Fanfic / Diary of an Analog

Diary of an Analog is a non-canon installment in the Citadel of the Heart Series Fic, being an Alternate Universe Fic of Digimon Adventure 02 meant to serve as MF217's own personal retelling and reimagining of the original anime series and it's overall continuity.

The story takes place 3 years after the demise of Apocalymon which in turn saved the Digital World. His death was but the beginning of a chain reaction that would cause virtually every newborn Digimon to suddenly have massive ambition to Digivolve into Mega Level, no matter what consequences they would face while doing so. This in turn led to the sudden appearance of Diablomon, and the near annihilation of the human world. 1 year before the present day, Takaishi "T.K." Takeru and his partner Digimon known as Patamon have been extensively training to achieve Mega Level for themselves, so that he will no longer feel the need to rely on his older brother, Ishida "Matt" Yamato, and his partner Digimon Gabumon. Takeru begins his first day of 5th grade with little knowledge of the fact that he'll soon wind up being the leader of a new group of DigiDestined, meaning his priority to achieve Mega Level with his partner has now become a life or death situation.

If Patamon continues to be incapable of achieving Mega Level, a mysterious foe threatens T.K. with complete and utter annihilation of everything he holds dear to himself and the entire world as a whole. T.K. first learns of this over the past few weeks from his first day of 5th grade, having dreamed of a figure known as the "Digimon Emperor" enslaving virtually every known Digimon to rule the Digital World with an iron fist. Little does his innocent minded partner know, T.K. is more than aware that these dreams he has been having are indeed real, and may or may not be already taking place.

The fic can be read here.

Tropes of Diary of an Analog

• Adaptation Deviation:
  • Togemon in the backstory would've gone Lillymon during the Myotismon Arc against DarkTyrannomon in the real world. However, in this case, she achieves Ultimate in the same arc but much earlier, in which she first becomes Lillymon during the encounter with ShogunGekomon. Mimi's debut is to include a flashback detailing this altered backstory for Lillymon.
  • With Ryo uncertain and Ken genuinely having gone dark without a Dark Spore, Lady Sigma is the one to recreate the Armor DigiEggs.
  • With the Crests having been destroyed outright by Apocalymon, they were not used to free the Sovereigns, nor was it even needed to as the mere defeat of the Dark Masters alone did this behind the scenes, and even then, nobody among the 1999 DigiDestined lost the ability to go Ultimate Level or greater in the process, since the final battle of Adventure states the DigiDestined had effectively outgrown the need for the Crests altogether.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
  • The plot point of the Crests attributed to the 1999 DigiDestined being given up to free the Sovereigns in 2000 just after the Diablomon conflict never comes up in its original form, especially considering the 1999 kids are re-established here as having outgrown the need for the Crests to Digivolve beyond Champion as what happened in the Final Battle of Digimon Adventure. As a result, unlike canon Digimon Adventure 02, the 1999 DigiDestined have full access to any form of theirs above Champion, to the point that the entire premise is literally T.K. and Patamon trying to achieve Mega Level on their own in-order to become more independent of Matt and Gabumon.]] The Sovereigns being hit with a major case of Adaptational Abomination thanks to inheriting their Later-Installment Weirdness Power Creep is also why the kids wouldn't have freed the Sovereigns even if they knew they existed at all.
• Adaptational Badass: As far as past characters in the context of 02 is concerned.
  • Gatomon keeps her Champion Level power as she never loses her Holy Ring. Likewise, because of this, Nefertimon is treated as being akin to an Ultimate Level in power when compared to the other Armor Digivolved forms.
    • Not only that, but the reason she didn't get much of a chance to showcase her newfound strength in her first scene? Both caught off guard and being outnumbered. When she's presented with an obstacle in the form of LoaderLiomon? She not only actually cuts a wound in his face as Champion Level alone, but she actually manages to tell them to sit down and wait for her to digivolve to Angewomon because she's aware her opponent of an obstacle would rather have the challenge of facing an equal in power. And even when LoaderLiomon digivolves to BanchoLeomon, all they manage to do successfully with his new form is injure Angewomon's side. Angewomon lasts long enough to forcefully pin them to the nearest wall with a Celestial Arrow to the chest. While surprisingly enough BanchoLeomon survives this, Angewomon is the clear victor in the end of it. Like with what's mentioned with Angemon below, this is a case of an Invoked attempt at Character Rerailment for Gatomon and Angewomon, by reestablishing both of them as powerhouses as opposed to suffering the Badass Decay they were given in 02 proper.
  • Angemon and MagnaAngemon are given a case of Invoked Character Rerailment to reestablish themselves as being super powerful Digimon for their given level without suffering the immeasurable Badass Decay the later entries in the franchise had made them become. That being said, his Mega Level form of Seraphimon in this fic is stated by Word of God to be the strongest incarnation of Seraphimon known to the canon anime series.
  • Pegasusmon is a relatively more mundane example of this. He can simply be described as "Angemon's power in the form of a Beast Digimon".
  • Veemon was originally the Royal Knight Magnamon, but had his memories erased and forcefully sealed away when Lady Sigma had witnessed him attempting to enter the real world to meet Davis. While Magnamon believed Davis to be his partner, Lady Sigma had saw it only as a reckless Digimon trying to encourage Analogs into entering the Digital World once more.
  • Kimeramon is considered Mega Level in this fic, just like how Kimeramon is considered Mega Level in the canon continuity of Citadel of the Heart. As mentioned elsewhere, this isn't too far off from what Kimeramon was originally considered to be in it's very first set of appearances.
  • Magnamon and Rapidmon are comparable to Mega Level when using the Armor DigiEggs to become those forms, but when Digivolving into them as ordinary Ultimates, their color palette differs and they lack the power of their Armor Level counterparts. That said, they regain this power and then some by X-Digivolution into Magnamon X and Rapidmon X respectively.
  • Darkdramon, after having been a sort of Butt-Monkey within Citadel of the Heart, finally is treated as the massive threat he's meant to be. His Establishing Character Moment is almost flat out succeeding in killing WarGreymon until outside intervention occurred pretty much speaks for itself. Devimon also has to Digivolve, with a Dark Digivolution in fact, to see Darkdramon eye to eye.
  • Once it begins to be analyzed from a deeper glance than a surface level observation, the Y2K Bug caused a Reality-Breaking Paradox that resulted in the Digital World overlapping with the Human World for the duration of a single week once the clock rolled over to the Year 2000, and caused several issues in the Human World such as affecting every life-form with Rapid Aging only temporarily but in doing so adding a single year onto their physical and mental ages as though it were overnight.
  • The Sovereigns are given their Later-Installment Weirdness of being near completely untouchable Physical God Digimon, which as a direct result, the Crests were in no way needed to free them as explained in canon, as the moment each of the Dark Masters were defeated in Adventure, the associated Sovereign was freed as a direct result. This even counts for whichever one was sealed by Machinedramon even when you consider an early reveal of the fact he's Not Quite Dead.
• Adaptational Curves:
  • Sora and Mimi are given the curves that form naturally with puberty as opposed to being near completely lacking in curves in 02 proper. Yolei at one point actually undergoes puberty during the plot, and thus everyone takes notice of her suddenly gaining curves In-Universe one day without warning.
