Recap / Infinity Train Seeker Of Crocus The Palimpsest Car

The Windchasers and Red Lotus Uprising's journeys resume as they arrive in a car of fanatics and their desires. Meanwhile, visitors from another world comforts the passengers' loved ones while Alola faces an unexpected crisis.

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This arc contains examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating:
  • Casimira is not liked by those in Palimpsest. Being responsible for forcibly getting Palimpsest to open up to passengers no matter the costs by enacting a war probably had something to do with it. Even One has nothing good to say about her.
  • It's implied that, for all of the problems and stresses in the Cerise Institute since her running off, that Chloe is very much on most of the various Pokemon present at the lab's collective hate list, with a punch line already set up for when she returns.
• Adaptational Context Change: The blizzard that Randall caused in Le Chat Chalet Car in the show was actually a snowball fight that he was emulating when he saw Grace, Simon, Hazel and Tuba go at it. In here, Randall is having a snowball fight for the heck of it.
• Adapted Out: From the original Palilmpsest book, Oleg Sadakov's arc and most references to it — as his was about chasing an imaginary copy of his older sister^note Said sister drowned when he was a baby and appears to him as an older version wearing a child-sized dress. Oleg is heavily implied to be in an imaginary incestuous relationship with her and the delusion appears because Oleg constantly keeps refusing to take his meds. Yeah. — are omitted.
• Alice Allusion:
  • Amelia states that Alrich was her "white rabbit" and the pescia of Alrich is introduced shouting "I'm late!" while wearing rollerskates (a reference to the Disney live-action series White Rabbit). When he meets with Amelia in Part 2 he asks if today is her Unbirthday.
  • Lampetia references how there were rumors of a girl in a blue dress having found herself in the 400 Rabbits Car.
• Ambiguous Situation: Did the Train really interfere with the lightning bolts on the denizens? It's only a speculation from the heroes and the Train never interfered with a passenger's growth, not even when Tulip was with its Conductor for months.
• And This Is for...: Before laying the final blow with Easter, Specter says this to Ai.
  Specter: And one more thing, this is for my mother!
• The Anti-Nihilist: Kaito's philosophy is based on this trope: that one shouldn't wait till things get better to be happy.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • After learning as to what caused Professor Cerise to enter the car, Kaito plainly asks if he hates his daughter. Even though all the "Pokemon World" characters know full well that he doesn't, the fact that Kaito felt the need to ask the question gives everyone pause for a moment.
  • En route to the Windchasers and Red Lotus Uprising, Chloe asks Casimira about her relationship with November (like the fact that November has two fingers chopped and part of her face covered in bee stings) and asks if these are the reasons why the two aren't together anymore. For once, Casimira's facade breaks.
  • Chloe then tells Casimira that trying to separate people from their loved ones is wrong, and Casimira's counter-question makes Chloe pause.
  Chloe: I understand that there are times where you want to be alone, but forcibly preventing anyone from reaching out is wrong.
  Casimira: Are you talking about me or the Train?
  • In a flashback, Lampetia gets into Specter's skin and how he's not willing to even try to humor the Train by asking him if he's going to stand on a boat and wait for a wind to not come.
  • Inari asks Chloe what "Chloe of the Vermillion" means to her, helping Chloe start breaking out of her illusions.
  • Augustine throws one to Alrich when he states Amelia is atoning.
  Augustine: Then why does it take a child to make her realize she fucked up?
• Artificial Human: Palimpsest can create copies of people called "Pescia" (a term derived from monks copying sections of books) that are based on someone a person desires. Even if the person has been dead for years.
• Asian Fox Spirit: One car in the Third Rail are filled with kitsunes who tend to rice paddies. A kitsune girl tries to possess Chloe in an attempt to leave her car and explore outside the Train.
• Author Tract: Green Phantom Queen notes that while she loves the author embracing bisexuality, Palimpsest seems to not be involved with anything else LGBT. Better yet, lots of her comments is about how uncomfortable the context and themes of Palimpsest really are once you take a better look at them and how she hates Casimria.
• Backhanded Apology: Chloe's apology to Ash at the beginning of the Act still haunts her, but her attempt to do it again ends up being even worse, as it soon stops being about apologizing to Ash and more on pitying herself and how she should've been different, to the point both Ash and Goh have to tell her to stop before she begins going in circles again.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment:
  • Amelia gets bombarded by giant rabbits and asks someone to save her...because they're so fluffy!
  • When Ai tries to put Lampetia down by stating that the white lighthouse and black beach she's searching for is only from a children's book, she says "I would say...thank you!" because it means that it exists somewhere'' and that she'll find out why only she is able to see it.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Ai's dog-kicking joke of Lampetia now being a "sight for sore eye" has Specter scream this in fury.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • For Amelia: She's finally found a place to belong, along with a copy of Alrich, after thirty years wasting her life trying to build a car of her own. But she's realized that it's nothing more than a pipe dream at this point, as she has Chloe to look after and Hazel to rescue. She ends up telling the pescia Alrich to live his life, but to remember that for a brief moment, he made her happy.
  • In general: Palimpsest won't be getting big changes soon as the prejudice between denizens and passengers are too deep seated and Chloe will be having more mental health problems in the following car. But she and Augustine have decided to start working together thanks to Tres, Sei vows to work with the Third Rail until she's ready to go on her personal trip, Ululiro's eyes have been opened up to how her racism towards passengers nearly ended with Chloe's death, and Casimira is now punished for her actions.
• Blood Knight: As noted by Ash to the Zenkaigers, most Pokemon like fighting and have no problem competing in battles.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: The Train has had it up to here with the Palimpsest denizens trying to kill Chloe and thus electrocutes two of them on the spot to show that they mean business.
• Break the Haughty: Casimira's life and reputation becomes broken throughout the final part of the arc. She did all she could in order to make Palimpsest have passengers enter to and fro, but did nothing to actually enact order outside a flimsy peace treaty. This results in chaos when Augustine's emotions make the Third Rail become wild and start wrecking the car and Ululiro's street cleaners decide to punish Chloe — who is completely innocent — for these transgressions, getting the wrath of the Train and its Conductor because the street cleaners were about to kill their Chosen One who was off to stop the Flauros from potentially destroying the Train. With Infinet up and running, now everyone realizes that Palimpsest is a car to flee from and Casimira's life is ruined as she will owe money compensation to all she has hurt and be forced to watch those passengers she wanted so much to go to and fro as they please, but she will be forever stuck as tour guide and was told by the heroes and by the Conductor himself, that her selfishness and spoiled attitude are to blame. And the cherry on top is that the passenger she "tasked" to open the barriers, November Aguilar, put it in no small terms that she's done with Casimira.
• Bully Magnet: Chloe asks Tres why she's such a punching bag for everyone: he's had Dr. Yung try to incinerate her, Sara and her classmates hate her for her hobbies and the street cleaners were ready to kill her because she breathes the same air she does. And this is not counting the implications that Goh's Pokémon are ready to punch the everloving shit out of her when she returns...
