Characters who appear in Pokémon: A Marvelous Journey.
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Julia Parisa
The protagonist. A sweet, shy, reserved, self-effacing eleven-year-old girl who loves Pokemon and starts off as a quiet homebody. When she goes on a journey to bring her older sister to justice, she becomes mentally stronger, more confident, more outspoken, and learns more about the outside world, though she still keeps her kind, caring personality.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Because of the way her autism manifests and her talking to Pokemon, most people didn't like Julia or thought she was a bad kid. As a result, she grew up without any friends.
- Asperger Syndrome: She is explicitly confirmed to be autistic in-story.
- Badass Adorable: She's sweet, kind, and friendly albeit reserved, but mess with her and her friends, and she won't go easy on you.
- Berserk Button:
- She does NOT take kindly to anyone abusing Pokemon or children, especially over things that aren't their fault. When Caiseal's biological father Fergus challenges him to a battle, wins, and goes back on the deal he proposed, she is understandably pissed and ruthlessly chews him out for it.
- She also can't stand being called a liar and being told she's doing something to get attention. This is because when she said she could understand Pokémon Speak, everyone she told claimed she was lying or trying to get attention because nobody in the world can really do that.
- Better with Non-Human Company: She gets along better with Pokemon than with people, though she is capable of socializing with kids her own age when she gets to know them better.
- Black-and-White Morality: In the beginning, she hated Pokemon battles because she believed they were violent and cruel. She grows out of this belief, but her beliefs are still rather rigid and firmly rooted in stereotypical "good vs evil" views. In the fifth bonus chapter, she ditched the first friend she made in a long time because she saw him participate in a Pokemon battle. Back then, she hated battles and thought anyone who liked them was bad regardless of their actual personality. Her biased mindset led to her casting Ethan aside and destroying the friendship they had, causing her to be alone again, only self-inflicted.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: She's described as having dark brown hair, so she's the brunette.
- Break the Cutie: In the past, she was abused by a Sadist Teacher who had little understanding of autism and believed her to simply be a bad kid whose parents didn't discipline her properly. An incident with some Pokemon being let loose in a storage shed, being trapped in said shed, and being unfairly blamed for the incident by said teacher only made things worse for her. As a result, Julia developed poor self-esteem and a hatred of Pokemon battles.
- Calling the Old Man Out: She gets a moment when her mother Kassia chastises her for giving Geraldine the Gyarados to a Pokemon rehabilitation clinic rather than simply releasing it back into the wild like she was told to do; Julia points out that doing so wouldn't have helped Geraldine with the trauma she suffered at Team Rocket's hands.
- Cassandra Truth: Most people don't believe her when she tells them she can understand what Pokemon are saying, as no normal person can do that, but she also doesn't have any concrete ways to actually prove it, or even if she does, they still dismiss her as being a liar. Years of enduring this convinced Julia not to bother telling everyone she knew about it, save for a select few people she grows to trust.
- Cowardly Lion: She's constantly berating herself for her cowardice and indecision, though in reality she is far braver than she gives herself credit for. More than once we see her get into situations where she tries to help in whatever way she can when the sensible thing to do would be be to run and get help instead.
- Everybody Hates Mathematics: In one chapter she mentions that math has always been her hardest subject.
- Eyes Always Averted: She rarely makes eye contact, if ever, which is a common autistic trait.
- Face Your Fears:
- At first, Julia is terrified of the thought of going to Violet City, as it's the place where her hatred for Pokemon battles started and where she was abused by a school teacher. Falkner's assistance helps her to overcome this fear, though memories of the abusive teacher still remain. This is a prominent theme and aesop throughout the fic.
- Julia is terrified of Poison-type Pokemon, namely because of incidents she mentions in an easy to miss sentence. But when she and Hikaru save two Nidoran, who befriend her, she tries to get over that problem.
- Friendless Background: Because of her autism and ability to talk to Pokémon, Julia grew up without making any friends because kids would bully her or never liked her. This resulted in her low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence, as she grew up believing what everyone said about her despite her parents' reassurance.
