#if anything i take a much tamer approach to the trope

[imtrashraccoon]

As requested by my friend @superbfirnacho here are my headcanons on Monster Courting and Soul Children. Oh, and I included Heats. So yeah, mild content warning for mentions of sex but I promise it isn't graphic.

Heats/Monster Courting

Not sure if I'll actually use this, but it's an idea I wrote down for that Underfell fic, Fractured Souls, that I have yet to finish writing.

Monsters are made almost entirely of magic and are very connected to their souls. Now, there are so many different kinds of monster subspecies, that not every monster is physically compatible together except for when they combine their magic.

Generally, a soul bond is done first and is almost akin to marriage for monsters. Two monsters who love each other and want to be together for the rest of their lives will join their magic and souls together. This ritual is usually done in public in front of their friends and family so that everyone knows the two are a couple. The couple usually hold hands and then tune the magical vibrations of their souls together.

From this point on, the two souls are essentially one and there are a few benefits to doing so. One, both of their magic is strengthened and stabilized to make them compatible with each other. Two, both can sense and feel each other's strong emotions, even when apart. Three, they can sense if something happens to the other or they get hurt. Easily the most important part of a soul bond though, is that it is the first step towards having children.

To have children, if the couple isn't physically compatible, they generally perform another ritual where they combine their magic to create a child. This is often done by physical soul contact and is a private affair. After this, one of the monsters will carry the child in their soul until it is strong enough to survive on its own. Generally, this is the stronger monster but this isn't a set rule and is really only a way for the child to survive. When the child is strong enough, their soul will leave the parent's soul and the child's body will form from their magic.

While monsters are people just like anyone, they have a different reproductive system than humans do. At least once a year, most monsters experience a heat of sorts where they have the best chance to conceive a child and will seek out other compatible partners. This heat usually lasts a week and during that time the monster's magic is more active and volatile. Their body temperature also increases and they have increased libedo.

Generally, most monsters know how to deal with themselves during a heat and couples often have them at the same time. However, younger monsters have a harder time dealing with it but anyone can lose control of themselves if they aren't careful and hurt someone. Nowadays, there is medicine to help stabilize one's magic and make the heat less intense but heats are pretty unpredictable and can technically happen at anytime, especially if there is a compatible partner or if it's been a while since they actually tried to do anything with anyone.

While things can get out of turn during a heat, most monsters are able to control their desires and won't actually hurt anyone. However, there are instances of violence and assault that still happen. Justice is taken very seriously in these cases with both the monster government and individuals enacting justice and revenge as seen fit.

This idea isn't exactly original to me since these tropes are pretty common in most fics. I also love to go with the idea that since both partners' souls are connected, their lives are also extended to match the magic boost. So...a human can live several hundred years with their monster lover...

[kideternity]

Okay now i've finished Adventure let me write up my full thoughts about the season. This will be less structured than the Tamers review and I apologise for that, I just kind of had a different watching experience with Adventure and thus sort of format my feelings about it in a different way idk. Whatever the case, here’s my full review of Adventure under the cut, and if you don’t care about that, then here’s the TLDR;

I liked adventure! I had a lot of fun watching it. It’s not a perfect season, but nothing is, and whilst I am going to take a break for now, I'm excited to start Digimon Adventure 02 in the foreseeable future.

-First, I do want to highlight things I really enjoyed. I really loved the animation and art style- I know its seen as very cheesy and dated and not the best animated (Most notable example that comes to mind is reusing the animation for special moves) but IDC, I love the cartoony style and I've always been very endeared to older styles of animation and how they make use of the medium.

-I liked the kids! I liked the kids a lot! They’re good kids! The cast of adventure is absolutely a highlight, and I can see why Bandai always goes back to them for use in future projects, whether or not that’s ultimately a good thing.

-Whilst I personally prefer the more Urban Sci-fi / Fantasy settings of Tamers and Savers, The Isekai approach lends itself to be a good way to immediately show off the digital world and the creatures within it, and to start exploring the worldbuilding within. I like the worldbuilding of Adventure! It felt kind of more purposely vague then Tamers and Savers, but it’s an interesting world they set up, and I'd like to see more of it explored

-I missed the global aspect of Tamers and even Savers. Though I can’t really fault Adventure, being as it was literally THE first season ever, for staying strictly in Japan. I just personally enjoyed how large and expansive things got in Tamers, and how people from all over the world were involved. I will say, I did appreciate Adventure also having more unorthodox or complicated family dynamics- such as Yamato and Takeru being the kids of divorce who aren’t able to 24/7 be around each other, or how Koushiro is adopted. It’s always a breath of fresh air to see media, especially for kids, tackle these sorts of things with nuance and grace.

-The soundtrack was absolutely gorgeous. Probably my favourite out of all of the soundtracks so far- there was just so much passion and emotion packed into each musical piece.

