Many of the writing critiques in Seeker of Crocus can be traced back to other Blossomverse works, primarily the original Blossoming Trail. However, there have been a lot of lessons learned in the years since that original story, lessons that this story either takes the wrong way or outright ignores.
All spoilers are unmarked. You have been warned.
The relation to Journeys
- Quite a few complaints about Seeker of Crocus that the readers were fine with in older Blossomverse works stem from the time period that the stories were written compared to how far along Pokémon Journeys was. Blossoming Trail started a few days before Chloe's first focus episode aired, so little was known about her and her relationship with other characters, thus the story got away with many uncharitable interpretations with the absence of evidence. Seeker of Crocus meanwhile, started over a full year later, after many more Journeys episodes aired, and continued well after Journeys ended, meaning that many old interpretations that this story repeats (or makes worse) are Outdated by Canon and/or more obviously made due to spite.
- Despite Goh being stated to be Chloe's friend, most of his early screentime in Journeys is focused on his relationship with either his Pokémon or Ash. So, Trail took the interpretation that Goh was a False Friend to Chloe, and cared more about catching Pokémon, globetrotting with Ash, and searching for Mew that hanging out with Chloe. However, as Journeys continued, Goh and Chloe eventually received episodes where they work together, their friendship is shown, and Goh had proven to be capable of calmly listening to her and validating her feelings. Thus, when this story focuses on things such as Goh not bothering to attend Chloe's birthday celebration, when she never even invited him in the first place, it feels like an outdated, mean-spirited interpretation of the character.
- Chloe took quite a while to become friends with Ash, as opposed to his other female companions, with whom he was often able to connect right away, which Trail interpreted as Chloe disliking Ash simply for not befriending her, and this was perceived as a character flaw on Ash's part. However, later episodes showed that Chloe was perfectly fine accompanying Ash on his adventures and when Chloe eventually got more focus episodes, Ash was more than willing to accompany her in those episodes, so Crocus trying to repeat this interpretation just leads to complaints. Also, Trail eventually concluded that Ash not noticing Chloe's pain was not a character flaw but rather him not being aware of how bad the situation was because no one told him about it. So Crocus trying to put more focus on this "flaw", despite everyone acknowledging this as miscommunication, makes it seem like a superfluous idea that the story really shouldn't pay as much attention to considering how long and complex it already is.
- Due to Professor Cerise's early screentime being mostly dedicated to working with Ash and Goh, with only a few scenes showing him interacting with his family, Trail interpreted that as Professor Cerise being a neglectful father who never paid Chloe any attention. However, later episodes (including one that aired less than three weeks after the fic started) showed Professor Cerise being a Good Parent to Chloe; listening to her problems, pushing her to come out of her shell, and giving good advice. Ironically, as Chloe grows more confident, Professor Cerise becomes worried that his daughter wasn't spending time with him. Thus, when Crocus writes him as being unable to help Chloe, to the point of refusing to provide her therapy, it comes across as not just an outdated interpretation, but a malicious one, as they have to make up reasons to keep hating him.
- The Vermillion City school being depicted as a cesspool of bullying wasn't the most well received plot point in the original story, but it made sense given that what we saw of the school in canon at the time depicted Chloe's classmates asking her if she was going to follow in her father's footsteps, which could easily be confused for pressuring her. As Journeys continued, however, the school became just another minor setting, with the few times it showed up again making it look like a normal school. So Crocus not only returning to the terrible school analogy, but giving focus to it again during Act 2 at a time when the story has become increasingly complex, comes across as the story trying to rant about a system that it made up from wholecloth just to complain about something that never had that much focus in canon.
Combining three stories into one
- A surprising amount of the problems in Seeker of Crocus comes from the fact that it is adapting all three stories in a trilogy. So, characters and plot points that were accepted in the original trilogy are either kept in their initial forms despite well-received changes in the trilogy or are quickly introduced and added onto despite the trilogy taking its time to introduce them.
