DhampyrX2 said:
Saw the trailer for the new Disney made for TV movie Descendants and had a strange thought. What if live action Disney movies had MCU like continuity? Granted, you can's add Once Upon a Time to this as they've ripped apart their own continuity several times, never mind that of various movies they come from. But what if the Maleficent in Descendants was the one from the Angelina Jolie movie? How did she get re-branded a villain again? Why was she banished after giving her kingdom to Aurora? And how would a way too happy tween Disney movie play out with those themes?
If anyone has seen the trailer, you have a very awkward meeting between Phillip and Aurora's daughter and Maleficent's daughter where Sleeping Beauty mkII tells Mal that she does not hold it against her that Mal's mother tried to kill her parents. Now picture that conversation if Maleficent was in continuity and what was implied there (where how Maleficent came to be seen as a villain ala the original Sleeping Beauty was a lie) was the truth...
"I just wanted to tell you that I totally won't hold it against you that your Mom tried to kill my parents a bunch of times," the daughter of Sleeping Beauty awkwardly assured Mal, Daughter of Maleficent.
For a moment Mal was torn. Part of her wanted to ignore this twit that in some twisted way Mal should have thought of as a step-niece and part of her wanted to slap the idiot silly for daring to even say something like that to her. She almost blew it off with a derisive "Oh totes," and a turn of her head. But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. She could not embrace the lie Aurora had allowed to be spread after banishing Mal's mother from the Moors to the Isle of the Lost. She could not quite reign in her disgust that Aurora seemed to take far too much after Stephan after all in her later years.
Stephan. Ah, there was something Mal could use. She smiled as innocently as she could muster as she nodded reassuringly to the girl and replied, "Don't worry about it. You put that out of your mind and I'll ignore all the horrific things your dear grandfather and mother did to betray my mother. You know like Stephan using his childhood friendship with Mom to cut off her wings so he could acquire his kingdom or his trying to murder her multiple times when she resisted his armed incursion into the Moors. And let's not forget your mother agreeing to banish mine to an island prison after my mother saved her from Mom's curse with her motherly love for her. I mean why would I be upset that little Aurora hardly waited for but a few years before taking after the monster that sired her and betrayed the woman that kept her alive for the first sixteen years of her life in spite of the incompetence of the three pixies Stephan had entrusted her to? I could never hold a grudge about the woman that should have been a big sister to me for going along with the lies that were spread about my mother because it was easier than correcting a few close-minded fools. So don't worry your pretty little head, niece. There's no hard feelings. I promise."
Mal's smirk had devolved into a snarl toward the end, although she was thoroughly amused at the confusion and horror mounting on the faces of the various royal heirs of the "good" people as she made her way toward the entrance to boarding school. It was about time somebody shook up their world. Even if showing her contempt for the girl that broke her mother's heart for a second time would make her mission to steal the Fairly Godmother's wand and free the prisoners from the Isle of the Lost that much harder. And if rumors of what she had said happened to get back to Aurora, then so much the better. Maleficent's rightful heir had a few things she's like to say to the "Queen of the Moors" in person. Never mind some of the things Diaval had asked to pass on to the treacherous little viper.
Okay saw some of the movie and thought it had more potential than they utilized. Particularly with Cinderella's FAIRY Godmother as the liaison taking care of the villain kids at the school. So I have more ammo to run with now.
Mal was still snarling to herself days after the encounter at Parent's Day. It was bad enough that annoying twit Audrey (she refused to refer the Aurora's daughter as "Princess" in the sanctity of her own mind when half her family's holdings belonged to Maleficent and the other Faerie people by right) but to encounter and be humiliated by that withered old crone that Stephan had sired Aurora with? That was too far. She had had enough. Enough of the taunting. Enough of the teasing. Enough of the hatred literally because of where she was born. Enough of watching her own mother become so obsessed with revenge against these fools that she was becoming more of a caricature of herself every day.
