Cover art for the fanfic.
Kamen Rider Amp Alternative: The Broken Hearted is a Fusion Fic between Amphibia and Kamen Rider, specifically Kamen Rider Agitonote written by Michael Ravencroft.
In one universe, Anne Boonchuy temporarily stayed with the Plantar family in Amphibia and started to break away from the toxic influence of her friend, Sasha. In another universe, Anne did all that and became a Kamen Rider. In another universe, Anne only became a Kamen Rider, and was unaware of just how much chaos she could wreak on the world of Amphibia.
The fic, part of the Disney Riders series, can be read on Archive of Our Own here
and on FanFiction.Net here.
Kamen Rider Amp Alternative: The Broken Hearted contains examples of:
- Accidental Murder: During an argument with the Plantars, Anne briefly loses control of her powers and accidentally kills Sprig with a bolt of lightning. While she manages to save his life using her powers as a makeshift defibrillator, the citizens of Wartwood still kick her out
- Adaptational Badass:
- Anne, Sasha and Marcy unlock their Rider powers much earlier than they did during the events of Heroes From Another World.
- Grime also becomes a Fallen in this fic.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Sasha is much more unhinged and abusive to Anne than in canon.
- Grime is also more antagonistic since he never got to bond with Sasha, and later on, he becomes a Fallen.
- Instead of being forcefully assimilated, Marcy willingly becomes the Core's host so Anne and Sasha wouldn't get hurt.
- Adaptational Weapon Swap: Rather than a sword, Anne’s weapon of choice becomes a scythe.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: While Anne begins overpowering the Core, Darcy begs Anne to not erase her like the other assimilated minds, even telling her to erase Marcy instead.
- Apocalypse How: Class 6. As soon as Anne mows through all of the people of Newtopia and Sasha's army, she takes control of Amphibia's Core-controlled moon and annihilates the entire planet. Then she uses her powers to travel to Earth and wipe out the planet and the universe around it, turning it into a Class X-4.
- An Arm and a Leg: Anne loses her left arm during her fight with Sasha.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The fic features some more graphic violence than in Heroes From Another World, with characters like Grime, Tritonio, Polly, Maddie, Ivy, Sprig, and Beatrix suffering from gruesome deaths at the hands of Sasha. Of course, Anne gets a pretty massive body count herself, killing Mayor Toadstool, General Yunan, Lady Olivia, King Andrias (though the cybernetics make his death Bloodless Carnage), Marcy, and Sasha, in addition countless others in Newtopia.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: When giving orders during her first mission leading a team of toads to collect taxes in Wartwood, Anne punctuates her decision by saying “End. Of. Discussion”.
- Break the Cutie: Anne is put through a lot in this fic, even more than Oscura.
- Darker and Edgier: In addition to more violence than what Heroes From Another World had, this fic also touches on heavy topics like Domestic Abuse and even rape.
- Death by Adaptation: Grime, Toadstool, Tritonio, and everyone in Wartwood is killed in this fic.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Sasha proposes a plan to exploit the toads’ mutual hatred of Grime and overthrow him. When Anne asks Sasha if she’s seriously considering staging a coup, Sasha prefers to call it a “mutiny”.
- The Dog Bites Back: And how! Anne is pushed to the limit and goes from being abused, abandoned, and deceived to completely going off the deep end and becoming a truly terrifying monster.
- Downer Ending: Anne wipes out all life in both her world and Amphibia's, and now, the Gleefuls have her as one of their allies.
- Dramatic Irony: Despite not knowing of Sasha’s true intentions, Grime still tells Anne not to trust her right before he dies.
- Dying Declaration of Hate: Right before Grime succumbs to his wounds, he tells Anne to not trust Sasha.Grime: Sever any ties with her... and do it soon... that girl has a desire to control... a desire that will swallow you and ALL of Amphibia... for your sake... and the sake of this land... be weary of her...
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Hop Pop spends his last moments calling out Sasha for how terrible of a person she is, all while making it clear that if poisoning himself was what was needed to free Anne, he’s Not Afraid to Die.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- While Tritonio admits he uses underhanded tactics to steal things like having children do the dirty work, he makes sure they don’t kill anyone unless there’s no other choice.
Tritonio: I may be a thief, Vice-Captain, but I am not a monster.- Even though the people of Wartwood kicked Anne out of their town because of what she did to Sprig, once they learn about the control curse from Maddie and Sprig (in addition to Hop revealing Sasha threatened him into kicking Anne out of Wartwood in the first place), everyone is disgusted by Sasha’s actions.
- While Mr. Ponds was planning to capture Anne and put her on display at the Curiosity Hut, he takes a moment to mourn the death of Bessie beforehand.