- Chloe & Goh's relationship and its problems has generated a lot of complaints, such as the relationship being biased in favor of Chloe, ignoring aspects that would paint Chloe as less than perfect, and stating that it is something they both need to work on despite the clear toxicity. Blossoming Trail had the exact same complaints and was slow to fix them. However, addressing and resolving those complaints is the main point of Voyage of Wisteria; Goh gets less toxicity, a clean slate, and a chance to heal, Chloe is given proper consequences for her actions, and the whole relationship, both the problems it faces and the solutions to those problems, are made much more equal. Since Crocus is adapting the entire trilogy, not only is the relationship the same as it was in the beginning (or in some cases, even worse), every time the story tries to do something to improve the relationship, there is a caveat that partially negates itnote . And to top it all off, unlike the trilogy, the relationship between Chloe and Goh is a secondary plot point in Crocus, so they interact less often, and nearly every time they do, the story finds another way to pin the blame on Goh while exaggerating Chloe’s virtues.
- Fans of The Apex haven’t enjoyed the story because of the rather cruel treatment they’ve been given even as an evil team, even as the Infinity Train houses passengers and denizens that are miles worse than them. Thing is, the original trilogy wasn’t very kind to The Apex either, having them painted as the Greater-Scope Villain that everyone wanted to get rid of, but at least in its defense, they eventually toned it down and even went on to confirm that no, The Apex weren’t actually as bad as everyone claimed it to be, and there were worse things out there. While the story does confirm there are worse people out there, The Apex still seen as the worst out there by most Denizens.
- Grace, in particular, is noted to be a punching bag within the story whose punishment comes across as uncomfortable, since she gets constantly called out over killing a denizen years ago, is disowed by her family, and has her sanity go down the drain due to various factors beyond her control. Grace was not treated any better in the original trilogy, but at least back then, the trilogy took its time showing both how Grace was not a good person and how her misery was brought by her own hand, and the karmic overkill was only done after Grace had started to realize her mistakes and she had lost all her power. Crocus doesn’t wait, and instead tries to put her through the wringer whenever possible, as noted by many denizens calling her out over the death of Utahoshi, something that doesn’t make sense unless the reader has knowledge of Knight of the Orange Lily, and which doesn’t exactly explain how this makes her the absolute worst since, again, the train has passengers and denizens with more blood on their hands than her.
- The Blame Game has been grinding the readership’s gears since day one, but has been present since the original trilogy. Back then, the game was played until the sequel decided enough was enough and put a stop to it for good. Seeker of Crocus, which adapts the entire trilogy into one story, not only pulls a Bait-and-Switch, making it seem like the blame game will be ended early, only for it to return with a vengeance, but it propagates the story’s most controversial storyline so far, the Cyan Desert Car saga, which at that point made it seem like the story was more interested in making up excuses to have everyone blame each other than actually move the plot forward.
- The story being a Massively Multiplayer Crossover has also been seen as a negative lately, with many readers believing that the story cramming so many crossovers within itself causes the already bloated and confusing plot to be even harder to follow. The original trilogy was also full of crossovers, but these were split apart between stories; the original story was a Pokémon, Infinity Train, and Silent Hill crossover, the prequel added Yu-Gi-Oh to the mix, and the sequel added multiple more series for its main antagonistic force. Crocus, as a consequence of adapting all three stories into just one story, adds all of the crossovers right from the get-go, while adding even more as a result of introducing The Multiverse into the universe and having these characters crossover into the main story, which causes the complex plot to become even more complicated than it already is.
Chloe-specific problems
- A complaint about the story, mostly from crossoverpairinglover, is that Chloe gets the lion’s share of development to the detriment of other characters, including Professor Sycamore, the actual main character. This problem was also in the original trilogy, but in its defense, Chloe was the main character of the original story, so getting the most development was a given. However, even in Voyage of Wisteria, the sequel where Goh became the main character, Chloe was finalizing her development and was indirectly responsible for sending Goh on the Train, justifying her focus. Seeker of Crocus, meanwhile, has no excuse: Professor Sycamore and Chloe have no connection before meeting, and the professor already has a goal in mind, rescue Alain, independently of Chloe, making the focus on the redhead much less justifiable.
