The Infinity Train: Blossomverse first fanfic and its sequel brings up the topic of the typical "character goes on a Pokémon journey to find themselves" by having someone who doesn't want a life involving Pokémon instead being thrown into a train housing numerous pocket dimensions and trying to find themselves by visiting these strange worlds all while her friends and loved ones have no idea where they are. It also brings up the question of "Can you be your own person in the Pokémon world if you don't associate yourself with Pokémon?"
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Features enough Deconstructed Character Archetypes to warrant their own page.
Deconstructed Fanfic Tropes
Deconstructed Fanfic Tropes
- The Coming of Age fic where the protagonist adventures with their Pokémon is a staple of Pokémon fanfic. Chloe, however, dislikes Pokémon for personal reasons, and the story sets her on a Journey to Find Herself with their involvement.
- While most of the people Ash meets already have some major goal that they're looking to accomplish (even if it's 'simply' wanting to see the world like May), Chloe doesn't have anything of that nature to drive her forward at first. Mainly because she's weighed down by the pressure to follow in her father's footsteps and conform to everyone's expectations, while being constantly bullied for what little she's revealed of her own interests.
- What happens if somebody just doesn't like Pokémon? Would it be seen as apathy? A sign of weirdness? While canon treats Chloe's disengagement with Pokeémon as a character flaw that she eventually grows out of, this story presents her lack of interest in a more neutral light, and the fact that everyone around her assumes that she must like Pokémon is shown to be deeply damaging.
- Betrayal Fic: On paper, the fic seems like a standard betrayal fic with the somewhat novel concept of not focusing on Ash, having Chloe as the mistreated one who leaves for a better deal while everyone else suffers for their crimes against her. However, the situation isn't quite so simple:
- Nobody in the story acted out of character. Rather than derailing the main cast into cackling For the Evulz Jerkasses who attempted murder, assault or other horrific crimes, the problems that gave rise to the conflict boiled over from mundane situations.
- Chloe's classmates do hinge upon that level of behavior with their bullying; instead of seeing them as kindred spirits, Ash, Goh and the Cerise family see them as little monsters. The same goes for the majority of those who learn about the bullying, and their misbehavior is rightly condemned.
- The issues at hand are not one-sided. The major contributing factor, Poor Communication Kills, was from both sides. Chloe could have avoided much of what happened by going out and saying 'I like this' as much as Ash or Goh talking about such a topic instead could have. No one said, or knew, there was something wrong until the entire thing exploded out of control.
- The bread and butter of many betrayal fic are catharsis moments: the humiliations and breaking of the betrayers, with harsh speeches about how terrible they are aplenty. However, in story it's shown that doing so can slip into scapegoating and cruelty, if not make things palpably worse. Flawed people with a flawed understanding of the situation can make assumptions, and can mistakenly believe that their personal catharsis is more important than actually addressing the complexities of what happened and fixing things.
- Finally, the notion of someone throwing everything away after one mistake too many and refusing to come back until everyone has either paid or apologized is cathartic...but also selfish and childish, the attitude of a self-pitying runaway. Chloe has to acknowledge her own failures and responsibility, especially when being repeatedly blamed for everything wrong starts to drag on everyone she left behind.
- Nobody in the story acted out of character. Rather than derailing the main cast into cackling For the Evulz Jerkasses who attempted murder, assault or other horrific crimes, the problems that gave rise to the conflict boiled over from mundane situations.
- Accusation Fic: Parker and UnChloe take the story into this territory in Act 2, illustrating what happens when personal catharsis is deemed more important than moving on and focusing on healing from the trauma.
- Cathartic punishments are not the same as just ones, and vice-versa. Parker slips into utter cruelty and sadism when he uses the Unown to punish everyone around him for their failures, since the punishments they already received don't make him feel better, and every attempt at fixing things is doomed to fail in his eyes as long as Chloe is still gone.
- UnChloe is not Chloe, but a vessel for vengeance wearing her face, reflecting how Accusation Fics can take and twist their protagonists to the point of being unrecognizable, stripping away all empathy and sympathy in order to have them enjoy the suffering of the accused.