  • Lillymon is noticeably curvier than she was in the original series, since in later media she is depicted as being such, with her curves more emphasized overall as opposed to her rather modestly curved Adventure incarnation. Of course, nobody notices it until the protagonists are going through puberty later down the road, much like how nobody pays any mind to Angewomon in this regard just yet.
  • Subverted with Angewomon in which the only real change is that her curves are given special mention by the characters going through puberty, in which her general attractiveness has stirred some weird thoughts on the leads they previously didn't notice prior.
  • Flat out averted with the OC female Digimon such as Lady Sigma, who look completely identical to others of the same species and lack any physical alterations to point out the fact they're female. Sigma, as well as fellow OC Digimon Flare and Lady Raiga, are all meant to be Brawn Hilda-esque women who are noted for being ferocious or brutish compared to other Digimon of their kind, and are the complete opposite of the Ms. Fanservice female Digimon from the canon Adventure and 02 series.
  • Played for both horror and Fan Disservice for Duftmon, who looks completely bizarre underneath her armor to the point she looks like a very creepily deformed mannequin resembling a significantly more humanoid cat person, with mammaries modeled after actual felines as opposed to humans.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Several.
  • In the Prologue Chapter, Greymon and Garurumon appear during a brief confrontation with Lady Sigma, an Alphamon, the former two far sooner than they appear in 02, and Alphamon itself not having appeared until tri. normally, even though this individual is unrelated otherwise.
  • In both the original and edited versions of Chapter 1, Knightmon appears as a minion for Lady Sigma, far sooner than when Knightmon would later show up in 02.
  • Also in Chapter 1, because of the fact that the 1999 DigiDestined never lost the ability to go beyond Champion Level, Patamon showcases his newfound ability to Warp Digivolve straight into MagnaAngemon. During the entire first encounter with Lady Sigma, WarGreymon also appears early, as does Angewomon, alongside Dynasmon and Crusadermon appearing alongside a captured, subdued BelialMyotismon, appearing substantially sooner since he was the Final Boss of 02.
  • Seraphimon also makes a brief appearance as A Taste of Power to explain how T.K.'s Digivice is upgraded to a D-3. Patamon doesn't unlock Seraphimon during this bit, though, as it's just a temporary boost given by the Archangel Seraphimon himself.
• Adaptational Karma: The Mysterious Man of Digimon Adventure tri. had his plans with Diablomon and Daemon's DDNA Gone Horribly Right, and now he's a captive of the Holy Digimon and much of his body is effectively in ruins as he's suffered an immense Sanity Slippage.
• Adaptational Villainy: Ken is significantly more cynical in behavior even without the backstory of being corrupted by a dark spore. His genius intellect basically has him have a more adult mentality in the body of an 11 year old. As a direct result, when he's defeated as the Digimon Emperor and Kimeramon is destroyed, Ken suffers a Villainous Breakdown... or so he wanted everyone to think, as mere seconds after pulling such a massive fake out he proclaims that it's not going to make a difference now that he's aware of Digimon being living beings, because it doesn't automatically mean he will suddenly become "good" like everyone else. He's believed he's already gone so far all on his free will alone that he decides to stay evil in the end, and merely abandons the identity of the Digimon Emperor as a failed phase of his life.
• Always Chaotic Evil: All Digimon have an inherent instinct to believe humans are this towards them, many of them seeing them as Abusive Precursors to their own origins. Through the heroic, noble actions of the original eight DigiDestined, they warm up to these eight individuals in question, but when Davis, Cody, and Yolei nearly are about to have an opportunity to enter the Digital World, Lady Sigma isn't having any of it because she believes introducing more humans than what she believed were exceptions was too big of a risk considering the current state of almost all known Digimon suddenly going mad with ambition to become Mega Level.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Lady Raiga does not appear to exist in this fic, nor do her composites Flare and Tempest. Despite this, their shared superior of Lady Sigma does exist, meaning the pantheon of the Royal Knights from the Citadel of the Heart continuity proper is present in some capacity, but yet their most infamous member is oddly absent.
• Antagonist Title: The unknown Analog (human) who owns a currently unknown diary full of forbidden knowledge.
• Ascended Fridge Horror: "A World without Hope" turns the nasty implications of the ending of a fanfic featuring a crossover with Digimon Adventure 02 known as Friendship is Failure, in which several characters are wiped from history via a Cosmic Retcon that only makes the situation in that parallel universe absolutely bleak because the actions of the antagonists from Adventure prior are taken to their logical extremes now that most of their primary counters have been erased. It all climaxes with Devimon ascending to Mega Level as Daemon after invading Etemon and Myotismon's territory in the wake of victory against the DigiDestined, and a year later with Diablomon starting World War III via launching nukes all across the globe and then proceeding to have a full scale war against Daemon's forces. The final stronghold of safety in all of this is an unusual pick of a location in Scotland in which the dying Celestial Digimon Seraphimon is dying, and a lone Pidmon is keeping guard of his last sanctuary in hopes anyone from another parallel universe could bring them salvation in their Darkest Hour.
• The Bad Guy Wins: "A World without Hope":
  • Devimon slain the four DigiDestined who arrived in the Digital World in 1999, because with T.K., Matt, and Izzy flat up gone, nothing could stop him from using his resources to slaughter the four DigiDestined who otherwise would've still showed up. Not only that, to make matters worse, he eventually uses his accomplishments to achieve this victory to digivolve to NeoDevimon by Loading Leomon and Ogremon after they had both outlived their usefulness to him, traveling to Server Continent with an enslaved Andromon and taking over Etemon's territory, enslaving Etemon, and Loading Datamon's data when he attempts to fight back. Cue him trying to invade Myotismon's turf and after a major scuffle which sees Gatomon retreating to the real world and Wizardmon staying behind and becoming Mistymon, Mistymon kills Etemon but is wounded by Andromon, NeoDevimon proceeds to Load both of them and then Load Myotismon next, becoming Daemon in the process, freeing the Dark Masters, and joining their ranks as the 5th Dark Master due to Piedmon being impressed with Daemon's accomplishments to get as far as he did.
  • Without anybody to stop his rampage, Diablomon kickstarts World War III and annihilates humankind almost completely unopposed, and then proceeds to duplicate himself so much that he invades the Digital World and performs a gargantuan Zerg Rush to feast on anything in his path, eventually killing the original four Dark Masters and ending up in a stalemate with Daemon. Which gives Mysterious Man, who helped play a hand in Diablomon's creation this time, the opportunity to forcefully Combine the data he has from Apocalymon with the living Daemon and Diablomon into an Eldritch Abomination that soon turns out to be far out of his control, creating the Digimon known simply as Parallelmon from this Combination, and Parallelmon finishing the job with rendering almost all of the human race extinct and leaving the Digital World and Real World into nothing short of gilded worlds altogether, with the only hope remaining being Apocalymon and Celestial Digimon Seraphimon intending to sacrifices themselves to perform a Mercy Kill on their whole timeline by blasting it with the force of two Big Bangs from within both worlds.
• Big Bad: Devimon and Ken are both the closest to an overarching villain in the story. Aside from this one exception of Ken being legitimately antagonistic, the actual overarching villains are the mysterious Analogs, for having basically fabricated an entire conflict by being the catalyst for why virtually every antagonist from Adventure wound up being what they were.
