History Fanfic / InfinityTrainSeekerOfCrocus

* KidHero: At least one kid hero is seen per group: Yuri (age 11), Chloe (age 10) and Tokio (age 14). While Gladion and Specter could theoretically fit into this as well, (with Gladion around age 14 and Specter 16), they fit more into the "teenager" category. Tony Clark (age 11) and Oscar (unrevealed but presumably 10-11) also fit in the category

** Simon's neighbor, Edith Finch, died at childbirth which is what happened [[VideoGame/WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch in her game.]] It also hints that Milton Finch, her brother, may or may not be the same king from ''VideoGame/TheUnfinishedSwan''.

** The story eventually deconstructs Chloe's "Chloe of the Vermillion" person as a case of this: before she got on the Train, Chloe was a kind and gentle girl who closed herself off from bullying and perceived insensitivity to her problems. Once she gets on the train, she adopts the persona in order to reinvent herself as a strong, independent woman who wouldn't let people stomp on her again...only to get utterly lost in the idea and drive herself further and further away from a trip home. The Harvest Moon Car primarily involves her learning about this and deciding to ditch this false interpretation for her real self.

* JustEatGilligan: With how much trouble school is shown giving Goh in later chapters, it really does raise the question of why he even bothers to keep his "I only go to school for tests" promise when he can just drop by and pick them up before skedaddling. He has a job at the Cerise Lab, Ash and other trainers don't go to school and they aren't given crud, and nothing about school sounds like it would give him any benefit (it might help Chloe, but that's about it). It would honestly be a better solution for him to drop the promise and just stay as far away from the place as possible. However, it's implied that he ''can't'' get away so easily as "Firefly Funhouse Car" reveals that he has a special permission to arrive at school for limited appearances.

* TheQuest: Most of the plotlines on the Train are based around this.
** The end of the Monster City Car has Sycamore decide to find info on Alain and give support to the Red Lotus Trio.
** The Red Lotus Trio (later Uprising) also want to end the Apex, and almost every member has their own quest. Atticus wants to know what happened to Aloysius, Lexi wants revenge on Grace and Simon, while Amelia wants to ensure Hazel's safety. [[spoiler:The end of Act 1 has another one tacked to Chloe; find her father.]]
** [[spoiler: White Gestalt's quest is to get back on their feet and properly heal, leaving the Apex threat to the Sycamore and Chloe's groups.]]
** The Apex kids are off to save their friend Sean who got lost in the Fog Car while Grace and Simon [[spoiler:decide to go to the Fog Car to spite the heroes]].

** The beginning of Act 2 has Chloe reeling through this, highlighting her depression from everything she's going through, before she almost takes her life at the end of the Harvest Moon Car. It's only thanks to Goh and Buné that she snaps out of it.

* DrivingQuestion: Act 2's main questions are, "Who is Armand and why is he so important on the Infinity Train?" and "How is Armand connected to both Augustine and Asher?"

** The non fantastical passengers this time around include a kid spy, a CEO of a company that specializes in trading cards, a CollectorOfTheStrange holed up in a creepy amusement park, a RailEnthusiast and a ''therapist.''

* FunWithAcronyms: In ''Orchid Obsever'', Jesse and Lake attend meetings at what is known as the '''I'''nfinity '''T'''rain '''C'''ommunity '''H'''ouse or ITCH.

** By the same token, Self-Awareness. There's no shortage of characters who like to claim that their lives are worse than what people see on the surface level. However, nine times out of ten, these turn out to be either the result of [[DisproportionateRetribution the person blowing things out of proportion]], [[SelfServingMemory misremembering things in a way]] that makes ''them'' look like the victim, or even straight up lies that [[BelievingTheirOwnLies the person honestly believes]] as a way to cope with their own narrative. Only those who actually drop these superstitions and become aware of the real situation are ever shown to change for the better, with those who don't become self-aware doubling down and spiraling into their own graves.

