Disney's War — A Crossover Story
, as well as its follow-ups End of Worlds and The Final Adventure, were written by DeviantArt user technomizer.
The fanfics take place in a very elaborate version of what a Disney Multiverse could be like: it has its inner balance, each world being a new branch to a metaphorical "tree" of which the "Center World" is the trunk. The Center World is a medieval fantasy-themed utopia where the classical characters such as Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Clarabelle, and Yen Sid live. To study other worlds, Yen Sid, who is King Mickey's adviser, has created the Doorway, a magical doorway that allows people to travel to other worlds, and the Viewing Basin, in which Yen Sid can see what happens in various worlds and write it down in the Book of Legends that he created.
The story begins when Yen Sid brings the Magic Mirror back from Snow White's world, where it had been abandoned carelessly in Queen Grimhilde's castle after her demise. The Mirror then proceeds to pronounce a prophecy: "a great horned evil will unbalance the worlds, and the heroes need to gather in one place to keep the darkness at bay". But soon, Pete steals the key to the doorway, hoping to find a way to take revenge on Mickey in another world. He ends up in Prydain, where he accidentally revives the Horned King, who, made aware of the other worlds, decides to conquer them. He is now merged with the power of the Black Cauldron, which allows him to bring the dead back to life in a wave of his hand; which he does, on any Disney Villain he can find. Once he has gathered the villains, he redistributes roles: Scar attacks Cinderella, Gaston attacks Simba, Queen Grimhilde attacks Aurora…
Soon, the worlds lose their precious balance, and things start to revert to the way they were before the stories happened: Ariel goes back to being a mermaid, and the Prince/Adam turns back into the Beast. Meanwhile, the Horned King is perfectly aware of the danger of the worlds being destroyed, but it suits his great purpose: he wants to be a god, and once the worlds are destroyed, he thinks he'll be the one to rebuild them to his image. Mickey and the gang, realizing the threat of the King, start to gather the heroes of every world in their world. But since the Doorway is now unusable because of the lost balance, they have to use the more archaic portal spell, which heavily drains on the user's life force. And Yen Sid's health is deteriorating…
Thanks to positive reviews, technomizer wrote two sequels:
- In End of Worlds — A Disney Crossover Sequel, a mysterious enemy known as the Master of Worlds, and who claims he's working for a greater good, captures Alpha Beingsnote to use their magic essence to merge all the worlds into one, to remove the problems caused by the risk of unbalancing the worlds. The story is told from Merida's point of view, from Brave, who later returns as the hero of the next story. The Blue Fairy and Yen Sid finally decide to call Mary Poppins for help, with her being portrayed as one of the most powerful Alpha Beings in existence, that even Chernabog respects.
Word of God has it that she's treated as "the Disney equivalent of the Doctor". - In The Final Adventure — A Disney Crossover Finale, the Master of World has finally succeeded in uniting the worlds together into a single one. Thanks to a potion that Mary Poppins made her drink before the merging, Merida still remembers the original worlds clearly, but a Cosmic Retcon has changed the history of the now single World and of its characters, who however retain a small glimpse of their former lives in dreams. The problem is that the interference of the stories has changed the course of the heroes' history: Captain Jack Sparrow freed Aladdin from prison before he met the old prisoner who led him to the lamp, Shan Yu, thanks to external help, as conquered China and made it into the Hun Lands, and Minnie never married Mickey who remained captain of the musketeers. Merida finds the Master of Worlds masquerading as Lord Arawn, king of Prydain, but discovers he's only a pawn on the chessboard of another, far more powerful Master…
Disney's War provides examples of:
- Big Bad: The Horned King, who tries to conquer the whole multiverse; the sequels replace him with the self-proclaimed Master of Worlds.
- Chekhov's Gunman: There were a few examples, especially in the first story:
- Chip stowed away with Belle and Adam/Beast because he was curious to know more about the worlds and characters who live in them. Guess how he helped out. (See What The Hell, Hero? below.)
- Jaq and Gus didn't do much, but they ended up saving Cinderella from Gaston when he held her at knifepoint during the climax, which led to his demise.
- Closest Thing We Got: As the third story begins, having learned that most of the heroes she knew are either missing or (at least apparently) dead, Merida has to join forces with a group of pirates to learn what has happened after she was thrown into the dungeons of Castle Disney for trying to accuse some of the villains of their past crimes.
- Composite Character: In the combined timeline of the third story, it would appear that the Blue Fairy has taken the roles originally played by Aurora's fairy aunts and Cinderella's Fairy Godmother.
- Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Invoked by Taran about Yen Sid, as he argues that had Yen Sid not invented the doorway, none of this would have happened. Surprisingly, Mary Poppins eventually agrees with him in the very last chapter of the last story, and consequently closes any means of traveling from one world to another.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: Of all people, Gaston suffers from this, resulting in him releasing his grip and falling out a window after he tried to take Cinderella hostage just because Jaq and Gus appeared in front of him.