- Friend to All Living Things: Julia has grown up around Pokemon, and thus, she absolutely loves Pokemon. She finds she can befriend Pokemon easier than people...as long as they're not Poison types, that is (until she catches a few Poison-types)
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Julia is later hit with this in regards to how she handled her friendship with Ethan. As Perrine and Caiseal pointed out, even if she understandably had a hatred for Pokemon battles due to the trauma it caused on her, it's no excuse to outright ditch and stop being friends with someone just because they're not who you think they are, especially when their friendship with you is genuine, and Ethan had genuinely wanted to be Julia's friend and being called as a horrible person because he enjoyed Pokemon battling hurts him.
- Genki Girl: When she's not being shy, Julia can get very bubbly when it comes to her Pokemon.
- Hates Wearing Dresses: She mentions a few times that she hates wearing both dresses and skirts of any kind, half because of sensory issues, and half because she's afraid someone will flip the skirt, see her underwear, and make fun of her about it forever. But she does let her Pokemon wear clothes such as dresses if they want to do so.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: She's accomplished a lot since leaving on her journey, but she continually feels like a useless burden on everyone, even her own family, and believes she can't do anything right. This is because several unpleasant people she encountered, one of them being a teacher, subjected her to quite a bit of verbal abuse in her early childhood, which resulted in her self-esteem being blown to pieces. At one point, when she gets sick, she tries to convince Perrine and Caiseal to continue their journey without her because she felt like she was preventing them from quickly getting their eighth badge and holding them back.
- Hollywood Autism: Averted. She's genuinely kind, cares for everyone she loves, can hold her own in battle, has plenty of strengths and weaknesses, and the only times her autism is a problem is when people make it out to be one, especially if they don't know her. But she is overwhelmed by loud noise such as people yelling, and doesn't always act on what she thinks due to being compliant with the rules, though she eventually learns she needs to stick up for herself.
- I Am What I Am: At first, she was very ashamed of being autistic and being able to talk to Pokemon, as it left her lonely and friendless throughout her early childhood. But when she made friends with Perrine and Caiseal, who grew to love and support her on their journey (Though not without trial and error), she eventually comes to accept herself. She still has her moments of doubt and insecurity on occasion.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: This has been a problem for Julia her whole life. The way her autism manifests makes kids think she's weird and she's been bullied for her ability to talk to Pokemon and being thought of as a liar. This is also why she claims she gets along better with Pokemon than people. She is elated to make two new friends on her journey, even if she and Caiseal started off on the wrong foot.
- Internalized Categorism: She constantly feels like she's a bother to others, even her own family, and is very hard on herself whenever she makes a mistake, accidental or not. The abuse she endured at a teacher's hand in second grade jumpstarted it, and Amara picking on her all the time only worsened it.
- Jerkass Realization: Julia had, at one point, distanced herself from Ethan after seeing him having fun battling and called him a bad person for loving Pokemon battles due to her own trauma. It was only later down the line that Julia realized that she was being unfair to the one individual who genuinely wanted to be her friend back then as she let her own prejudice to cloud her judgement of Ethan and ditched him for it.
- Nice Girl: She's a sweet, gentle, kind-hearted girl who loves her family, friends, and Pokemon underneath her shy personality...as long as you don't do anything such as abuse your Pokemon or be flat-out cruel, that is.
- Our Fairies Are Different: Her last name means 'like a fairy', and she has several Fairy-type Pokemon on her (Snubbull, Togetic and Azumarill).
- Plucky Girl: Although she still retains her shy personality at times, the experience she gains on her journey helps her to become stronger mentally, and she's always very hardworking.
- Rummage Fail: Defied. Like Ritchie in the anime series, Julia puts stickers on her PokeBalls, particularly ones big enough to write her Pokemon's names on, for the sole purpose of making sure she can find the one she wants when she wants it.
- Shrinking Violet: For the most part, Julia is shy around new people and prefers to stay away from strangers, especially if they try to invade her personal space. But she does warm up to them when she gets to know someone better.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Julia is able to understand any Pokemon language. It's implied in chapter 26 that this is a result of her interacting with Psychic Pokemon owned by her parents.