-Tone and themes were fairly consistent throughout, mostly due to the fact that Adventure doesn’t really have any sort of grand overarching messaging like Tamers or Savers did. I would assume, due to being again, the first season of anime, it cared more about plot and characters than trying to Say anything too radical. Hence, the themes follow pretty standard “good versus evil” tropes, as well as the power of compassion and community and optimism and hope that digimon usually utilises in each of its different stories across mediums, instead of anything more complex, like Tamers attempts at dissecting morality and violence, and Savers discussing the inherent value of lives that aren’t humans and trying to understand those not like you. Adventure plays it safe, and doesn’t get burned because of it, which I can’t fault.

-The villains are. Eh. They’re entertaining but none of them are necessarily very well written. The most well written villain was Pinochimon, and ignoring that i'm a biased party, most people seem to agree with me on this. Vamdemon was definitely the most intimidating and well built up antagonist. Apocalymon has a really cool and sympathetic concept, and I wish he had been focused on more. Generally, due to the nature of Adventure's “good versus evil” tropes, a lot of the villains aren’t really allowed any sort of nuance or are portrayed in a “They're Inherently Damnable Let's Kill Em” sort of way, which is unfortunate. Only Ogremon top of my head really gets any sort of minor redemption at the end without dying for it, ala Wizarmon, Gottsumon and Pumpkinmon.

-Like Tamers, Adventure is much more open to the idea of making horny jokes and talking about romance, which I do not enjoy, and it was by far the worst one when it came to that in my opinion. Why were there so many jokes about masc digimon hitting on Mimi. Stop that right this instant.

-Generally, I would say plot and character writing is a mixed bag. None of it is necessarily godawful, but you can tell that Adventure was very haphazardly and sloppily written. There’s a lot of inconsistencies in the writing- a lot of new characters or story elements are sort of abruptly added out of nowhere with no real build up and which sometimes ultimately don’t really matter all that much. It has definitely the worst pacing out of the seasons I've seen so far- Again, Building up momentum to then just suddenly stop and spill exposition on you. Savers and Tamers had issues too, but their handling of the plot was usually much tighter and the writing much more concise. Whilst I love the kids, and they do definitely get their own character arcs, none of them are written equally in that regard and often times it leads to situations where some characters get their arcs finished early and then stay stagnant for the rest of the season (Sora and Koushiro) whilst others only get major character writing near the very end (Yamato). It also definitely played favourites with some of them lol. Random things will interject in pivotal moments and the arcs for each different villain all have entirely different vibes to one another. Truthfully, it does come across as a much of mini stories hazily slapped together in an attempt to create a Larger Grander Narrative. Which, again, it was their first attempt ever creating an anime for Digimon, so I suppose I can’t blame them too much for this. It’s a miracle this took off so well in the first place.

Again, there’s definitely stuff I'm missing that i'd have wanted to say, but as a whole, again, I like Adventure! It’s not my favourite season of the digimon anime, and I can definitely understand the frustration for Bandai constantly milking it as a cash cow for the nostalgia points. But, I do think as a whole it holds up for the most part, at least for a kids anime from the late 90s, and Again, I don’t regret having watched it.

[blasphemecel]

Raihan — Applin And The Flop Confession

PAIRING: Raihan/Reader WORD COUNT: 2.6k TYPE: Humor, Fluff, Pining NOTE: Clichember Prompt(s) 2-4: Overprotective Dad Trope (except you have two dads and they're a Toxicroak and a Krookodile and they're technically your pets more than anything) + Oblivious Love Interest + Failed Confession . Clichember is going to be an event where I write a short fic with my own take on really overused tropes throughout November-December.

Your Pokémon are scary.

It's silly for Raihan as 'The Dragon Tamer,' a grown ass man, and someone who knocks his head into doors an embarrassing amount of times a day because he's too damn tall to feel afraid of trained Pokémon.

They're yours, so he knows they won't hurt him despite spending most of their time glaring at him with their arms crossed when he's around. The most aggressive they get is dragging him away from you when he tries to hold your hand or to swing an arm over your shoulder and getting between you two when you hug. He's aware he's not in grave danger.

Still, having a Krookodile — something he hadn't even seen before you moved here from Unova and he made friends with you — bare its fangs at him isn't pleasant, and neither is seeing a Toxicroak extend its poison sac in his general direction. Certainly they haven't charmed him, but it's clear they don't like him either, and the thought makes him a little sad. They're your companions, after all, and Raihan wants them to trust him.

However, no matter how good he is at planning and coordinating during battles, maybe this really wasn't a good idea.

It's not his fault you just 'haven't ever caught a Dragon type before' and you 'want one so bad.' Granted, he could've given you one, but that's not half as fun as hunting for wild Pokémon, and that wouldn't have been half as romantic, anyway. Now the two of you are in this situation.