* ForWantOfANail:
** Because Professor Sycamore decides to not tell Ash about his problems, he never learns about the Infinity Train and that Alain is most likely on it. He instead stresses himself out to the point that the Train picks him up [[spoiler:and finds out about Alain's train trip for himself]]. And in a nod to its other name of "Butterfly Effect", it's because he bumped into Calem's Vivillon, a lot of Augustine's stress comes to light.
** Goh bumps into Gloria on his way to the Cerise Institute after Chloe's goodbye message, and she stays with him even after he snaps, even giving him some InUniverseCatharsis in the form of a smash game. Because of this, Goh's is more mentally sound, at least for the moment. It's thanks to her and Victor's influence that he is able to stand up to Chloe and force her to stop blaming him for her problems, which has Chloe admit that she's in the wrong and the two to forgive each other. Adding onto this, because Gloria and Victor are here to help, this means Parker never becomes mentally unstable as he has supportive older sibling figures who won't tolerate his anger and spite yet still reassure him that his sister will return. Moreover, because Chloe properly calls her mother and assures Parker she ''will'' come home when she's in the Elephant Teapot Car, this means the latter never goes off the deep end. Cementing this, [[spoiler:Parker's version of [=UnChloe=] is a gentle, older sister figure who supports him instead of giving in to his twisted desires.]]
** Trip decides to leave the Institute upon realizing he's not doing anything to help the situation.
** Mairin asks what would have happened if the Train picked up Lysandre and whether or not this meant Team Flare would never have been created and Alain wouldn't have gotten his guilt complex.
** When Victor calls Tokio, he tells the boy that if he just told his parents to call Goh's parents, instead of just leaving a letter at Celebi's shrine or asking Celebi to travel back a year before, it would've prevented Tokio from getting on the Train, prevented Goh from being isolated from others and later saved ''Chloe'' from her own bullying.
** The Unown Incident would never have happened if Sara didn't arrive right around the time the Unown Box as being picked up or she just ''accepted'' that she can't get a Pokémon until she changes her ways. And Sara would never have run away if Yeardley's little sister didn't point out how stupid Sara's plan of bullying Chloe to get a Pokémon was.
** The whole ghost hunt debacle described in Harvest Moon Car would've gone down a whole lot differently if A.) Goh had listened to Chloe's warnings to not chase after a Vivillon over a river, and B.) Chloe hadn't wasted time getting him back to camp and then been more considerate of his health and wellbeing afterwards.
** Everything involving Chloe unable to help Goh is ''solely'' on the principle that she was never told about Tokio. Had Goh or his parents brought it up to her, she would've been more understanding and none of their friendship problems would've happened.

* TheFourLoves: ''Crocus'' focuses on different types of love instead of just romantic.

** ''Philia'': Chloe and Goh's friendship, Specter and London's bromance
** ''Eros'': Amelia letting go of her feelings for Alrick.
** ''Agape'': Augustine's determination to save Alain and how he tends to care for the likes of Yuri, Vaillant, and Chloe.

* FaceHeelDoubleTurn: In ''Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS'' Ai was the good guy and Specter was the bad guy before Season 3 made Ai the bad guy and Specter is only a "hero" in name. In the Palimpsest Car, Ai cements himself as the enemy while Specter vows to save the Ignis, truly cementing that he's working on bettering himself this time around.

** Yuri does this when he learns that gods and demons exit, and later when meeting Paimon who states how ''Lucifer'' is also traveling the train. He then faints multiple times when [[spoiler:Augustine makes a covenant with Buné]]
* FantasyKitchenSink: While you can probably say this about the ''Blossomverse'' in general, this one takes the cake. Aside from the usual stuff that was found in the original trilogy, we now can things as grandiose as gods, demons, a sentient city with a train that has cars based off Japanese mythology, talking cats, a car where you face your shadow, a model diorama car home to a ''space war'', to something mundane as talking bears who perform rimshots en masse. And that's on the ''train'' side of things. On the ''other side'', the allies now include talking androids, a supernaturally empowered wrestler, a metal girl (who was originally ''from the Train''), the power of imagination that can be harnessed by those with high levels of creativity/those who survived the Train itself, an agent from a secret organization ''so'' secret not even the ''secret'' organizations know about them, digital monsters, and a hacker who fights off computer viruses for a living.