- Even the supposedly 'balanced' effort of making Goh experience both the worst-case scenario of what he might've caused and then showing him how he could have made things right doesn't work out. The trauma of watching his friends die or disown him all but shatters Goh's will to continue, and watching just how easily he could've prevented things from getting so bad convinces him that he can't do anything right no matter what - especially when he can't help but mess up when he attempts to do it himself.
- The 'perfect' Goh that tries to lead by example also demonstrates that the damage can't be fixed in one fell swoop. Rather than recognizing that any progress is still progress, Goh is instead convinced that the situation is completely unrepairable and that he's Beyond Redemption.
- And finally, the person being avenged does not enjoy or appreciate it. Chloe is horrified to the point of sickness by what Parker has done in her name, and fears how the consequences will affect her and the people she cares about in the future.
Other
Other
- Chloe's Out of Focus status in the show, despite supposedly being a research assistant for her dad alongside Ash and Goh, is deconstructed by having the characters themselves know about as much about Chloe as the show's audience — absolutely nothing. Most of the Vermilion City characters ignore her interests and project their own wants and desires onto her, with the reveal of just how much she actually dislikes Pokémon and anything surrounding them coming as a genuine shock to them, and her actual passion for horror writing being just as surprising. Even Goh is depicted as having lost all meaningful connection with Chloe.
- Chloe and Goh are supposedly friends, but Goh never does anything to show that he is Chloe's friend at all. Even Chloe's classmates point out that most of the problems with Chloe running away are on him for being totally ignorant of her.
- The students in Chloe's class are jealous of her, as having a professor as a dad means she has 24/7 access to dozens of Pokémon. They're stunned that Chloe actually ran away from home, rather than simply left to become a Pokémon Trainer since that's what they would have done in her place. Both Goh and one of their teachers call them out for their Lack of Empathy in not noticing how Chloe never actually liked talking about her dad's work, the way they've treated her, and the dangers she could potentially be in after leaving home in such a manner.
- It's eventually revealed that at least some of her classmates were fully aware of how much she disliked Pokémon — and that is precisely why they bugged her about it so much. It was just another form of bullying, with the advantage of adults not noticing or punishing them for it due to the general presumption that 'everybody loves Pokémon'.
- Trip's fateful encounter with the Apex underscores that the group's ideology means that their violence would extend to human passengers who don't agree with their views, something which Infinity Train didn't dwell on much. The usual rules surrounding Pokémon battles obviously don't apply as well, and the Apex won't hesitate to use everything at their disposal to inflict as much harm as possible on Trip's Pokémon and himself.
- Chloe remarks on how her father pays for everything whenever Ash and Goh go out for research including travel fare, hotels, food, etc. Not only does it make her feel like her father is more obsessed with research and spoiling them, but she also notes that the family doesn't have enough money to pay for therapy which is much more important for her mental health. Although this is probably because she doesn't understand that her father has funding and grants for the Cerise Lab and the travel fair isn't just out of his pockets.
- The Professor himself later notes the irony as part of his Jerkass Realization. Even if the money isn't entirely out of his own pockets, it doesn't change his daughter's perception of his priorities, particularly in light of how he can't even remember the last time he spent money on something as simple as going out for ice cream together.
- The Crossover part is deconstructed because of how the Infinity Train is an Outside-Context Problem for the Pokémon world itself. It is a large train in another dimension constructed to help people work through their mental traumas, but since there's nothing about it in the Pokémon world (since there's no Pokémon legends about it), there is nothing that Professor Cerise can do about it. And while Trip was lucky enough to have some of his Pokémon by his side, that alone didn't guarantee he'd be any safer on the Train (as evidenced by how the Apex bypassed them and attacked Trip directly).
- Trip is highly concerned with Goh trying to enter the Train in order to find Chloe as it highly reduces the chance of Chloe actually coming home. It's one thing about entering another world, it's another about getting out of it.
- In many Pokémon stories, knowing all about these creatures is a blessing. In this story, it shows how obsessed Ash, Goh, and Professor Cerise are that they can't connect to someone who doesn't like them. It only causes more and more problems since none of these characters can relate nor choose to relate with Chloe and her likes while Chloe feels like she's absolutely insignificant and worthless to them.
