Thanks! A Tale of Two Kingdoms was really fun to write–it just wanted to be written so badly and most of the time it was me just trying to articulate the story happening up in my brain. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
A Tale of Two Kingdoms really is a story about Carlos, more so than anyone or anything else. In the fusion of Pacific Rim x Descendants, there aren’t very many characters who will thrive so well as Carlos would, you know? It’s a bit situational because here you have these giant monsters coming from the ocean who, eventually, become immune to magic. So in order for jaegers to exist, you’d have to have 1) people who would rather fight than run, 2) people who have the scientific know-how for giant robots, and 3) the motivation of 1 to do 2.
Like, in theory, Auradon might have the knowledge to create jaegers, but they canonically deal with their problems by banishing/hiding it on an island in the middle of the ocean. Whereas, Jemma Hook and other islanders may have the aggression and willingness to fight, but that doesn’t translate into creating a means to fight. Hence, Carlos being the only one that fits both. Even if I hadn’t stranded the other three Lost kids into the world of the kaiju, it’d be much the same. Mal and Jay would be willing to fight the kaiju but they’d do it in their own way (magic and/or physically) which simply wouldn’t work. Evie might have been able to do something–like, strategic strikes against the kaiju if they approached the Isle, or arrange a mass exodus of the Isle–but not to the extent that Carlos did.
Everything else in the story really is kind of just trappings for Carlos’ coming of age/falling in love.
Thanks! I really appreciate it. And, welcome to the fandom! 🙂
I have a few other Descendants fic (and, in particular, other Benlos Descendants fic) you might be interested in. If you want to check those out, there’s “A Tale of Two Kingdoms,” a Pacific RimxDescendants crossover/fusion series and… well… actually, a lot of stuff. I didn’t realize until now how much I’ve written for this fandom. You can take a look at my Descendants tag or my Benlos tag for everything else. I’m currently working on a series called “Ain’t No Rest” (but it’s slow going, so I recommend checking out my other stuff first, because I have no idea when that’s going to be finished…)
Anyway, thanks again for reading! I’m glad you enjoy them. And I hope you have a lovely time in the fandom.
edit: I realized how generic and voice-mailbox-esque the above sounded. sorry about that anon, let me try again:
THIS FREAKING FANDOM HAS EATEN MY BRAIN, I SWEAR TO GOD I WAS WATCHING THE MOVIE BECAUSE MY YOUNGER COUSINS WANTED TO WATCH IT AND THE ENTIRE TIME I WAS LIKE… This could be better. There were so many points in the movie where I was just, oh, so close Disney, you have the potential for a movie that honestly could be groundbreaking, but shied away.
Well, you know what? FANFICTION.
Which probably explains why a lot of Only Fools Rush In was written within the week after the movie came out. No other fandom has so quickly and thoroughly held my brain hostage and demanded fic as Descendants. None. Seriously. It’s the recipient of not only my first completed multi-part fic, but my second completed multi-part fic, my first three forays into fanmixes, and I’m pretty sure it’s responsible for at least 75% of my followers. (SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY FELLOW DESCENDANTS TRASH)
So, yes, I hope you do have a lovely time in the fandom. By which I really mean–I know you watched the movie and saw it’s potential and wanted something more TO THE POINT OF DESPERATION that you joined a fandom full of other people similarly desperate.
because that’s really what all of my fic and fanmixes are about. Me, seeing the potential that movie had, and wishing it had reached it. (and also, cute dumb boys being in love. With or without giant robots being involved.)
For the Lapis Lazuli song I tried to stay as close to the canon Lapis Lazuli/Water Witch song in the episode The Message… I guess the wiki link on the post leads to a deleted page, now, but basically I just modified the canon lyrics and mashed it up with andwereallwevegot’s Ballad lyrics.
As for the melody, that too I tried to keep as close to the canon Lapis Lazuli/Water Witch song that Steven sings here.
Essentially, I own absolutely nothing in that post except for my voice.
Hm… I’m always kind of hesitant about gender/sex bend fic. When done right they are amazing to read, but it’s pretty difficult to do right–there’s a lot of tricky parts that need to be maneuvered around with sensitivity and there are points where you have to consider how much of a personality is due to sex (in that, unfortunately in society, people of different sexes are held to different standards and so develop differently). Like, how much change is too much? At what point do the characters we know and love become unrecognizable.