"Are you sure there's a Dragon type in this area?" you ask with skepticism lacing your tone. "I mean, I pass by here all the time and I've never seen any."

"Don't worry, there is one," Raihan reassures you with an amiable smile. "But they're evasive, so I'll catch one for you." Obviously, you could do it yourself — you're a capable enough trainer —, but this is all just a ruse for him to give it to you.

"Yay! I can't wait! I haven't trained a new Pokémon in ages."

Krookodile and Toxicroak loom behind him, which he tries his best to ignore. Raihan's method of doing so is trying to focus on your cutesy excitement, though the holes the two Pokémon are drilling into his head aren't that easy to feign ignorance to.

Applin usually hide in trees, but that makes them both hard to spot and even more effort to catch. It's not that uncommon for them to fall on the ground, though, and that's how most trainers stumble upon them.

Your two companions exchange conspiratorial noises between them, but Raihan doesn't pay it much heed, and neither do you. After a while of pointless roaming and too many Dottler encounters, in the distance, Raihan finally sees one. He's quick to nudge you on the shoulder and point ahead, and Krookodile and Toxicroak are far too intrigued to show disapproval. "Look, there it is!"

"It's just an apple?" you say, rubbing your chin in confusion. Despite holding you in high regards, sometimes Raihan found you to be... dense.

"That's an Applin," Raihan corrects you with a sigh before he puts his hands over his hips. "They're skittish, so it'll be better if we approach it quietly—"

Krookodile's brows(?) shoot up in alarm before he starts gesturing at Toxicroak, who doesn't seem to react beyond letting out a few sounds in response. It's obvious the two of them aren't happy, though.

You and Raihan observe them with curiosity, exchanging a confused glance, but you're far too surprised to do anything when suddenly your Toxicroak speed-walks towards the poor little Applin and creepily stares it down. Krookodile lumbers after him not long after and lets out a loud growl, effectively startling it away. Raihan loses sight of it somewhere in the tall grass, though he gets the feeling trying to pursue it again right now wouldn't be a good idea, anyway.

"You guys are so mean," you whine, stomping up to your Pokémon with your shoulders up to your ears. Raihan follows you absent-mindedly, though the part of him that likes drama is curious to watch this play out, even if it's putting a delay on his courting plans.

Toxicroak looks ashamed of himself, but Krookodile goes all guitar riff like he's arguing with you, then he extends his little claw to indicate Raihan as if this is all his fault. His eyes widen when he realizes they have incriminated him. "What'd I even do?!"

You turn your head towards Raihan and then snap it back towards them. "No! Stop acting like this!" you say.

Krookodile huffs, turns up his snoot high in the air like a snobby human and his tail stands tall on alert. Despite his previous sentiments of embarrassment, Toxicroak nods and pats his friend on the shoulder in agreement on whatever you're even discussing.

"Don't be like this. You're not my parents. You come from MY BALLS, I don't come from YOURS," you say, and the sentence hangs in the air, slightly disturbing everyone in the vicinity. You don't seem to notice though, and to emphasize your point, you return them to their Pokéballs. Then, apologetically, you gaze up at Raihan with the sorriest expression you can muster. "Sorry man, I dunno what's up with them. If you don't wanna look for the Applin anymore, I understand. I don't wanna waste your time! I can find one on my own-"

Originally, he'd been planning to ask you where that line about the balls came from, but now, with a hasty laugh, he blurts out, "Let's keep looking for it. It can't have run off too far away, right?"

Somehow on cue, the Applin rolls out of the tall grass again, now that the threats are gone. It glances between you two apprehensively from afar, trying to decide if it should flee or not. Raihan decides to deal with this by throwing a poffin at it.

The Applin mostly seems confused by this, but approaches it anyway.

"I feel like you could've been more subtle about this," you say with a hint of taunting.

"Oh, quit taking the piss and watch."

You then watch as he throws a love ball at the Applin which he considers too distracted with eating the poffin to retaliate, and you can only laugh at him openly when it breaks out after a few swings and appraises him with what feels like a judgemental stare.

Raihan raises an index finger and closes his eyes, still sporting a cocky grin. "I meant watch this, not the last try," he says before throwing another love ball at it. That damn thing better get in there before he runs out of these — Raihan bought them for the occasion, cheesy as he can be.

This time, Applin sacrifices itself in the name of romance, pleased with the food offering. You and Raihan both turn towards each other and squeal and hop up in excitement like little girls, but then you remember you're not children and decide to pretend it didn't happen.

Raihan goes to retrieve the Pokéball, but you stop him. "You know, I expected you to do something more special, considering you're The Dragon Tamer an' all."

He rolls his eyes at your quip, but he lets out a little laugh despite himself. "Heavens forbid I try to do something nice for you."

Raihan presents you the Applin by going down on one knee and handing you the Pokéball like this is some kind of overdramatic proposal. As a joke, you curtsy in front of him, then take it, and he tenses as he waits for what you have to say.

