TEEN: Pokemon: A Marvelous Journey (COMPLETE!)

[System Error]

- Hm, I guess in your fic's universe, or at least by coincidence with the kids, they don't see a lot of well-traveled trainers or ones from other regions.
- Time not to scale.
- Insert joke here in regards to Ethan holding onto Caiseal, although it seems the latter is bothered even by contact with another guy.
- You know it did feel a bit awkward that the battle-crazy Pidgeotto never evolved over the course of the fic, but I guess it never got used as much.
- SHE CAN SEE HER HOUSE FROM HERE!!
- Something that felt a bit awkward yet is also in-character and fitting: Julia does not ask if she can hug Mao, but Mao does ask later on. It makes perfect sense given ages, it just stood out as amusing.
- But what movie did they watch?
- Hm, subconscious stuff? Or a retcon?
- Wow, took Mao that long to notice the Pikachu was shiny? Heh.
- Man, fkn facetime...
- It doesn't seem there was that much mention of it
- You know, I was always under the impression you were using the Japanese school system from certain context clues. But you're using the American school system? Did you forget or just change something? Like the biggest thing is mentioning transfer to a "a different school in Cherrygrove". In fact in your AO3 exclusive edits, it's just one school in Cherrygrove. So it's a bit odd calling it a middle school unless that's an edit too.
- Also I assume her parents handled things off-screen since that wasn't mentioned before, or it was something you hadn't thought of at the time.
- Man the remedial unit is reminding me of this room in my middle school called PASS. It was a common joke you could be sent there for any reason.
- But what is she going to do with all these Pokemon?
- Oh hey it's her
- And the ex-not-really-bully apologizes. Nice,
- Yet another person with an autistic relative...
- Man Kirsten is so over-the-top as a bully that it's hard to take her seriously sometimes, heh. Unless that's kind of by design. She's definitely coming across as someone who makes fun of others to feel better about herself, though.
- Excellent. And now the only thing to make her destruction complete is whats-her-face crapping on her. Paisley? Whoever she was sucking up to.
- Wait I guess you are using the Japanese school system if it ends in March. So in that case, Julia should only still be in Elementary - since sixth grade is elementary there.
- Oh no a sentai show. Apparently here, there's just one long series
- Well so much for Amara popping up again anytime soon. Is she like going to be stuck there for years?
- Ah I guess it does have different seasons. They're just all based in Hoenn, all of them.
- Well I was not expecting a Ranger convention to be the motivation for the next one. Also, I imagine there's mixups with Styler Rangers and Park-style Rangers.
- No badges, no contests, merch only, Final Destination
- I have this scary mental image of needing unanimous approval and there being a douchebag teacher on board that always votes no for everyone ever and there's nothing that can be done about it.
- Wait hold up, did Julia skip a grade? She's 11 going on 12 when entering seventh grade. Seventh is 12 going on 13. Going by age, she should only be entering sixth grade.
- Starting in Slateport technically, huh? I dig it, like nonstandard starting positions.
- Oh dear, it's Lyra and Not-Silver.
- With how fast driving seems to get you around the regions, makes me wonder how fast an adult with a car can complete a journey.
- Hm, a little curious to see a bit of a religious side from Julia. I wonder if there's more to it?
- It did occur to me, there was little mention of Perrine and Caiseal after the timeskip.
- And title drop times two!

It'll take a bit to get my overall thoughts out, that said. But I'll post this here for now.

 

[Juliko]

- Wait hold up, did Julia skip a grade? She's 11 going on 12 when entering seventh grade. Seventh is 12 going on 13. Going by age, she should only be entering sixth grade.

There are rare cases when kids younger than a certain age grade gets into a higher grade than usual, mainly if their birthday misses the typical cut-off date. When I was a freshman in high school, there was a girl in my health class who was 13. And no, Julia didn't skip, as she started sixth grade at the beginning of the story, but went on her journey after the school year started.

You know, I was always under the impression you were using the Japanese school system from certain context clues. But you're using the American school system? Did you forget or just change something?

You could say it's a mix of both, since Pokemon is basically a created fantasy world based on real life locations after all.

- You know it did feel a bit awkward that the battle-crazy Pidgeotto never evolved over the course of the fic, but I guess it never got used as much.

Don't worry. Tsubasa will evolve not long after the Hoenn arc begins.

 

[System Error]

Whew. All right. Been putting this off long enough. I figure the only way I'm going to do it is to just start typing words and seeing what happens, so let's do just that.