- Part of Chloe's Rage Breaking Point is how they treat the fact that Ghost-types are immune to Normal-type moves as common knowledge, with her father gently chiding her for 'forgetting' that little detail during her battle. The idea that she might not know such a thing doesn't seem to occur to any of them, even though Ash himself didn't know that until he encountered some Ghost-types directly during his early travels.
- Renji points out the type of people that are perfect for the Train to latch onto: those who are having doubts about being Trainers, terrified of being alone, being critically injured, and with no therapist in sight, a train that comes in the middle of nowhere is just too good to pass up.
- If people become obsessed with one aspect of life (Pokémon in this case), they don't get to see what others are capable of. Chloe can sing, play softball, can write, and is good at drawing. But what do they care about more? That she's the daughter of a Professor and she follows in his footsteps.
- Lexi questions why passengers are so important when ones — like Grace and Simon — can get away with hurting others and all they get is a slap on the wrist, noting that the Train's desires to have passengers grow and chance can also make it so that, since the only punishment that people receive is a higher number thus a longer time to go home, the Apex can raise hell and not care about wanting to change since they're not reprimanded for their troubles. But then we learn that when passengers die on the train, their souls are converted into Denizens that will remain on the train forever while their dead bodies are dropped off in the real world.
- It's not a good idea for children to be running on a Train where there are numerous things that can kill them whether they be Ghoms, the cars themselves, or the Apex. Moreover, the fact that the Train picked up a bunch of kids without supervising them, or actually making them understand why they're on the Train in the first place, actually made things even worse for those who want to make an effort to leave.
- The anime advertised Chloe as someone who works at her father's lab...which isn't the case. She's only there so that her father can make sure she doesn't go through any more bullying, but it only reinforces her belief that her father doesn't care for her at all.
- Moreover, it points out that Goh is pretty much privileged with everything: the Professor gives him all he needs to go pursue his dream, he's not forced to go to school by his parents, and he has love and attention and time to focus on dreams. Everything that Chloe doesn't have.
- A lot of what Goh and Ash can do is because they are interested in Pokémon: if it wasn't for Pokémon they would not travel the world and go on adventures. If they were both, say, in the nightmare world of Pokémon: I Choose You! Ash would probably be in school and Goh would still be at home. Chloe isn't able to access the same opportunities because she's not into Pokémon, a design flaw of the set up of the anime world that is unfair to Chloe.
- Tokio's importance to Goh is what caused Goh to let go of all of his human friendships. But to Chloe, it's nothing more than an excuse. Tokio didn't intentionally abandon Goh, and it was all on Goh for why he neglected Chloe for all these years.
- Parker's worshipping of his big sister is sweet, but the problem is that at age 5 he doesn't understand the complicated world of relationships except "If you helped my sister, I like you. If you hurt her I will hurt you back". Notably, Ash is a good person at heart who made a mistake; to Parker, Ash is a monster who left his sister to slowly break into pieces. Moreover, even though he is Wise Beyond Their Years, he still has the maturity of a kid and can be impulsive and angry and unable to understand how others are also feeling about Chloe's disappearance.
- Chloe's status as the Professor's daughter is put into the spotlight: unlike those whose relatives are related to Pokémon in some way (Gary to his grandfather, May to her father), Chloe isn't like them and shows no signs of being into the creatures. Yet because of her father's status, people already expect her to be just as enthusiastic as he is or, because of her father's status, are jealous that she gets such a cushy lifestyle. This makes Chloe believe like she is absolutely insignificant because she's not really a person, just an extension of her father.
- Chloe sees Pokémon Trainers as invincible, beloved and can do no wrong. She couldn't be further from the truth: many people still have psychological problems even with Pokémon: Ash feels guilty for not helping her, Goh is crushed that he can't find her, Trip was at a crossroads, Gladion was conflicted over the choices he made to protect his sister, Mallow was going through grief that her mother died.
- The Apex are a bunch of kids who destroy because that's what they were taught by Grace and Simon. However, they're still kids and are still vulnerable to being killed off in many ways, like the one that drowned in the lake of Silent Hill.