In the always!female!Carlos and always!male!Mal, Evie, and Jay… hm… there would be changes in how the parents treat their children in that case. For example, Maleficent and Grimhilde treat canon Mal and Evie as extensions of themselves/their second chances–essentially, their daughters are them. Whereas with Cruella, she treats canon Carlos as a (heh) dogsbody/minion.
If all three of them were to have sex bends I think that would also change–Cruella would probably raise Carlos (Carla?) to be a leader of minions instead of to be her own minion. A lot of Grimhilde’s advice to Evie is how to get a prince to marry–but if Evie is male then that means he would be the prince so Grimhilde would raise him to be as stereotypically prince-like as possible. Basically, training him to go on quests so he can win the hand of whichever princess he rescues. Maleficent and Mal’s relationship wouldn’t be too different except for how Mal is further from the duplicate image of Maleficent, so he would be even more desperate to prove himself to his mother.
All that being said, I do think that, yes, if the gang were female!Carlos, male!Mal, Evie, and Jay then the latter three would be very protective of the former. Carlos would be Evie’s “practice princess” in a way–like how children play make believe–while her lack of magic would make Mal think she were ridiculously fragile (especially in comparison to Maleficent’s overt magical presence). With Jay, since I figure female!Carlos would be less hostile than canon Mal and less beguiling than canon Evie, Jay would be more protective of female!Carlos. I mean, Jay is already pretty protective of the others in canon so it could only increase for a female!Carlos. Female!Carlos would be more hardened and cunning than her canon male counterpart, but ultimately I don’t think she would treat the others like her minions (that’s what Horace and Jasper’s kids are for); like her protectors, maybe, but not her minions.
As for shipping… hm… well, I’ve got to be faithful to Benlos–and if anything, female!Carlos would be an irresistible blend of canon!Mal and canon!Carlos for Ben. I would be absolutely fascinated by a male!Mal x Audrey ship–I’m always a sucker for the enemies to lovers trope. I also have a soft spot for Devie (aka, DougxEvie) but I’m not entirely sure how well that would translate to male!Evie x Doug… it’d be a mix of bad-boy/jock + nerd… As for Chad, well. I hate Chad. HATE. So I am pretty sure the Lost kids would be even less tolerant of his douchebaggery if it’s Carlos he tries to exploit–and anyway, female!Carlos would be less vulnerable to a handsome prince than canon!Evie.
As for the second part of your ask… there’s a difference between gender/sex bend fic and… well, I don’t know if there’s a better term for it… gender/sex fucks. That is, instead of always!female!Carlos, it would be a temporarily!female!Carlos. The latter can be funny and silly, but I’m concerned with the phrasing? Like, why do the guys at Auradon Prep suddenly realize he’s cute when he’s female? Why did they not realize it sooner (like Ben)? That goes into exploring the sexualities of random Auradon guys who I don’t particularly care about?
I don’t think Carlos would do anything if he were suddenly turned female–I think it would be mostly the other Lost kids doing stuff. Like Evie having another model who actually enjoys clothes, Jay glaring daggers at all the Auradon guys who keep trying to ask out Carlos just because he’s suddenly female, and Mal trying to figure out how to reverse it.
Maaaybe the only one I’d accept Carlos actually dating when suddenly female would be Ben (because, yes, I’m a Benlos shipper, but also he’s the only Auradon guy who showed any interest in Carlos before his sudden magical sex swap), but I’m not really sure where the plot would go from there. Unless it’s a story about gender dysphoria, in which having accidentally been turned female Carlos realizes that he actually wants to be a she. Thus all of her friends (+Ben) are her support system as she transitions (mentally, since Mal’s magic already took care of the physical part).
Uh.. but yes, sorry for all that heavy text. Here are some pictures for what I think I female Carlos may look like:
In one universe, while the four Lost kids are working on love potion cookies, Lonnie walks in, adds chocolate chips, cries, then leaves. With a tear of human sadness and despite the addition of chocolate, the potion works as advertised, making the consumer fall in love with the first person they see. In that universe, it makes Ben fall in love with Mal.
This is not that universe.