• Breaking Old Trends: In contrast with the other canon series of Digimon, and in a very opposite way of how Digimon Re: Tamers had it arranged (in which a human partnered to a demonic Digimon was the leader), T.K. is the leader of the group, and due to this, his partner being Patamon makes it so that he doesn't follow the trend of a fiery reptile like how Davis would otherwise play straight.
• Broad Strokes:
  • This fic's version of Our War Game is based off of the Japanese version, and even then, the context behind the infamous Tai and Sora side-plot is different. Certain events from the original Adventure series are meant to be taken at face value at some times, while being somewhat altered at others when they're given a slight retelling in this fic's context. Some of these retellings of events from Adventure actually get their own segments in this fic in the additional passages that aren't meant to be part of T.K.'s first person narration.
• Bunnies for Cuteness: Ōkunoshima^note (an island nicknamed "Rabbit Island" because of the crapload of feral rabbits living there that eagerly approach tourists for food) will be featured in the story as a plot important location, considering Examon ultimately chooses this relatively out of the way place to attempt to manifest into the real world.
• Cerebus Retcon:
  • "A World without Hope" depicts a timeline which is a post-apocalyptic version of the real world that resulted from the Cosmic Retcon at the end of "Darkness of Dimensions" from the infamous fanfic known as Friendship is Failure, in which the implications of Nancy, T.K., Matt, and Izzy being wiped from existence results in Tai, Sora, Mimi, and Joe being Killed Off for Real by Devimon very early on, Diablomon causing WWIII and laying waste to the human population of the real world, and then to make matters worse, Mysterious Man shows up here after escaping karama from tri. seeing this world has no DigiDestined able to meddle with his plans for Apocalymon, Diablomon, and Daemon's data, and when he does just that, he creates an abomination from which not even he can control and leaves the real world and Digital World in such a state of ruin to the point Apocalymon and Celestial Digimon Seraphimon are both planning a Mercy Kill against their entire timeline in which they intend to utilize their strongest moves at the exact same time to destroy their timeline from existence to prevent the aforementioned abomination from spreading to other timelines.
• Children Are Innocent: Digimon are more willing to show themselves as partners to children over adults because of this reason in particular. Almost all Digimon, no matter how strong they are, fear the wrath of an adult human. It's also a Cerebus Retcon that had the individual partner Digimon not been In-Training Level when they first met their human partners, they would've never properly bonded with them to become their partners at all, but would've more than likely instead attacked them on sight.
• Composite Character:
  • Devimon from Adventure and Daemon from 02 are merged into the same individual Digimon. Case in point, a reborn Devimon now has the same type of Digitama causing the boom in Mega Level Digimon, and he achieves Ultimate and Mega Level later on, with Daemon being his Mega Level form. SkullSatamon, who was a servant to Daemon from 02, is now Devimon's Ultimate Level form.
  • Dark Masters Machinedramon and Analogman's Machinedramon are the same individual Digimon here. Not only that, but for contrast, Dark Masters Machinedramon now no longer has any ties to Millenniummon.
• Conveniently Empty Building: T.K. and Patamon are surprised to learn this was actually the case regarding the chunk of the neighborhood that was destroyed by Lady Sigma early on in the fic. In fact, it's such a shock that the actual buildings that were destroyed had also mysteriously reappeared without a scratch. The inhabitants are gathered outside, amnesiac, as well as being only half dressed for some reason, but are otherwise safe and sound. T.K. asks Patamon if this could be similar to what Matt had told them had happened in Shibuya and Ueno, but Patamon is too scared to think deeply on it from what else Matt had told them about those similar incidents.
• Crazy-Prepared: Darkdramon Mega Digivolved from Tankdramon about a few months ago, but is currently repairing and upgrading his body. He has the Prismatic Array which is a No-Sell to WarGreymon's Dramon Destroyers. Apparently his creators already knew of WarGreymon's Anti-Dramon Weaponry long in advanced and gave Darkdramon an ability to counter it and be used to slay Greymon-species Digimon with.
• Curb Stomp Cushion:
  • MagnaAngemon's fight against Lady Sigma in Chapter 1 winds up leading to Lady Sigma being incapable of hitting MagnaAngemon a majority of the time, only managing to briefly ground him by severing some of his wings, as MagnaAngemon lands blow after blow against her armor with his sword. However, it's very clear that his strikes are doing next to nothing to here, so both are effectively in a stalemate; even when MagnaAngemon technically wins by knocking her down on her back, Lady Sigma gets back up rather quickly and quickly regenerates from her wounds and retreats.
  • Angewomon and LoaderLiomon/BanchoLeomon had a pretty close fight in Chapter 5. Had it not been for the holy restraints Angewomon traps BanchoLeomon with, BanchoLeomon's immortality factor would've eventually overpowered her altogether. Angewomon had the Advantage Ball much of the fight, though, and it wasn't until BanchoLeomon injured her side in which she needed to take the remainder of the fight seriously and finish it fast.
  • MagnaAngemon does well against Darkdramon, but an unexpected development happens in the fight, made immediately clear when MagnaAngemon's Gate of Destiny does nothing at first. MagnaAngemon Dark Digivolves into ShadowSeraphimon, in which his Gate of Destiny now opens and tries to swallow ShadowSeraphimon. Darkdramon nearly succeeds in pushing ShadowSeraphimon into the vortex, until ShadowSeraphimon suddenly goes ballistic and begins to electrocute Darkdramon and using a form of reality warping to shrink him down into a keychain which ShadowSeraphimon then crushes in hand. Darkdramon only survives by vomiting up parts of his Digicore during his taints he was making earlier.
  • Darkdramon against Devimon, in a Dark Reprise rendition of Piedmon against Angemon of sorts. Darkdramon has Devimon at his mercy, but after a long series of pressing Devimon's Berserk Button the past four hours, he finally has a Rage Breaking Point which manifests the Code Crown of Wrath to mark him and he proceeds to Digivolve into SkullSatamon, in which he tears a vital fragment of Darkdramon from his Digicore with his bare hands, forcing Darkdramon to flee.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • This depiction of Lady Sigma is significantly darker than her official incarnation ever will be, because a secret about her canon self is that she lacks free will. If she had free will at all times, she would behave 1:1 as she does in Diary of an Analog.
  • While it turns out fine in the end, Lady Sigma demolishes a good chunk of the neighborhood around T.K., but when it's seen again, the buildings are mysteriously completely intact, and all of the civilians there are amnesiac and half naked without any of them knowing what the hell happened. It would be one thing if a higher power had restored the buildings and revived the civilians, but why would they all be half dressed and amnesiac...?
  • The Back Dimension is treated as an ever expanding territory for Analogman and Machinedramon, with Machinedramon constantly trying to scavenge as much data as possible from Digimon who wind up stuck there to relocate back into his own body back within Mt. Infinity, where over the past 3 years he had slowly but surely almost finished repairing himself.
• Demoted to Extra: Pegasusmon and Nefertimon wind up becoming more situational Armor Digivolutions for Patamon and Gatomon, as otherwise they simply default to MagnaAngemon and Angewomon so long as a Control Spire isn't preventing them from accessing said forms.
• Distressed Dude: Davis is kidnapped by Lady Sigma to prevent him from being partnered with a Digimon. Little does she know even with the precautions she took regarding Magnamon, that Magnamon as Veemon still manages to find Davis and assist him in escaping.
