Strange Friendship is an ongoing series of fanfics that retell the Trolls franchise and features DJ Suki having a bigger role through her strange friendship with Branch. It is written by Archive of Our Own user AnimationFan2006.
Installments:
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Strange Friendship provides examples of:
- Actionized Adaptation: Has more action scenes here than in the movies. For example, in True Colours, when the Chef attacks Pop Village, she is met with heavy resistance by the Deputies, the village law enforcement. While they're unable to stop her, they manage to deal some damage along with Poppy and Branch.
- Adaptation Amalgamation: The series contains elements from all three Trolls movies, Trolls: The Beat Goes On! and unused ones in the franchise overall.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Zigzagged with Branch. Unlike in canon, Floyd stook around when Brozone split up, meaning he at least had one of his brothers remain in his life. note However, the story shows that Branch developed some level of PTSD from witnessing his grandma get eaten, something never seen in the original films.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
- Unlike in the movies, Poppy found out she had a sister and feels tremendous grief over not having gotten to know her (unaware that Viva was still alive). Because Viva was honored as a hero during the Great Escape, Poppy also begins suffering from self-esteem issues, feeling that she may never live up to her sister's legacy.
- DJ Suki deals with grief of her own in the form of her brother's disappearance, which forced her to raise CJ Suki all by herself. She damn near goes grey when Branch breaks the news to her that Eric, her brother, was eaten by Chef.
- Creek's parents were eaten by Bergans in this story, which left him with a particularly immense fear of death.
- Adaptational Badass: Poppy and Branch have combat skills not seen in the original movie (or any of the Trolls films for that matter). The former is shown to have two decades worth of swordsmanship under her belt, while the latter is trained in multiple forms of weaponry, ranging from swords to crossbows. DJ Suki also gets some training of her own thanks to the both of them.
- Adaptational Context Change: Downplayed; in the film proper, the party hosted that lured Chef straight to the Pop Trolls was meant to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Trolls escaping the Bergins. This is still true in the story, but it's also intended to be Poppy's coronation (transitioning from princess to queen).
- Adaptational Early Appearance: BroZone, Kismet and CJ Suki, just to name a few, make earlier appearances here than in canon.
- Adaptational Expansion: Besides amalgamating, the series also expands upon the overall Trolls universe by further detailing Pop Troll society and the backstory behind the Ancestors, the Strings, the creation of music and adding more tribes to build up the world.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Chef is comparatively less short-sighted here than in canon. She now knows that eating all the Pop Trolls would basically drive them to extinction and thus jeopardize her chance at ruling over Bergan Town. As such, she willingly spares half the residence of Troll Village and intends to use them as breeding stock to ensure an endless supply of Trolls.
- Adaptation Name Change: Cuddle-Pup adults are known as Spike-Tails in this universe as mentioned in the first story.
- Adaptational Nationality:
- DJ is a full-blooded Pop Troll in canon - specifically a Treasure Troll (Trolls born with wishstones on their belly buttons). Here, Treasure Trolls are established as being descendants of Reggaeton Trolls, whom in turn are descendants of Techno and Latin Trolls note As a result, DJ can speak Spanish in this story.
- Branch and Ablaze are Pop-Rock Trolls in this story, as opposed to being just Pop.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While still a Dirty Coward as in canon, Creek expresses genuine remorse over selling out the Trolls. He also asks Chef to spare DJ and Branch; the former specifically so she could be allowed to see CJ again.
- Adaptational Timespan Change: While the time between Trolls and World Tour is unexplained, it's explicitly mentioned in the story that a year takes place between the two movies.
- Adaptational Skill:
- As noted above in Adaptational Badass, Poppy and Branch have training in sword fighting and crossbow usage respectively.
- Due to being DJ's adopted brother in this timeline, Cooper knows Spanish.
- Speaking of DJ, she displays a lot more skills here compared to canon, attributed to her time as a Troll Ranger. These skills include cooking, first aid, sewing, and critter taming.
- Aerith and Bob: Keeping in line with the series, it turns out DJ Suki has an older brother named... Eric.
- Canon Welding: The fanfic takes elements from both 3D and 2D media and has them exist in the same universe albeit with some differences.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: In contrast to Branch, Satin, and Chenille, (and occasionally Poppy), the other Trolls prefer doing this as opposed to actual profanity. DJ Suki, for example, tends to say "what the frosting?" or variations thereof every now and then.
- Handicapped Badass: Losing two of her fingers and one of her eyes certainly doesn't slow Chef down in the slightest.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: A topic explored throughout the story is the concept of toxic positivity, with the problems pertaining to Branch, DJ, and even Poppy being fueled by them bottling up their negative emotions all the time. Branch, unsurprisingly, makes no attempts to hide how unhealthy of a mindset this is.Poppy: [DJ]'s been getting better!
Branch: Better? BETTER!? MAYBE IN YOUR EYES, SHE’S BEEN GETTING BETTER BUT SHE’S NOT! SHE’S NOT DOING OKAY! SHE’S NOT GETTING BETTER! SHE’S JUST GOTTEN BETTER AT HIDING HER GRIEF BECAUSE FOR HER ENTIRE LIFE, SHE’S BEEN TOLD BY ALMOST EVERYONE IN THAT VILLAGE, INCLUDING YOU AND YOUR FATHER BY THE WAY, THAT SHE HAS TO BE HAPPY AND POSITIVE ALL THE TIME AND IF YOU’RE NOT, YOU’RE A PARTY-POOPING FREAK AND RAINING DOWN ON EVERYONE’S FUN! JUST LIKE ME!” - Hated by All: Downplayed with Branch; in comparison to the first film, his fellow Pop Trolls are more open about their disdain for him due to his crummy attitude (especially Smidge, Satin, and Chenille). Only a select few, like Poppy, Cooper, DJ Suki, and Kismet, are willing to tolerate him. In the case of the latter three, this is only because they know him personally.
- Odd Friendship: The main point of the series, which sees DJ Suki form one with Branch in a break from the usual canon.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Chef allows a good majority of the Pop Trolls to live... only because she's gonna need them for future Trollstices.
- Ruder and Cruder: A lot of swearing happens here with Branch being the biggest offender so far.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Some of the characters, especially Trickee, love to think DJ is secretly Branch's girlfriend. Unlike most examples, their relationship truly is platonic seeing as how Branch's feelings for Poppy from canon are retained.
