May and Dawn being said to be 2 and 3 years younger than Ash, while Iris, Serena, and the Alola girls are treated at his age makes sense when you look at what point Ash's age is argued at being set at 10 after a few hundred episodes: the BW series first episode, an XY movie interview, and SM side material. Meanwhile Ash was not declared to be 10 during Hoenn or Sinnoh, hence why a age difference is in effect for the two of them.
The Bloodlines shown in fic correlate surprisingly well with the Devil Fruit Types of One Piece fame: Species Bloodlines are Zoans, Type/Hearts are Logia, and Technique are Paramecia. Dominion is a bit trickier, but it has some similarities to a similarly regarded power that is (probably) not related: Conqueror's Haki. Conqueror's Haki only appears in one in a million people, which matches how Dominion class Bloodliners are supposed to be the rarest. While we're at it, Observation Haki and Armament Haki can be compared to Mega Evolution & Z-Moves since while anyone could use them, you generally have to put in some effort to get it working.
A minor one: rather than nicknames, Lt. Surge is fond of giving his Pokemon army ranks based on their power, yet his most powerful Raichu is just Sergeant Major, which would make somebody wonder why didn't he choose cooler ranks like Captain, Commander, Colonel or General. Well, given that Surge is a Lieutenant, it wouldn't make much sense to give his Pokemon, which are technically his subordinates, bigger ranks than his.
Anyone who's been in the US Army will tell you that a Sergeant Major is an extremely experienced and knowledgeable soldier.
While it may seem odd that Whitney has so many Miltank, it is actually a case of Reality Is Unrealistic. U.S Dairy Farms average 135 Cows per farm and she is from farm stock.
Serena's apparent shapeshifting abilities make sense once you remember the Generation VI protagonists were the first customizable ones in the series.
Despite coming from a rural area of Alola and being old, Hapu's grandmother does not have any issues with Hapu's sexuality. This is a bit odd, given that the writer has a slight hint of disdain for the rural Johto and implied it's a bit homophobic, though there might be a case of deliberate values dissonance going on. Alola appears to be it's own country, or at least not part of Unova, and has a really distinct culture. Real life Hawaiian culture was actually fairly open to homosexuality. Rural Alola probably does not have the same biases that rural Johto has.
Belladonna grew up in the Old Cesspit neighborhood of Gringy City back when said city was still heavily polluted. Her mother was a hoarder, and her childhood home was filled with enough trash to attract Grimer. She's a Poison Heart Bloodliner.
Aurora was disowned when her father's heart turned cold after her bloodline started to manifest. Said Bloodline? Ice Beam technique.
Evanna's adopted father was beaten to death by an angry mob. The fact that she's a Power-Up Punch technique Bloodliner means that she could easily do the same to somebody else single-handedly.
While we don't know the specifics of Vedia's past at the moment, she does mention she was all but ignored by her family. With this in mind, her Shadow Sneak bloodline, centered around a move that relies on going undetected, is very appropriate.
Anabel seems to have gotten into the Gringy City power plant pretty easily. When you consider she's a Psychic Bloodliner, and most of the Pokémon occupying it were Poison-types, it makes sense that they didn't present much of a challenge.
Ash specifically doesn't use his Bloodline ability to enhance the power of his Pokemon often and sees it as cheating. This initially was built as a comparison to Red, who has his own abilities and doesn't see it that way (arguing that it's his natural ability and compared not using it to Super-effective moves not being used), but with the Summer Camp Gaiden it opens another reason: He saw what cheating gets you there, and the person who did the cheating was someone Ash really, really did not like. No wonder he doesn't want to be associated with the behavior at all.
There's also another possible reason: Ash has memories of a timeline in which he didn't have any powers, yet he managed to score plenty of victories, while Red doesn't have such memories. And thus, Red is merely using something he always had, yet Ash sees it as switching to "easy mode".
At first, it might seem like the Cipher Peons were grabbing the Idiot Ball in assuming that Guzma is a Kahuna, given that he hardly looks the part. However the actual Kahuna of Ula' Ula Island is Nanu. Both look rather unprofessional, have white hair, wide eyes, are paler than other Alolans, are emotionally odd compared to regular people, can perform Z-Moves, are slobs, and wear dark clothes with arm accessories. Add in that Nanu uses Dark Types, which are traditionally used by Evil Team Leaders, and lives near the Team Skull H.Q, and it's not so odd that they could mistake the two for each other.
