Okay but Coco/TBoL crossover au idea
So I just watched Pan’s Labyrinth again which is one of my fav movies and it got me thinking of an au idea with Héctor and Ernesto and Imelda, as well as Xibalba and La Muerte but with some changes (also forgive me for my lack of history knowledge but yE, I tried my best):
• Xibalba and La Muerte happen to be the two rulers of the afterlife/underworld much like in the story in Pan’s Labriynth, only instead of a daughter, they had a son who happened to sneak out into the human world. The son got blinded by the sun and as a result lost his memory before dying and being reborn as a mortal, but his parents always knew his soul would return one day to the underworld even if centuries later.
• instead of taking place in Spain during their war in the 40s, this would take place near the end of the Mexican Civil War (that was from 1910 to 1920, and so this au would take place probably around 1918 or 1919, right near the end)
• Héctor is nearly a young man, just about 18, and, you guessed it, he’s the one who happens to be the reincarnation of the lost prince of the underworld (I thought this especially since he grew up an orphan and didn’t have parents in the actual movie, so y e)
• Ernesto is his best friend who is a little older than him, who happens to be a general in one of the factions during the civil war, and a well respected one at that. He has Hector come stay with him at his place which is also where many soldiers happen to be stationed at.
• Imelda is around a year older than Hector and happens to be one of the main housekeepers tending to Ernesto’s home (but she’s actually an informer helping out another faction, but is able to get away with it unnoticed).
The rest of the idea goes along with what happens in the movie—Héctor finds out from a magical being that he’s a lost prince and he believes it, and has to complete three tasks in order to help him gain immortality and so he can return to the underworld where his parents are. Things go wrong along the way—he meets Imelda and starts to fall for her, while Ernesto gets drastically more dangerous and tortures more captured enemy soldiers and whatnot and starts to catch onto the fact that there might be an informer working under him, he just doesnt know who.
And then of course near the end, a confrontation happens—Imelda is found out, and she and Hector try to escape together but are caught. Hector is locked up while Imelda is tied and about to be interrogated by Ernesto, but she fights him and gets away to be with her family again. They manage to get the upper hand and attack Ernesto’s base, and Imelda hopes to get to Hector, but as he tries to escape to make it to one of the portals left by Xibalba, his father, (a labyrinth near the base), Ernesto runs after him, and right as Hector makes it there, the magical being who has been instructing him the whole time tells him he has to make a blood sacrifice with an innocent in order to open the portal. Hector refuses, and the being tells him ‘as you wish, your highness’ and disappears.
Just then Hector turns around and sees Ernesto, who shoots him in the chest (still haven’t really figured out a reason why but tbh I think in this case since the au differs from the actual plot of Pan’s Labyrinth, Ernesto probably started to think Hector was betraying him somehow and was on the other side). Hector collapses and bleeds out over the portal.
Then Ernesto leaves the Labyrinth only to see Imelda and the enemy soldiers there waiting for him. And he gives up then and there, knowing he’s been defeated, and it’s Imelda who shoots him. Then she goes into the Labyrinth and sees Hector lying there, dying, and sings to him as he dies, and he opens his eyes and finds himself in the underworld. He gets welcomed home by Xibalba and La Muerte and there’s an empty throne right next to Xibalba’s that belongs to Hector and has been waiting for him for centuries for his return.
Back in the real world, Hector dies in Imelda’s arms and all she can do is hold him close and cry.
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Aaaaaannnnnd that’s all I’ve got so far for this au. Tbh I’d write it myself but I have no time anymore to write BIG chapter stories, but if anyone wants to write for this then by all means GO FOR IT, I’d read the heck out of it!! Or drawing for it, either one, I’m so for it. Cause damn it this idea wouldn’t leave me alone after I watched the movie