• Divine Intervention: Those who hold a Digivice have the ability to Invoke this ability at virtually any given time; sometimes, the Digivices themselves will do this automatically. It is the will of the Gods that the Digivices exist where they cannot, and those Digimon that are especially prolific with divine origins are among the strongest Digimon known to exist. Demons and their heritage also count as Divine Intervention, due to being viewed as equals in strength compared to holy Digimon. Which is precisely why the Digimon Emperor's Digivice still manages to pull off the same stuff albeit with darkness.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Played with.
  • The heroes keep all of their abilities they had by the end of Adventure and most of them have gotten stronger about it. Everyone else can use Warp Digivolution as a means of skipping Champion, and MetalGreymon and WereGarurumon can now directly Digivolve into Mega Level. Most of them don't get knocked down as much when De-Digivolving, with Gatomon's example being so potent in this regard that she can last a super lengthy period of time as Angewomon assuming she doesn't need to fight. The trade off for the fact the protagonists are not hindered is simple...
  • The antagonists are by no means underpowered by any stretch of the imagination. With former Monster of the Week encounters being situations involving Mega Level opponents, the Digimon Emperor being an opportunistic scumbag who wants to avoid detection from the Analogs while still doing his own thing, and the Royal Knights invading from another timeline under the mistake that they believe Tai and Matt's Omegamon is their own missing Omegamon unit. That, and as we see from developments of the revived Devimon, the Demon Lords are going to factor in because it's a Foregone Conclusion that Devimon winds up becoming Daemon himself, as opposed to Daemon being a separate character.
    • Speaking of the Digimon Emperor, he's suffering from the fact he's effectively a tiny fish in a massive ocean by the time his attempt to gain power begins. He's opportunistic because of the fact he starts off as the weakest faction initially, and he lacks much of the resources of the other factions. It takes getting lucky by discovering Machinedramon's regenerating body that leads to him making breakthrough after breakthrough by reverse engineering technology from Machinedramon's data.
• Dub Name Change: The English Dub names are used for the majority of the time, but certain exceptions exist should the author have a personal preference for a given Japanese terminology for a given Digimon or related entity.
  • Omnimon and Diaboromon are both referred to by their Japanese names of Omegamon and Diablomon respectively. Meanwhile, Vamdemon and his various forms use their Myotismon name from the Dub.
  • Daemon is referred to as his Dub name used back in the 02 English Dub proper as opposed to his modern Dub name of "Creepymon". The latter name does wind up becoming a sort of in-joke among some of the characters, though.
  • Tai and Kari's surname goes from Kamiya back to their original Japanese surname of Yagami. Notably, this is actually referenced in the fic proper, as anybody who knows Japanese spelling will realize that Kamiya is simply Yagami spelled backwards in Japanese, and thus when Cody asks to know if he's meeting Tai in the flesh, he accidentally refers to him as Kamiya Taichi, as opposed to Yagami Taichi.
  • The Dub names for the main human cast are turned into nicknames, with their actual names being present but otherwise kept in the background. In the case of Davis, Cody, and Yolei, their individual nicknames resulted from a trip to America which led to them being given these names to refer to themselves which all three had taken a liking to.
  • The Harmonious Ones are referred to as the Sovereigns here.
  • Fusion, the process in which two Digimon combine to become a Digimon of the same Level, typically in reference to Digimon who are a Fusion Dance of a Mega Level and either an Ultimate or another Mega Level Digimon, are referred to as a process called "Combination".
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • T.K.'s rambling nature in his internal monologuing as the narrator tends to cause him to lose track of time, and actually demonstrates his desire to become a novelist when he grows up.
  • Lady Sigma (Alphamon) holds no issue with attacking weaker opponents to get them to stand down if they refuse to get out of her way. Nor does she fear causing casualties of civilians to provoke those who tick her off. In addition, she has no issue kidnapping Davis when an opportunity presents itself if merely to prevent him and his friends from becoming DigiDestined.
  • The 02 kids themselves:
    • Yolei establishes herself as a very social individual who is more open about her own Power Trio's nicknames they got while in America, and is a bit of a case of The Hyena.
    • Iori, while given the nickname Cody, tends not to prefer being referred to as such. A calm, stoic individual lacking much emotion... until you actually piss him off.
    • Davis is a highly energetic individual who is a bit of a Motor Mouth with a relatively short attention span in a majority of situations. He's a bit dense because of these facts, but he does genuinely know when to show his true Nice Guy attitude if his friends are facing emotional turmoil.
• Establishing Series Moment: T.K. being the narrator as opposed to Grandis is what cements this fic as being non-canon to the main story of Citadel of the Heart. In addition, his narration is within the first person, and aside from a few extra scenes in most chapters, the story otherwise takes place entirely from his point of view.
• The Evils of Free Will: Lady Sigma is an utterly nightmarish Knight Templar at her absolute lowest whose only difference from her canon self in the main continuity of Citadel of the Heart is the fact that, unlike her canon self, this incarnation of Lady Sigma actually has free will.
• Faceless Goons: Lady Sigma loves to hide amongst her own troops of Knightmon whenever she's in a temporarily powered down state. She actively played a role in chasing down Gatomon just outside of Odaiba Elementary School, but so far we've yet to learn exactly which of the over a dozen Knightmon on the scene is actually her.
• Fallen Angel: Devimon explicitly has this bit from the bio for him across the whole franchise as part of his backstory. This applies even in his reborn form as Daemon, due to still classifying as a fallen Seraphimon.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Fight scenes in the fic are mostly canon typical violence, but whenever there's an opponent which is described as having an Immortal Digicore, the fights automatically are prone to being Bloodier and Gorier than canon by virtue of just how much punishment these particular Digimon can withstand and live to tell about it, even managing to shrug off an otherwise Family-Unfriendly Death several times over until the time they ultimately kick the bucket for real.
• Fix Fic: MF217's own take on a retelling of Digimon Adventure 02, while also trying to be something more unique at the same time with some of the Later-Installment Weirdness being taken advantage of, such as the presence of the Royal Knights and a handful of X-Antibody Digimon.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When was the first time the term Analog was used in Digimon media?
  • The prologue accurately predicted events witnessed in Chapter 10 with the sole exception of two details off, those being Gatomon's Big Damn Heroes moment, and the Digimon Emperor's Kneel Before Zod boast. Diablomon is also the very entity spoken of with many arms, not Apocalymon like what the prologue otherwise implied.
  • Veemon opening the cell with Davis inside with relative ease due to apparently having the keys, but having no memory of who he is aside from his own name. He was formerly Royal Knight Magnamon himself, but Lady Sigma saw him as a thorn in her side with her plan so she casually wiped his memory clean. However, she deliberately allowed him to keep access to the keys to the jail cells...
  • It appears that Davis actually knows Veemon already despite seemingly having never met him before. While Veemon doesn't remember it, Davis actually met Veemon in an online chatroom that Veemon had taken over briefly to try and interact with humans. This is also part of the entire reason Lady Sigma wiped his memories was because his willingness to associate with humans led to him immediately being declared a traitor working for the Analogs.
  • Turns out the apartment complex Lady Sigma had destroyed in Chapter 1 shows up completely intact when T.K. and Patamon get back from the Digital World, and that their inhabitants are outside, half naked, in an amnesiac state. This'll play an important factor in when Willis and Mimi make their debut in the fic, which they will have their own story of something similar happening to them.