Kiawe mentions that Velvet is only 'among' the tallest girls at school when she first arrives, even if she does get taller later to take the height throne. That seems like a odd point to make, until you remember who one of his classmates is. Lillie. Given how tall her mother is in game, and that this Lillie is older, and that game Lillie is taller than both the player and her older brother, it's likely that Reset!Lillie was who Kiawe was thinking of.
During Ash's dream sequence in chapter 24, he briefly dreams himself as Clovis la Britanniawith John Archer as Lelouch. This actually has more relevance than first appears: The Britannian royals are half siblings like Ash and his growing possible family are hinted at being, and many, but not all of them share purple eyes just like many of Ash's siblings have red ones. They also tend to be tall (Short Teens, Tall Adults in play aside), with Lelouch at 5 foot 10, Euphie at 5 foot 7, Cornelia around Lelouch's height or nearly 6 feet, Schneizel at 6 foot 7, and all of them shorter than the Emperor), with many of them having abilities that manifest in glowing eyes, which Ash's siblings have shown to have multiple times. One can only hope these similarities don't extend to the part about murder and betrayal.
From the omakes however, Ashton vi Unova probably did experience that, given how he's hinted to be something akin to Lelouch.
It seems like that is exactly what the Bloodliner King wants, according to Sabrina in Ch 26. She mocks his Emissary by pointing out that that's not exactly happening, with "not even one percent" following through on his wishes.
Even if they aren't working with him, there is the unsettling fact that of the siblings who do meet for longer than a battle or a passing by, they tend to meet with negative consequences. With how Zilant and Betty did not get along in their meeting and the falling out between Ash and Red during Chapter 27 it leaves the simple fact that the most positive relationship that formed between them, outside of Red and Yellow, is Ash and Belladonna, mostly because she decided she likes him while he finds her terrifying.
While among the Japanese based regions Johto seems to be the default backwards and problematic one (being mentioned to have issues with LGBT rights and Pokemon rights among others), Ula'ula Island is hinted to be the equivalent in Alola, being the origin point of not only Kamehameha and the overthrow of King Kahele, but also the island of origin for many Team Skull members. This seems a bit odd, though one has to remember that the main city on Ula'ula, Malie City, is heavily based on Johto. Though it does raise the question of if the author sees Johto as the Slytherin of the Pokemon world...
Crossing over into Fridge Horror somewhat, Gyarados are mentioned to have caused the end of entire civilizations. Considering how aggressive Pokémon used to be, it should come as no surprise.
Capriccio shows some extreme moodswings in his first and subtly his second appearance. This might be just odd writing, but we have seen someone else with similar moodswings show up: Belladonna. Perhaps it is a family trait.
It may seem odd that the six-Pokémon limit was adopted so readily after Twenty Gyarados Bill's rampage. Some would say that it was just fear. However, there are other reasons. Consider the time it was enacted. The limit was put into place shortly after the populations of wild Pokémon were pacified. Large teams may have been necessary for people to protect themselves against wild Pokémon, and with their threat greatly diminished, there was less reason to keep big numbers of Pokémon on hand.
Red's lack of issue with Paul's behavior except Pokemon releasing really is summed up by his comment about 'not caring if Paul is a antisocial asshole'. Red is hardly in a position to call someone out for not being social enough after all.
Why is Roggenrola female? Well the most frequent way the author writes Roggenrola's Pokémon Speak is 'Rol', and given the author's fondness for references what would there be to do but to note a famous 'Rol'. Add a l to it and you get Roll, the female counterpart to Megaman, and what is Megaman called in Japan? Rockman.
The fact that the Safari Zone Pokémon can't seem to escape the balls used to capture them might be explained by a lack of environmental pressure. Given they've been sequestered away from trainers for decades, it seems likely that their capacity to resist capture has been diminished.
Ash and Red's argument is an odd version of Izuku and Shouto's fight in the U.A Sports Festival Arc. Like Izuku, Red's issue with Ash was him, in his eyes, not giving it his all over a silly bit of pride. Given that Izuku and Shouto's personalities are the reverse of their counterparts in play in the argument (Ash and Izuku being the protagonists and Red and Shouto being darker heroes than said protagonist), it is a subtle touch of Both Sides Have a Point, with Red managing to give Ash a argument from the perspective of someone a lot more Ash-like than Paul, Izuku/Deku.
Given the Holiday Special 2017, we now know Ash and Red are basically the result of an equivalent of a Quirk Marriage, see Fridge Horror for a Pokemon equivalent.