You stare at it for a while until your eyes sparkle. "Yay! I finally have a dragon! I'll take good care of it, don't worry. Thank you soo much, Rai."

From a faux confident smile, Raihan's cheerful expression drops to a mildly unsure one. Do you... not understand? Awkwardly, he stands up like he got electrocuted and coughs into his hands, resulting in an eyebrow raise from you. Then he resorts to blinking at you like an idiot until he finally mumbles out, "No problem, mate."

For a second he wonders if you'll question him, but then you remember something and let out Applin, Krookodile and Toxicroak all out, holding the tiny apple in your palms. "Listen, Applin's a part of the team now and you gotta deal with it, so be nice or I'll be angry. Like, really mad! Like, soo scary."

They stare at you like they're the villains of the narrative and you're trying to give them a friendship speech, but you still insist on your bullshit. Then, after some silence, Toxicroak nods and goes to whisper something to the other.

"C'mon, promise. Promise. Promise. Promise."

Krookodile considers for a moment and then accepts whatever he had suggested, moving his snoot near your palm to smell Applin while Toxicroak tries his best to pet it carefully. The two exchange expressions of perhaps approval and maybe a hint of self-satisfaction. Raihan wonders what could've possibly changed over the last ten minutes, but figures it's not worth questioning.

At least they're getting along now?

As he has recovered from the psychic damage he just took, Raihan pulls out his Rotom phone with one hand and draws you way too close to him with the other, winking at the camera as usual. Your cheek squishes against his. “Hug Applin in front of the camera so we can all take a selfie. It'll be super cute, I swear."

You're about to comply, but the only photo Rotom snaps is one where Krookodile is pushing Raihan's face out of the way and his nose is so close to the camera everything else is unfocused. Toxicroak throws up a blurry peace sign in the background while you flounder to save Applin from slipping out of your grasp.

___

A few weeks later, you run inside his gym and claim it's very important. He knows it probably isn't, but it's not like he gets that many challengers, so Raihan still humors you. "What's up?"

"Look, you're not gonna believe this," you say before you reveal your surprise, giving him a close-eyed smile. Krookodile and Toxicroak linger around you as usual, though by now Raihan knows he shouldn't let them deter him if he wants this to go anywhere.

Raihan comes face-to-face with a Flapple. He gasps, exaggerating his shock at your revelation. "Woah, that was really fast. You don't fool about, do you?" Then he turns his attention back towards you and gives you his usual wild grin. "He's such a cute little guy now. I say this calls for a celebration!"

When Raihan stands up from where he'd been sitting, you tilt your head, expecting him to tell you what he has in mind. And he plans to, but before that he feels himself lucky enough to go for a hug without Toxicroak stabbing him in the stomach or something silly like that.

He's almost embracing you before Flapple gets between you two and hisses at him. Raihan's hands drop to his sides immediately, and this time the theatrics of his reaction are even more extreme. He clutches his chest and looks away, pretending to cry. "I can't believe you're betraying me."

You twist your lips downwards. "What?"

Why are they ganging up on him?! Despite trying to make a joke out of it, it hurts his feelings that your partners hate him so much, even though he’d never show it. Toxicroak and Krookodile hang around you all the time. They're practically your best friends and, for some reason, they can't stand him. Is he doing something hurtful to you without realizing it? Do they think his personality is rancid? Will he have to get blessings from an over-glorified frog and an edgy crocodile one day? Because if so, that's so not happening.

What's the issue?

Toxicroak and Krookodile seem proud of themselves. Well, at least if your Pokémon love you this much, it means you treat them really well. Not that he doubted that, but it's the only copium he's willing to huff to accept this predicament.

___

It's at some kind of event that Raihan notices your Toxicroak, Krookodile and now even Flapple glaring and hissing and overall trying to drive some other guy away from you. For a second he's relieved he's not the only one they hate, but then he notices the guy is trying to be flirtatious towards you, and though you're not swooning at his attempts, you also don't appear to find him repulsive.

Raihan's face blanks. Oh, of course, it should've been obvious... It's not that there's something wrong with him. Your Pokémon just have a jealousy problem.

As your conversation with him goes on, though, Raihan suddenly deems it a good idea to join. He stands somewhere between the aggressive Krookodile and the creepy Toxicroak he had considered his nemeses not too long ago, while the traitorous Flapple flies near him.

Despite the less-than-thrilled expressions they regard him with when he approaches, Raihan feels a sort of camaraderie with them right now. He doesn't consider himself a possessive man by any means, and it's not like you're dating him yet. Despite that, he can be competitive concerning anything he cares about. He coughs fakely as to announce himself and goes, "Ahem, am I interrupting something?"

"Hi, Rai-Rai!" you greet, waving at him with a smile, and the other guy blushes as he watches you. "You're not interrupting anything."

