Angst Aversion: The pain and misery everybody goes through in these kinds of stories, justified or not, can be a little much for most people.
Archive Panic: Just the original trilogy itself forms a sizable length to read. Take into account all the other spinoffs, and you're in for a wild ride.
Chloe Cerise. There is no other character in the verse more controversial than its own protagonist. In the eyes of the readership she, is either "a misunderstood girl who made mistakes but still has a good heart" or "a Jerkass that refused to see the consequences of her actions for being so absorbed in her own hurt".
Lexi is this to a lesser extent. Some see him as a decent companion to Chloe with an interesting backstory, while others see him as a Sycophantic Servant of her who makes things worse because he refuses to see the bad in her.
How much should the various works in the extended 'verse focus on the Pokemon side of the crossover versus the Infinity Train? The correct balance of the crossover, which characters should be focused on more, and how to approach the topic has been a topic of debate among fans and co-writers of the 'verse since the beginning, especially as both sides tend to see the other as contributing to the problems they have with the series overall.
The Pokemon preferring side of the fanbase tends to see the Infinity Train half as completely incomprehensible, partially as a result of the tendency towards using train cars to have psuedo-crossovers with other properties. They also tend to see the Infinity Train half as holding all of the worst of the 'verse's vices, being the center point or cause of most of the blame throwing, character assassination, and angst. The Infinity Train also tending to require Pokemon characters to be out of character, generally in the form of being unusually spiteful, apathetic, or stupid, to become involved does not help matters. This side of the fanbase tends to want or prefer focus on the Pokemon characters exclusively, believing that stories focusing a trainless Chloe, or about everyone else while the train is in the background, are simply better and more entertaining and with less angst and wangst than those that put the Infinity Train part as the more prominent part of the crossover, and tend to see any part of the chapter set in the Infinity Train as a waste of space to skim over. More than a few of these fans, at the peak of the Blossomverse's popularity, had even came to hate the Infinity Train series itself due to association with what they percived to be the verse's greatest handicap and source of problems, to a point that more than a few of them felt some level of bitter catharsis when the series was de-listed from official distributors due to the Infinity Train half of the crossover's perceived overfocus and tendency to herald unwanted and often repeated plot points in the Blossomverse.
Those who prefer the Infinity Train side of the story will frequently bring up how while the Train side has its own share of drama, the Pokemon World is just as bad, if not even worse, given the constant Blame Game, character assassination, angst, and characters acting out of character just to fulfill the plot. The fact that the Pokemon themselves and their respective concepts, like battles, journeys, gyms and so on, are either heavily downplayed or ignored completely in favor of the aforementioned points doesn't help, making the Pokemon World segments both In Name Only and a chore to sit through.
Another topic of the verse that splits the fanbase is the Massive Multiplayer Crossover nature of the Infinity Train side. Is it a good way to spice things up a little, even allowing for comparisons and interactions that wouldn't be possible if it was only Pokemon and Infinity Train? Or does it make the stories needlessly complicated, and reduces the Infinity Train setting to nothing more than a backdrop to allow whatever crossover the authors want to do at the moment?
The stories have a general idea that communication between those inside the Infinity Train and outside is not only possible, but there's an entire network within the Train that allows news to travel across it. Is this a natural evolution of the Train as a result of Amelia's presence, and a natural step in upgrading a generally timeless entity? Or does it trivialize the mysticism of the Train itself, and makes its status as an unknown entity in the multiverse even harder to believe?
Should the stories in these verse beyond the original trilogy ditch focusing on Chloe and instead give the spotlight to other characters? Some people don't mind or care who becomes the main character so long as they can get a decent read out of it, or believe that Chloe has many paths that can be explored beyond what was done in the original trilogy, while others feel like the original trilogy was when Chloe peaked, and focusing on her in other stories just trivializes said trilogy while also denying other characters the chance to develop in order to focus on someone who already has a trilogy focusing on her. They also tend to view other stories that majorly focus on Chloe to be prone repeating the same (mis)steps as the original trilogy did at the start, and would rather, if Chloe is given more focus, see new ideas be explored instead of going over the old ideas again in the same way.
Bizarro Episode: Even by the standards of this verse, the Christmas special is weird: it involves Ash teaming up with Santa Claus himself to deliver presents to most of his friends (except Parker) after the events of the original trilogy. And Santa Claus is some sort of benevolent Humanoid Abomination whose power varies by the seasons.
Canon Defilement: A common complaint about the fanfics from readers and even some of the co-writers with the stories and story segments written primarily by Green Phantom Queen, particularly Blossoming Trail and Seeker of Crocus is that the Pokemon side of the series is frequently mishandled and torn apart as if Green in particular hates it. This includes treating the core concepts of the series, such as adventuring, learning about Pokemon, Pokemon battling, and Pokemon themselves as something negative or less important than anything else, consistent and frequent miswriting, mistreatment, and abuse of the cast members from that side of the franchise (such as Ash, Goh, and Professor Cerise). The sense of mishandling of the other half of the crossover in turn contributes to the above mentioned broken base among fans.