Cross mentioned on spacebattles he wrote Sapphire into the holiday special 2017 in part to set up for May bit he had been meaning to beforehand. What they is exactly isn't sure yet, but one possible explanation is what May's Bloodline is. Sapphire, who in story is May's cousin, showed having similar abilities to Ash and his sibling's Dominion eyes. However, not only were hers a different color than Ash's family, it was shown to work with chance. Thing is, May of all the companions used luck more than anyone else (given Skitty's use of Assist, which randomly takes a move from her team's movepool, and Munchlax's Metronome which did a random move in general), likely meaning to set up for her eventual power, and given Sapphire's focusing on her assistant side of her characterization, a contrast between the gambles of May and the calculations of Sapphire.
Chapter 20 mentions that Charles Goodshow was given a gym leader swimsuit calendar as a 'get better' present. Seems a tad originless, but in DP 185/ Working on a Right Move/ the episode Noctowl had a good showing he was shown paying more attention toCynthia licking ice cream than the upcoming match between Ash and Conway. Clearly the Author expanded on the little gag a bit.
Both Ash's Z-Ring, and the bracelet modified to hold his Keystone, are white. This seems like a minor detail, until one recalls that Ash was hinted as the chosen hero of Zekrom in the anime at a few points, even if never came to. What game is Zekrom yours to catch and use against N? Pokemon White.
Bonus points for the fact it's implied The Bloodline Prince is none other than N himself.
Despite being his starter, Joshua was not shown using a Spearow (or Fearow) against Ash in their fight in Chapter 31. Given he had previously battled Samurai, and dropped two locked Pokeballs before the battle started, said Pokemon was likely there.
It may feel a tad random for Ash to have gained Melvin's Exeggutor, but if one recalls March of the Exeggutor Squad Ash did in fact battle all of the Exeggutor Melvin captured in that episode. The only part of the process he did not do was throwing the Pokeballs. Reset simply rewards him for his part in it all.
In this same line, him gaining official ownership of Togepi makes sense if you recall that he was the one who found the egg originally, but Brock and Misty snatched it from him, no questions asked.
Misty going from a younger default appearance to an older one isn't unprecedented. The Misty depicted in RBY and GSC appeared to be about the age of Red at the time (10-11ish), while the remakes age her up into a teenager bordering on young adult. After all, what is a rebooted timeline but a remake, and Reset the remake to the original anime timeline?
During the battle between Ash's Pidgeot and Bruno's Machamp, Machamp doesn't move from where he's standing, nor does he make any attempt to dodge Pidgeot's attacks, instead using his own attacks to block them. Likewise, Lucario notes that Machamp's Focus Blasts end up homing onto Pidgeot directly, forcing her to cancel them with Air Slashes. This is because Machamp has the ability No Guard, which ensures that all attacks used by or against Machamp won't miss, and clearly Bruno trained Machamp to use his own attacks to defend in order to offset this handicap.
MissingNo being an embodiment of evil isn't his fault, but Crossoverpairinglover's, for three reasons. 1) MissingNo already was a Memetic Psychopath. 2) He's not the only benign character that was turned evil; Misty's sisters got a similar treatment. And 3) MissingNo is a Glitch Entity, and glitches are often viewed in a bad light. (Okay, reason #3 also explains reason #1.)
MissingNo saving the world from ZZAZZ. While both of them break the game, all harm MissingNo does is to the Hall of Fame data, and mostly breaks the game in a good way, while ZZAZZ breaks it in a bad way.
MissingNo at one point mass clones the Dude's Pokeballs. One would question why doesn't he mass clone Ash's items whenever the two meet, since in the games he's mainly infamous for the Item Duplication Glitch, which players often exploit in order to get multiple rare items, like Master Balls. It may be a case of Forgot Flanders Could Do That.
Misty is constantly surprised at Ash doing nice things for other people and not expecting anything in return, at one point even suspecting that this might stem from suffering a head injury. Just what the hell was her past like that such altruism is completely foreign to her?
Being the victim of child neglect to the point that people wouldn't have been surprised if her parents had outright abandoned her. Said abandonment only being prevented because of the bad publicity it would have generated.
Even so, it's pretty disquieting that she's so confused by human kindness. What kind of people did she know growing up?
Just how Pokemonish are Bloodliners? Could a Bloodliner be affected by Attract or the Shuckle Juice or the Crystal Bells being damaged? Hell, could a Bloodliner with Attract affect humans with it?!
Hinted at when Misty runs into one of Ash's siblings; his exact ability is unspecified, but he was definitely about to do something to her before Psyduck interrupted...