"Great," he says, choosing to ignore your embarrassing nickname for him for now, clenching and unclenching his fingers in his pockets. "Remember the rematch with Leon I was telling you about? I just wanted to let you know I saved you a front-row seat if you want to come." Of course, he didn't need to announce this since phones exist, but he needed an excuse to interrupt your conversation.

"You're such a show-off," you say, though you're still smiling at him. "You better not lose if you're making me watch."

"I can't lose if my good luck charm's there, so you'd better come," he tells you in a way he believes is suave.

The Unnamed Man, who you almost forgot is still here, unnecessarily asks, "You two know each other...?" like it isn't obvious you do.

"Yeah, we're very close," Raihan confirms with maybe a tad too much enthusiasm. "I gave [Y/n] an Applin as a gift, and it turned into this Flapple, see?" he says as he points at it.

The Unnamed Man, a bit crestfallen, mumbles something under his breath and walks away. At this, you frown. "Well, that was rude," you call after him, but he turned his back on you and you can’t tell if he even registered your reprimanding. A bit disgruntled, you say, "He didn't even tell me his name when he started chatting me up."

Raihan isn't sure you gathered anything important from what just transpired, but Toxicroak gazes up at him with newfound respect and Krookodile looks proud, somehow, and tries to pat him on the back, though his short arm only reaches Raihan's waist. Flapple nuzzles into his cheek. For the first time, he feels happy to have their attention.

Does this mean they're on his side now? He hopes this isn't a 'he thinks he's on the team 😂😂😂' situation.

[shihalyfie]

Would would you say the similarity and differences are between Taichi and Takuya? (Since I've seen a lot of negative comparisons between the Adventure and Frontier cast and I'm curious with your thoughts on that)

One thing I really gripe about when it comes to the way people tend to approach the Frontier characters and compare them to those of other series is that, since Frontier is (unabashedly so) far more of a "conventional" series than the three before it, somehow that makes it and its characters worse or lacking in depth. Not at all! Firstly, there's pretty good reason to do something like this; the Adventure and 02 characters being a bit too unconventional means that you're still getting people who struggle with understanding their behavior patterns and blaming anything that doesn't "seem consistent" (actually "doesn't fall into neat fiction patterns") on "bad character writing", so Frontier being a bit more trope-y is probably just to make it a bit easier to understand the characters' progression. Moreover, even conventional tropes often have some root in reality; sure, Tomoki being a child who gets emotionally overwhelmed and cries more often may definitely seem "too conventional" compared to Takeru or Iori, but, uh...that's also extremely accurate to how a lot of real kids his age would behave. Many different kinds of kids exist! Representing all of them at once is hard!

At first glance, yes, the Frontier characters fall closer into the usual tropes (especially Super Sentai ones), but when we're talking about Digimon under Seki, it's never just been about what the characters look like at first glance but also the little nuances that they don't always put in words. The Frontier characters have a surprising amount of depth if you're willing to sit down and look at the little things, how they behave in different situations, what their motivations are for doing what they do, and while I don't think they go nearly as deep as Adventure or 02 do in this regard, it's not because I think Frontier was inherently lacking in this but because Adventure and 02 were just that level of ridiculous in terms of bias towards character writing (at occasional detriment to other aspects). Kind of unfair to expect everything else to go that far. So if we're talking about characters with this level of depth, I'd put it in between Adventure/02 and Tamers in terms of fleshing characters out this deeply. (No, I don’t actually think the Tamers characters are as "deep" as they're often claimed to be; they're just less subtle. No, that does not mean I think that's an inherently better or worse thing, given how I've always referred to this kind of thing as a double-edged sword.)

Rant aside! (Sorry, it's a bit of a long-standing point of frustration I've had with how Frontier constantly gets treated.) I think Takuya is definitely more "conventional" of a typical shounen protagonist than Taichi is, being more impulsive, hot-headed, and occasionally belligerent; Taichi was "impulsive" in the sense that he was kind of playing things by ear and could sometimes even be too chill, because his focus was often too much on the big picture instead of what was in front of him, whereas Takuya definitely comes off as the type who defaults to more aggressive solutions for the most part. However, one of the first things they point out very, very early is that Takuya's actually an older brother -- he's had to take responsibility for Shinya in the past, and it also reflects in how he handles Tomoki (and how Tomoki immediately senses that into him and latches onto him most as a surrogate older brother). While Takuya, being a bit of a misfit, isn't necessarily perfect in the role, he shares this trait with Taichi, and in fact, much like Taichi, his tendency for sometimes being insensitive or being too aggressive isn't because he's callous or doesn't care about others -- he is empathetic, he does hear others out, and he doesn't fight people for the sheer sake of fighting them but because he simply happens to disagree with others (mostly Kouji) in terms of the best way to approach things.