A review left on a Blossomverse spinoff not written by Green Phantom Queen: The concepts for the Blossomverse are always better, and infinitely more enjoyable, when they're not written by someone with a hate boner for everything that makes pokemon what it is.
Designated Monkey: No matter the story, if it is written by Green Phantom Queen, Professor Cerise will always be either humiliated, called out, flanderized to be seen as a bad parent, or worse. Even when the story tries to paint him in a more sympathetic light, that won't stop it from pulling some strings in order to make him seem wrong.
Most stories in this verse will have a sub commentary talking about how Chloe being normal is nothing to be ashamed of, with a Be Yourself Aesop on top of that. The problem comes from the fact that, in most of these stories, the Chloe in question will eventually forgo being a normal girl in order to become "Chloe of the Vermillion", which is almost always as far away from being normal as you can imagine.
Female focus is a common idea in the series, and one that is not unwarranted due to Chloe's lack of major character status, especially when Blossoming Trail was originally written. However, the fact that much of this focus comes at the expense of Goh, who is often written in unflattering ways that are not canonical and to a lesser extent Ash (who only escapes this due to a combination of co-writer intervention and his tendency to not be rendered mentally fragile like Goh) taints the goal with a bad aftertaste. In fact, the majority of male characters in the series are nearly always portrayed as far worse than their canon counterparts for the sake of making Chloe look like the innocent victim when she herself is anything but.
Fanon Discontinuity: Despite what Green said at the time, the true ending for Parker to many fans is Visitors of Achilles, not Fury of Thistle, a opinion supported by the other co-writers. Eventually Thistle was deleted and Green agreed to have ''Achilles' be the end of Wisteria's continuity.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Typical Blossomverse fare paints Chloe as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold hiding beneath a facade of being calm and quiet, who hides a much more sinister side to her, has a heavy dislike of her father for seeing him as overprotective and useless, suffered heavy bullying that caused her to withdraw herself from asking other people for help, eventually became as bad as the bullies who tormented her by going out of her way to also bully people by lashing out at them for their perceived mistakes against her, and in the original story dyed her hair blue. Make her the leader of a group of delinquents, leave some of her hair red when the rest is died blue, and give her some hacking skills, and you practically get Penny.
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: It depends from story to story, of course, but in general, many of the characters in this verse who have the most negative reactions are those who the narrative either paints as complete jerks or accidentally writes as jerks when they were meant to be characters the reader was supposed to like, while the actual villains of the story will be seen as terrible people, but don't get as much hate. This is most prominent with Parker, whose treatment of the Vermillion cast, tendency towards unrepentance, and general attitude towards anyone who isn't Chloe makes him more hated among the fanbase than characters who commit murder, kidnapping, and child abuse onscreen.
Jerkass Dissonance: A few characters who were written to be jerks end up being a bit more sympathetic than intended.
Goh is the biggest example of them all. The narrative rarely goes a significant amount of time without blaming him for his failure to be a better friend to Chloe, his inability to keep a promise or being unable to go to school properly. Most people, however, only see a slightly weird kid who's being sent down a rabbit hole of hurt and misery, with next to no support from anybody around him, all because of things that were either beyond his control (Chloe being taken by the Infinity Train) or depended more on the other side of the issue (Chloe not opening up and telling him about any of her problems, and just expecting him to figure it out himself).
There's also The Apex. The narrative likes to paint them as either irredeemable monsters who terrorize the Infinity Train for giggles, or at the very least a group of bad people that need to be taken out if peace is to return to the Train. However, even if the Train didn't have passengers who have done much worse things than the Apex and yet are being given a chance to better themselves, The Apex are usually depicted as, at best, a group of passengers who do what they do because they don't know any better, and at worst, a group of people forced to continue acting the way they are because their leader never got any guidance on how the Train worked, and is unlikely to get it anytime soon.
A frequent trend in the various stories of the verse is how there are fans who only read the series for one half of the crossover (usually Pokemon) and not the other. This, alongside the Broken Base above on which side should get more or less focus, creates a fanbase that is tricky to navigate by the various writers.
To elaborate, it has been noted by the original author and some readers that the intent of the series is to be about those on the Infinity Train with what is happening back in their home universe a secondary feature. However for a variety of reasons, including Pokemon's larger fandom and the tendency for the focused on protagonist (typically but not always Chloe) to be far less likeable and sympathetic than the cast back home who became more sympathetic than initially intended, the intended secondary feature (the ramifications in the home universe) has often found itself the more popular segment of the stories, to a point that there exist several stories in the 'verse that are entirely set in the home universe and barely feature the Infinity Train, if at all.