• Bystander Syndrome:
  • In her confession video, the Cat accusses all of the denizens who had some knowledge on how numbers worked for having cold feet, stating that they could've told Grace what to do about the number. Instead, they let her go, making her get the wrong impression, and now the Apex is ruining their lives. That said, the Cat herself is also accused of this, as she ran away from Simon and never decided to come back to find him after eight years.
  • Augustine tells Amelia that she has a severe case of this. She will do nothing as the Train goes to hell with the Apex coming in and ruining lives and instead will just let children (Gladion, Tokio, Chloe and Yuri) do the job that she should be doing in stopping the Apex or going into Silent Hill to stop a deadly ritual that could potentially go haywire.
  • In Part 4, as Chloe is being violently torn apart by the street-cleaners, no one in Palimpsest is coming to her rescue, barring a kitsune girl trying to rush forward but her parents pull her away. This ends up ruining the reputation of the car when the Infinet finds out that Chloe of the Vermillion could've died and no one bothered to stand up for her. Or that they injured her friends to prevent her from being saved.
  • Tres points out that One might be doing something for the Apex now, but he most likely sat at the sidelines for the years prior to Amelia's usurping of him and let passengers fumble around without a clue.
• Call-Back:
  • Augustine and Asher recall Lain from "The Twisted Lab Car" when Casimira talks about the pescia.
  • The fact that Chloe's soul can turn into a werewolf back in the Cyan Desert Car comes into play here, when a fox girl takes over and pushes Chloe out of her own body.
• The Cavalry: All of Alola, from trainers to the Kapus, come in to fight off the waves of Team Rainbow Rocket Grunts in Part 2.
• Central Theme: Escapes and how people selfishly hurt others just for them in contrast of learning to move forward. Amelia wanted an escape from the pain of losing Alrich and it destroyed the lives of passengers and denizens for thirty years. Meanwhile, Casimira wanted to escape her loneliness by opening the doors to passengers but it nearly ended with her nearly killed by a Train. November refuses to move forward with her life and is stuck living a dull life while Sei chooses to move forward once she gets her act together.
• Cerebus Call-Back:
  • Remember when Chloe asks Augustine if he'll become the Conductor back in the Chocolate Car when he was ready to destroy One-One for not lifting his ban on White Gestalt? Turns out the Third Rail wants Augustine to be its conductor.
  • Yuri decides to go to the Conductor's cabin in Augustine's place because he still feels guilty for everything that happened in the Model Diorama Car and wants to pay back for his mistakes.
• Chekhov's Gag: In the Act 2 Prelude, Chloe wanted to enter Asher's mind but Asher states that she only wants to do so so she can look at his "embarrassing baby photos". In Part 3, she ends up using her cloak to look at his baby photos and learn that he's not a shadow or a child of a demon. He's actually a prince from the Royal Avaiary Car.
• Chekhov's Gun: The seal of Marchosias that was on Chloe's scabbard. When Augustine scratched it to mock Chloe at how she's clinging onto demons and "not who she's supposed to be", Marchosias returns; turns out that scratching a seal is a quick way to summon a Goetia.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Lexi brings up Amaya Sei, the supposed current conductor of the Third Rail, having blue hair. When the heroes enter the Third Rail for the first time, one of the servers in the first car (the tea room) that leads Amelia to see Alrich also has blue hair. This isn't a coincidence.
  • The server that comforts Sei in Part 3 has a blue-pink-white bracelet. At the end of Part 3, that same server arrives, identified by that very bracelet and reveals himself as a therapist.
• Commonality Connection: In Part 4, Chloe has this epiphany about how she's no better than Amelia, Grace, Sara or Casimira.
  Chloe: Casimira, Amelia, Grace, Sara, me…we’re all broken, lost and lonely girls…but instead of opening up to others or asking for help, we end up turning into entitled brats who steal from others, destroy others’ lives out of jealousy or spite, let our emotional states take over logical reasoning of just telling someone that we’re not okay, and don’t give a damn about the consequences until it directly affects us and all that we suffered. And we keep going into denial, keep seeing ourselves in the right until we can’t do that anymore and end up even more lonely and miserable than before. We keep repeating history, expecting it to give us a different result but we’re too stubborn to even consider being in the wrong. It’s the textbook definition of insanity.
• Continuity Cavalcade: Part 2 has a plethora of call-backs to numerous characters in the Alola region going to war against Rainbow Rocket: from Guzma and Plumeria, the family of Pikipek of Ash's Rowlet, Kahili and her Toucannon, Bewear along with Team Rocket's Mimikyu and Mareanie, etc.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Part 3 has Augustine in desparate need of a therapist. Cue Tres, a passenger who just so happens to be one of those things. Amelia is very suspicious of how Tres just knew that there was someone who would need his help.
  • What are the chances that Ash, Goh and Gary meet up with two Team Magma Grunts while Zocks and his siblings meet up with Team Aqua Grunts in the same region and at the same time?
• Cool Train: The Third Rail has multiple cars related to Japanese culture: a tea room, rice paddies, a cabbage patch where kanji are born, a dark pine forest, and a rabbit who makes mochi.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot:
  • Simon tells the Cat that she's responsible for not giving him information on the Train as he had no choice but to rely on Grace's bluff for years. If she had mentioned it sooner, he would've been able to find his own way home or perhaps convince Grace that she wasn't the total expert like she thought she was, thus preventing the Apex from being seen as sociopaths that everyone wants dead. The Cat later reveals that she couldn't reveal it because she honestly had no idea what the numbers were about and giving Simon false information would've made things worse and then calls out all the denizens who could've stopped Grace from making her bluff.
  • Vaillant is not happy to learn that he didn't have to help the moon rabbit pound his mochi and could've left to save Augustine's sanity from slipping.
  • As everyone states in Part 4, if Casimira and Ululrio just talked things over over how to deal with passengers, Palimpsest would've been a much more peaceful car.
• Country Matters: One street cleaner decides to state how much Casimira is such a cunt for the damage she caused by using emphasized words that, if you take the first letter of each one, spells the slur out.
• Cry into Chest: After Lampetia fully revives, Specter tackles her and sobs in her arms, apologizing for not being able to save her sooner.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Before being taken out by Mewtwo, Kukui and co took out the rest of Giovanni's team (Dugtrio, Nidoqueen, Nidoking and Rhyperior). It just turned into a cushion because Mewtwo so massively overpowered them.
• Cuteness Proximity: Amelia finds all the Giant Fleming rabbits attacking her to be so fluffy!
• A Day in the Limelight: Beneath Sycamore and Chloe trying to iron the kinks in their relationship, Amelia is the focus character of the car as she confronts the reality that she can never be with her Alrich again, and that Palimpsest isn't the paradise it makes itself out to be.
• Description Cut: Colress tells the Ultra Guardians that he has a party coming in trying to complete an assignment. Cut to Colette telling Jesse that they aren't calling themselves Team Dracula.