- An aspect that the readership has grown tired of is the apparent fact that whenever the story tries to paint Chloe as sympathetic, another character has to be demonized in some way in order to work it out: Goh, the school characters, her parents, Goh’s parents, the list goes on. The original trilogy had this exact same problem, but once the story began to retool itself into something less spiteful, the characters began to act more like their usual selves and less like evil caricatures. Seeker of Crocus, meanwhile, doesn’t let one character leave the demonized status without another character taking their place, if even that, so it comes across as the characters never leaving that role, which can get tired pretty quickly.
- Chloe’s treatment on the Infinity Train has also perplexed some readers, who feel like she’s getting way too much attention and hype from everybody around her despite, for all intents and purposes, being another Passenger on the Train. This treatment was the same in the original trilogy, but it was eventually toned down and even deconstructed as it made it harder for Chloe to complete her journey. Crocus not only tunes up the attention and hype that Chloe gets, but adds even more attention by having the Goetias take notice of her, which fans feel is a little bit too much.
- A controversial decision the story has taken is the idea of Chloe being suicidal; it gets brought up several times across the story, and whenever it does, the readership feels uncomfortable at being reminded that this ten-year-old girl apparently had it so rough she’s considering killing herself just to escape. This is nothing new; Chloe being suicidal was a real thing ever since the original trilogy with "Blossoming Trail", but back then, both the darkness and overly dramatic nature of the story was still seen as fresh and a decent change of pace, and people found the trait an interesting idea, and the fact it was only brought up once in a while meant that the readers could take it seriously. Crocus was posted long after the verse’s signature darkness and dramatic storytelling had reached a terminal point where the readership just couldn’t enjoy it anymore. Therefore, having Chloe be suicidal, and for it to come up several times through the story in the same dramatic way, comes across as a melodramatic way to try and establish how bad Chloe’s situation was back home, when the story has done a fairly decent job showing it enough that it doesn’t need to tell us how Chloe wants to escape from it all permanently.
Goh-specific problems
- Something that has gotten on the nerves of the readership is the narrative’s blatant mistreatment of Goh, with every sort of misfortune happening around him and the other characters paying more attention to Chloe’s grievances despite her being relatively fine on the Infinity Train. Blossoming Trail had the exact same problem with mistreating Goh, but the difference is pretty clear; the abuse Goh got in the original trilogy eventually cooled down and tried to be more forgiving towards him, with a few misgivings alone the way. Crocus, meanwhile, has it that every time Goh seems to catch a break, something else pops up that hurts either him or the people around him, ensuring that he both never feels safe regarding his current situation, nor give the audience any reason to believe things are going to get better for him anytime soon.
- The return of the "Goh should go to school more" plotline, already tired in the original continuity where the idea was seen as hackney because it was never for Goh’s benefit, only how it would benefit Chloe’s, returns in Crocus with further problems. While already ignoring the fact that, like Ash, Goh has a job outside of school without ever properly explaining why Goh has to worry about school but not Ash and the other trainers (beyond how it ties into Chloe), the fact that Crocus doesn’t even given even half the effort Trail went into suggesting Goh was having grade problems and brings the idea back in later just has the already disliked plot element make even less sense and just seem to be used a way to limit what Goh can do in the future entirely because it ties back into and benefits Chloe.
- Goh’s lackluster social skills is a consistent plot point in the story, with most characters calling him out over how this is one of the main reasons why his and Chloe’s friendship is so strained, which has annoyed the readership for a while. The same point was made in the original trilogy, but back then, Goh’s social skill problems were actually canonical, rather than being something possible from interpretation or made from wholecloth, and the callouts were mostly tame, so it didn’t come across as too harsh. Crocus not only tries to make the same points without updating it to accomodate the information that Journeys provided now that it’s over, but by the end of Act 1, everyone who’s had some sort of connection to the whole friendship problem have shown social skills just as bad, if not even worse than Goh, but they’ve been either shown sympathy for their mistakes (Professor Cerise, Ash), or support and even outright praise for it, while also enabling their problems without actually changing themselves (Gloria), making Goh’s consistent callouts and lack of support harsh at best, and hypocritical at worst.
