AUTHOR'S NOTES
Hello readers! InkyTalon here. I truly hoped you enjoyed this story, or that if you haven't read through it yet that you will enjoy it. Beware of spoilers below ^v^
I want to go over some stuff that I wanted to add as footnotes in the chapters, but didn't because I didn't want to distract from the story.
The cover art was drawn digitally by me, by the way!
Chapter 1: Resurrection
Hades plays a prominent role in this chapter only. I probably should have labeled this story a Crossover. But I wasn't sure if doing so would make my story reach less people, as in they would have to specifically search for an Aladdin/Hercules crossover to find this :/
The rest of this story takes place in the world of Aladdin, so I'll keep it labeled as such. Really hope I did the God of the Underworld justice - one of my favorite villains ever!
Hades and Jafar met before in the Hercules TV show crossover episode "Hercules and the Arabian Night", and it's referenced here.
Chapter 3: The Fall of a Priestess
{DISCLAIMER: I am not Egyptian. I do not proclaim to be super educated in Egyptian culture. The story told in this chapter is NOT meant to be an accurate representation of its history or people, and I don't mean to offend when I use the setting as inspiration. Mirage has an ancient Egypt aesthetic so I naturally went with that. Remember that this fictional story is only for fun not for profit, and I tried to keep this chapter as tasteful as possible}
Apologies for the exposition dump in this chapter and the next! I hope it flows as naturally as possible.
Creating a backstory for Mirage was fun because there's SO much wiggle room. All we know from the Aladdin TV series is that she looks like an Egyptian goddess, she has evil powers, and she was former lover to that Phasir guy that appears in a handful of episodes.
A reasonable conclusion would be that Mirage is an Egyptian goddess, but for the purposes of this story, I didn't find making her a goddess to be all that interesting - she couldn't get hurt. And as a deity she would already have all the power she could want... so why bother teaming up with a sorcerer like Jafar?
So instead I made her a corrupted priestess that tried to 'become a god' using sorcery, and was exiled for it. Dunno about you but I find that pretty compelling :)
Chapter 4: The Ascension of a Peasant
For Jafar's backstory I borrowed some ideas from the 2019 live action Aladdin, and I also took some inspiration from Miggery Sow's story in The Tale of Despereaux.
Jafar starting out as a peasant and thief was one of the few things I really liked in the Aladdin remake. Having a similar background to Aladdin makes him a really good foil, and makes Aladdin see what he could become if he continues to lie his way to the top.
I always felt that Jafar was basically the Belle of the Disney Villain lineup - the book-loving intellectual. I dig the idea that he's really into science and history, and how he uses his knowledge for evil.
Also did anyone pick up on the reference to Starkid's Aladdin parody musical Twisted, "I want to know your story"? ;)
Chapter 6: Training Session
Okay, if it were possible to write a musical number in a fanfiction, it would be here. Starting out as an epic villainous duet as they have fun wrecking fake Agrabah... and ending as a romantic ballad when they begin to realize their attraction towards each other.
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A Mirage of Victory
Fanfiction(Aladdin fanfiction with brief crossover with Hercules) Mirage, the cat-headed Evil Incarnate, resurrects the long-defeated sorcerer Jafar, in hopes that they can join forces and destroy Aladdin once and for all. But the unexpected happens as the tw...