Did Aurora have any idea what she had done sending Maleficent to a place that bound her mother's magick? What kind of torture that would be for an all but immortal faerie sorceress? Things only got worse when Mal's father, Dival, had passed away stuck as he was in his human form. The rightful Queen of the Moors did not take things like loss and betrayal very well.
Her mental musings were cut short as she hear someone clear her throat and a voice stated, "I saw Jane. She's rather... upset," the Fairy Godmother commented neutrally.
Mal turned with a cynical scowl to face Jane's mother and Mal's faculty adviser at Auradon Prep. "If she had any concept of her own ability as a Fae she should be able to do her hair all on her own," Mal snorted disdainfully. In her first days at the school she had used her magick to improve the other fae girl's mousy paigeboy haircut and make her look glamorous as part of her attempts to get information and ingratiate herself to the other students at the school. But it had taken no time at all for Audrey to get Jane acting just like the rest of the so called "heroic" children there. Only Ben treated the kids from the Isle of the Lost like actual people.
The Fairy Godmother nodded evenly as she responded, "I know."
"Do you?" Mal snarled, her control frazzled almost beyond the breaking point. "Do you?! Do you know what it's like to see a fae girl my age walk around like a scolded puppy afraid of everything around her because she thinks she's too
plain? That I needed to bother to do such a simple glamour to make her feel like she belonged here? But then she doesn't really belong here, does she?" Mal spat.
"And what does that mean, young lady?" The Fairy Godmother asked, although the sadness in her eyes betrayed that she exactly what Mal meant.
"You have the nerve to ask me that as you stand here like some powerless human in a human kingdom, while your own wand, the focus of your powers, is locked in some museum instead of being in your hand where it belongs?" Mal demanded.
"I didn't need it with the peace the uniting the the kingdoms into Auradon created," the Fairy Godmother replied with a sideways glace.
"It's not about needing it. It's about the fact that it's yours," Mal hissed. "But I guess they won't even trust the Fae on their side to have enough power to defend themselves. Nice to see Aurora following so closely in her father and grandfather's footsteps."
"She is the the Queen still," the Fairy Godmother replied neutrally. "Your own mother declared her Queen of the Moors in her stead long before you were born."
"And in return she banished my mother based on lies and gave away a kingdom and people she had no right to sign away, betraying us ALL twice over!" Mal raged. "She broke my mother's heart, like her father before her, just to join and appease these sycophants that look at me and my friends like we're diseased because of where we were born after THEY put us there in the first place."
"Her Majes... that is, Maleficent did not look that bad during your video call with her on parent's day. Well, besides her making comments over my weight," the Fairy Godmother noted wryly.
"You haven't seen her decline. Especially after Daddy..." Mal noted with a look of pained sorrow.
"I must admit that has been a matter of speculation around the faculty, and the Faire Folk residing here. Who was he?" the Fair Godmother inquired softly, knowing this was a painful subject for her charge.
"Diaval. My father was Diaval," Mal replied hoarsely.
"Her familiar?" the FG asked in shock.
"He was in human form when he was banished and could never return to his natural form as a raven because of the anti-magick barrier around the island. And well, familiars are not so resilient as fae. Especially in a form not truly their own. He's been gone for a while now..." Mal admitted.
"I'm sorry," the FG replied as she moved to place a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder only to be shaken off violently.
"You should be," Mal snapped. "Conforming to the whims of these humans to make you act like them. Letting your daughter feel like she's something lesser among them. I was raised with my magick bound around me and I at least know what it is to be proud of my bloodline. Jane has no idea of the power in her veins. While you are one of the most powerful of the Faire folk in this wretched place."
"And if I tried to act like it where would I be?" the FG asked sadly.
Mal thought for a moment before deflating as she replied, "Your powers stripped and shipped off to Isle just like Mother."
"We must do what we can to protect our own, Mal. Do you think Jane could survive here without me? Or survive on the Isle of the Lost if she was banished along side me for my insolence?" the FG replied evenly.