- Eye Scream: Anne manages to slash Sasha's left eye with one of her blades.
- For Want Of A Nail: As Woz points out in the beginning, a big part of Anne’s development as a person stemmed from her time spent with the Plantars, so he uses this fact to introduce the story by asking the question of what would happen if Anne didn’t meet the Plantars when she first arrived in Amphibia, and instead stayed under Sasha’s influence.
- The Ghost: Marcy is absent for the first act of the story, though finding her is a major plot element.
- Hate Sink: This version of Sasha has almost no redeeming qualities, being an abusive, vengeful sociopath.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Hop Pop essentially poisons himself while tricking Sasha into drinking the counter to the control curse she placed on Anne. In addition, the remaining adults of Wartwood choose to stay behind and buy Anne some time holding off Sasha while Maddie, Sprig, Polly, and Ivy rescue her.
- Hope Spot: After the first act of the story, Anne escapes Wartwood, but at the cost of everyone's lives and her own arm. Before Act 2 begins, Woz points out that "Anne’s struggles are not yet over."
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: When Anne and Sasha first arrive in Wartwood, the text describes them as “gangly creatures”.
- I Call It "Vera": Anne eventually renames her scythe Azrael, after the angel of the same name.
- In Spite of a Nail: Anne still reunites with Sasha before Marcy, it just happens a lot quicker than in canon.
- Mundane Utility: Anne manages to use her electric powers to manipulate the electromagnetic waves in the air to essentially turn herself into a cell tower so she and Sasha can stay in contact.
- Mythology Gag:
- Just like with Oscura’s story, Woz is the one who opens the story for the reader.
- Anne is transformed into Another Amp against her will by Darcy with the intention of becoming her loyal servant, but Anne manages to fight back and resist the brainwashing. However, rather than become a hero to stop Darcy and Andrias with like most of the Kamen Riders from the Showa Era, she goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge to wipe out everyone in Amphibia.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Let's just say naming yourself Kamen Rider Calamity isn't exactly a sign you're going to use your powers for good.
- Pet the Dog: After Toadstool’s execution, Sasha makes Hop Pop the interim mayor of Wartwood.
- Prophecy Twist: Anne does one of these herself when she learns of Mother Olm's prophecy thanks to the Ambiguous Syntax. According to Anne, the "three stars" refer to the powers of the gems she'll soon have (at this point, she had already absorbed Marcy's gem), she managed to "expel the Night" thanks to resisting Darcy's influence, she will soon "embrace Amphibia's fall", and that their (Marcy and Sasha) choices will determine the fate of all.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: While it’s not shown, Sasha’s idea for “punishing” Anne for reading Tritonio’s letter right after being cursed (and unable to fight back) is this. Later on, it's implied that Anne does the same to Marcy to "pass the time".
- Sequel Hook: After destroying Amphibia and her entire universe, Anne is recruited by Mason and Mabel Gleeful to their faction.
- Shout-Out:
- While fighting two giant herons, Anne utilizes a similar technique to dispose of one that Ruby used to kill a Nevermore Grimm, referring to it as being from “the online anime with the girl who has a scythe”.
- The Trigger Phrase Sasha uses to control Anne through her curse is “Would you kindly...”, the same one used to control the protagonist in BioShock
- Sole Survivor: Other than Anne, the only one to survive Sasha’s massacre of Wartwood is Bessie... until she's killed by some toad bandits.
- Spanner in the Works:
- It turns out Tritonio had written a letter to Anne in case he wasn’t able to escape from being killed by Sasha to make sure nobody learned of her plan to manipulate Anne, and his part in it.The letter explains the plan to Anne, and it outright says he’s doing this to screw up Sasha’s plans and to help Anne out. While the letter does its job and makes Anne realize Sasha intentions to conquer Amphibia, Tritonio didn’t count on Sasha drugging Anne’s drink with a curse made by Barry that robs her of her autonomy.
- Thankfully, Maddie and Sprig play this trope straight, as they discover Barry made the curse and expose Sasha’s plans to all of Wartwood.
- Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: What Anne plans to do to her universe until she's recruited by Mason and Mabel Gleeful.
- Wham Shot: While talking about how she wants to get revenge on Sasha for what she did to Anne, Marcy's eyes glow a bright orange.
- What Would X Do?: When she first gets stuck in Amphibia and isn’t sure if she should stay in one place and wait for help or not, she asks herself “What would Sasha do?”. This also counts as an Establishing Character Moment to show how she is still influenced by Sasha, even when she’s not there.
- Yandere: Sasha gradually slips more into this territory, outright threatening Hop Pop into making sure Anne doesn’t go to Wartwood again.Sasha: No one can have Anne. She’s mine, and only mine. Not this town’s, not her parents, she’s MINE!
