"I see that you’re no fool. Good. I’d have greatly overestimated you if you simply took me at your word. To put it simply, Stickmin, your failures will be just as entertaining as your successes, and whenever you fail, I WILL mock you and offer my own dry commentary on your mishaps. I freely admit that you are essentially my toy, and while I have every intention of taking care of you and ensuring that you reach the end successfully, I will make no secret of the fact that I will take a great deal of amusement indeed from seeing you fall and break."
— The Entity
Burdens of a Timeline Traveler is a Henry Stickmin Series Fan Fic by Lord Tenebros.
It follows the ending of Toppat Civil Warfare where Ellie has overthrown Henry and claimed leadership of the Toppat Clan. While trying to think of how to deal with Henry and his loyalists, Ellie is surprised when Henry surrenders and gives back the Tunisian Diamond in exchange for telling his side of the story. Amused, Ellie accept, but she never expected his story to be as bizarre as it is.
It can be read on Archive of Our Own here
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WARNING: All spoilers in the entire Henry Stickmin series will be unmarked. Even the author of this fic said so.
Burdens of a Timeline Traveler provides examples of the following tropes:
- 0% Approval Rating: The Entity, after Henry explains the truth of why he betrayed Alan, is pretty much unanimously hated by everyone in the story. Including Ellie.
- Adaptational Heroism: Henry is not nearly as villainous as he is in the games, and he was even revealed that he was forced into being a villain by the Entity, meaning he never truly was as villainous as he seemed.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Henry Stickmin, while a selfish Villain Protagonist who is willing to switch sides on a dime in the main series, is depicted here as far nicer and more laid back, not only regretting his past actions that hurt others such as Ellie, but also working together with her and everyone else from Toppats to the government to create a better timeline for everyone.
- Adaptational Personality Change: Henry is not an Elective Mute and talks a lot more, and he's also shown to actually be regretful of his betrayal of Ellie.
- Adaptational Villainy: Though not really a character in the original games, the FAIL screens at worst was just a troll towards Henry and his deaths. In here, it's a sadistic, cruel entity that manipulates Henry and exploits him.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Ellie is enraged when she learns that out of the permanent routes (the others being Valiant Hero and Revenged), The Entity offered to him, Henry chose Toppat Civil Warfare. He counters by asking her what would she pick if one ending meant a loved one died. She's quiet, but relents she would've done the same after Henry starts demanding aggressively.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Ellie shows her hatred for Henry but she later subverts this when Henry surrenders and tells the truth about his entire experience.
- Big Bad: The Entity reveals itself in the end to have been manipulating Henry all along.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Ellie Rose is the Arc Villain of the Executive/Ghost route, but in this fic, she is confused after Henry surrenders by giving her the Tunisian Diamond. When Henry tells his backstory, the real antagonist was the Entity.
- Big Good: General Hubert Galeforce, as per usual.
- The Bus Came Back: Dave returns near the end during the Grand Opening of the Station Resort/Casino.
- The Cameo: Henry happens to run into Felix White, the lawyer he hired in the Lawyered Up ending of Prison, during the Grand Opening.
- Canon Foreigner: The Entity is based off the idea of the infamous fail screens of the games being an actual deity In-Universe that can directly interact with the other characters.
- The Creon: Sven admits that he doesn't want to be the leader, as it is too much responsibility. Ellie is instead elected by right of conquest, and Sven becomes The Dragon instead.
- Cutting Off the Branches: Invoked and Subverted; while the plot takes place after the Executive/Ghost route of the Mission, the existence of the timelines is explained by Henry himself, considering all endings are canon by Word of God.
- Deal with the Devil: Henry makes one with the Entity, as explained in the page quote.