"It might have done her some good. She would have developed some spine there. And we DO take care of our own," Mal sneered.
"Yes, because Evie looked so much like she could take care of herself letting that jerk Chad Charming manipulate her into doing his homework," the FG noted the recent plight of the Evil Queen's daughter with sarcasm as she raised her left eyebrow in challenge. She honestly didn't know where her little Cinderella's boy got his manipulative streak but there were days she wanted to turn him into a toad or a rat for an afternoon to try to break him of his habits.
Mal grunted and looked away as she conceded, "In her own ways Evie has always been starved for attention. It doesn't help that the few of us grew up almost as siblings all being the same ages. She couldn't exactly look to Jay or Carlos to reinforce her mother's puerile need to be 'pretty' once she started growing into a woman," Mal noted.
The Fairy Godmother's expression softened as she noted, "At least Ben takes more after his parents. He really does like you, you know."
Mal looked away in what she hoped would pass for embarrassment. The last thing she needed was for the meddling excuse for a Faerie to realize Mal had given Ben a potion to make him take an interest in her as part of her mother plot to obtain the wand of the woman before her. What they were building together wasn't real. No matter how much she wanted it to be. But thoughts of taking after parents made her think of the cow Audrey and raised her ire all over again.
"Some people here take too much after their parents, if you ask me," Mal muttered darkly.
"Despite your little introduction your first day, Princess Audrey never knew the whole story between her mother and yours," the FG pointed out, knowing full well the source of the purple-haired girl's sour mood.
"Yes because a pretty lie is easier to deal with than the truth. My mother ad father BOTH would be soaring he skies above our heads right now if it wasn't," Mal challenged back.
"Perhaps," the Fairy Godmother conceded. "But is there anything you can do about it now without putting yourself and your friends at risk?"
"Does tearing out every hair on my would be niece's head out count as doing something?" Mal asked.
"I think that might still get you in trouble," the FG noted as she tried to hold in a smile.
Mal deflated at bat as she responded, "Then no. There isn't anything I can do. That doesn't make what Aurora did right, though."
"No, it doesn't. But unless you mother somehow gets free and challenges her fr the right to the throne of the Moors there is not much we could do," the FG replied resignedly.
Mal winced a bit as she noted, "That would be... ugly. Like I said before, Mother has not weathered captivity well."
"At least she had you there with her," the FG replied with a wince of her own. Just the thought of the true Faerie Queen's likely wrath should she ever get free was terrifying to imagine.
Mal saw no reason to discuss how distant and wrathful her mother had become over the years, especially since Diaval's passing, as she weakly replied, "Yeah, right."
"Mal, I know it's been hard adjusting here for all of you. But Ben wants this to work. And not just because you have the poor boy smitten. He wants all four of your to truly feel you belong here. To have a home in Auradon. Is that so bad?" the FG asked.
"No," Mal conceded. "Ben is the best thing about being here by far. And he will make a great king someday."
"Then trust in him. Don't let your anger and jealousy get the better of you. No matter how justified it may be," the FG advised with a shrewd look.
Mal's expression was pure innocence as she asked, "Why whatever do you mean Fairy Godmother?"
"You do realize that I was born in the age when crossing the Faire Folk was still considered a death wish, don't you, child?" the FG asked with a knowing look. "Just because I tried to be better than that doesn't mean I've lost all sense of what it is to be Fae."
Mal remained silent, unwilling to voice her opinion on how little the woman before her seemed to still BE Fae to her again.
"I know you much choose you own path. All I ask is that you consider the consequences. Not just for you or your mother, but for your friends. And that includes Ben. Please think it over," the Fairy Godmother advised before turning and taking her leave.
For her part, Mal could only watch on silently, her head a whirl of new thoughts to ponder. Did she really want to follow her mother's path? Was there redemption at the end of the tunnel for her and her friends. Would Ben think twice about her without the potion in the cookie she gave him?
So many questions. So little time before the coronation, and the wand being free for the taking, to answer them.