Dexter says that Vileplume releasing toxic pollen is a reflexive defense mechanism, not a deliberate action. This raises some disturbing questions. What if a wild Vileplume accidentally poisons one of its friends or relatives? What if a trained Vileplume accidentally poisons its trainer or one of its teammates?
Cynthia comments that she dropped a cool crown she found. Given that this was in the Tomb of the Ice King, it was probably a good thing she did not keep the thing.
After finding out Ash knows the pain she's experienced, Belladonna resolves to hunt down the one responsible and make them suffer. But since she has no idea what happened, she could very easily draw the wrong conclusion, and thus go after somebody completely innocent.
And even if she does get the right person, she might not even stop to know the full story. Paul might be a Jerkass, but even he doesn't deserve to be horribly murdered (not to mention that he had no way to know that Ash would be affected by what he did with Primeape).
The Bloodliner War seen in Chapter 26's possible future is filled with this, notably the fact that on the Bloodliner King's side appeared to be many possible Ash siblings. This has two possible, unpleasant possibilities: first is that the Bloodliner King and allies are making them fight on their side with hostages and the like. The second is that Ash has enough legitimately evil siblings to fill an entire army. Neither's a pleasant thought.
Earlier in the chapter, Sabrina gives a clue as to how many potential siblings there are in the universe. Considering "4, 5, maybe 6" wasn't "even one percent," Ash's probable father really got around. So the numbers are clearly there.
A fun fact, now that Holiday Special 2017 showed up their father, he is clearly a sociopath. Fun fact about sociopaths...the traits for it can be inherited. And thanks to Belladonna and Capriccio, we already have evidence that mental problems are inheritable in the family. How long until we see someone who inherits sociopathy?
Chapter 33 finally shows us one. It's a short scene, but quite unsettling.
The vision seen by William Stronger at the start of his interlude heavily implies that, indeed, the Bloodline King has both evil siblings on his side, and others forced into it because their loved ones were taken hostage.
Has Iris killed before? She didn't seem to have much problem with the thought of killing Misty. While that might have been just her being overwhelmed by her emotions at the time, she grew up in the wilderness, and since Nature Is Not Nice in this timeline...
Moreover, if she did kill, how old was she at the time it happened?
Chapter 33 hints that Iris is capable of killing, with Anabel being quite concerned she might kill the Team Rocket Trio when Ash goes missing and there is no other possible culprit visible.
At the beginning, Arceus reveals to Ash that Cyrus used him to test his reality manipulation abilities by screwing with his intelligence and skill levels. But what if the reason Arceus was able to save Ash was only because Cyrus deliberately left him for last before destroying the entire reality, as one final "Screw you", so to speak? Just goes to show what kind of man he was, devoid of any shred of humanity or empathy whatsoever.
What if everything bad that happened to the heroes isn' t Equivalent Exchange, as MissingNo claims, but Cyrus's doing? Ash being the son of a sociopath (implied to be Ghetsis, no less), Misty's sisters being outright evil, Iris being Raised By Dragons, Cilan's brothers being implied to hate him... All of this is so over the top that it can't be just the timeline resetting, especially since plenty of Pokemon Peggy Sue fics, including Ashes of the Past, don't do this. The only logical conclusion is that someone has been causing them, and that someone is obviously Cyrus. Cyrus's sociopathy and hatred towards Ash really knows no ends. And MissingNo, despite his claims he's an unrepentant villain, is capable of being good and enjoying it, so with him being the remnants of the old Timeline, what if he's an Unwitting Pawn to Cyrus?
If everything bad in Reset was indeed a massive "Fuck you" Cyrus is giving Ash, then Norman must know something. After all, if he didn't, he couldn't have stopped Cyrus from doing something bad to May...
If Cyrus really is like that, then how bad is Ghetsis?! I mean, Ghetsis is canonically worse than Cyrus. And that's not to bring in Heratia, since she's worse than Ghetsis and at-her-worst Lusamine combined!
Read the Fridge Horror involving the Bloodliner King and apply it to Ghetsis. After all, it's heavily implied they're the same person...
Sabrina knows everything Ash did before he went back in time, and she intends to use it. How many Characters of the Day are at risk from her?!
Pretty much all of them. Melvin and Seymour are now added to her list of victims. The only silver lining is that at least Ritchie found a few and helped them get spared by inducing character development the same way Ash did canonically.
Ash's Squirtle seems to be the only remaining member of the Squirtle Squad. Considering what happened to Brock's parents and Iris's adoptive family, there are disturbing questions as to why that is...