• Deus ex Machina: What saves Chloe from being killed by street cleaners? A random lightning bolt incinerating the street cleaner about to slice her neck open. Amelia assumes that the lightning bolt is the Train itself deciding to intervene when Palimpsest decides to kill Chloe for the sole reason of she exists, although it still comes out completely out of nowhere.
• Did Not Think This Through: If there's one trope to explain Palimpsest's actions, it's this.
  • Basically everything Casimira did is based on this trope, not realizing the repercussions of her plan to "open the barriers of Palimpsest" would endear her to everyone else in her car nor how Ululiro's street cleaners or the rest of Palimpsest who were fused with animal parts would react when something breaks the last straw. And with the Infinet running, now she got what she wanted in being noticed, but no one is going to like her for what happened.
  • Ululiro did not think of how far her street cleaners would go for "retribution" against the passengers. Especially when their victim is a young girl who is this close to becoming Icarus and she is completely innocent of what had happened. Said street cleaners also didn't consider that trying to kill One-One's chosen one or a little girl was going to improve their reputations in the slightest with all of the Train wanting their heads in retribution for their idiocy.
  • Palimpsest tries to tell Tres (a trans man) doesn't "fit anywhere". Tres coolly asks on whose authority does this rule apply, before pointing out that there is no authority.
• Dirty Coward: It's really telling that the street cleaners would rather pick on someone who can't defend themselves even though they despise passengers. Whether it's looking down on a small corgi king or beating up a girl who had done nothing wrong (in comparison to the sixty-year-old Conductor who did nothing to help passengers figure out their problems or the man whose despair derailed an entire train), and they will gang-rush you before leaving you with nothing but a boot to your neck to suffocate you.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • No one is going to listen to Casimira's desires to get passengers to enter Palimpsest? Go to war against the populace. Want firepower against someone who makes beasts of all sorts in a factory? Slaughter an entire zoo's worth of animals.
  • Augustine has had it with Casimira's smug attitude and that of Palimpsest that he is willing to derail the Third Rail, force everyone to work together before destroying the Train. There's also the fact that the train was ready to barrel into Casimira's house...while Chloe is in there, as he's still angry that she chose Specter over him.
  • One's solution to stopping the in-fighting in Palimpsest is to destroy the entire car. And when it comes to the subject of the parent trains who neglected the Third Rail? Crush them to pieces, even if that means ruining the livelihoods of those who depend on them and the denizens that live in said train.
• Double Take: Lexi sees Chloe in wolf form and is so happy to see her again, with her red fur and equally red eyes...wait a second, why is there a second wolf with those exact same green eyes coming to him?!
• Double Standard:
  • The Cat gets called out and lambasted by everyone for not telling Simon what the numbers meant, despite not only having no way to fight off the Ghom chasing them, but not knowing much about how the numbers worked in the first place. The same is not done to the many Denizens that Grace encountered, who, assuming they knew how numbers worked, kept it to themselves and never even tried to correct Grace or steer her into the right path. The Cat herself even calls out how unfair it all is.
  • Back in Act 1, Ash came dangerously close to developing his Guilt Complex from the original trilogy because he failed to help Chloe, someone who didn't visibly want to be his friend. However, upon learning how his Alolan friends are most likely in danger due to the Rainbow Rocket invasion, he thinks "they're strong, they can handle it" and ignores it. However, it's later revealed that he was told not to go to Alola by Nanu and Burnet so it's less apathetic and more trying to keep himself focused on what he can do now.
  • Goh's Pokémon want to punch Chloe for how her anger and stresses caused everything to go wrong in the Institute because she ran away. However, while Chloe did start it by getting so mad at Goh recording her humiliating loss to Ash^note As a reminder, he was recording her first step into trying something new that she threw his Rotomphone into a plate of curry and then slamming another plate of curry into his face, there's nothing about them reprimanding Goh, their trainer, for the damning words that got her to the point that she ran away or how he was completely oblivious to what Chloe was asking him, not to mention that there's no blaming the Infinity Train itself for picking Chloe up in the first place.
• Dramatic Irony: On their way home, Goh mentions to Ash that if Chloe doesn't know how to apologize, then she would be stuck on the Infinity Train forever. Unknown to the two of them, this scene is coming after Chloe did her best to apologize for her mistakes before a bunch of men began punching and slapping her around and one tried to choke her to death before slicing her neck open, ensuring that she'll stay on the train as a denizen for a few centuries.
• Dwindling Party: Throughout the journey through the Third Rail, the Red Lotus Uprising and Windchasers get separated until the only ones left at the conductor's cabin are Yuri and Atticus.
• Easily Forgiven: The kitsune girl who possessed Chloe's body is forgiven by Chloe and Inari for what she did, but she doesn't get off easily for destroying plenty of cabbages in a car. She accepts the punishment of spending time to tending to new cabbage.
• Entitled Bitch:
  • Casimira starts talking smack at how she deserves respect for the "hard work" she did to let passengers enter Palimpsest even though 1) she's the one who started the war and 2) she asked a passenger to go in her steed instead of doing this herself. Chloe — who was nearly destroyed by a flying Train and gang-rushed by asshole street cleaners — is quick to punch her in the face for this.
  • Chloe takes a moment to realize that there are a lot of entitled bitches who have done so much damage, herself included, all of them unable to just speak their minds and tell someone they're in a world of pain.
• Equivalent Exchange: The denizens of Palimpsest offers payments in this way and scoff at the use of coins. When the groups want Chloe to go to a hospital to deal with her stress-induced fever, Yuri gives up one of his Gunpla models which is enough for Chloe and two others (Atticus and Hewie) to accompany her.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Sei gets one when Tres asks if it's necessary for her to stay in Palimpest to keep its barriers open, and she realizes that that she doesn't have to stay there forever. This gives her the incentive to work on herself, be Conductor for the Third Rail, and firmly announce that she will eventually leave Palimpsest to lower her number.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: When Lampetia loses half of her face, Ai decides to note that she's a a sight for sore eye. Specter loses it.
• Exact Words: Tres helps Sei realize that while passengers were needed to open the barriers that blocked Palimpsest, it never mentioned that she had to stay to maintain it.
• Eye Scream: London tries to stop Gussari @Ignister (a giant sword) from killing Lampetia. But he's distracted by another @Ignister — Gatchiri @Ignister — ramming him and it causes Gussari to shave half of her face clean off.
• Faux Horrific:
  • Jesse hisses "Blasphemy!" when Lake wants to call herself "Lake Van Helsing". Because Jesse likes naming everyone Dracula and Van Helsing is his arch-nemesis.
  • When Ai asks Specter for his opinion on his attire in the SOLTis body, Specter states that he looks like a "gothic sell-out".
  Ai: YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!!
• Females Are More Innocent: The central theme of the car with the ultimately lesson being that females are just as guilty as men for their actions, if not more so.