- Goh’s Innocently Insensitive nature and the narrative’s focus of it as a large source of his problems has been seen by some readers as yet another jab at the poor guy, despite the fact that most of what he did are fabricated for the story or otherwise is only told or shown in flashbacks. The thing is that this was true in the original trilogy, but back then, Goh’s insensitive nature actually was notable compared to the characters, who seemed misguided at best, while Goh seemed outright disconnected from the main plot and even went ahead and did some truly reprehensible things as a result of not seeing anything wrong with his actions. Crocus changes some or even removes some of these moments, and even gives him a slight support system he didn’t have in the original trilogy, but the narrative still sees fit to point fingers at Goh for being insensitive when not only is he actually taking a step to become better unlike the original trilogy, but everybody else has either taken a level in meanness or foolishness that causes them to be just as bad, if not even worse than Goh at times, making an ambiguously biased narrative seem literally biased against the character in particular.
Other Character Problems
- A complaint that appeared around the second half of Act 1 and start of Act 2 was the perceived wasting of Ash; generally writing him out of the story and not giving him much to do when he actually is brought back. The original trilogy had this exact same problem; where Ash stayed put and let himself get verbally abused by everybody around him until he developed a guilt complex (which, to Crocus’ credit, he gets spared from here), until he made a turnaround and worked on improving himself until he regained his canonical attitude. Crocus doesn’t give Ash the same courtesy; it spares him from his guilt complex, yes, but he also sits out the majority of Act 1, with his return for the climax not providing many moments for him to shine. In fact, one of the biggest moments for him in the original story, using all of his Pokemon to fight against the Unown, is taken from him and given to Parker and UnChloe instead.
- A complaint regarding the Act 1 climax was that Sara was a pretty weak villain to wield the Unown instead of Parker, being turned into an utter Hate Sink with hardly the depth that he originally had. Sara wasn’t much different in the original trilogy, but in there, she was a fairly minor character whose only real role was showing how badly the bullying was to Chloe and giving Parker a victim to not feel sorry for, before writing her out of the story with only minor appearances afterwards. Crocus makes Sara the main antagonist of Act 1 instead, meaning not only is it harder to ignore how flat a character she is, but much harder to forgive, especially considering she’s replacing Parker who, while a very polarizing character on his own, had actual depths to his personality.
- Kurune and Ikuo’s characterization in Act 2 has drawn heavy ire from the readership, who believe they’ve been demonized in order to make Chloe and Goh more sympathetic, turning them into alcoholic workaholics who willingly separated them both. This characterization was already used in Marianne Dyktailis just one saga earlier, but people didn’t mind back then because she was an original character and the mother of the main antagonist at the time, Sara, who was a Hate Sink who nobody was meant to like. Kurune and Ikuo are not only canonical characters, meaning they have some semblance of a personality to go off, but they’re the parents of one of the most important characters in the story, Goh, and any mention of them beforehand made no implication they had anything to do with his and Chloe’s strained friendship. So having them appear in the story only to reveal such a big development comes across as a hasty direction in order to try absolve both Goh and Chloe from responsibility over their failed friendship.
- This trope is a major reason why Victor and Gloria, the latter especially, are such base breaking characters in the story. They fulfill the same role as Trip in the original trilogy, being a character who exhibits Brutal Honesty in response to the current situation, only to deconstruct it rather heavily afterwards. Thing is, in the original trilogy, Trip was eventually called out over his harsh treatment and he was forced to reconsider his "honesty is the best policy" attitude once he learned more about the situation. Crocus not only has Gloria and Victor not learn this lesson (Gloria’s realization is rendered hollow by her reverting back to brutally tearing people apart during the meltdown in chapter 20), but the story makes the mistake of having Trip himself appear and be called out over this attitude...only to write him out moments later to be taken over by Victor and Gloria, who fulfill the exact same role he did, almost as if he never left in the first place.
