I’ve written journal entries before, but never on here. I guess I never saw the need to really write anything here. However, I think I’m going to write something, an idea I’ve had for a long, long time...

Now, many of you may have watched Disney’s Aladdin and you know the basic storyline of that. Some of you have a copy of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights or found it at your local library or something like that. Now, I like both versions and I thought I’d like to create a concept with some basis on both sources. It was inspired by Redwall and The Secret of NIMH, but it would take place in Arabia and with the character as small desert creatures. Aladdin would a young, little mouse in it, with the princess as a mouse too, along with a few other characters.

Here is his story: Aladdin is a ten year old mouse (biologically speaking, the same age as a human child) whose family once owned a tailor business that is on the verge of bankruptcy. Aladdin is struggling both to survive and to keep the family business afloat somehow. He has a few skills in textiles, but Aladdin is in desperate need of customers and additional training. His father left to foreign lands to find new customers while his mother was kidnapped by slavers a few months before the story begins.

One day, a strange rat from China—this is a reversal of the original story were the magician comes from Africa to China to seek the lamp—comes to Aladdin’s shop, claiming to be an old associate of his father, and teaches him some additional weaving and cloth cutting techniques. However, his price is to meet him at a certain place at a certain time to seek out a cave of wonders beyond his wildest dreams. At first, Aladdin is reluctant to leave the business for a short while, but is assured the trip will not take long and that the rewards would send him not only to early retirement, but also to gain favor with the sultan and earn him a place in the palace.

In truth, the rat is actually in the service of a warlord who seeks magical artifacts to further his goals of conquest. The warlord wishes to conquer all that can be conquered, so he sends the evil rat wizard to capture and utilize whatever powers that can be turned into war weapons. The wizard knows of a magical lamp containing an extremely powerful genie that could bring about the warlord’s domination of the world. However, the wizard plans on using the lamp for himself to overthrow his master and take the lands the latter has sought. Unfortunately, after the wizard has sent a low-rate thief to take it, the thief is killed by the cave guardian who is its mouth in the form of a lioness who informs the wizard only one can enter.

However, things go quite awry when Aladdin receives a special customer, a young female mouse about his age, requesting a special dress be made before, roughly, the same time he is to meet the wizard for his quest begins. Aladdin begs that it be made and delivered at a later date, but she insists it be done by then. Out of good faith to her, as his father had frequently insisted on getting a customer’s requests done before his own agendas, Aladdin works on the dress and delivers it to the royal palace to his customer in person.

The customer in question is none other than the Sultan’s daughter, the princess! When she receives it and dons it, she is especially thankful for it, but her father is not impressed—for it goes against the dress codes of the royal family (kind of poking fun at Princess Jasmine’s garb because certain countries, Middle Eastern and Muslim, don’t allow for their women to have their midriff exposed in public). He has Aladdin arrested, but spares him on the behest of his daughter and his counselor, the good rat wizard. The good wizard eventually pleads for Aladdin’s release and tells him of the same quest that he is on. Aladdin reveals of another rat who plead for his aid, but is told of that rat’s wickedness and intentions should he capture the lamp.

That’s what I have for the beginning, except that there is no carpet in the cave and that the good wizard asks for Aladdin’s hand instead of the lamp, but is wounded when trying to save him.

Inside the cave, Aladdin is scared and sad that he would never get out when he accidentally rubs the ring and releases the genie from within. The genie, called Umaymah, greets Aladdin warmly after she slowly awakens from her slumber, but he is still afraid upon seeing her due to her size. Eventually, he overcomes his fear and then begins to become friendly toward her, and when Umaymah learns of Aladdin’s parents and willing becomes a foster mother for him. She then produces some breakfast for him as well as perform “Friend Like Me” to show what she can do.

Eventually, they get back to Aladdin’s home and settle his debt, and after a number of years of being raised up and protected by Umaymah, while learning to carry on his father’s tailoring for other desert creatures, Aladdin will learn the secrets of the lamp. The genie of the lamp turns out to be Umaymah’s husband. And here is another twist to the tale; the princess, who is to be wed to the vizier’s son asks Aladdin and his genies to help her cancel the wedding or to have the son renounce it, but after Aladdin tells her who he is and after he makes a new dress for her that fits the dress codes.

As for the rest of the story, it would be just like in both tales; Aladdin marries the princess and they live happily together until the evil rat wizard learns about Aladdin’s success, steals the lamp and the princess from Aladdin, and it is up to Aladdin to rescue the princess and Umaymah’s husband.

Here is what I had in mind for some of the characters’ designs: I’d like to retain the country of origin and wardrobe found in the Disney version with this version of Aladdin, and he’d be a little boy like the original. I would say that the basic body design and face would be similar to Timothy Brisby from the first film. My representation of Aladdin doesn’t necessarily have to have Timothy’s color of fur; he could have black fur, brown fur, tanish fur, or even gray fur. I would most likely go with the tanish brown color. Aladdin’s age would be the biological equivalent of a ten year old human.

I’d also like to bring up the idea of what the genie should be. In the original story, there are two genies believe or not—the Genie of the Ring and, of course, the Genie of the Lamp. We should know that the Genie of the Lamp is the more powerful of the two, but I’m interested in focusing on the Genie of the Ring and how Aladdin came into contact with it. In the original story, the ring is given to Aladdin by the wicked sorcerer who instructs him to rub it in case of trouble. When Aladdin is trapped in the cave, he rubs the ring inadvertently and is taken home by the genie. I would imagine the ring’s band would be in the form of a golden mouse curling up around the wearer’s finger, wrapping its tail around a round sapphire, and clutching the tail in its paws. The mouse would appear to be sleeping as this would be the state of the Genie in the ring, but when the genie is summoned, the mouse’s mouth would open to allow the Genie to come out of it.

As for Umaymah she would have a design based on Mrs. Brisby but has literally blue fur like the Disney Genie and her ears are in this shape: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2158428/. She also has golden manacles on her wrists. Her clothing would consist of transparent harem pants—probably blue or purple, a bra—same color as the pants, no shoes, and I’m not sure about ear jewelry, but I’m not very keen on pony-tail hairstyles—I’d prefer the Genie to just appear as a normal mouse despite her fur color. She’d also have pink ears and nose instead of blue. I’d imagine her to take on a motherly role toward Aladdin. In the Disney movie, Aladdin is described as an orphan. My Aladdin is somewhat orphaned too, but in truth, all he knows about his mother’s fate is that she was taken away from him by foreign slavers and is most likely dead. There is still a chance that she is still alive, but again we aren’t too sure about it.

I hope those of you out there like this idea.