No Yay: Ash/Trip was brought in the first story to spice up the Ash shipping scene with a relatively unknown ship, and has appeared in a few stories since then, but the general reception to it seems to lean towards the negative side. While most of it come from shippers of different ships, the controversial characterizations of both Ash and Trip, as well as the heavily troubling way the ship initially sailednote via Trip guilting Ash about Chloe running away and making him feel worse about himself, drove off a lot of fans and is unlikely to ever recover or be popular as the author intended. It's telling that Trip all but disappears in most other Blossomverse stories after Blossoming Trail and his relationship with Ash hardly ever goes beyond acquaintances or friends in them.
Chloe Cerise. While she was far from being a saint in the original trilogy due to her many, many bad qualities, she was still capable of seeing her flaws and try to better herself, even if she relapses back. Many critics and fans of the non-Infinity Train parts of the 'verse will only see these bad qualities, seeing her as a racist, abusive brat who believes the world should entirely revolve around her, and treats her friend Goh like a piece of property rather than as a person.
Lexi. He was shown to be loyal and even kind when the situation called it but was blunt to other people yet still capable of seeing he can be wrong, but he is occasionally portrayed by fans as an emotionally and verbally abusive Jerkass who refuses to see that Chloe isn't perfect.
Sacred Cow: And one that the fanfics often trip over to their peril. Of all the characters in the series, no character generates as much pushback when negative writing is turned on him than Ash Ketchum. Being seen as the least deserving of the various Revenge Fic and Accusation Fic plotlines, whenever their attention turns on him or the writing paints him as being uncharacteristically antagonistic or apathetic, more than any other character, the reaction from readers and co-writers is particularly venomous. Letting off on this trait was seen as one of the main things that let Blossoming Trail grow past its initial flaws into the better product that it finished and continued on as into Wisteria, while Crocus slipping back into this habit during its take of Cyan Desert and later closely coincides with the fic's readership collapse.
The Scrappy: Between Blossoming Trail, Wisteria, Branching Paths, and Crocus, no character is hated more by the readers than Parker Cerise. While he started as a fairly typically divisive character who had his defenders and detractors, he truly fell into the pool of the hated during the Cyan Desert Arc and especially afterwards where his act of villainy and especially how he was handled after that left him a character that many saw as lacking remorse, subject to needless soft-handedness and shilling, and otherwise the one villainous character in the story to not get proper punishment for their actions, hated more than any of the intended villains of the original trilogy. Even after he was written out, any mention of Parker draws in anger from the readership who request a desire to see him hurt and his focus chapter in Branching Paths got far fewer responses than Chloe's, Ash's, or Goh's. Attempts to flesh Parker out in Crocus, without addressing these problems, were seen as having contributed to the crash of the response numbers for the Crocus part of the verse. At least a few of the authors agree with this sentiment heartily, though other authors do want to have him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, with results varying from Achilles generally seem as having humanized him, to Crocus, which failed to do so.
Take That, Scrappy!: With Parker being one of the most hated characters in the verse, he gets this a few times:
He is very notably is the only character in the christmas special who Santa doesn't give a present to. Even Sara gets a present and is implied to have always gotten presents, but Parker? Nope.
Cherry Prince and Princess has Ash list Parker, whom it was implied had gotten the power of the Unown in the Ash V reality just as he did in the main story, as one of the most evil people he had ever met alongside the likes of Lysandre, The Iron Masked Maruader, and Ghetsis, a far cry from how much of Blossoming Trail had characters bend over backwards to shill Parker even after he mind raped dozens of people and Pokemon alike.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: "Fury of Thistle" in general, especially for those who are Goh and Ash fans. In this link to Seeker of Crocus, both Ash and Goh get the mother of all Happy Ending Override at the hands of Austen Plane, having their minds irrepearably broken by the mad man himself for the "crime" of trying to call out Parker for how he hurt him, while the boy gets to go home as the now mad duo of trainers take his place in Call House. Even by the standards of this verse, geez. Notably all three major co-writers of the main series at some point expressed a dislike and disappointment at its very existence and the sheer backlash would eventually see it removed.
It would be a struggle to name characters that a) Genuinely like Goh and b) Had never hurt him, especially in early Blossoming Trail. But a lot of readers find him to be one of the most sympathetic characters and truly want him to get a break and a happy ending. Some even go as far as rooting for him and hoping he gets one over Chloe.
To a much lesser example, there's Yeardley. Hardly anybody likes him until the end of BT, and even then the people who do like him can be counted on one hand. However, while he doesn't appear often in the rest of the verse or expanded universe, whenever he does, he's usually given Hidden Depths, if not an outright Adaptational Nice Guy or Adaptational Heroism treatment to try work beyond his bully persona. This is similarly applied to Sara.
Wangst: At least part of the reason why people tend to get an aversion to the verse's angst is because, while a lot of it is justified, it doesn't change the fact people have a tendency to go on giant diatribes over how their lives suck while doing little to change for the better and to boot while being quite nasty people themselves.