- Sweet Tooth: She loves sweets, especially chocolate cake.
- Teacher's Unfavorite Student: Part of Julia's backstory involves her having had a teacher who believed Julia's parents were using her autism as an excuse not to discipline her properly and therefore refused to make allowances for Julia's needs, openly referring to her as a "trouble-maker". Things came to a head when this teacher falsely accused Julia of letting several Pokémon loose and physically restrained her, causing her to become hysterical and develop an intense dislike of Pokémon battles, though she later overcomes this. The teacher was subsequently fired and prosecuted for child cruelty, and Julia was transferred to another school.
- Took a Level in Badass: Starts off as a shy, sheltered kid with no experience with Pokemon battles, and gradually grows into a brave, hardworking trainer who gained a good amount of battle experience and is no longer afraid to call people out on their misdeeds. She kind of had to do so in order for the story to advance.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Several chapters mention that she loves chocolate cake.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Julia is very afraid of poison type Pokemon, as she's had one too many encounters where a poison type Pokemon attacked her. She's slowly trying to get over this, as she caught two Nidoran and an Oddish early in the story.
Perrine Innocenti
Perrine is Julia's friend, having met in Union Cave not long after Julia started her journey. A cheery, willful, outgoing, passionate girl from a rich family in Goldenrod City, she dreams of beating the Johto League and taking Lance's position as champion. But she can be a little too brash and impulsive for her own good.
- Anger Born of Worry: When her mother tells her about her father's hostage situation at the Goldenrod Radio Tower, Perrine rips into her for not telling her about it sooner, and says she'd never forgive herself if her father had died in that situation.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The redhead of the trio, though her hair is explicitly described as being orange. But it's close enough for it to count.
- Calling the Old Man Out: She and her father Eduardo never saw eye to eye, but when he continues to baby Perrine, even as their lives are in danger, Perrine has finally had enough and demonstrates her prowess as a Pokemon trainer.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Julia runs into her in the first chapter as she's coming out of Professor Elm's lab. Later, Julia befriends her in Union Cave.
- Fangirl: She absolutely loves the Kimono Girls, Lance, and a book series called The Jammin' Ninja.
- Green Thumb: She has several Grass-type Pokemon on rotation (Meganium, Jumpluff and Parasect).
- Nice Girl: Perrine is a friendly, thoughtful, caring young girl.
- Non-Idle Rich: Perrine's family is very wealthy, but she is very active as a trainer and can hold her own in battle.
- Only Sane Man: While she has a fiery personality, she's the most normal out of the three emotionally, and is much more well adjusted, as she doesn't have any pervasive issues in stark contrast to Julia and Caiseal.
- The Reliable One: She's calm, responsible, and hardworking.
- Team Mom: She's the more mature girl between her and Julia, and she often has to comfort, encourage, or resolve disputes between Caiseal and Julia when they're upset or frustrated, though even she's not above getting into the occasional argument with even them.
Caiseal Brownstone
Caiseal is the second friend Julia makes on her journey, though they get off to a rough start. He starts out as a cynical, guarded, troubled, temperamental trainer who often got into verbal arguments with the girls, and couldn't quite understand Julia one bit, but as he spends more time with them, he thaws out once he gets to know them better, becoming calmer and kinder.
- Abusive Parents: It's revealed that his parents neglected him and often verbally abused him because he absorbed his twin in utero, and openly favored his younger sister since she's normal. His mother is always treating him with contempt, and his father is barely around, not doing much to help.
- Agent Scully: Caiseal is the most doubtful and mistrusting of the trio. In the beginning, he genuinely didn't believe Julia could talk to Pokemon, claiming she was lying to get attention. He is also one to openly doubt and question things instead of accepting them right off.
- Angsty Surviving Twin: As it turns out, Caiseal was supposed to have a twin, but he absorbed it in utero, and his family, sans his little sister Violet, hates him for it.
- Berserk Button: Caiseal does not take kindly to people claiming that the homeless are faking their circumstances, having experienced it himself. An easy to miss line in chapter 51 mentions that after being homeless for two months, he physically attacked a classmate—who happened to be one of his friends—for commenting that homeless people were swindlers and con artists.