  • While Grace is fully responsible for making Simon cling onto her beliefs of being a train expert, the Cat is chewed out for being at fault with what happened to Simon due to running away from a Ghom and not even coming back for him for the past eight years. However, she actually was there for Simon and she chews out that there must've been other denizens who could've told Grace the truth, not to mention that she couldn't do anything to stop the Ghom cause that's not what she was made for.
  • Chloe herself was indirectly responsible for Augustine's break and the derailing of the Third Rail. However she was innocent in anything else regarding the Train itself. Despite this, the street cleaners will strangle her without hesitation, and one of them isn't afraid to slice her throat in front of a terrified crowd or tell Ululiro to break her neck. In the Pokémon world, while she is innocent in regards to what happened with Sara and the Unown since she was ready to throw her life on the line to stop this, Goh's Pokémon are all drawing lots to punch her for everything that went on in regards to Goh and the Cerise Institute prior to Sara's attack, despite the fact that Chloe actually went back to the Cerise Institute to confront her bully, did no act of spite and nearly died being strangled by her own father and was willing to let Sara bash her head in with a spiky crystal baseball bat. Plus, while most of the problems happened because she ran away, no one at the time knew about the Infinity Train and it was Goh who started the whole mess by insulting how Chloe is unable to have a goal in life while bragging that he was better because he went out searching for Mew and kept breaking promises with her.
  • Casimira thinks she's innocent over how she wanted Palimpest to thrive...but it's really out of a misguided and selfish intent to give her something entertaining and not out of pure altuism. Practically everything that's gone wrong in Palimpsest is her fault.
  • Ululiro may be the more innocent one of the two, as she went to war in self-defense against Casimira, but she never controlled her (all male) street cleaner group about the idea of maybe you should not kill an innocent child for a crime she didn't commit and she was part of the idea to cut up a zoo of animals just for an advantage (she has a shark's head). She realizes her fault in this and decides to start making changes.
  • Amelia is guilty of practically everything that happened for the last 30 years but only for those years alone. As Tres notes, the Train was in existence for much longer and One should've been helping out prior to that. Augustine points out that despite White Gestalt's own flaws, at least they did something and she's hiding behind Chloe — the girl tasked by One-One to stop the Apex, aka doing her job of cleaning up her mess.
  • Usagi is the one who caused the Dwindling Party situation in order to get Augustine as the true Conductor instead of Sei. While she doesn't get actively punished, Augustine's despair and his decision to force an apocalypse that forces everyone to get along, makes her realize that she just kicked a hornet's nest. Not to mention that Sei shuts her up for having the gall to have her mother's face and that she's eventually planning to leave Palimpsest to work on herself when it's time.
  • November and Sei are the most innocent females in the entire arc as the former only did as was asked of her by Casimira and had no idea her actions were going to cause trouble and the latter is a broken mess. However Sei is the one who ultimately decides to eventually get to a state of mind that she wants to leave and even makes changes to the car — like getting the Third Rail's parents to go through counseling instead of being destroyed like One wanted — while November just gives her story to Lexi and can't be bothered to do anything else to improve herself.
  • Edith Finch, Simon's next door neighbor, is partially responsible for getting Simon on the train when her remark that "no one will read a story from a boy who can't use spell check" has him clam up the night before a spelling bee that would whisk him onto the Train. However, she was also going through a stressful time with her mother's cancer and Simon made a nasty remark how most of the tragedies the Finches suffer through is all because of Edith's great-grandmother unable to just move on with everything. Simon's mom admits that Edith felt sorry for what she said.
• Final Solution:
  • Augustine, back when he was in despair, decides that he'll create a scenario so bad that it will force Palimpsest to work together. Anyone who tries to run away onto the Third Rail will be killed.
  • One has basically had it up to here with the in-fighting in Palimpsest and the fact that the street-cleaners not only tried to kill a passneger but also his chosen one, that he is willing to just destroy everyone in Palimpest because they are too stubborn to listen to reason. And even then he was also willing to just destroy two sentient trains because their neglectfulness on their child is the reason everything came to pass.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Before the reveal of Chloe having been pushed out of her body and a kitsune girl has taken over, a kanji that gets stamped on "Chloe's" hand reads "Fox". And another hint is that "Chloe" is in fear of Hewie, which the real Chloe doesn't have.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Amelia calls Alrich her "white rabbit". Scenes later, his pescia appears wearing a magician hat with white rabbit ears and shouting he's late.
  • On route to seeing everyone, Chloe questions Casimira's idea of help involving "forcing preventing others from getting support is wrong" and Casimira questions if she's talking about herself or the Infinity Train in general. The end of Part 2 reveals that Usagi/The Third Rail deliberately is separating the Windchasers and Red Lotus Uprising to trap Augustine to become its conductor.
  • In Part 3, Chloe used her cloak to see into Asher's memories. Asher asks her how much he saw of her past — which becomes important in the next part because he asked if she saw how Austen Plane was his former partner.
  • Before introduced, Tres helps comfort Sei (who has blue hair) when she has a meltdown. It hints that he's a therapist who will help Augustine (whose signature color is blue) sort out his troubles.
  • In Part 4, Ululiro writes down that attacking the Windchasers and Lotus Uprising might invoke the wrath of God on the Car. Sure enough the Train, aka God, starts firing lightning bolts at the street cleaners who are ready to kill Chloe.
  • Goh thinks that a Snom is a horrible present for Chloe due to it not matching her. Turns out there is something in common — they have big appetites and going "Om nom nom" as they eat.
• Funny Background Event:
  • While Ash and Goh are having lunch in Part 2, they're in an indoor cafe while a Snom invasion is currently eating food from others, to the point someone can be heard shouting "MY LEG!"
  • After the fight against Ai, Specter asks Easter to get his storage orb for some clothes, while London and Tokio talk things out with Lampetia, Easter returns and drops some clothes over Specter.
• Fun with Acronyms: Both of the insults toward Casimira have this. The street-cleaner's stressed words call Casimira something...very unflattering whereas November's list has the first letter of each word spell out "Fuck you".
• The Ghost: The parent trains of the Third Rail are mentioned but never seen. Justified because they're trains, so they are probably traveling in other areas of the Palimpsest.
• Great Offscreen War: One of these happened between Cassimira's forces and the Denizens of the Palimpsest Car to decide whether the car would be open to passengers or not. It involved Ululiro cutting up animals to give her and those who opposed Casimira an advantage and having them remove their vocal cords in shame for their actions.
• Hand Gagging: As Lexi explains what a pescia is, which is derived from a term of Monks copying tomes into smaller books, Yuri asks why not use printers or computers. Lexi shoves a quill pen in Yuri's mouth to shut him up.
• Hard Truth Aesop: The heroes learn that their small actions aren't enough to truly make huge changes in Palimpsest because it's a huge cesspool of hatred and spite. It takes a true conscious effort to make sure changes are taken place for the long term and even more effort for people to make the change.