One thing that's really interesting about Frontier is how it starts off its cast as outright misfits; Adventure and 02's cast was made up of fundamentally selfless people, and Tamers had a cast that kinda got dragged into the whole affair, but Frontier starts off with a cast that practically seems taken out of a detention hall. The kids start off very shallow, self-centered, and not taking the concept of throwing themselves into an adventure seriously; in fact, you get the impression they took it on so easily because of how out-of-place they felt in the real world, and their adventure allows them to understand what they need to change about themselves. Given that, while Takuya didn't seem to be much of an outcast in comparison, you still get the impression he was a bit of a misfit like the others. Interestingly, as of the most recent drama CD, Takuya remains our only currently known Digimon protagonist to seriously pursue soccer beyond hobby purposes, and there's something quite fitting about that; Taichi's position in soccer was mainly meant to indicate his position as a "leader" and "someone who brings people together", and Daisuke wasn't even implied to be particularly exceptional in soccer anyway, with it having more pertinence to his relationships with Taichi and eventually Ken. In the case of Takuya, him actually enjoying the sport enough to take it seriously to the point of a career implies a genuine, unfiltered passion for what he does, that he does enjoy the thrill of climbing ranks (and for a team sport, at that), and...also, that his "aggressiveness" is actually him having a lot of boundless energy and passion that needs some kind of outlet, rather than him actively being belligerent purely for the sake of blowing things up.

[cywscross]

I'm so sic and tired of the same hp tropes. Have you read anything weird, cross? Not like, crack, but just off the beaten path? Please, I'm suffering here.

Hmm, well I haven’t had time to read all that much fanfic period lately but here are some that felt kind of… unique to me? Not exactly ‘weird’, just really good and not a trope I read all the time. Also included a few FBaWtFT fics so if those aren’t your cup of tea, just skip past the first four. Hope you enjoy :)

The Cigarette Case by AgentMalkere

Apparently even Gellert Grindelwald isn’t immune to a niffler’s sticky paws.

(In which Newt was not expecting to find Percival Graves in a stolen cigarette case.)

Menagerie by prosodiical

Newt comes to New York with only one purpose in mind: find out what happened to the real Percival Graves.

They’ve tried it the hard way; Theseus has been pressing MACUSA for weeks, but they won’t do anything against the word of Graves himself. Newt’s approach is a last-resort, but he’ll do anything to save the man he loves, and so - he opens his case.

Dearly Beloved by prosodiical

or: Five times Percival Graves said he was married, and one time Tina believed him.

When Director Graves starts elaborating on his supposed husband, the entire department is even more certain he doesn’t exist - an author and a dragon tamer, who’s somehow captured a creature that can kill a hundred wizards at a time? And what sort of name is Newt, anyway?

Tina’s one of them - at least, until Newt Scamander, magizoologist, shows up in New York and lets a Niffler loose. And when he realises Graves has been replaced by an imposter, things only get more complicated from there.

The Graves Identity by Mishafied

He doesn’t remember who he is or how he ended up injured in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness; all he knows is his name is Percival, and he owes his life to the shy, redheaded zoologist who saved him. But unfortunately, just because he doesn’t remember his past doesn’t mean it can’t come back to haunt him.

This is the story of how Percival got his happily ever after, and then had to fight to keep it.

Hogwarts, to welcome you home by gedsparrowhawk (FaceChanger)

“You understand, Professor,” Harry began, after a moment, “that I don’t have my N.E.W.T.s. I don’t even have my O.W.L.s. Between everything I never had a chance the first time around, and then afterwards there didn’t seem to be much point. Hermione argued for it, of course, but I was so tired of Britain. So technically, I am completely unqualified for the position.”

“Quite a way to begin an interview, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said dryly.

Or, three years after the war, Harry Potter becomes Hogwarts’ newest Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

The Sum of Their Parts by holdmybeer

For Teddy Lupin, Harry Potter would become a Dark Lord. For Teddy Lupin, Harry Potter would take down the Ministry or die trying. He should have known that Hermione and Ron wouldn’t let him do it alone.

Charlotte the Great and Powerful by Evandar

Her whole life has been about gaining power through struggle and sacrifice and manipulation of the only thing she has going for her (Charlotte’s a terrible person beneath the pretty face and she knows it).

Charlotte wants to be more than the girl from the cupboard and she’s not above using others to gain power.

Gelosaþ in Écnesse by Batsutousai

Caught in the backlash of Voldemort’s Killing Curse, Harry is thrown through time to a world so very different from his own.

The Love of a Good Wizard by SweetSorcery

History of Magic has something to teach after all, and two resourceful students decide that the key to having any future at all lies in the past, and in Tom Riddle’s heart. Assuming he has one.

Influence of Souls by Nia_River

He stared at his journal, a creation into which he had poured his memories and dreams, his heart and … soul. Now, to send it to where it needed to be.