In this universe, Lonnie does not appear. There are no chocolate chips or tears of human sadness, and so there are no enchanted cookies. They have to use a different spell. One less… controllable.
“I can barely read anything on this page,” Mal complains, spell book flipped open to a different section.
“Let me see,” Evie says, and Mal lays the book flat so all of them can look.
They stare.
“Are you sure those are words?” Jay asks incredulously, not even flinching when Mal smacks his arm, because, well. Scribbles would be a generous description.
“The pictures are pretty clear,” Carlos says optimistically. Even if magic isn’t one of his skills, he has experience with making things work with patchwork instruction manuals–surely it’s the same with spells. It really isn’t.
“I suppose… We don’t have any other options, and we’re on a deadline.” Mal says, considering, before deciding on a course of action, “We’ll do it. Evie, first things first. We need this,” she points at the largest drawing: a flat, six petaled flower with a long thin stem. The top two petals are shaded in, no doubt meant to be a color of some sort, while the bottom four petals are left unshaded.
“Mirror, mirror… full of power,” Evie begins, “Show us where to find that flower.” The swirling silver smoke parts to show a field with dark purple and white flowers peeking through the blades of grass, a small stream flowing along one side. “Not so close,” Evie sighs, and the image zooms out to show the sign of Auradon Prep.
“It’s on campus?” Mal asks, disbelieving. Why would a key ingredient for a love spell just be growing where any student could get there hands on it? That’s stupid. Well, stupid of Auradon–convenient for her, so she shouldn’t complain.
“This campus is huge, though” Jay says, “that would still take us forever–”
“No wait,” Carlos interrupts, “I think I know where that is. I wasn’t sure, since the drawing is in black and white, but I’ve seen those flowers before.”
In the woods beyond the tourney field and bleachers is a deer trail, a narrow path that leads to a tiny meadow full of purple and white flowers. Carlos and Dude have been there before, found it on their very first day together. They go back, occasionally, if Carlos isn’t too tired from tourney practice to run around with his dog.
It’s easy to find again, even in the dark of the night. The four of them spend twenty minutes picking flowers, which, when Evie says so aloud with an amused smirk, causes Mal to scowl fiercely and Jay to stop.
“It’s for a diabolical scheme, okay. I’m not turning into some kind of airhead who sings to animals.” Mal says crossly, before adding, “Keep picking, Jay.”
“How many do we even need?” He grumbles, but does as she says anyway.
“Well, seeing as how we don’t have actual instructions, we need as many as we can get.”
In the end, they clear the field, flowers gathered into Carlos’ jacket as an impromptu bag, before heading back to the boys’ dorm room. They have a love spell to figure out.
But even if the pictures are pretty clear–flower, eyes, heart–the lack of words really is a problem. Not an insurmountable problem, no, but it definitely leaves a lot to interpretation. Like, say, everything.
“Ugh,” Mal groans after attempt almost two hours of trying to decode the scribbles, “Maybe we should go back to the first spell.”
“Tear of human sadness,” Jay reminds her with a grunt, sprawled on his bed and nearly half asleep, but stubbornly blinking his eyes open.
Mal just groans again, throwing her head forward into the cradle of her curled arms on the table.
“Why don’t we just wing it?” Carlos’ voice pipes up from behind her, where he and Evie have been lounging on his bed.
“You mean like the museum heist? Winging it like that?” Mal scoffs without looking up.
“Well, not quite like that,” Evie says coyly, “We have more than enough of these flowers, we can take our time and experiment. Imagine the havoc we can wreak on the school.”
That idea does sound appealing, Mal lifts her head and even Jay sits up in interest. Then startles–“What are you wearing?” He asks.
Mal turns and frowns at what she sees.
Carlos weaving a small wreath of the flowers around Dude’s neck, and Evie straightening a larger wreath as a crown on Carlos’ head.
Mal would scold them for using up their main ingredient, but the four of them really did pick an awful lot of those flowers. They have plenty to spare. But… just so it’s not a total waste, “You’re wearing that to classes tomorrow.”
Who knows, maybe something interesting will happen.
~
A/N: Uh… so first off–thanks for the prompt anon! And… well, sorry it wasn’t exactly what you prompted and more like the prequel to your prompt, instead. Mostly that’s because as I was about halfway through, I realized that the way I set it up this would have to be a complete derailment of the movie. Aaaand I don’t really know how to mesh that plot with this. But… yeah. This was pretty fun.