  • Sealsdramon's malevolence compared to most of the other Post-Diablomon opponents makes more sense in hindsight when the entire D-Brigade was created by the Analogs as a second draft with playing God.
  • In Chapter 14, T.K. and Iori are in Scotland of what little remains of a now barren alternate timeline, and Iori can't seem to keep his eyes off of a photograph of what is implied to be Nessie. His future partner Digimon, Armadillomon, has the Mega Level form of Plesiomon.
  • In Chapter 16, T.K.'s POV discusses the true nature of SkullGreymon, and wonders that in any other circumstances, a Digimon normally considered a Dark Digivolution could instead fill in the shoes of what would be the natural Digivolution otherwise. He unwittingly proves himself correct in Chapter 18, where MagnaAngemon Dark Digivolves into ShadowSeraphimon and he succeeds in putting down Darkdramon, because T.K. and ShadowSeraphimon decide to roll with it and not fight against this newfound form.
  • When boasting about his murders as of late through consumed children, Darkdramon vomits up a bunch of their corpses in such a way that it bloats his throat a bit in doing so. From what T.K. and MagnaAngemon see, it was anywhere between 12-14 children, with unidentifiable bile in the midst of it. Said unidentifiable bile is actually not from even more children, but is actually Darkdramon's own Digicore he vomited up just in case MagnaAngemon succeeded in shoving him through the Gate of Destiny. This also demonstrates why Darkdramon's movements are not as hectic as described elsewhere, as he's slightly weakened by this action.
    • Chapter 18's title, "Abaddon", is actually a meaningful reference to the Archangel Abaddon, which reflects the key fact that this is the first appearance of ShadowSeraphimon, a Dark Digivolution of MagnaAngemon.
• Fusion Dance:
  • Paildramon, Silphymon, and Shakkoumon do not appear in this fic as any form of Digivolution of Veemon, Wormmon, Hawkmon, or Armadillomon respectively, and Patamon and Gatomon have no connection to those four via a shared Digivolved form. WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon still maintain their ability to become Omegamon, but only under unique circumstances at the beginning of the fic. Angemon and Devimon used to be the same Digimon in ancient times as Lucemon Chaos Mode, but their conflicting ideologies from within caused them to separate. Both Digimon still maintain the Lucemon form as a Dark Digivolution, but it's treated as incomplete for both of them if they individually become this form.
• George Lucas Altered Version: A few.
  • Chapter 2 originally didn't start with a scene of Gatomon on her lonesome encountering a single Knightmon and showcasing the difference in power in a straightforward one on one clash, that firmly establishes Knightmon as being out of her league, not simply due to being Ultimate, but also because of direct mention to Chrome Digizoid armor. Not only that, but Gatomon's injury was revealed to be due to Knightmon attacking her and interrupting her attempt to Digivolve to Ultimate.
• Hard Light: Darkdramon's Prismatic Array is depicted as a glowing armor and weapon set that shines so bright that it leads to it's opponents having trouble keeping eye contact. Not only that, but it also renders the weaponry of Greymon-species Digimon useless by how it's light particles render any Anti-Dramon Weapon that touches it to become as fragile as glass.
• Holy Burns Evil: This works both ways, just like in a majority of the Digimon video games which tend to portray Light and Dark as having a mutual advantage over the other.
  • In Chapter 4 specifically, sure, Lucemon CM was incomplete, but once he's separated as but a dark half of Angemon, Angemon has no trouble obliterating him with a fully charged Hand of Fate. This is in spite of the fact Lucemon CM is an Olympus Mons of an Ultimate Level Digimon, primarily because this specific instance is, as already mentioned, an incomplete Lucemon CM; he's missing the full power he used to have when Devimon and Angemon both used to be the same Digimon.
• Humans Are Bastards: The term "Analog" here means an adult human who has made contact with the Digital World, no matter how good or bad it is, because they have always left some form of negative repercussion on the Digimon's side of things. Lady Sigma, as Alphamon of the Royal Knights, is slowly becoming fed up with the growing presence of humans in the Digital World, and believes a serious crisis is about to occur is she doesn't stop it.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: How the Digimon have traditionally viewed humans in the past, and even to this day. Considering how many times a new Analog has showed up in Digimon history, there's definitely a lot of screwed up humans who want to make everything a living hell for all Digimon that exist.
• It Can Think: SkullGreymon under the effects of a Control Ring/Control Spiral develops clarity over his actions, allowing Agumon to actually partially break free from the negative emotions of the Control devices and speak coherently and with some of his original personality intact, with the only real difference has being a Hair-Trigger Temper that he and everyone else needs to be careful with. Wormmon is the first to realize this when Ken experiments on Agumon after capturing him, in which Wormmon confronts SkullGreymon in secret as to ask whether or not Agumon is indeed in control right now, to which that ultimately is the case.
• Kids Are Cruel: Some of the titular Analogs are children, meaning the Analogs are not limited to adults in terms of what makes them borderline eldritch in nature compared to the Digimon they manipulate and abuse for their own benefit or even just sheer amusement alone.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • Lady Sigma makes her debut at long last, and her appearance in the human world takes this trope to its logical extreme. She notably destroys a building with people inside.
  • Ken becomes this after having shed his identity of the Digimon Emperor and choosing to remain evil in the end of it. While he stays out of the faces of the protagonists from this point onward, and sometimes pulls an Enemy Mine with him here and there, he maintains his cruel nature even if he's only a little toned down and has a better sense of self-restraint, and he basically works to make a new name for himself without the need to hide behind a fake persona. In fact, the only reason he helps the heroes? Somebody tries reviving the Digimon Emperor persona and Ken wants to destroy all traces of said persona to no longer be reminded of a phase of his life.
  • Darkdramon, a murderous sadist who takes kids as hostages and even eats one in his debut. He also absorbs Sora's mom and blames her for leaving him, and shows no remorse whatsoever about his crimes.
• Knight Templar: Lady Sigma as Alphamon in a nutshell. She believes all humans, whom she calls Analogs, are evil and must be cut down. The chapter that introduces her even lambshades this in the title.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • Lady Sigma as Alphamon, both as an X-Antibody Digimon and as a member of the Royal Knights, in contrast to the Adventure continuity which had for years originally lacked either of these two elements altogether.
  • The Four Great Dragons are added as part of Azulongmon's backstory, with Megidramon turning out to be the same Digimon currently known as Gallantmon among Lady Sigma's Royal Knights, and Goddramon and Magnadramon being deceased albeit reborn as T.K.'s Patamon and Kari's Gatomon respectively.
• Ms. Fanservice: Yolei becomes on In-Universe while going through puberty, as her newfound curves cause quite a few males to look in her direction due to the fact she no longer fits her older clothing.
• Multi Form Balance: Each of the Novice DigiDestined have a battle form and a travel form with their Armor Digivolutions. T.K. and Kari, who are veterans, have their original Ultimate Level forms for their partners as battle forms, with T.K. making extensive usage of MagnaAngemon as opposed to Angemon like in the canon 02 series. Gatomon actually is capable of fighting better than any of the Rookies, by virtue of not losing her Holy Ring this time around. In addition, Shurimon, who was obtained second to Halsemon, is actually obtained first in this fic for Hawkmon's Armor Digivolutions, as opposed to the other way around like in the canon. Pegasusmon and Nefertimon are actually not immediately acquired by Patamon and Gatomon like how they were in the canon, since because of Celestial Digimon Seraphimon's influence, the Control Spires do not influence these two as directly as other Digimon in regards to preventing them from Digivolving. That is until Seraphimon burns through too much of his power and the result of Ken killing him with a Dark Digivolved Wormmon into Stingmon.