- Big Brother Instinct: He genuinely cares for his little sister a lot, and won't hesitate to protect her however he can, no matter how hopeless the fight.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: He has blonde hair, so he's the blonde of the trio.
- Brutal Honesty: Doesn't mince words and says what's on his mind. He also never hesitates to criticize someone if he thinks they're wrong.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Many of his Pokemon are Rock and/or Ground types (Golem, Marowak and Quagsire).
- Good Is Not Nice: While Caiseal does have a good heart and is nice when he wants to be, he and Julia clashed a lot after their first meeting, and he found her hard to get along with. The first thing he does is accuse Julia of stealing his Cyndaquil, when she just wanted to return Apollo to his trainer. Later, when Julia tells him about her ability to talk to Pokemon, he doesn't believe her, accusing her of just wanting attention. He also tends to be very snappish and defensive, though it turns out its justified due to the way his biological family treated him. He does mellow out considerably over the course of the series.
- Hates Their Parent: He has come to utterly despise his biological parents due to years of being neglected and verbally abused because as a fetus he absorbed his twin in utero. His mother, Nollaig, openly favors his younger sister over him, abandoned him in the Ice Path—which, keep in mind, is an icy cave where lots of territorial, dangerous Pokemon live—cursed him out when he returned home, and outright disowned him, whereas his father Fergus doesn't want him around, putting his wife's needs above those of his children. He wants nothing to do with Nollaig and Fergus, to the point where he doesn't refer to them as Mom and Dad but by their first names.
- Happily Adopted: After the Brownstones disowned him, he was thankfully adopted by his teacher and her husband, who treat him far better than his original family ever did.
- Heel–Face Turn: At first, Caiseal didn't think very highly of Julia, only wanting to follow them so he can be with Perrine. He even suggested once that they ditch her. Thankfully, he grows out of this, befriends them both, stops crushing on Perrine, and becomes genuine friends with them.
- The Lancer: In the beginning, he serves as Julia's foil, being guarded, down-to-earth, and skeptical compared to the girls. He also starts out frequently at odds with Julia because of their differing reasons for going on journeys and doesn't believe her when she says she can talk to Pokemon. Eventually, he starts to bond with the girls and remains steadfastly loyal to them.
- Meaningful Name: Caiseal's name is a Gaelic idiom for "great stone fort." The last part of his surname is stone, and he has a rock and ground type Pokemon on his team. Also...
- Named After Somebody Famous: One of the chapter footnotes says that Caiseal is named after an autistic Irish writer, artist, and musician, Caiseal Mor.
- Single-Issue Psychology: Defied. When he and the girls visit his adopted family, Caiseal explains to Julia that the reason he went on a journey was because he thought simply getting away from Blackthorn City for a long time would make all the pain and emotional issues his real parents inflicted on him go away and put a stop to the nightmares he keeps having as a result. Needless to say, he came to the realization that it didn't work, as demonstrated when he and the girls had to go through the Ice Path. Even getting adopted by the Ashers and going to therapy didn't completely do much for him, as he couldn't bring himself to really bond with the Ashers despite liking them, and an easy to miss sentence explains that he got into fights at school over things that didn't used to bother him before, such as kids making cruel remarks about the homeless.
- Sour Supporter: Caiseal starts off as this, not thinking highly of Julia and her idealism. Gradually thaws out later.
- Trauma Button: Because of the bad experiences he had in the Ice Path when he was younger, he can't stand cold, icy places like it. When the kids get closer to the Ice Path on their journey, he becomes more and more irritated, and while in there, he suffers a panic attack, stress vomits, and has a meltdown, all in front of Julia.
- The Unfavorite: Caiseal's parents openly favored his younger sister, Violet, over him, because she's a normal kid, whereas he absorbed his twin in utero. But he doesn't hold it against Violet, knowing that she's just as much a victim of his parents' as he is.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Caiseal is utterly terrified of ice and icy places, as revealed when he and the girls are made to go into the Ice Path. This is because his mother left him there and didn't come back for him, along with an icicle breaking off the ceiling of the cave and nearly killing him not even seconds after he was in there.