- Death by Adaptation: Although Ellie never dies in any of the endings she appears in barring the fails, a continuation of the Triple Threat timeline shows that she is killed by an explosion, along with Charles, much to Henry's horror.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Henry manages to convince Ellie a chance to explain himself, and they slowly start working together along with the Toppats to achieve a good ending for this timeline. Along the way, they also defeat Dmitri and turn legit, and Henry and Ellie eventually begin a relationship. The Entity was very impressed with this.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Entity offers Henry a permanent ending after ruining three of the best ones, and genuinely promises him that he won't interfere this time.The Entity: There is such a thing as being too cruel, even for me.
- Evil All Along: The Entity.
- Karma Houdini: The Entity, despite all of the pain and torment he caused Henry, ultimately receives little to no comeuppance for his actions beyond Henry beating him in a poker game.
- Graceful Loser: During the grand opening of the casino, Henry gets caught up in a poker game with The Entity himself. After nearly an hour of playing, Henry wins and his opponent accepts it gracefully.
- Guile Hero: Henry Stickmin, managed to forge an elaborate plan to ally the Toppats with the Government, earn Ellie's trust, and ultimately come out the other side managing to achieve the best ending despite all odds, all the while he uses the knowledge he has from past timelines to his advantage, with him managing to accomplish all of this without much pushback.
- Hate Sink: While The Entity is a sadistic, manipulative tormentor, he strangely has some standards and some degree of honor. On the other hand, Dmitri's reprehensible nature is heavily emphasized here, and his arrest is treated as justified karma.
- Heel–Face Turn: To be allied with the Government, the Toppat Clan leaves their criminal past behind and made the orbital station turn into a space hotel.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Ellie gives a Tranquil Fury Implied Death Threat to her Toppat subordinates if they take the opportunity to kill Henry herself away from her.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Implied. When Henry tells Ellie in an alternate timeline where he and Ellie stole all the Toppat's money, she as the Toppat Leader isn't delighted about that.Ellie: I don’t think a lot of the Toppat Clan would be very happy to hear that.
- Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: The Entity is a deity whose proper physical form is never shown if it even has one who alternates between He/Him and They/Them pronouns throughout various points of the story.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Dmitri only shows up later in the story for Ellie and Henry to get revenge on him, and he doesn't impact the overall plot afterwards.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Apparently, the routes following Henry and Ellie teaming up ends with them dating, which Ellie doesn't buy when Henry tells her. She later eases up on it and they become a couple.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Galeforce is a little skeptical of the idea of the Toppats going straight, but after they hand back the Tunisian Diamond as a show of good faith, he becomes more willing to work with them.
- Related in the Adaptation: It was officially confirmed by Puffballs that Ellie and Jacob Rose (a museum guard appearing in Diamond) aren't related in the games, despite sharing the same last name. In this fic, he's her brother.
- Relationship Upgrade: Henry and Ellie become an Official Couple by the end of the story.
- Sadist: The Entity openly admits to enjoy watching Henry fail over and over again.
- Secret Test of Character: The Entity forced Henry into a bad timeline to see if he can work around it and turn it into something good. When he succeeds, the Entity is genuinely impressed.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Taking up to eleven during Henry's backstory; whenever Henry dies and results in a Fail, he is later received by the Entity reverting the time, and the cycle repeats when Henry dies again.
- Villain Respect: Although Ellie has some contempt for General Galeforce, part of her begrudgingly admires his restraint and care for his men when he called for a Tactical Withdrawal on the Government's raid on the Toppats.
- Villain Has a Point: Even with how sadistic and cruel the Entity is, one can't deny that his anger at Henry believing he deserved a good ending after doing little to earn it due to how he had his hand held throughout the entire journey does at least have some validity to it, even if his actions are a bit too excessive to justify the motive.
- Wild Card: Henry deliberately lampshades this trope considering his "secret" adventures he's done. Notably, he is known for being part of Toppat Clan and the Government, across all timelines.
- Worthy Opponent: The Entity comes to regard Henry as this. For all his cruelty and sadism, he was genuinely impressed with Henry's capacity of turning the Toppat Civil Warfare ending into a timeline where things are good for all sides.