• Mundane Utility: Pegasusmon and Nefertimon are most often used as transport forms for Patamon and Gatomon to carry T.K. and Kari around with respectively, as both forms are actually faster than their forms of MagnaAngemon or Angewomon.
• Narnia Time: The Digital World and the Human World had a bit of an... error, when the year 2000 rolled, and caused the Year Inside, Hour Outside aspect of the Digital World to spill over into the Human World and cause every single life-form on the planet to experience a very subdued case of Rapid Aging by a single year's worth of time, before the issue suddenly resolved itself in the span of a week as if nothing had happened, except for those actively observing the situation such as Willis or Izzy.
• No-Sell:
  • Darkdramon's Prismatic Array shatters WarGreymon's Dramon Destroyers like they're made of porcelain. Not only that, but the Wolverine Claws he gets actually are specifically designed for close combat against Greymon-species.
  • Gatomon tries her best to cut down a Knightmon, but she only shreds her own claws doing so.
• O.C. Stand-in:
  • Lady Sigma from Citadel of the Heart proper takes the place of the mysterious Alphamon from Digimon Adventure tri., as while both characters are of the same species of Digimon, they are otherwise completely unrelated individuals whose roles would conflict with each other had they been the same character.
  • In terms of completely new Digimon species, the first of which to be designed by MF217 specifically for Diary of an Analog is an Ultimate Level Digimon known as Doedicurumon, which Digivolves from Ankylomon and goes into Plesiomon.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • MagnaAngemon rarely backs down from an opponent out of fear, at least nowadays he doesn't. Chapter 3 and 4, on the other hand, showcases MagnaAngemon doing just that, but at the very least overcoming it quick enough to deal with the situation.
  • The Analogs display severe cases of extreme cowardice if forced into a confrontation with Lady Sigma, as they practically scream bloody murder as Lady Sigma mows them down like they were nothing. Lady Sigma is the one Digimon they fear alone above all others, when normally they're a bit notorious as Fearless Fools every other time...
• Orcus on His Throne:
  • Alphamon as an individual of the Royal Knights has traditionally been this in other media, considering Alphamon tends to be the last resort for the Royal Knights as a whole, but otherwise goes against Yggdrasill's plans. Lady Sigma showcases immediately that she is by no means one to sit back and watch things unfold, as she actively stalks T.K. and his interactions with Kari, Davis, Cody, and Yolei on their first day of school, before suddenly abducting Davis when their guard is down.
    • She would've had a more direct physical appearance in arcs later on overall, but after her encounter with WarGreymon in Chapter 7, she has to be put up to life support and has to heal a majority of her body before she can enter the action again. Even then, by this point neither she nor her Royal Knights are actively conspiring against the DigiDestined. Doesn't mean Lady Sigma doesn't stalk them later, though, as once she's healed herself enough she's back to stalking them like she was prior, even if she doesn't outright engage them in battle like before due to still recovering.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Ouryumon.
  • Ouryumon is a pure breed Dragon-Species Digimon but none of it's Digivolution line are considered Dramon-Species, which the latter are said to be Dragon-Species Digimon with a larger chunk of Dragon-Species Data in their DDNA than most other Dragon-Species Digimon such as Greymon have within them.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Several in regards to changes in names and terminology.
  • The Dub names are used for the most part, but the original Japanese names of the human characters are still intact. Plus, as a minor note, Tai and Kari's surname in the Dub, Kamiya, is changed back to the original Yagami surname they had, as the Kamiya surname was the result of a mistranslation due to the fact the characters for Yagami spelled backwards do translate to Kamiya.
    • The Dub names that the human characters are referred to as most often are actually nicknames received through differing means by either other characters or various other factors.
    • The Dark Towers are referred to as either Dark Tower or Control Spire depending on the context, but otherwise refer to the exact same structure, and eventually the name Dark Tower overrides the term Control Spire once they are no longer being used to control Digimon and instead wind up being used as fuel to create artificial Digimon.
    • Dark Rings and Dark Spirals are likewise called Control Rings and Control Spirals, because of the fact their entire purpose is to outright control the Digimon they have in their grasp.
• Rapid Aging: A side-effect of the Millennium Bug in regards to the year 2000, which caused everyone to age an additional year than they logically should've regardless of their interaction with the Digital World. However, after this single year had passed in the span of an instant? Everyone's aging is back to normal just as quickly as it had happened. The auroras that occur in both the digital world and the human world are apparently the cause, as they had gone haywire like no tomorrow in the first week of the year 2000, and didn't stop until after said week was finished.
• Reconstruction: The Digivices and their tendency to pull Deus ex Machina moments from the canon are depicted as being sacred, holy constructs built by the Gods to perform miraculous feats that only the Gods themselves would otherwise be able to perform. As a direct consequence, the Digivices' prior accomplishments are interpreted as face-value facts that they've always been capable of, leading to the explanation that they're the creations of divine entities with this exact intended use. Even then, none of the DigiDestined have ever been informed of all of the capabilities of the Digivices as the Gods who created them choose not to directly make themselves known and explain it outright. In addition to that, Kari's crest was equally capable of filling the role of a Digivice all by itself, since the crest of light and the holy powers of the Digivices were created in the exact same way as each other. Eventually, the Tai's group of DigiDestined learned how to quickly heal and Digivolve their Digimon on their own volition by praying with their Digivices and channeling immense amount of light to invoke the powers of the Light of Digivolution.
• Related in the Adaptation:
  • As for the original Diablomon itself? Willis actually was involved in it's creation, but Yggdrasil is the one who loaded a bunch of software left unfinished by Willis when his PC was updating while the Y2K Bug effected it's systems. When the original Diablomon is reborn, he first absorbs Dark energy, before allowing himself to be restrained by Light energy, before absorbing that and purifying himself into Lopmon.
• Religious Bruiser: The DigiDestined are reimagined as being on a Mission from God by an unknown group of Gods who overlook the Digital World and Human World, and the Digivices they wield are but humble creations of these unknown Gods, and specifically use holy magic to power them, and can even be charged by praying with them. This in turn allows one to rapidly reacquire the energy to Digivolve, as T.K. demonstrates in Chapter 3 by praying with his Digivice and causing Angemon to Digivolve back into MagnaAngemon. Kari, meanwhile, uses it to tend to Gatomon's wounds and fatigue, as but another function of this.
• Rookie Red Ranger: Both T.K. and Davis qualify. T.K. may be a veteran, but with Control Spires littering the Digital World, he can't evolve Patamon into Champion Level or higher straight away. However, with Davis, he's a complete novice in all of this, but due to the discovery of Armor Digivolution, he's the only one capable of doing anything about the Control Spires as Armor Digimon have an immunity to the Control Spires.
• Serial Escalation: Before Diablomon came to be, very few Digimon ever wanted to achieve anything more than Champion Level as their main goal in life; a majority of Digimon were too weak to properly achieve Mega Level. With Diablomon having pioneered a new, absurd method of powering up to achieve Mega Level in record timing, suddenly almost every feral Digimon is now striving to become Mega Level, to the point that various groups such as the Celestial Digimon and the Royal Knights now have as many of their members as possible already present and accounted for by the time the fic begins.