Five and a half years or so, wow. To think, I didn't think much of this when I saw you post just a link to FFNet on Bulbagarden, but I decided to give it a chance once you started posting it and man am I glad I ever did. It led to one of the best friendships I've ever had. And one of the only longfics I've read to completion (albeit by indirect virtue of a lot not getting finished). There's been ups, downs, long waits, short waits, and stylistic shifts throughout - just look at how quick the pace of the earlier chapters are in comparison to the later ones. You've certainly come a long way as a writer throughout this fic, and it certainly shows.

Of course, can't forget the influences it had on me. Helped me through some tough spots and was a source of cheer - if not, you yourself were. And it led to me getting back into fanfic writing via some random comment leading me to make an alternate world fic which led to my own loosely connected metaseries, which I've enjoyed. Guess what I'm saying is, this fic's been an important part of my life in multiple ways, and it's kinda bittersweet to see it end. All things must eventually end. There's the sequels of course, but whenever you get around to that. Hopefully too, you'll be able to be refreshed once you get to those - noticed definite fatigue towards the end, if only due to having to write so many battles. Might be something to find a way around in the sequels, since you've always admitted you have trouble with them. Though that said, I always feel you do a decent job even at the worst of times, and generally write solid battles.

I did have some small criticisms throughout. Related to the above, the wait in the last arc was worth it but painful. I guess battles aren't your passion, even if the end result is solid - might be something to consider for the sequel, but write it how you will. The occasional anvilicious nature of things stood out. It especially stood out when it came to Amara - sometimes she's excessively over-the-top mustache twirling, sometimes she's sympathetic, and sometimes the fic went out of its way to point out how bad she was going to get arrested. I suspect it had to do with that Cowboy person - and aside, man, I'm shaking my head at him wanting to tell you what to write in the sequel. And (I joke with this one) how everyone covers their ears at something loud, even entire stadiums.

Those were comparatively small things to what I enjoyed, however. Did a real good job up building up a likable and diverse cast of main characters. You do a good job of developing Pokemon as characters without taking away too much focus from the humans, even if some tend to be samey. Even on the supporting cast. Harriet in particular was adorable, and Yannick needs to suffer some hilariously twisted fate. Wasn't too sold on J overall, but the Admins were handled well. Really, way too much to talk about. You also did a good job of diversifying all the parent characters. The reasons for going on the journey also varied, and I think Julia's is unique if not super rare.

Well, I could write more, but I'll leave at that because I'd either get hung up forever or write on forever and I wanted to be done by tonight. Sorry if these thoughts are a bit scattered. Thanks for writing such an enjoyable fic, and being one of my best if not best friend these past few years. Merry Christmas, and check your inbox for a present!

 

[creativelover93]

A Marvelous Journey is partially the reason why I'm starting my own OT fic. I tried for a OT fic years ago before I discovered this fic, but I ended up deleting them because it was terrible. I even did a crossover, which was also terrible and I deleted it.
I will start uploading the next chapter of Artistic Vision next year and I hope to complete this story like you did. Hopefully, it will be less than 80 or even 60 chapters. Let's go to my final thoughts.
The world building is nice, but I wished you expanded a little more. There's no public parks and no amusement parks or carnivals in your world, or only in Johto or I'm really missing something?!
Oh, I'm surprised there's no machiya wooden townhouses, minshukus and ryokan inns in Ecruteak?! It's a Japanese based city for crying out loud!
Despite the characters having sad backstories, you manage to diversify it.
I know a lot of reviewers said the characters have black and white morality, but you managed to work for the most part.
This story is good and one of my favorites, but it's also flawed. I can't wait what you do with Hoenn.

 

[Juliko]

I know I'm posting on a thread that hasn't been active since 2021, but I made some changes to chapter 64 in that I added some additional dialogue and a new scene at the end. Why? Well, someone on TVTropes pointed out that the way I handled Milly at the end gave off some unfortunate implications in that I basically wound up having Milly return to her emotionally abusive mother and the other characters act like she deserved it. Re-reading it now…yeah, they were kinda right. How in the world did I miss that? So I added in some extra dialogue where Julia suggests that Milly reach out to someone for help and imply that things will get better for her. So sorry about that. I really need to get better at noticing these things. Hopefully the changes I made fixed things. Do feel free to let me know if there’s anything else similar to this that I need to fix, or offer suggestions on how I can remedy them.