Amara Parisa
Julia's older sister. A thirteen-year-old girl who is sassy, defiant, confrontational, and is prone to getting angry at the slightest things. A typical teenage girl. She used to be a Pokemon trainer, but after her friend's untimely death, she began to hate Pokemon to the point of getting violent with them. Her actions caused her to lose her license and her Pokemon, but she's still intent on battling the gyms and participating in the League, so she steals a Pokemon from the lab and goes off on her own, against her parents' wishes and the restrictions placed on her by the court.
- Anti-Villain: What makes her sympathetic is that she's largely lashing out in grief over the death of her best friend, but it's made clear in-universe that it does not excuse her actions, which include, but are not limited to, stealing a Totodile from Professor Elm's lab, physically and verbally abusing Pokemon regularly, forcing her Pokemon to directly attack humans, and generally being a complete Jerkass to everyone she comes in contact with.
- Ax-Crazy: While she's given sympathetic reasons for acting as such (lashing out in grief over the death of her best friend), Amara nonetheless has some shades of this; she has a very Hair-Trigger Temper, barely needs any provocation to beat humans and Pokemon alike to bloody pulps, and has absolutely zero qualms against ordering her Pokemon to attack humans directly, which she first demonstrates against Julia, her own sister.
- All for Nothing: When the truth of the Gyarados rampage incident got out, she then realized that all her rage against everybody, her family and friends that tried to reach out to her, and even her Pokémon are all for naught.
- Bad Boss: She physically and verbally abuses her Pokémon on a regular basis. As it turns out, it's because she does so that's why she's been blacklisted and legally forbidden to be a Pokémon Trainer.
- Big Sister Bully: Her very first scene involves yelling at Julia over a trivial incident, and she continually mistreats her sister, under the mistaken assumption that she's the source of all of her problems and that her parents love her more than Amara. She finally stops at the end of chapter 59 once she learns the truth behind Chanel's death and realizes the error of her ways.
- Big Sister Instinct: As much as Amara gripes about Julia, she does display this. In chapter 17, she immediately panics and tries to save Julia when she begins to fall through the rotten floorboards, and in chapter 48, she attacks and beats up Pryce for ordering his Cloyster to attack Julia during the Red Gyarados fiasco.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: She yells at her parents, snaps at the slightest provocation, blames Julia for most of what goes wrong in her life, and would much rather sit in her room and listen to her IPod than do anything her parents tell her to.
- Decomposite Character: As the canonical Johto game's rival, Silver didn't show up until the finale of the story as Lyra's friend, Silver's canon role of being the individual who stole one of the starters from Professor Elm's lab is given to Amara instead.
- Determinator: Nothing will stop her from her journey, and she'll always find a way to make sure she can keep going on it.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Amara acts like a complete Jerkass towards everyone, even her own Pokémon, because of the following: she feels her parents favor Julia over her, and her best friend was killed by a Gyarados, and she feels nobody around her is taking her friend's death and its effects on Amara seriously...although they are, but she refuses any kind of help.
- Establishing Character Moment: Her very first scene involves angrily chasing her mother's Vaporeon for breaking her IPod and screaming at Julia for taking its side.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The reason for Amara's Jerkass tendencies and hatred of Pokemon is because she's lashing out in grief over the death of her best friend Chanel, who was killed by a rampaging Gyarados. However, it's also made clear in-universe that said grief does not justify or excuse Amara's actions.
- The Unfavorite: At least part of Amara's problems stem from her belief that Kassia and Truman care more about Julia than her. This isn't true, as her parents love her and Julia equally, and she comes to realize this later in the story.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Amara used to be a nice, outgoing, energetic girl who loved her family, friends, and Pokemon. But after Chanel's death at the hands of a rampaging Gyarados and her consequent refusal to seek help in coping with it, she let her anger fester and she became bitter, defiant, angry, and confrontational towards everyone, even her own family and Pokemon.