The flower I have in mind is Viola tricolor, aka heartsease, aka love-in-idleness, aka the flower that Puck gets the love potion from in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It also has the nifty built-in myth of changing colors–from white to purple when doing love magic.
Basically, the idea of Carlos in a magical flower crown and the whole Puck vibe he’s rocking during Set It Off! (specifically this part ) is really good for me.
Hope you enjoy!
edit: now on ao3 as part of Nameless, Worthy (Infamous)
I’ll admit, the whole “cameras don’t work” thing was a bit of a cop out on my part. Because it has to do with the magic parents and the ritual and it was… Well, not unrelated, but tangential to the story I wanted to tell.
Basically, the kaiju masters were using the magic parents to fuel their invasion–using dragon!Maleficent’s DNA to create magic resistant kaiju, Jafar’s mind control to… well… control the kaiju, and Ursula and Grimhilde to keep the tears open and other stuff. Essentially, Carlos had the jaeger program and all the stuff from Ben while the kaiju masters had the magic villains. It’s part of the reason why Mal, Evie, and Jay were being hunted because they are three more magical batteries for the kaiju masters.
So what the Dragon Knight did was to free the magic parents from however the kaiju masters were controlling them, thus also freeing the kaiju and it kind of turned into a bloodbath on that side with everyone fighting each other and Dragon Knight preventing kaiju from going through the tears then racing to go through one themselves before all the tears collapsed/disappeared.
(Hope you don’t mind me posting it, so I can keep a record)
Thanks! I was also a little surprised Carlos freaked out, too, but it felt right as I was writing–like, sure he’s matured and sure he’s head of the jaeger program, but he’s still a teenaged boy who has no idea how to deal with love and his only (overt) example of it was two dead teenagers. It’s like expecting someone who has just witnessed a car crash to start learning how to drive.
I am also surprised by how prevalent in this story Jemma Hook is, considering she’s an OC. I knew I wanted her to be important–and help explain why Carlos’ symbol is crossbones–but I guess they had a deeper connection than even I could have predicted because she just keeps popping up. I’ve grown fond of her, and I kinda wish I hadn’t killed Uri off just to see how the two of them would interact. Who knows? Maybe there’ll be an interlude for that.
A Tale of Two Kingdoms… hm… I like it; but I also misread it at first and thought you suggested A Tale of Two Kings which I am also considering. Because on the one hand, Kingdoms could mean Auradon vs the Isle, or it could mean Humanity vs Kaiju. But Kings would mean Ben and Carlos which goes with the back and forth writing POVs… and the inevitable shipping. What do you think?
OOH! Anon, yes! That is perfect! I like this idea of yours very much. ;D
I can picture the perfect scene for Ain’t No Rest with this prompt, but it may take a while. Chronologically this scene would have to happen after a bit more plot development. Be patient with me please? I absolutely love this, though.
Oh, yeah, you can definitely prompt with non-movie-canon characters such as Aladdin’s kid. Or any other Disney character/their kids. But I’d appreciate it if the prompts were like: “Ursula’s kid, legs” instead of something like… “Jemma Hook, James Hook’s daughter, is fifteen years old when she loses her hand, but her best friend Carlos helps her deal with it by building a prosthetic”
You know… something short that I can adapt into the story fairly easily or isn’t too constraining.
Hm… I don’t think so… I mean, I was considering splitting it into two pieces because it’s pretty long for a oneshot, especially a tumblr post oneshot, but I feel like it’s fairly comprehensive.
The first half was just a “re-telling” of the movie–the conflict of Carlos being in love with Ben but either denying it or having to let Mal have him–and the second half was the resolution. So in my mind a part two for that specific drabble doesn’t contribute more to the story. Presumably they have sex and live happily ever after, but I like the build up to sex better.
And, to be honest, I can’t really write smut. Or at least, not well enough to do it justice.
But I’m flattered that you like it well enough to want a sequel. If you want more Benlos stuff you can check out my Only Fools Rush In series, and hopefully I’ll come out with more Benlos stuff in the future too.
JackSGreyson Says 