• Heartbreak and Ice Cream: A variation. Chloe is so despondent of a kitsune girl swapping places with her — and saying she's not the true Chloe of the Vermillion — that she ends up munching on inari sushi (sushi that consists of rice stuffed in tofu pouches both to imitate fox ears and fried tofu is one of Inari's favorite foods) and crying her heart out until Inari steps in.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Tres manages to break through Augustine and Chloe's despair not through magic, but through the power of therapy. He even hangs a lampshade that just because he doesn't have the abilities of Augustine and Chloe, doesn't mean he's useless.
• Heel–Face Turn: Ululiro was more neutral than evil, but upon seeing just how much damage the infighting, miscommunication and despair was brought about by her Fantastic Racism of passengers, and seeing Chloe admit that she'd rather have the shark-head lady kill her now (after her street-cleaners throw her into a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, strangle her and close to slicing her throat), Ululiro decides that this toxic attitude can't continue and decides to move forward in putting some order in this chaotic wonderland.
• Hypocrite:
  • One chews out Palimpsest for how their hands-off approached ruined the entire car. Tres points out that One has little room to talk; he has let so many problems go unchecked for thousands of years and he's not doing anything to stop the Apex either. Not to mention that he created the Palimpsest Car and neglected their well-being.
  • The implications of Goh's mons wanting to punch Chloe for everything she's done...and forgetting that Goh is equally responsible for what happened because his insensitive remarks pushed Chloe over the edge and onto the path of the Infinity Train itself.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: Palimpsest sided with Casimira because she desired things more than Ululiro. Unfortunately, it didn't understand that Casimira's intentions weren't really good and egged her to a victory that left Ululiro and the street-cleaners and veterans significantly pissed off because it doesn't have a good grasp at human emotions and desires, never realizing that Casimira was selfish to the core.
• Irony: Tres, a therapist, does more work to fix Augustine and Chloe's problems than practically everything a therapy train has thrown at them.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • While he's being a dick about it, the Padlock Earring street cleaner is right that Chloe shouldn't think she's invincible just because she's One-One's chosen one to stop the Apex or that she has the blessings of the Goetias by the side. She can still be killed at any moment and there are a lot of denizens (like the street cleaners themselves) who don't see what the big deal is about her.
  • A street-cleaner asks Tres what's the point of the denizens serving passengers when they get nothing of their services. Given how denizens are considered "lesser" to people who couldn't give a damn about them, and the Conductor put down Lake's idea to get a number and leave the Train, and you have a bit of a compelling argument.
• Just You and Me and My GUARDS!: Ai states the trope namer to London and Easter, but "Guards" is replaced with "Earth Golem @Ignister".
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • The scenes with Simon in Part 1 spoils ending twists from What Remains of Edith Finch.
  • Ai is basically a walking spoiler since it reveals he has his own body, he's now a villain, and the monsters from his @Ignister deck.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • When Chloe sees Ai's memories, she notes that there's enough contents "for three seasons worth of a show". VRAINS only lasted three seasons.
  • Goh and Ash's conversation in the final chapter of the arc contains parts where Goh notes that he thinks Gary meant for Ash to come alone to Galar and that Goh coming along didn't help. As these parts were written by the writer of Oak Lore, and the Continuity Snarl between Oak Lore and both the author note and Crocus, it is not hard to read this as the writer pointing this out in universe.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Invoked. Lillie states that there is no way that Gladion must know about Rainbow Rocket because he's just getting back on his quest to heal again and learning of his family and friends in danger will not help drop his number in the slightest.
  • Ash and Goh also tell themselves to not mention the same news to Chloe because she doesn't need anymore worries at this point.
• Long List: Lexi gives one in regards to what Casimira's factory creates.
  Lexi: Her family has run a factory for generations that stamps out the urban ‘filth’ of Palimpsest. Rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, flies, mosquitoes, moths, ants, pigeons, ravens, worms, centipedes, cockroaches, sparrows, graffiti, you name it, she makes it.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": As things go to literall hell in the Palmipsest Car, the denizens are screaming at how Armageddon is coming for them, whether it's from the derailing of the Third Rail or One deciding to destroy the entire car, denizens and all or even going as far as destroying two sentient trains for neglecting their child.
• Misplaced Retribution:
  • Amelia is the one who caused everyone trouble by usurping One-One, while Augustine was the one who caused the Third Rail to go off the...rails, and yet it's Chloe who gets blamed, assaulted and nearly killed by the street cleaners.
  • The parent trains' neglect is what caused the Third Rail to run wild and unruly. Once again, it's all the passengers who are at fault.
  • Zigzagged for Goh's Pokémon wanting to attack Chloe. Chloe is not 100% responsible for Sara's decision to go to the Cerise Institute at the same time the Unown box was being delivered, but they still want to punish her for breaking Goh by being spiteful, despite the fact that she apologized to Goh about her attitude and actively tried to save them before Sara would steal them for her own use and she nearly died by her father's hands. Plus, they blame it all on Chloe, and not on the Infinity Train that picked her up in the first place with little chance of anyone knowing she was on there until Trip told the Institute about it, nor are there any mons who point out that Goh also had a part to play in it, since he told Chloe the very words that got her to run away in the first place.
• Morton's Fork: The Cat was stuck in one in regards to her situation with Simon: tell Simon what little she knew and corrupt him with the wrong idea of what was the purpose of the Train or not tell him at all and leave him to cling onto the closest thing to an answer in Grace Monroe.
• Mundane Solution: What does Tres do to curb everything that starts going wrong in the Palimpsest Car? He talks to Augustine and Chloe and helps them come to their senses about what's going on, neither blaming them nor giving them any breathing room to say they're in the right, encouraging them to move forward without fault.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Augustine realizes how his despair caused the Third Rail to go crazy when Sei switched places and nearly destroyed Palimpsest.
  • As the street cleaners beat Chloe up, Ululiro realizes how her xenophobia is about to cause an innocent victim (Age 10) to die, and the trauma has made her want someone to kill her to end it all.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Simon recalls two denizens that easily describe Peacock — girl whose number was in her eyes — and Boscha — three-eyed witch — from Infinity Train: Boiling Point.
  • Kaito mentioned that he was able to give advice to a Zenkai Red in his dreams, referring the Zenkaiger special Introducing Zenkai Red-kai!
  • From Infinity Train itself, Frank recalls how he saw Khaki Bottoms (the plush rabbit from the Ball Pit Car) roaming about with him losing an ear in the Lucky Cat Car.
  • En route to meet with Colress, Lake tells Colette that Jesse gives the name to "Dracula" to every animal he met on the Train and was about to call her "Dracula 2" when she got off.
  • Pescia Alrich has allusions to Alice in Wonderland because "The Past Car" revealed that Alrich once wrote an essay in regards to Alice's journey.
  • Flint's Pokémon from the Rocket Prize Master is a Krokorok and she comments that it would look better with shades, referencing Ash's own Krookadile.