- The Fog Car is a deconstruction on how the denizens wish to "help" passengers. While Hop seems happier, he's mentally regressed to a more childlike state, manipulated by the denizens to their own nefarious ends.
- The same can be said about Alain, who wants to be free of their Guilt Complex but without guilt, they can't hope to move on and heal. Instead, they end up being a mindless puppet crucified in a cold empty room.
- The Train itself is supposed to help people who enter it; but what about the people who have to deal with their loved ones on a Magic Train? They have to feel nothing but anguish and guilt for their actions and things end up becoming even worse since the Train can't tell right from wrong: just mental anguish.
- It's common in the games for a ten-year-old kid to help destroy an evil gang, but for Chloe, the idea that she chosen to stop the Apex is nerve-wracking. She is essentially alone and helpless against two sociopathic teens and their corrupted gang and she's afraid that she's not strong enough to fight them. Not helping that she already had low self-esteem issues from the relentless teasing and bullying she's gone through at home.
- Parker decides to use Epiphany Therapy on Goh so he can see just what went wrong and can use these lessons to change for the better. Unfortunately, because he's a young child with a Black-and-White Morality, his idea of 'therapy' involves Goh being faced to see all the mistakes he made and the potential outcomes of said mistakes, without showing the good he can do or pointing out what he can do better. This only serves to traumatize his target instead, and Goh loses his sanity over what should be easily fixable mistakes.
- By the Cyan Car chapter in Arc 2, both Calling the Old Man Out and What the Hell, Hero? are deconstructed. Chloe's decision to run away from home leaves Vermillion City in shock, and fingers are pointed at those who are believed to have the most involvement in Chloe's sudden departure, such as friends, family, classmates, and teachers. However, as cathartic as it seems, doing it too much has the opposite effect - people are easily turned into scapegoats over minor/perceived mistakes, and instead of feeling motivated to better themselves so they can look forward to a better future, they end up turning into emotionally drained wrecks who only focus on their own mistakes and 'what-ifs'. Things get to a point where a certain someone decides that people people aren't being 'punished' enough and goes even farther by weaponizing ancient Pokémon to torture everyone. Once everyone has a clearer picture of what's going on, they're able to trace everything that went wrong in Vermillion City back to Chloe herself. So instead of the adoring, worshipful Vermillion City Chloe was hoping for upon her return, she instead finds a Vermillion City that hates her and labels her as a cruel, petty, and selfish brat who refused to own up to her mistakes and ran away to spite everyone for not catering to her.
- A typical Pokemon anime plot is for the heroes to encounter a villain who holds a legendary in distress by way of pure luck, rescuing the Pokemon and befriending them for fun adventures before defeating the bad guy and setting the Pokemon free while reaping the rewards of character development. The Turner arc in Vermillion breaks it down piece by piece.
- Turner isn't a flashy villain in a colorful costume with advanced tech or even a Pokemon of her own, just a disturbingly realistic hacker, stalker, and kidnapper with a gun. She isn't even that clever, falling apart when things go wrong, but the threat she poses to everyone in her immediate vicinity is dead serious.
- The legendary mon is too badly hurt for any fun adventures, and needs basic care and warmth like any abused animal.
- Finally, the luck aspect kicks off a downward spiral for the kid who finds him. Goh has just finished getting it hammered into his head that his obsession with Mew has caused so much damage, and feels obligated to let go of his dream of finding and befriending Mew as penance for driving Chloe away. So when it drops into his lap, it feels more like a cosmic joke at his expense than anything he'd be happy with.
- The notion of the movie ending with a happy ending all around, with existing friendships strengthened and new ones built, is tempted by Chloe returning to Vermillion and reconciling with Goh right after he has Mew. Sweet and Sour Grapes, right? No. Goh is terrified that having obtained his dream before he has a chance to properly make amends to Chloe completely invalidates both of their efforts...after all, he's got what he wanted without really working for it. This contradiction finally drives him onto the train.
Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily
Given that it's by the same author of Blossoming Trail, this is to be expected, this story naturally takes apart several aspects of the anime's Sun and Moon arc.- Of Gladion's Protagonist-Centered Morality. Gladion feels like he is the hero who went on an epic quest to help his sister. This story points out that he did more harm than good by keeping the Nihilego incident silent, and the hypocrisy of tearing into his mother for being oblivious when he chose not to tell her. Lillie realizes that a lot of what she went through could have been prevented (or at least lessened) if he had shared what he knew with others, and hadn't worked to keep her Locked Out of the Loop regarding her own missing memories. Rather than regarding him as her heroic older brother who gallantly protected her, she sees somebody who went haring off on his own, leaving her behind for years. One of the Central Themes is getting Gladion to recognize that not all of his actions were justified, and that no matter how much he wants to deny it, he unintentionally hurt his sister with his actions.
- Of grand quests. They're usually romanticized as great things, but the prologue story notes that most people don't want to tell how boring it is, or how people slept in the cold, or how they could be injured without anyone to heal them.
- Lillie's role as a Damsel in Distress. Gladion thought that she was a fragile flower who couldn't handle the weight of what happened, whereas the anime shows that she has a lot of courage and bravery in her — from going through Salandit to get Snowy's egg to even jumping off a building with the high chance of her dying to save her from Team Rocket — and Gladion just can't accept the fact that his sister grown stronger over the years and doesn't need saving. Least of all when it's arguably doing more harm than good.
- Adults Are Useless: The only reason they're so useless is because they don't have all the info. Gladion's decision to handle the situation by himself hampered any chances of his mother learning what happened until much later on.
- While Chloe was enthusiastic about meeting people from other worlds, Chapter 3 introduces a boy who instead resents his fellow passengers from coming from more exciting universes, boiling with resentment over the notion that they may never experience anything more magical than their time on the Train.
Infinity Train: Melancholy Afterlife
- Chloe questions her role in the Institute if she's not going on research assignments or actually doing anything involving Pokémon with the only "excuse" her father gives her is that she's "not ready"...when it has been shown in the anime that he never gives her anything to do for 31 episodes.
- Free-Range Children is also deconstructed: just because Chloe runs off on her own doesn't mean she can handle Pokémon on her own, and since she runs off without catching anybody's attention, she's totally messed up when she's found.
- The Spearow incident shows what happens when Love Makes You Dumb, and you depend on the Power of Trust: After being treated somewhat nicely by Specter, Chloe gains a crush on him, and decides to put her trust on him. So, when he gives her a Trainer starter kit and convinces her to go catch a Pokémon, Chloe blindly trusts him... while either unaware or ignorant about the fact she doesn't have a Pokémon or other way to defend herself. As such, the Spearow incident happens, and when Chloe tries to call Specter for help, he fails to show up.note
- Crazy-Prepared is deconstructed by quite simply making it clear being ''Crazy'' prepared isn't the same as ''Completely'' prepared: the kit Specter gifts Chloe is nice and all, but it means jack against Pokémon who are highly violent and territorial.
Infinity Train: Crown of Hydrangea
The story deconstructs two notable bits about Wisteria.- The idea that Goh would stay Hidden in Plain Sight in the Canals of Fondue Car is shot down, as rather than stay in a place glorifying his supposed childhood friend, Goh leaves.
- Goh's continued idea that he, Chloe, and even Tokio are friends. Other-Goh only needs to say a few words to convince Goh that after everything they've done to him, each of them are more of a False Friend than Goh ever was to either.
- It also deconstructs the type of "therapy" that Goh was put through in Blossoming Trail; nonstop diatribes of how much he'd messed up and what a horrible person he was, with any defense he gave refuted or completely ignored. As it turns out, having black-and-white standards for what is and isn’t "good behavior," with no regard for context, ground into one’s skull isn't the healthiest state to live in. Once Goh gets on the Train, he can feel that something is off about Holda, and that it isn't safe to be around her. But every time he tries to politely break away from her, he ends up vividly imagining what his "therapists" would say about him "abandoning an old lady" or "isolating himself again," and so he ends up endangering himself in the name of "becoming a better person."
- Then Let Me Be Evil is also deconstructed while also showing how it can be justified: after being lambasted both outside and inside the Train, with the latter almost ending with him killed, Goh effectively gives up on convincing people that he's not evil, and becomes the new ruler of the Aurorae Car out of spite.