Hell To Raise by Tozette

All Harry knew that day was that his Aunt Petunia had begun to scream. When he came from his cupboard to see what was wrong, he found her sitting pale and distraught on the spotless kitchen tiles. She was gibbering as that evening’s three-kilogram chicken dinner did a rather acrobatic tap-dancing lap of the room, squawked loudly, and then fled through the window and out into the back yard.

—————-

In which Harry Potter animates the dead. Dumbledore disapproves. Other forces… not so much.

Don’t Fuck With Florists (They’ll Fuck You Up) by MayMarlow

Unsatisfied with his post-war life, Harry decides to get to the root of all of his problems when that root was still working at Borgin and Burkes shop in the late 40s. He’s the Master of Death, damn it, he can do what he wants for once in his life.

Tom Riddle isn’t particularly happy about working at a small, dingy shop for magical artifacts, no matter how interesting those artifacts are. He’s even less happy when an insufferable stranger sets up the most obnoxious flower shop right across the street.

What follows would be a romantic comedy, if it weren’t for politics.

the girl who lived (again) by dirgewithoutmusic

Peeves, though he was nasty about everything else–ickle firsties and orphan girls–got it immediately. For all six years of Harry’s Hogwarts tenure, he dropped water balloons on the heads of anyone who misgendered her.

Professor Binns never quite figured it out, but he didn’t know any student’s name. Nearly Headless Nick gallantly and somewhat awkwardly called her lady and tried to hold open doors for her, despite the fact that he couldn’t open them.

Snape called Harry “Mr. Potter” for all seven years that he was in Harry’s life. Around year three, Ron stopped counting the detentions he got for his increasingly sarcastic responses to this.

Rise Above by Straight_Outta_Hobbiton

For once, Harry has taken advantage of his enormous wealth and used it to talk to a solicitor. He finds out a few things— namely, the fact that his participation in the Triwizard Tournament has rendered him an emancipated minor and the last Lord of the Potters. Being the Lord of the Potters means a lot of things, but most importantly, it means Harry can get the hell outta dodge, and his friends can come along, too.

Thus begins the new life of the Golden Trio. They’re in America, they’re in California, they’re in Berkeley. Let the good times roll.

Harry Potter and the Really Round-About Way of Finding a Horcrux by floweringjudas (manipulant)

One should know better than to involve oneself in Weasley Family Skirmishes, even as a messenger. It always ends badly. …Or really well, depending on your perspective.

A Lightning’s Tale by Riddle_Master_101

Harry Potter is abruptly thrown into a different world upon receiving his letter from Hogwarts. Danger stalks him at every turn, light and dark are locked in a constant, eternal battle, and weaving it all together is this substance called magic…

[shihalyfie]

@sage-striaton replied to your post:

Idk how people can say Frontier has characters that lack depth. Imo it’s a very psychological season. The whole adventure thing is aimed to making them grown in their behaviours and feelings, it’s a big metaphor of their development

I’m sorry for hijacking your response to my post to segue this into another rant of mine, but I want to emphasize that one of my goals with this blog (if I can be said to have any) is that I really, really, really want people to re-examine whether they actually believe in the rhetoric that’s been dominating this fanbase for two decades, or whether there’s more to it. This is especially in regards to the fact that we’re talking a series deliberately written in such a way that it’ll change meaning and nuance as you get older, so it can “grow up” with you in a sense, and yet it seems like -- especially in regards to Adventure through Frontier, due to their position as the oldest series that the majority of the fanbase was elementary or preteen age during -- people are still regurgitating the same rehashed twenty-year-old ideas like they’re undeniable law. It’s one thing if they’re saying it because the series didn’t sit well with them the first time and they don’t want to watch it again, but we’re reaching a recurring problem where it’s sort of “brainwashing” even people who don’t actually believe it but feel compelled to go along with it, or wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for peer pressure. Obviously, there are dissenting opinions, and ones that are even very loud about that, but that pressure remains.

The mainstream opinion in the fanbase is that Adventure is untouchable and impervious to any criticism, 02 is its inferior sequel with half-baked characters, Tamers is an auteur work that’s the “deepest” of the original tetralogy due to being dark, and Frontier is devoid of much substance at all. Even those who don’t really believe in this will still be pressured to go alongside it, those who like 02 or Frontier will be pressured to consider it a “guilty pleasure”, and it’s only very recently when certain events revealed that the idea of 02 actually having quite its own fervent and passionate fanbase that likes it on its own merits became properly recognized. (I have actually noticed a huge uptick in 02 fans, especially casual ones, being more shameless in talking about liking it in the last two years; you’re still going to get the obnoxious person “reminding” you how bad it apparently is if you bring it up, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.) I’m not talking about whether something is a “good” or “bad” series -- that concept doesn’t really exist to me as much as whether it’s “to one’s tastes” or not, and I think one of the joys of this franchise is that it has things that cater to people with vastly different preferences -- as much as a lot of potential for analysis and intimate thought about these very fascinating series. Even if 02 and Frontier were as shallow or half-baked as they were accused of, I wouldn’t think it’d be shameful to like them for one’s own reasons anyway, but what frustrates me is that I just don’t think that’s true in the first place!!