• Naked People Are Funny: London makes note that Gladion and Specter are wearing swimming trunks after the White Gestalts defeats Ai's monsters. Then the fangirls with their phones arrive.
• No Name Given: The kitsune girl is never given a name, with author notes stating she wasn't planned with one in mind.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Specter and Lampetia once entered a speed dating car that involved rollerskates.
  • Alrich had a first date doing magic tricks at the Church of the Blind.
• Not Helping Your Case: The Cat doesn't help her problems of only thinking about herself when she states that, in the case of what happened in the Ball Pit Car, it was either Khaki Bottoms or her being killed.
• Not So Similar: Casimira remarks that she and Chloe are the same as they had the will to help do something grand and break barriers. Chloe remarks that the thing with the Mirage Pokémon was for them, and never for herself, whereas Casimira was a selfish bitch who didn't care of the reprecussions of her war, not to mention that Chloe nearly died for her stunt and Casimira looked like she never had to go through the violence or torture Chloe went through.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Part 3 has Ash, Goh and Gary fight off some Team Magma Grunts. The next chapter has Ash and Goh on their way back to Vermillion City and Gary off to talk to the Galar Gym Leaders and Chairman Rose.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Chryssa and Renji cringe when Magine keeps seeing letters...aka the insignias of previous villain teams.
  • Oscar screams in horror when he sees the pictures found by Rotomdex and realizing that Aerostar was warning Rey about Team Rainbow Rocket.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: The Cat getting told by others how Randall's donut holer business was her idea, especially in light of Chloe Cerise's expertise in using one.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The situation with Rainbow Rocket is so dire that Nanu is joining in.
• Orcus on His Throne: Rey mentally brings up this trope in regards to Rainbow Rocket Giovanni and says it something that "classic villains do".
• Out of Focus: Infinity Train plot points dominate the mass bulk of Palpimpest chapters, with two scenes focusing on the Pokemon setting being the most the multiple plot points in the Pokemon world get a chapter, and several of them happen to focus on characters related to the Infinity Train and not the core cast of the Pokemon side. This has the side effect of reducing several plot points like Rainbow Rocket and Ash and Goh, each worthy of several large segments of their own in equal measure to the events of Palpimpest, to afterthoughts, easily lost within ever expanding segments of Infinity Train plots.
• Pass the Popcorn: Inari is eating kitsune udon (udon topped with Inari sushi, tofu pouches stuffed with rice) when they watch Asher turn into a bird-like humanoid.
• Plot Parallel:
  • In a flashback, Specter reads the final part of The Blue Angel about how the haughty titular character was still saved by the other angels. "Just because you don't care about us doesn't mean we don't carry about you", reflecting on how White Gestalt still cared about him even though he never opened up to them.
  • Ai notes that the first @Ignister monster he used against White Gestalt, Earth Golem, was the first one destroyed...like how the first Ignis killed off in VRAINS was Earth. London immediately realizes how much of a puppy-kicking insult this is.
  • Chloe realizes how she's no better than the entitle bitches she's interacted with — Grace, Amelia, Sara and Casimira — as they are broken girls who want something more. But instead of talking things over, they become selfish and entitled, ruining the lives of hundreds, if not thousands because of it.
  • Amelia realizes that what's going on through this car mirrors her life story.
  Amelia: Oh, for the love of One, this car is the story of my life, isn’t it? All this time, I wanted only what I wanted and didn’t care about denizens or passengers who got hurt along the way. Only difference is that the Train didn’t even care that I had feelings. It kept doing its thing and I kept ruining so many lives.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Simon is angry that the Cat knew on some level about how the numbers worked and never bothered to tell him. The Cat can't even say You Didn't Ask as Simon stated that he did ask her what he should do and all she said was "just do whatever I say". And no, Simon couldn't just ask a denizen for help because who knows if they even knew what the train was about?
  • In her confession video, the Cat didn't say anything about the numbers because she had no idea herself and if she tried to tell Simon what she knew and it was wrong, it would've ended in failure. She then asks the denizens who knew this if they didn't bother to tell this to Grace sooner as it was Grace's proud and haughty "I know how the Train works" that is the cause of everyone's pain.
  • All of Palimpsest nearly got destroyed because two women decided to not talking things over what should happen to the Car or the fact that no one on their sides tried to tell them to cut things out. Casimira decided to cause chaos and a war and Ululiro's decision to cut off her vocal cords from the animal surgery prevented her from speaking her mind. Plus Palimpsest could've tried to have Casimira not go with the war instead of defualting for "go along with it because Casimira wants it more than anyone else, consequences be fucking damned.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: As the co-author notes, most of the book that the car is based on had to be trimmed to fit with the Infinity Train, with Sei's arc of the Third Rail and Casimira's actions being the focal point.
• Purple Prose: November and Lexi briefly share in this in Part 4, which Yuri lampshades:
  Yuri: No offense, but is this flowery tale going anywhere?
• Pyrrhic Victory: Casimira got what she wanted: Palimpsest opened, attention all on her and everyone being aware of what's going on in the car. She now has her reputation destroyed, she gets told "Fuck you" by November and Palimpsest, her home, is now her prison as she will never be allowed to leave the car and has been told off by everyone that her selfishness has brought her nothing but misery and pain of her own making.
• Queer Colors: Tres is a trans woman as identified by his earring and bracelet being blue, pink and white — the colors of the transgender flag.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • Hakurou shouting at him and remembering what Augustine told him back in the Cyan Desert Car makes Specter snap. Specter's second breaking point is Ai making a tasteless joke in regards to Lampetia having lost an eye to one of his @Ignister's monsters.
  • The Train itself has finally reached it when the street cleaners want to kill Chloe and decides to smite a few of them as a warning to stop hurting passengers.
  • Chloe is so pissed off at Casimira opening her entitled mouth, and just after Chloe was nearly killed by a runaway train and strangled by the street cleaners, that she punches the bitch in the face.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Gladion mentions how White Gestalt left the Soda Beach Car was written due to the death of Kazuki Takahashi dying a Heroic Sacrifice in the ocean saving a mother and her child when Part 4 was being written.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Part 4 has the heroes ripping Casimira, Palmipsest and its denizens apart for how their infighting, entitled attitudes or inability to just talkings out has caused so much harm. Even One gets in on telling Palimpsest that they fucked things up by being a selfish and spoiled little brat.
• Refusing Paradise: The theme of this car is about leaving this surreal paradise for broken people and actively work on themselves.
  • Amelia has finally found her Alrich and can live a relatively peaceful life with him...but she eventually lets it go. The Alrich made by Palimpsest is not her Alrich, stuck in the past. He is his own person, and Amelia only requests that he lives his best life and to remember that she made him happy even for a moment.
  • Sei comes to the conclusion that she's going to stay with the Third Rail as a mother figure until she's ready to work on herself as a person. While she will always be a densha otaku, she understands that this type of happiness shouldn't be permanent.
  • Chloe slowly starts recognizing the patterns she's made in becoming Chloe of the Vermillion and takes the steps to leave her fantasy behind.