• Shout-Out:
  • Lady Sigma gets her name from a villainous human in the V-Tamer manga. This is about the only obvious Foreshadowing that Lady Sigma is not as heroic as she wants everyone to think she is...
  • Lady Sigma's previous forms are a reference to Alphamon's direct Digivolution line as portrayed in Digimon World Dawn/Dusk. Her minions are even designed with exploiting the fact Lady Sigma could easily hide behind such Digimon, as they lack the X-Antibody in them and thus blend in perfectly.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Initially possessed by the D-3's out of the box and then later by the older Digivices, there is the "Attribute Change" function, which does more than what one might think and is a hell of a lot more useful than one might also think. It allows one to change the Attribute and Family Group of their own Digimon, such as for instance turning the normally Vaccine WarGreymon into either Data, Virus, or even Free, or perhaps the most noteworthy Virus Buster MagnaAngemon into a Nightmare Soldiers Digimon. This allows each of the Digimon in the cast to be able to not only give themselves an advantage against their opponents when utilized correctly, but also allows them to navigate Jijimon's File Island, which is notorious for isolating entire areas away from Digimon of most other attributes save for one, such as Overdell Mansion's limitations on anything not Virus Attribute, Mount Infinity regarding being a Nightmare Soldiers Digimon, Ice Sanctuary regarding Vaccine Digimon, and the list goes on and on.
• So Last Season: This time, there's an actual explanation behind why Armor Digivolution is phased out as the story progresses. This is due to the fact that, with the exception of the DigiEggs of Miracles and Destiny breaking open and bestowing to Davis and Willis the Crests of Miracles and Destiny respectively, all of the Armor Digivolutions are rendered unusable when Kimeramon destroys all of the Armor DigiEggs in the battle against it. Originally, this was going to lead into an arc where some of them were salvaged to bestow Ultimate Level forms onto Hawkmon and Armadillomon using one of their respective Armor Digivolutions as stand-ins, but as of March 28, 2021, this was nixed in favor of flat out designing from the ground up O.C. Stand-in Ultimate Level forms for those two, beginning with the reveal of Doedicurumon for Armadillomon.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Every Digimon who died in the span of the pilot movie up to Our War Game has the ability to come back from the dead, by virtue of New File Island being able to revive any of them no matter what alignment a particular Digimon was prior. Wizardmon is back as Dynasmon, Leomon is back as SaberLeomon and stays in said form, a clone of Diablomon comes back and reforms into Lopmon, Devimon is reborn as a weakened Digimon starting off as Tsukaimon and needing Ken to restore his power over time, Machinedramon's remains never disintegrated like in canon and have still been alive the entire time...
• Spoiler Cover: The Fanfiction.net cover of the fic gives away the fact Patamon does indeed become Seraphimon, but also the fact Daemon will appear with a major role in the conflict with his actual "Beast Mode" appearing in the fic as opposed to simply his cloaked form which appeared in 02 proper.
• Super-Empowering: In the climax of the Lady Sigma sub-arc at the beginning, Seraphimon and Angewomon super charge WarGreymon with a crapload of holy energy in an attempt to terminate Lady Sigma. Lady Sigma, believing that she is striking a nerve against WarGreymon to cause Omegamon to speak from within him, deliberately allows WarGreymon to attempt to off her in hopes of hearing Omegamon speak more. What happens is WarGreymon charging a miniature Terra Force in his hand, crashing his whole left fist into Lady Sigma's armor and causing an intense explosion inside of her, which then leads into WarGreymon De-Digivolving to Botamon in the process and subsequently leading to Seraphimon and Angewomon powering down to Patamon and Gatomon respectively, but not before Seraphimon uses the last of his own temporary Super-Empowering to open a DigiGate to allow all of the DigiDestined on the scene and their partners to escape.
• The Stations of the Canon: Two major examples here; the Greymon VS Parrotmon situation in 1995, and the Diablomon Millennium Bug crisis. In virtually all other Digimon Adventure fics by MF217, the former is virtually the most consistent, with the only change being Greymon and Parrotmon surviving and getting reconfigured into Tai's Agumon and Eaglemon respectively.
• A Taste of Power: At the very end of Chapter 4, Patamon is temporarily given the power to access Mega Level far earlier than he would've by the current Celestial Digimon Seraphimon as a test of character to see if he's worthy of inheriting his position among the Three Celestial Digimon. However, while the form is temporary, T.K.'s Digivice being changed to an upgraded model is permanent.
• Thinking Up Portals: There's a method to this madness shown in canon with Daemon during his arc, which Daemon's Reality Warper abilities allows him to freely summon DigiGates at his will at anytime, anywhere. In short, this ability is by no means exclusive to him anymore in the context of this fic. In the exact same fashion, Lady Sigma showcases this exact same ability not very long into her first appearance; being able to manifest herself and her own allies into either the Real World or Digital World without any real issues, with the DigiGate system as a whole also being something the DigiDestined can use, but to nowhere near the same extent Lady Sigma currently possesses. Although Ken's secret life of being a Mad Scientist Triple Shifter has lead to him figuring out how to do this himself with his own Dark Digivice...
  • The D-Brigade has a limited version of this similar to what Izzy developed, but Darkdramon's Digivolution to Mega allows him to bypass the limitations exactly as Lady Sigma does, too, and thus far implies that this ability to conjure DigiGates at will is a power that virtually all of the new Mega Level Digimon have access to...
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: Considering the nature of the Analogs, the exact nature of the titular diary is quite clear. What it contains, however, is a mystery. It is shown, though, that even Digimon who are unaware of the Analogs such as the partner Digimon outright are dreadful in reaction to the diary's existence, implying that even without the full knowledge on the Analogs, they do have some memory of the diary itself.
• Took a Level in Badass: One that doubles as a Mythology Gag; every individual partner Digimon from the original eight DigiDestined are capable of skipping their Champion Level form in favor of their Ultimate Level form when Digivolving from Rookie Level into a later generation. However, it takes exposure to the Light of Digivolution from their partner's Digivices to pull this off, as while they can now also Digivolve into Champion without the aid of their human allies, they can't skip levels without their respective partners, and Agumon and Gabumon can't Warp Digivolve into Mega Level without Tai or Matt respectively otherwise. The Prologue showcases the Agumon and Gabumon are actually strong enough to achieve Ultimate Level by first Digivolving into Champion Level first, even without their partners with them currently. According to Word of God, MetalGreymon and WereGarurumon are fully capable of Digivolving into Mega Level if they either need to because of their partners being absent, or if they're already in Ultimate Level form and directly Digivolving to Mega Level is simply more convenient.
• Took a Level in Cynic: T.K. is still distraught about his parent's divorce, and is currently scheming to try and have them be together again. Matt had basically accepted the fact he believes their mom and dad won't ever get back together, but T.K. still holds onto that hope that they can make amends.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Averted: Greymon didn't learn his lesson about this from Our War Game, apparently, and Garurumon didn't appear to know about this bit, as both he and Greymon wind up getting hit directly with Soul Digitalization from Lady Sigma and being reverted back to Rookie Level.