- Elipzo has been called out as a weak villain team to serve as the main antagonists of the story compared to the previous verse’s Cage of Flauros and Unsub Crew. However, neither of those teams were very complex either, and it took them a while to show more depth. But in their defense, they at least had a closer connection to their respective stories and clear goals; the Cage of Flauros were under the impression that a prophecy would help them destroy the Apex, which required Chloe, and the Unsub Crew wanted to kill Goh in order to force Chloe to come back so they could use her to bring "paradise" onto the train. Elipzo, by contrast, is featured so sparingly that it’s easy to forget they’re there, and their goals are a complete enigma, with the closest hint being the figure wanting something to do with Sycamore. Further hurting them is the fact that their membership is seen as less interesting (being a collection of original characters and assorted canon characters compared to the small ritual pieces and the collection of clear antagonists in the Unsub crew), and they don’t even have a connection to an important player: their main goal seemingly requires Sycamore, who sits out the main plot after the Cyan Desert Car saga to give the reins to Chloe, who’s neither aware of Elipzo’s existence nor a person of interest to them.
- In particular, The Figure/Austen Plane has become something of a scrappy to most people, who believe that he has very little depth beyond being a meta commentary on the readership’s opinion of the original story, which was seen as in bad taste. Previous big bads like Henry, Walter, and Ogami weren’t that much more complex than The Figure, but they at least had either a fanbase brought by their franchise (Henry and Walter) or an interesting and complex motivation (Ogami). Not only does The Figure have neither to his name, being mostly a background character who gets easily swept up in the waves of plot around him, but the one sidestory that focuses on him, Fury of Thistle, not only doesn’t expand his character at all, but was the target of a massive controversy regarding its brutal assassination of Goh and Ash’s characters among other things, meaning that The Figure was forever tainted by his association with that story.
- A plot point later down the story involves Grace doubling down on her flaws as a result of the sheer trauma and pain she’s forced to go through, while Simon gets a chance to re-evaluate himself and actually decide to work on himself, which has been seen as a questionable idea by some people. However, this isn’t the first time that the verse has toyed with the idea: one of the main points about the original trilogy’s Fog Car saga involved Simon turning into Destruction, a dragon-sized monster, in order to destroy everyone present in the car while Grace, witnessing this, gets an epiphany and decides to help the heroes, and nobody batted an eye there. However, in that scenario, it made sense: not only was Simon the kind of person to double down that hard in order to fulfill his delusions of grandeur, but it helped further Grace’s story arc by having her realize what she had created and decide to end it. Crocus tries to do something new by flipping the roles around, but it only ends up coming across as problematic: Simon is given a second chance despite all the horrors he has done because he gets to talk with his family back home (which were not mentioned beforehand), in order to realize what happened, while every time Grace tries the same, she gets lambasted, insulted, disowned by her own parents, and just generally made to suffer for the horrible crime of shagging one rabbit denizen eons ago, despite the train housing passengers who have done things that make her crimes look tame by comparison. That’s without mentioning how it can be easily read as a white person being given a second chance despite doing horrible things for years willingly, while a black person, whose crimes came as a result of ignorance and not knowing any better, gets mentally and psychologically destroyed until the white person is given the task to ensure they don’t go off the deep end, and that there’s no saving them.
General Story Problems
- A complaint that’s been thrown is the apparent length and pace of the story, with the first act alone taking over 30+ chapters and almost 500,000 words, which some claim to be due to excessive padding. However, the Blossomverse was always a collection of slow-burn stories that had a problem with things taking a while to happen, with some moments that could be considered padding as well. A big reason might be the fact that, from the original trilogy, the longest story is the original story, Blossoming Trail, at over 500,000 words, but that story still managed to execute its story in a neat three act structure and the first Act was done by the 10s chapters. Crocus, meanwhile, is nearly as long as said story in its first act alone, which can be easily misconstrued as increased padding or filler.
- The Palimpsest Car featured a scene near the end of the arc where a bunch of street cleaners beat up Chloe over the events of the arc, which were brought by Sycamore, which is a scene that hasn’t been particularly well received. The original trilogy has a similarly brutal, controversial scene in the nightmare therapy that Goh went through, but the difference lies in execution and purpose; the nightmare therapy was the last straw in a long line of abuse and humiliation that Goh had suffered, and not only made the characters realize that their brand of "justice" had gone too far, but it marked the point where the story finally decided to cut back on the sadistic punishments given to characters and try to treat them a bit more neutrally. In other words, the nightmare therapy was a necessary evil in order to further the story. The street cleaner scene, meanwhile, has so many contrivances placed in to allow it to take place that it breaks the willing suspension of disbelief a little. And unlike the nightmare therapy, it doesn’t provide much to the story; besides making it clear to Chloe that she’s not invincible, which the rest of the car had already shown to her, the scene could’ve been removed and nothing would’ve changed.