• Retail Therapy: After the shit that hit the fan throughout Palimpsest, Marchosias takes Chloe shopping both to cheer her up and also because her suit and blouse got burned up from Augustine's black flames.
• Retroactive Wish: Vaillant warns some street cleaners that things will get ugly like trains flying in the sky. Cue the Third Rail in the sky just like he said. He gets excited at what he thinks of having wishing powers.
  Vaillant: Wait, do I have the power to announce unexpected things? Oh, I know! I wish for gauntlets that shoot out fire and ice dragons that turn the weather to hail!
  (cue a long Beat as everyone waits for that to happen. Vaillant groans)
  Vaillant: A wolf can dream.
• The Reveal:
  • Simon's backstory before he gets onto the Train is revealed in Part 1 and 2.
  • Asher is really a prince from the Royal Aviary Car, real name Armand Vrana Alchiba, who was kidnapped as an egg by Raum.
  • Austen Plane, head of Elipzo, was also Asher's former partner.
  • Not only is Tres not an official passenger, but he's from a universe where people like him have actually entered the Train like that before, one that's not so easily pinpointed by the Train itself. A universe that has its own Pokémon world.
  • The words that Augustine told Specter? That he was a "parastic sycophant".
• Rimshot: Grace and Simon enter something called a "Rimshot Car" in which the bear drummers get on their nerves immediately.
• Running Gag: Yuri keeps mispronouncing "Palimpsest" and someone has to correct him. It was based on how Spinner kept typing it wrong and Green Phantom Queen constantly corrected her.
• Running Gagged: After he keeps mispronouncing "Palimpsest" and someone correcting him, Yuri corrects Tres and properly gets the name right.
• Say My Name: Amelia is reduced to screaming Alric's name when she realizes that she's talking to him after what seems to be thirty years.
• Self-Inflicted Hell: Casimira shot herself in the foot in hindsight.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Part 3 has a lot of comedy on White Gestalt's side as they heroically stop Ai from rampaging with his monsters. Chloe has to hang up on them to focus on the more serious issue of Palimpsest and they return after everything is settled.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Yes, there are rabbits the size of dogs and they're called Flemish Giant Rabbits like Amelia says.
  • When Chloe asks a crow, "Who's a good bird", the crow mimicks her. Crows actually have the intelligence to replicate human speech.
• Skewed Priorities: Ash not being enough to defeat Rainbow Rocket, as said by Kiawe, is a vaguely reasonable reason not to call him. Lana thinking that Ash is too busy in the World Coronation Series to help is not at all.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • The parents of the Third Rail who neglected their child until they became unruly and wild.
  • November Aguilar was Casimira's champion, whose "quest" to bring three other passengers to Palimpsest were what caused the barriers around the car to "break" and let passengers enter freely.
  • Casimira's "house" took her in and taught her all that she knew; since this meant that she didn't become like the other children in Palimpsest, Casimira developed free will and a selfish attitude to combat her loneliness.
• Sneeze Cut: Used twice in the first part.
  • After Kaito talks about how people will be talking about seeing Zocks' ship in the sky, it cuts to Zocks sneezing just as he's about to eat a sandwich.
  • When Grace boasts that Chloe can't scare her, it cuts to Chloe sneezing because of her dinner of fish with spicy peppers.
• Stealth Insult: Two of these are placed at Casimira in Part 4.
  • One street cleaner has this to say about Casimira. Take note on the words that are italicized.
  Freckles: That bitch just comes in and undos the barrier meant to protect us. And she never realizes that she is a terrible host who has eluded karma for so long.
  • Lexi gets a list from November in exchange for her giving information on what she did as Casimira's "champion". Take note of the first letter of each item (emphasis included).
  Lexi: (reading out loud) Things that one can find when you can explore past your horizons: Friendship, Unity, Companionship, Kindness, Youth, Optimism and Understanding.
• Stealth Pun: During an admittance of Chloe blaming herself for what happened with Augustine, she tackles him (while he's surrounded by black flames) and gets her left shoulder burned. She's shouldering the blame for what happened.
• The Stinger: The end of the car has Ash leaving Vermillion City, carrying all his Pokémon on him, and using Gary's Alakazam to teleport him to Alola.
• Stop Worshipping Me: Asher is begging for denizens in the Third Rail to not do this. Doesn't help when he finds out that he's really a prince.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: In Part 2, both Oscar and Specter get the same idea of someone wielding a hammer that's on fire in mentioning of the wrestling move, the Burning Hammer.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Alola is being publicly invaded by forces of a massive mafia organization with Pokemon and the fact this is happening is being broadcast on live television and well reported for two straight days. Yet despite this the massive well of people who can match most anything that Rainbow Rocket can do, short of the obscure Mewtwo, are not flooding into the popular, well known, connected region to assist in the effort, despite how many of these very same possess the means of getting to Alola even discounting air traffic disruptions (including but not limited to G-Men connections, flying pyramids, regular boats, Flying and Water-type Pokemon, and teleportation). Ash himself, who was noted in the last chapter to have access to an airship that could travel that far and frequently jumps into situations so dangerous without a second thought for the sake of his friends and loved ones, is the only one who the narrative even attempts to give a reason to not be involved, and it isn't even a half-way decent or in character explanation that seems to be mostly there to add to the drama and stakes of Rainbow Rocket for the Alolans and Visitors alike. By the end of the arc, Ash decides to subvert this trope by gathering all his Pokémon in Pallet Town and then teleport there using Gary's Alakazam.
• Stupid Evil: The street-cleaners have at least twenty degrees in stupidity for wanting to kill Chloe for many reasons: 1) she is the chosen of One-One who is off to stop the Apex and the Conductor will not be pleased about this. 2) She's the one who is trying to stop people in Silent Hill from unleashing a ritual that might doom the entire Train if not careful. 3) This is being streamed through Infinet where all of the Train will know about this. 4) This will only cause everyone to run away from Palimpsest and cause even more travesty for everyone involved. 5) Adult men assaulting a defenseless girl does not give a good image of what the street-cleaners are supposed to be doing. The fact that they keep talking shit and telling Ululiro to kill her even after one of them got electrocuted by the Train doesn't help.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Rainbow Rocket Grunts are stealing food from markets and supplies from malasada shops, because a large army like that is going to have to get food somewhere. While one would assume Rainbow Rocket would have planned for that, massive oversights like such are not uncommon.
  • An explosion in a loud area is going to get everyone running for the hills, as Tokio's exploding cards prove.
  • Despite Harmonious Storm wanting to unleash their lightning attacks against Ai's @Ignister monsters, it turns out to be a very bad idea to unleash electric attacks at a beach, where there are plenty of people running about soaking wet from water. This was alluded earlier when Pop-Pop states that Easter isn't allowed to swim (due to being lightning and all).