* TheQuest:

* SchoolIsForLosers: This is Goh's opinion of Vermillion School at least, and the story does little to give him a counterargument; those who attend the school are always shown to be miserable, and would rather be out being Pokémon Trainers than stay any second longer there. However, Act 2 reveals that there are a few students who are okay with going to school and Goh slowly learns that he could've had a better experience if he didn't take it for granted. No one cared enough about him to deliver his worksheets after Chloe left because he's scarecly around for anyone to get to know him better and he never made friends so now he doesn't know the names of anyone whom he could connect with.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: PlayedWith. Like in the ''Blossomverse'', many of the problems people have could be solved if therapy was in someone's dictionary, but this time there are ''actual'' therapists and discussions on this trope brought up. Tres is a licensed therapist who helps Augustine and Chloe talk about their issues before handing Chloe a medical care app to help her talk with other trauma victims. Tokio mentions he went to a therapist after his initial trip, Victor makes remarks that Gloria took therapy to combat [[spoiler:how she lost her reflection]] and Yuri even suggests that One-One creates a therapy program with the denizens since the Train's views on mental health are ''heavily'' outdated. ''Orchid Observer'' reveals that the Infinity Train Earth has government programs for returning passengers which Jesse and Lake attend.

* FantasyKitchenSink: While you can probably say this about the ''Blossomverse'' in general, this one takes the cake. Aside from the usual stuff that was found in the original trilogy, we now can things as grandiose as gods, demons, a sentient city with a train that has cars based off Japanese mythology, talking cats, a car where you face your shadow, a model diorama car home to a ''space war'', to something mundane as talking bears who perform rimshots en masse. And that's on the ''train'' side of things. On the ''other side'', the allies now include talking androids, a supernaturally empowered wrestler, a metal girl (who was originally ''from the Train), the power of imagination that can be harnessed by those with high levels of creativity/those who survived the Train itself, an agent from a secret organization ''so'' secret not even the ''secret'' organizations know about them, digital monsters, and a hacker who fights off computer viruses for a living.

* GratuitousSpanish: Frequently used in ''Rey Mysterio vs The Cosmos''. Justified because Rey and Aerostar are Spanish and the show that the story is based off of is a Spanish cartoon.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The beginning of the story initially deals with Sycamore entering the Infinity Train and going to look for Alain after learning he might be in danger. Later down Act 1, however, [[spoiler:Sycamore ends up breaking mentally and becomes unavailable for the rest of the Act, which deals with Chloe going back home and facing off against the bully who made her life a living hell]].

* JustEatGilligan: With how much trouble school is shown giving Goh in later chapters, it really does raise the question of why he even bothers to keep his "I only go to school for tests" promise when he can just drop by and pick them up before skedaddling. He has a job at the Cerise Lab, Ash and other trainers don't go to school and they aren't given crud, and nothing about school sounds like it would give him any benefit (it might help Chloe, but that's about it). It would honestly be a better solution for him to drop the promise and just stay as far away from the place as possible.

** Simon's neighbor, Edith Finch, died at childbirth which is what happened [[VideoGame/WhatRemainsOfEdithFinch in her game.]]

* OneMythToExplainThemAll: Gods and Demons -- or the Numinae and Goetias as they are called -- are denizens created by the Train with human mythology and stories about them based on passengers who met them in person, presumably explaining why their interpretations vary throughout the years.

* FantasyKitchenSink: While you can probably say this about the ''Blossomverse'' in general, this one takes the cake. Aside from the usual stuff that was found in the original trilogy, we now can things as grandiose as gods, demons, a sentient city with a train that has cars based off Japanese mythology, talking cats, a car where you face your shadow, a model diorama car home to a ''space war'', to something mundane as talking bears who perform rimshots en masse.