- Full-Name Basis: In "The Final Adventure", the third story in the series, Mary Poppins insists on being called Mary Poppins; she can accept "Mary" from close friends like Bert, but won't let anyone call her "Mrs. Poppins", "Mrs. Mary Poppins" or, worst of all, "that nurse".
- A God Am I: The Horned King had already a bad case of that in his debut appearance… except that here he actually does it, and upgrades to being the Horned God at the end when he merges with Chernabog.
- Great Big Book of Everything: The Book of Legends, in which Yen Sid wrote the detail of every story of every world. The villains later steal it to know who they must recruit in which world.
- Hijacking Cthulhu: In a pretty straight example, the Horned King takes control of Chernabog's body and powers during the climax of the first story. When the Horned King is defeated, Chernabog is restored to his regular self.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Scar inadvertently, but subtly lets slip on where he and the other villains are located. Though, it's later subverted when the villains set up a trap for the heroes, having anticipated that the latter group would eventually find them.
- Only in It for the Money: The Pete family in the sequel seems to help the Master of Worlds only because he promised them fantastic riches should he succeed, which come in the form of ponies for Pistol, Pete's young daughter.
- Opponent Switch: As part of the villains' attack against the heroes in the first story, they each go up against someone other than their 'official' adversary, such as Maleficent targeting Hercules, Gaston going after Simba, Hook attacking Ariel and Eric, Jafar transforming Adam back into the Beast, or Scar capturing Cinderella.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Surprisingly, Chernabog is treated that way; he agrees to help the heroes defeat the Horned King and the other villains because he knows that conquering the multiverse would be a bad idea, as it would disturb the balance of the worlds, change the laws of magic forever and thus possibly weaken him. (Which does happen in the third story).
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: In Final Adventure, Merida's initial 'crew' to help her explore this new world consists of herself, Mary Poppins, Captain Mickey, Captain Jack Sparrow, Aladdin, Abu, Flynn 'Eugene' Rider, and Mulan.
- Reality Warper: Alice is portrayed that way, as she can make anything she imagines come true.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In Final Adventure, when Elsa learns what Hans has been doing since she went to the dungeon, she is only stopped from killing him because of Merida.
- Sole Survivor: In Final Adventure, Merida is the only person who clearly remembers the worlds that came before, and has to contact Mary Poppins to start rallying others to find out what happened and if there's any way to reverse it.
- Unwanted Rescue: Initially seems to apply in Final Adventure when Merida finds Elsa in her dungeon and Elsa explains that she wants to be there to keep her kingdom safe while Hans acts as her regent and searches for Anna... until Merida reveals that Hans has been telling everyone Elsa and Anna are dead and shows no sign he's looking for Anna.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Goofy allows a clearly suspicious-looking man into the castle after making sure all of the feast guests were allowed to enter. Shortly after, said man turns out to be Pete, who steals the Book of Legends and heads off to Prydain after learning about the Black Cauldron's power. Keep this in mind: the entire plot has happened all because Goofy didn't pay close attention to who the uninvited guest was. Then again, see You Can't Fight Fate below.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Invoked by the Master of Worlds when he kidnaps Rapunzel, Ray, the Spring Sprite, and a few more.
- Villain with Good Publicity: In the new world created in Final Adventure, Jafar, Hans, and Arawn have become the 'heroes' as far as the public is concerned, but Merida soon confirms that they're still the villains she heard about in the original history.
- Walking Spoiler: In the third story, it is not revealed that the "Master of Worlds" is actually Alice from Alice in Wonderland, turned insane and evil until pretty late in the story, and his identity was already a mystery in the previous story, End of Worlds. The origin of his powers was also pretty mysterious, but all makes sense once we know that "he" turns out to be Alice, who in the context of the series is one of the most powerful Reality Warpers in existence.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Master of Worlds, in the sequel, tries to pass as one, thanks to his "Utopia Justifies the Means" reasons (see this entry). The Reveal that there is another Master who is The Man Behind the Man to the Master of Worlds, and that this person is Alice turned evil seems to shift the Well-Intentioned Extremism to Alice. However, the second Reveal that a figment of the Horned King's mind had been controlling Alice the whole time, and that it was a very elaborate Evil Plan to conquer the World negates any "well-intentions" seen in the whole story.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When the assembled heroes initially have trouble getting along due to their conflicting approaches to the current problem in the first story, Chip forces them to get along by accusing them all of not being true heroes if they would start berating each other like this.
- You Can't Fight Fate: The Magic Mirror's prophecy ends up coming true in the form of Pete learning about the Black Cauldron's existence after tricking Goofy into letting him inside the castle. As a result, the Horned King returns from the dead and gathers the forces of evil to usher in a reign of darkness.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Said almost verbatim by Evil!Alice to Arawn after he let the heroes sneak into her bedroom to try to assassinate her.Evil!Alice: "While you’ve been ever so helpful to me, Arawn, so loyal, I’m afraid your usefulness has ended."