  • Even though Ash isn't asked to go to Alola for help, he still learned that Rainbow Rocket is causing havoc due to the news. Moreover, even if Ash was warned about what was going on in Alola, he alone was not going to be able to stop Giovanni, though if that would actually stop him from trying is a different question.
  • According to Goh, Coach Zee lost her teacher's license when it was revealed she didn't report the incident of Chloe being bullied by boys, including the broken arm incident. Talia is also pressing charges on child neglect for how the school did nothing to help her daughter nor disciplined her bullies.
  • Even if Chloe has her pipe and fire-casting cloak, she's still a ten-year-old girl. So when she gets attacked by the more powerful, older and physically stronger street-cleaners, she's unable to do anything when they Zerg Rush her and one of them taunts her that she's still capable of dying on the Train, chosen one status be damned.
• Take That!: Ai notes that the story of a man and his demon partner on a black beach — said beach is something that Lampetia is trying to find — had an ending as nauseating as the tale of the match girl.
• Tarot Motifs:
  • Alrich's "is this your card?" routine has him give Amelia a Ten of Clubs. Its equivalent is the Ten of Wands, which means that whatever was once a lofty goal has now become a burden but also meaning that it's nearing its end. This reflects how Amelia was on a path in trying to be with Alrich has brought her nothing but pain, misery and an extremely high number but yet now she finally has her chance to be with him again.
  • The card he gives her before he leaves is Page of Cups which is a messenger of an unexpected surprise. Seeing a copy of Alrich is certaintly unexpected.
  • Alrich himself represents the Magician, due to his stage magician apparel and the infinity symbol on his hat. The Magician represents how one has the tools in front of them to start their journey.
• There Are No Therapists: Subverted. Tres is a therapist who comes in at the right time before Augustine kills himself and helps give Chloe reassurance about what she can do about herself and how she reacted to her parents. He also gives Chloe an app for her phone that allows her to talk to other trauma victims.
• Threatening Shark: Ululiro is a woman with a shark's head and the person who opposed Casimira's idea to open up Palimpsest for passengers.
• Time Skip: Part 2 takes place two days after the end of the first part.
• Too Dumb to Live: Even after one street cleaner got electrocuted, a second one has the gall to tell Ululiro to kill Chloe and wring her neck despite Ululiro revealing that she has standards. Predictably, the Train retaliates by smiting him.
• Tranquil Fury: One is eerily calm as he tells Palimpsest how he is significnatly angry at everything that happened in the car.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Casimira is more focused on how she was in the right about passengers being important to Palimpsest, instead of being grateful that she wasn't crushed by a runaway train. Chloe punches her in the face in retaliation.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Downplayed. When Asher realizes that Tres is a trans woman, Amelia is confused since she doesn't understand that Tres's earring and bracelet are coded after the transgender flag. Justified because she's been stuck on the Train since the eighties, thus way behind in the changes in the LGBT movement nor would she have known anything about them in the slightest.
• Unstoppable Rage: Specter unleashes the wrath of the gods on Ai when he makes a bad joke on Lampetia being a sight for sore eye (as she has just lost an eye from a sword shaving half of her face off).
  Specter: SHUT UP!!!
• Villain World: Somewhat; Palimpsest Car looks like Casimira's playground, but it's actually a kooky surreal car that was already xenophobic when it came to passengers but is now reaching a boiling point no thanks to the war and peace treaty Casimira enacted years ago.
• Wham Episode:
  • In general, this car is the one that changes the events of Book 3, where it's Simon the one who gets the redemption arc instead of Grace.
  • Part 3 brings up shocking revelations for a lot of characters: Team Aqua and Magma are in Galar, Asher is actually a prince who was kidnapped as an egg by Malphas and Raum, Augustine is at his breaking point and Lampetia not only gets a new form but she's now seeing visions of a mysterious figure in the same white lighthouse and black beach she's searching for.
  • Part 4 has the ending of the Palimpsest Car along with Tres not being the first from his world to enter the Train, Asher revealing that his former master is also Elipzo's head, Austen Plane, and Ash is heading off to the Alola region to help fight Giovanni. Oh and Augustine and Chloe finally get some therapy.
• Wham Line:
  • Wicke describes the logo of their intruders:
    Wicke: The R looks different… like a rainbow…
  • Chloe looks into Asher's soul to reveal something else about him.
  Chloe: Asher being a Prince and being raised by Malphas and Raum was right all along. But…he’s not a Shadow nor a Goetia. He’s really Prince Armand Vrana Alchiba of the Royal Aviary Car.
  • Chloe comes clean to what Augustine said in the Cyan Desert Car, which includes the phrase that made Specter look in shock.
  Chloe: You said, no one is ever going to love someone like you, you parasitic sycophant.
  • Upon seeing the memory of Ai meeting up with Austen, Asher realizes:
  Asher: Wait, Elipzo?! As in…he made contact with that dreaded former master of mine?!
• Wham Shot: Tres shows his hands towards everyone but something is off — his right palm is blank but the narration also adds the back of his hand having a blue light.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The parent trains of the Third Rail, to One, must be destroyed no matter how much reprecussions this could cause because it's their neglect on their child that led to the domino effect of getting him so enraged to destroy Palimpsest. However, everyone is horrified that One would even consider that and try to do something more humane. Sei comes up with the idea that they go into counseling to give them a better chance at being parents.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Simon and Frank call out on the Cat's apathetic attitude and only caring about herself. Simon brings up how she was ready to tell Tulip what the numbers meant (albeit she was saying it in a joking manner after The Cat tricked Tulip to watching her memory tape) and Frank states that the Cat's the reason why Khaki Bottoms is traumatized, lost an ear, and why the Ball Pit Car was out of commission for months.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The entire car is a reference to the novel Palimpsest
• The Wonderland: Palimpsest is described as Wonderland if pulled into a blender and mixed with a book of zoology. Yuri himself calls it "adult Wonderland". However, for all that Palimpsest is surreal and kooky it also hides a lot of disorder and hatred towards passengers. A world without nonsense that doesn't have any sort of authority will eventually implode on itself.
• Would Hurt a Child: A lot of people in this arc just wants to do this to Chloe.
  • The street cleaners hate passengers so much that they are this close to killing Chloe in Part 4 because her angst and spite indirectly made Augustine nearly destroy Palmipsest when he took control of the Third Rail.
  • Augustine has had it with his angst and despair and burns Chloe with his black flames. And prior to that, he indirectly had the Third Rail lose control, with the train aiming for Casimira's house where Chloe was inside.
  • Goh's Pokémon are drawing lots in regards to punching Chloe when she gets back from her Train Trip.
• The Worf Effect: Part 2 starts with Giovanni laying waste to Kukui, Lusamine and Faba's Pokémon with Mewtwo. Even Rey Mysterio, despite the firepower he's containing, can't put a scratch on him.
• You Didn't Ask: Vaillant is not happy to learn that the rabbit man pounding mochi tells him that he didn't have to do the job for him. This causes Vaillant to realize that he just made Augustine even more vulnerable to falling into despair.

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