- The tackling of Double Standards has seen its share of criticism, with most readers feeling frustrated whenever they pop up. Tackling such issues has been a thing since the original work, and is in fact part of the reason it became so popular, but back then the writing of Journeys was done in such a way that the standards were there depending on point of viewnote . Crocus not only tries the same after the sources of these standards have either been disproven or turned into non-issues, but it only results in new double standards being made up as a result, most often from situations that aren’t even considered problematic in the first place.
- The story tackling multiple plotlines has seen some criticism, with many readers feeling the story’s too unfocused for its own good. The original trilogy also tackled multiple plotlines, but not only did it focus only on its own prequel, Knight of the Orange Lily, but outside of one chapter in Voyage of Wisteria that’s dedicated to said prequel, the story could be read without prior knowledge without issue. Seeker of Crocus not only has multiple side stories that all contribute to the plot in some way, making them necessary reading, but it also intertwines it with the original trilogy, also making it a necessary reading, before bringing all these side stories and their concepts into the main story itself, meaning if one doesn’t take the time to read all these stories, it’ll be next to impossible to tell what’s going on, driving potential readers away as a result.
- The school setting in general doesn’t appear often in the story itself, but whenever it does, it grinds the readership’s gears and feels like these sections are purely filler in a story that’s already seen as bloated. The school setting wasn’t used that much either in the original trilogy, but at least back then, it was clearly established as part of Chloe’s backstory and nothing else, with little focus being done afterwards. Crocus tries to put more emphasis into it with the additions to Chloe’s backstory and further expansion for Goh plotlines, but these additions end up feeling redundant since the basic thing-Chloe being bullied-is exactly the same, with every revelation regarding the school (that Goh’s classmates hated him, how people outside of Chloe’s own classmates thought her fighting Ash was cool) coming across as either something important that should’ve been revealed way earlier, or a superfluous twist that tries to make the setting more important than it actually is.
- The horror elements of the story, while initially seen without issue, became more and more controversial as the darker aspects of the story came to light, eventually reaching a point where the readership became wary and tired of the horror elements. These elements were always present in the original trilogy, with Blossoming Trail having the final fight be against a cult from a famously dark horror series. But back then, the elements were seen as a breath of fresh air, and could at least be justified due to the Pokémon anime having similar dark moments in a downplayed manner. Crocus, meanwhile, not only uses horror elements more often, but with themes and ideas that are way darker than anything the Pokémon anime ever did, in particular the infamous "Chloe is suicidal" idea, which, coupled with the brutal darkness that afflicts the story near the end of Act 1, eventually reaching a point where the readership isn’t even scared anymore, just frustrated and tired of it.
- More than a few readers have called out the revelation of Kurune and Ikuo's hatred of Chloe and their involvement in keeping her and Goh separate, claiming that the story is really pushing it to try and absolve Chloe of any guilt and use another set of characters as scapegoats instead. The thing is, though, Kurune and Ikuo also grew to hate Chloe in the original trilogy, more specifically in Voyage of Wisteria, and nobody made a comment there. However, in Voyage of Wisteria, Kurune and Ikuo grew to hate Chloe after she had returned from the Infinity Train, meaning Goh had already suffered his breakdown and gotten snatched by the Train as a result, giving the parents ample reason to dislike her, but the narrative didn't point fingers at them; if anything, they were shown to be somewhat in the right considering how much pain and suffering Goh went through indirectly thanks to Chloe. Crocus gives the couple a different but equally valid reason for hating her, that being that Goh nearly drowned when they were younger and Chloe didn't show that much concern for his wellbeing, but rather than being shown as in the right or neutral, the narrative constantly points fingers at them claiming that they're the source of Goh and Chloe's friendship growing strained, making it come across as the story trying to backpedal on its previous that Goh and Chloe both were responsible for it, all to try and justify portraying Chloe as someone who did nothing wrong and that someone else is at fault, something that the readership has grown sick of at that point.