- The way "The Reason You Suck" Speech in the Blossomverse is used is either for the ones being called out to accept their mistakes or double down trying to justify why they did it, and for the ones doing the call out to get catharsis. Here, after Lexi ends up calling out Goh for his neglect of Chloe and his past mistakes a really unstable Goh (who was triggered by Lexi taking his Specter form) agrees, saying that if his existence is already so wicked then why don't make a favor to the Train and kill him in the spot? Lexi and everyone else present is understandably shaken.
- Of one of the most important tools that was used in defending Chloe's honor, the Engineered Public Confession. Throughout the Blossomverse, this was seen as one of the most unproblematic methods of achieving justice. People who had committed especially heinous crimes- Chloe's classmates, The Cat, Dahlia Hawthorne, and Carl- found their misdeeds recorded and shared to the general public so they could face justice. Throughout the story, the heroes had no qualms about sentencing these people to be Convicted by Public Opinion. After all, they had brought it on themselves by running their mouths for the camera, right? If they had just pretended to be a decent person for five minutes, then the heroes wouldn't be able to pull those schemes off. But this fic points out that recordings actually can lie- or at least, not tell the whole truth. It's certainly true that the microphone doesn't create footage- if a recording shows you saying something, then you did actually say it. However, no matter what the exact circumstances, a recording can only display a tiny portion of the story, and everything else comes down to context. For example, the recording Goh takes of Lexi shows the book hurling verbal abuse at a child who also happens to be the ruler of a Car, to the point where the kid actually asks for the book to kill him. While that's undeniably... bad on several levels, the recording doesn't necessarily show the slight mitigating factors involved. For instance, the fact that Goh was not exactly in the mood to entertain the Red Lotus Quarto from the start, or the fact that Lexi honestly believes that Goh must have done something to the true ruler of the Car. Simply by sharing the recording he had made of Lexi, Goh is able to portray the "hero" as someone who would be willing to attack a Car ruler out of jealousy or abuse a child out of devotion to Chloe. The last lines of Chapter 4 don't exactly paint a good picture for the future of the Red Lotus Quarto's reputation.
- The Red Lotus Trio became celebrities and beloved figures on the Train for their actions, but while some Denizens saw them being heroic, most of their reputation came from word of mouth. Goh uses the Nyx Circuit at the end of Chapter 4 to relay the news about Lexi's aggressive snarling at him and make it seem like he attacked me, potentially leading to the Red Lotus Trio's reputation taking a hit.
- Good Is Not Nice is torn apart with Lexi. When he meets Goh alongside the rest of the Red Lotus Quarto, he acts like his usual prickish self, with Goh pushing his buttons until he snaps. Him delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech at Goh ends up completely destroying any chances the team had to have Goh listen to reason, not only causing him to close himself even more and kick them out, but then go on to send a manipulated message to try destroy their reputation. Furthermore, his abrasive behavior clashes heavily with the "Prince charming" view the news about the Red Lotus Trio made him out to be, causing the Denizens to begin doubting the group's greatness.
Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus
- Like how the original trilogy deconstructed the unfairness of denizens being abused by passengers and numerous characters having to unleash justice by their own hands, Seeker of Crocus and the side-stories also bring up a question on what it means to deliver "hope" and the extents people will go for it.
Infinity Train: Thorn Apart
- The train is all about Character Development, but the thing is, in order for Akemi to have her role in saving Chloe, Madoka and Homura are preventing Chloe from leaving Azada so she can discover herself.
- Mistaken for Racist is also deconstructed: In the Pokémon World, a person who's racist against Pokémon, believing them to be inferior, is known as a Pokéist. Chloe sharing many of the same traits as one of them prompted Sara, whose family lived in a city full of them before coming to Vermillion City, to grow distrustful of her, bullying her as a result of her paranoia.
Other Authors
- Mother of Pearl
clearly goes into the discussed concept of Parker getting off easy and makes it clear just how screwed he (and his family by association) would be if the full weight of the law and public opinion came down on him. - Blossomverse Game Show also put a bit a pin in the idea of the Infinity Train as an Outside-Context Problem: people in the Pokemon world study alternate dimensions, so the Infinity Train isn't that far beyond their comprehension.