• Truer to the Text: All of the Digimon have their abilities lifted directly from their Reference Book bios, and either are reinterpreted to their most logical extremes or at least otherwise acknowledge various elements about their compositions that don't add up within the realm of the original Adventure continuity, such as the entire plot bit regarding the X-Program and Project Ark.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: Chapter 19, "Black Roses". It's extremely simple in it's elegancy, being a chat room discussing a bounty for Sora over the course of a year... and a Commandramon turned Sealsdramon who is more than willing to take up this offer. In other words, what exactly Sealsdramon did will be shown in all of it's gloring before we even remotely resume stuff in the present day. Oh, and the Analogs greet the viewer at the end.
  "WE KNOW"◊
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show:
  • The Analogs as a group, considering they're adult humans who don't sugarcoat the fact they see Digimon as nothing more than tools or things to experiment with at their leisure, and have done very, very heinous acts against Digimon as a whole to the point their continued actions is what drives Lady Sigma to go to extreme measures to make sure they never bring ruin to the Digital World ever again. Even the DigiDestined aren't safe from the Analogs, as T.K. is informed the Analogs hide in plain sight, and that more than 500,000 active Analogs currently inhabit Japan alone with their identities unknown, and their population elsewhere in the globe are in the millions. America has it worst off, however, as many Analogs who exist there also just so happen to be children...
  • None of them hold a candle to Lady Sigma in context; in this particular version of her character, this is the only fic to feature the character in which she actually has any form of free will. All of the actions she commits in this fic alone? All of these would completely In-Character for Lady Sigma had it not been for her lack of free will in the main continuity proper.
  • Sealsdramon is this in hindsight, considering his already malevolent behavior is given an explanation; as opposed to a Non-Malicious Monster whom the Analogs experimented on, Sealsdramon willingly asked for power knowing full well what the Analogs intended for him. So long as he could accomplish slaying BanchoLeomon he'd be fine with no empathy towards what else stood in his way.
• The Watcher: Jijimon, a hairy, tiny Mega Level Digimon dressed like a caveman with a pole weapon. He's existed far longer than Apocalymon was even a concept, and has used his own powers to keep himself and his File City from being discovered by everyone or thing that exists, and has only recently allowed T.K. and MagnaAngemon to find him for reasons unclear because he couldn't get to the point before pissing the two off and then kicking them out.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 4. T.K. learns about an old hermit whose power is so vast that he can practically make himself not exist to virtually anyone else in the Digital World unless he wants to be found by any given individual, Angemon is revealed to have a Dark Digivolution in the form of Lucemon Chaos Mode, T.K.'s Digivice gets an upgrade and along with said upgrade, an unseen Seraphimon of the Three Celestial Digimon is studying T.K. and his Patamon by temporarily giving them access to Mega Level form as their first of many tests to see if T.K.'s Patamon is worthy of taking over Seraphimon's role.
  • Chapter 7. A supercharged WarGreymon lethally wounds Lady Sigma, and even though Lady Sigma survives, the damages she sustained will keep her out of the picture for weeks if not longer, and Dynasmon and BanchoLeomon seem on edge when Ouryumon mentions wanting to slaughter the DigiDestined out of revenge. Not only that, but WarGreymon is directly hinted as having Omegamon speak through him when he offed Lady Sigma. Then the real kicker is when everyone gets back to the real world, in which T.K.'s POV comes back after a transition only to see him being in the infirmary and an ambulance on the way to pick him up after he had somehow sustained serious injuries to his person on the way back, leading him to pass out as the chapter ends.
• Wham Shot:
  • The first major twist the fic presents in regards to the massive amount of Cerebus Retcons the backstory has been given is a scene in Chapter 4 of MagnaAngemon Dark Slide Digivolving into Lucemon Chaos Mode, before promptly having said dark half exercised from himself by Jijimon and Angemon's own efforts.
  • Chapter 5 has a non-partner Digimon achieve Digivolution to Mega Level via touching one of the feathers of the Celestial Digimon. However, from whom the feathers belong to is not actively a member of the Celestial Digimon. Meaning something is very, very wrong regarding Madam Ophanimon's current situation, to the point the role of her feathers having an Amplifier Artifact power have already transferred themselves to Kari's Angewomon. However, none of the characters realize the implications because so little information is known regarding this power to even properly understand that something is wrong. Even Celestial Digimon Seraphimon is left in the dark about this!
    • Also from Chapter 5; BanchoLeomon has a hole in it's chest by the end of it and survives to tell about it. Unlike the above, a few of the characters are baffled by this revelation. Cue Ouryumon's entry onto the scene to proceed to showcase intrigue in BanchoLeomon as to investigate why this is the case. In other words, Lady Sigma had been actively observing the fight the whole time.
  • Not only did Willis actually create Diablomon in this AU adaptation of 02, but Diablomon is actually Lopmon in this instance. The outcome of Chapter 11 surprised the Author so much so that he made an entire journal entry elaborating on the changes since he lacked the proper foresight to immediately put it into the story organically as he discusses here
  • Chapter 12: Ken infiltrates the locked off core of Mt. Infinity and discovers the ultimate treasure from within, much to Devimon's absolute horror with what he's seeing; Dark Master Machinedramon's still alive remains.
  • Chapter 18: MagnaAngemon achieves Mega Digivolution on his own accord, but in the form of a Dark Digivolution which both himself and T.K. outright allow and decide to roll with it, and proceed to use this newfound power against Darkdramon without experiencing any immediate consequences of doing so.
  • Chapter 19: WE KNOW◊
  • Chapter 27: Gennai is back, and something is very wrong with him.
• Wrong Context Magic:
  • An X-Antibody Digimon has tenfold the strength of whatever Digivolution Generation they're normally residing within. A Mega Level which is the result of a Combination between two Mega Level Digimon likewise has tenfold increase in power compared to a normal Mega Level. In addition, Izzy is adamant in his belief that Omegamon is the result of a process different from DNA Digivolution, as DNA Digivolution results in the fusion's Generation going up, but Omegamon stays Mega Level despite Combining from two Mega Level Digimon. Combination Digimon are also not considered to be a natural Digivolution of any kind, and are usually invoked under incredibly unique circumstances. In other words, Tai and Matt cannot easily replicate the emotional condition they were in when they had first Combined WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon into Omegamon.
  • Stingmon is actually a Dark Digivolution in this fic, as his Digivolution from Wormmon is triggered with dark magic. However, the entire reason Wormmon can Dark Digivolve into said form is because of a synchronized mutual hatred towards a common foe that leads to Wormmon emulating a lot of Ken's quirks on his own accord.
  • Lucemon Chaos Mode is a Dark Digivolution for Angemon in this fic, but it's also considered a Dark Digivolution for Devimon in this fic. This is due to the fact that, while both of them used to be the same Digimon with this exact form, they're lacking a severe amount of data from their counterpart to allow the form to be stable. As a direct result, the normally intelligent Lucemon CM is nothing more than a mindless beast with only an incomplete amount of it's usual power.
  • ShadowSeraphimon is indeed a Dark Digivolution, but one that MagnaAngemon has more control over due to willingly becoming this form, and T.K. not having any sort of mental breakdown when it occurs, thus keeping him relatively stable as they both decide to roll with this form without any immediate negative consequences. That said, the Gate of Destiny he conjured as MagnaAngemon kind of turned itself against him, but ShadowSeraphimon was still able to call upon the light energy emanating from within it.