pan of Doom: Cinderella wields one while she and the other princesses rescue their boyfriends.
- Genius Loci: It's hinted that Disneyland itself is one. It even seems to cry out in agony when Walt dies.
- 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.
- Heel–Face Turn: Thanks to Hypatia, the Dispirations become Inspirations.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Maleficent falls victim to her own time-twisting spell, due to Sleeping Beauty being released four years after Disneyland's opening.
- 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.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Mickey notices that when they contact Maleficent in Inpotentia, she already has a name for it, proving that she knew more about it than she was saying.
- In-Series Nickname: The Fab Five for Mickey's group, as well as the Sensational Six when Daisy joins them.
- Jungle Japes: The Jungle Cruise.
- Large Ham: The Disney Villains have this trait, and it's part of why they do what they do.
- Le Parkour: Mickey and Minnie get around this way.
- Little Miss Badass: It's only mentioned briefly, but Annelise, one of the children from the It's a Small World ride, is said to have killer aim when throwing her wooden clogs, something she was preparing to prove to a horde of Dispirations right before the cavalry arrived.
- Locomotive Level: The Monorail sequence.
- Minecart Madness: Minnie and Daisy ride Big Thunder Mountain at one point to escape the Dispirations.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Some of the forms taken by the Dispirations thanks to their shapeshifting abilities.
- The Mole: The Queen of Hearts acts as this for the heroes to inform them about stuff the villains might be planning.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Hypatia.
- One-Winged Angel: In accordance with her personal tradition, Maleficent finishes out the final battle in dragon form.
- Original Character: Hypatia is a character created for the story.
- Plot Coupon: The titular crowns, which the characters need to collect in order to restore Disneyland back to normal.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Lady Tremaine elects to stay out of the villains' team up because it wouldn't benefit her or her daughters.
- 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 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for his help.
- Ret-Gone: What happens to anyone who falls into an Oubliette. This nearly happens to Mickey and Minnie in the end.
- The Royal We: The Queen of Hearts uses this at times.
- Rule of Funny: Goofy manages to throw himself across the river by way of cartoon physics.
- Rule of Symbolism: How Maleficent's curse and its escape clause work—since the five crowns represent the five decades of Disneyland history, spiriting them away takes the park back in time 50 years, and returning each one to its place on the Castle puts the corresponding decade back into place.
- Scenery Porn: All areas of Disneyland are described in detail. See Purple Prose.
- Science vs. Magic: Personified by Ludwig von Drake and Merlin. They are capable of working together in a crisis though.
- Shown Their Work: The author is a big fan of Disneyland, and goes out of her way to be as historically accurate as possible.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Matterhorn, which is used by the villains as a dungeon to hold the heroes they capture.
- 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.
- True Companions: Mickey and his friends.
- Two Girls to a Team:
- Minnie and Daisy, as part of Mickey's core team.
- But averted with the "it's a small world" kids, who number six and are an even split.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Maleficent's castle at Inpotentia.
- 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: Seen near the end of the story by the Disney villains.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Minnie Mouse oh so much, especially when Maleficent threatens Mickey.
- What Could Have Been: In-universe. It's a place! It's called "Inpotentia", which is where all unused and forgotten ideas that have been imagined reside.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Dispirations, who are so desperate to exist that they follow Maleficent.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: It turns out that Disneyland is trapped in Inpotentia, protected by a shell made up of the collective memories of everyone who's ever visited it. This has the effect of making the rides more intense, much to the chagrin of Mickey and his friends, who have to navigate them to get the crowns. After a while, the memories start breaking down...