Not helping is that there’s still a refusal among the fanbase to admit that there were substantial differences in American English dubbing (especially in regards to Adventure and 02), which I don’t mean as a bad thing in the sense that some people prefer to stick only with that dub and consider that version what they want to work with, but in the sense that the treatment of them as “the same thing” has been horribly detrimental when two people, one coming from that dub and one coming from the Japanese version (or a dub more closely based on it), will end up often having an argument doomed to go nowhere because they were never talking about the same thing to begin with. Recently, a friend admitted to me that although they’d switched to the Japanese version a long time ago, they still couldn’t get the image of Daisuke and Takeru having an inherently hostile relationship (they don’t) out of their head due to the influence of that dub, and although they consciously knew better -- at least enough to admit this to me -- it wasn’t helped by the fact that the fanbase itself continues to reinforce this image because of how normalized it is to treat the dub version and the Japanese version as “virtually the same” and for Western fanbase discourse to assume you should be projecting those takes into the Japanese version. If you’re hanging out in English-speaking circles but are working from the Japanese version or a dub directly based off of it, you do actually have to filter out a lot of takes you’re hearing because they won’t actually apply to the version you’re watching, but not a lot of people realize this.

All four of Adventure through Frontier share tons of key staff, especially Seki, known for her focus on wanting the kids in the audience to be able to empathize with and relate to the characters on screen. All four share some of the best character work I’ve seen not only in this franchise, but also in kids’ media in general, and I also stress that a lot of this has a ton of nuance that isn’t always apparent unless you read between the lines. I do understand that a lot of this probably went over our heads as kids, and I won’t say that the choice to execute it this way should be impervious to criticism, but nevertheless, I think it’s important to call attention to the fact it is there, and much of it becomes recognizable once you see it that way; for instance, so much of "it's contradictory character writing!" comes from the fact that the series tries to represent humans in their inconsistent, messy ways, and while it'll feel "messy" from a writing trope perspective, when you think about it as "since this person has this mentality, does it make sense to approach this with this mindset?", suddenly it becomes very consistent. The supposedly “shallow” 02 and Frontier characters will act in ways that match existing psychological profiles meant for actual humans to terrifying degrees, in ways that you might actually recognize even better once you’ve hit adulthood and start intimately understanding things like depression or anxiety in ways you might not have before. Shockingly, “having heart, important themes, and kindness towards the human condition” are completely valid reasons to uplift a creative work in ways distinct from technical writing or cerebrality or how many tropes they subvert or whatever.

On the flip side, people praise Adventure and Tamers for being the naturally “superior” works with better writing, but when it comes to talking about why the writing is supposedly better, a good chunk of the reasons stated don’t actually explain anything substantial, or go back to actually being passive-aggressive dunks on the other series in some form -- it’s because 02 and Frontier’s character writing sucks that badly, or because Adventure had the “best plot” (which may be true if by “best” you mean “easiest to understand”, but that doesn’t mean much to someone who might not be very happy about how its story progression is just a boss rush), or because Tamers is the “deepest” when by “deep” they actually mean “cerebral, dark, and unsubtle about it” without any further meaning (as if Adventure and 02 were idealistic series that never went into anything nuanced and not, say, the fact they went very viciously deep into societal issues between parents and children, psychological horror, and intimate takes on the human condition). I’m personally saying this as someone who does think Adventure and Tamers have a lot to praise in terms of their approaches to realism and the unique aspects each bring to the table, and I feel that people like this are doing them more of a disservice by not bothering to uplift them for any reason that isn’t actually just inherently condescending. I mean, even taking this outside of the original tetralogy for a bit, when I was plugging Appmon earlier, there’s a reason I focused more on its theme and character writing and the use of “dark” writing to convey its sheer range, rather than trying to boil it down to a shallow “it looks cheery but gets really messed up later!”, which is unfortunately an argument I’ve been seeing about it lately.

In the end, when I write my meta, I write it "making a case" for my point of view, and I welcome others to disagree, but if you disagree, I really hope it'll be because you personally disagree, and not because the entire fanbase has been saying otherwise for twenty years and I sound like a radical. I’m not saying that everyone’s consensus takes are completely unfounded, but frankly speaking, this fanbase has some really bad takes, and in the past few years I’ve found it freeing to not only “say what you feel without worrying what others think”, but actually go out of my way to outright try and purge all the preconceived notions and pick only the ones I agree with because I actually agree with them. I encourage you to do it too! And if you do, you might find things about something you like that you didn’t realize before.