This is eventually answered in one of the spin-off stories; the Squad were caught in a trap that saw a building collapse on them after they got Ash's Squirtle (known among the squad as 'Boss') to safety, although at least one other member of the group survived and is now being raised by the local Officer Jenny, and another is in the hands of Kaia, Charmander's original trainer.
Betty mentions she has seen the actions of the Unovan Ghost types first hand. Given that, who did she see get dragged into the depths by Frillish/Jellicent, lost their soul to Litwick/Lampent/Chandeldure, or trapped inside them forever by a Cofagrigus?
Think about it: she's from Unova, what if one of the Reaper's victims was someone close to her, perhaps a friend or relative? We know for sure the latter is what happened with Georgia...
We have no word on her mother....
Scratch the last part, her mother's alive and well. However, her Past Experience Nightmares imply that as a child, a Chandelure almost burned her alive, so it's no surprise that she fears them so much.
The Wicke & Nephew oneshot makes note of Turtonator diseases, specifically explosive ones. Could Kiawe's ever catch it and blow up around himself or his family and friends?
The fact that the Reset Lusamine is of the 'was not sociopathic originally' variety lends itself to a fridge tearjerker: when this Lusamine gets snapped out of it she is going to have a real freakout over what she did while on the stuff. My God, What Have I Done? wouldn't even begin to describe it. Hope she never founds out about the Bad Future then.
We get some insight of her during the second Holiday Special. It's revealed that none of the seven brothers shared the same father. It wouldn't be too surprising if she was a Black Widow...
While we're on the subject of the fathers, were they with her of their own free will, or...
With that in mind, the Drake Interlude mentions one of them, Tarasque. How much of what Tarasque is mentioned to have done was his own will, and how much was he as much a victim as the people Heratia harmed?
Speaking of Ghetsis, Heratia's youngest son, G, is Ash's Archnemesis Dad, The Bloodliner King. A rather popular theory is that G is none other than Ghetsis himself, and that his favorite son, The Bloodliner Prince, is N. Given how Ghetsis is, if G really stands for Ghetsis regarding the seven brothers, then the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree...
Shortly before Hunter J kidnapped Ash, she captured Iris' family. If she hadn't fallen to the ground below, she very likely would've been captured. Given J's apparent prejudice against Bloodliners, it's doubtful it would've ended well for her. Even if J didn't do anything worse than keep her captive, remember: she was on her way to complete an assignment from the Bloodline King. Since it's very possible that Ash might not have been able to free her, she could very well have ended up in his captivity. And considering what we know about the man...
With what we've seen of Ash's father, one can come to a very disturbing observation. Ash was basically bred for egg moves and stats, in the form of his father's bloodline and his mother's dormant one. That is the case with all of his half siblings too.
Based on his own words, Ash's father was probably aware of Delia's birth very quickly, given that he was aware of her father and that he carried the genes of Sir Aaron. That means ever since that point, he was already planning on having a child with her at that time, and given his age is hinted at being something in Lt. Surge's ballpark, i.e 55+ and Delia is 33, you can now imagine him as a 22 year old (at least), seeing an infant Delia and already imagining impregnating her. Enjoy that thought.
She's not the only one this likely applied to. Sit on that for a moment.
More on Ash's father......what are the exact situations of their conceptions, exactly? This fic isn't one to follow Good Girls Avoid Abortion religiously, Wicke herself made note of this when she saw the universe where she had a daughter by the same man as Zilant and Ash. That confused her....which could lead to two possibilities. Either he uses the abilities his mother is mentioned above to get some (probably not all) the women to sleep with him, and/or he used said ability to make the Good Girls Avoid Abortion trope happen. After all, he specifically was mentioned to be smirking at what was important, i.e the woman he was shown sleeping with mid-section, a tad hard to do that if you had to be worried about them taking a pill afterwards.
Chapter 34 confirms that, indeed, that's what he does.
If you combine the two above-mentioned entries regardning Ash's father, (namely that he intended to impregnate women carrying Bloodliner genes when those women were not even a day old and that he was using his Bloodline to force them to have his kids), you'd get to the unsettling conclusion that Ash's father is a rapist. I mean, the signs are there: he's wooing them with honeyed words, then fucks them specifically to impregnate them, and then forces them to have the kids and deny anything wrong. Those who don't want to deny because of Fantastic Racismblame the kid for it. And if you take a certain theory into account, namely that Ash's father is Ghetsis, then it gets worse for both sides of the coin: Ghetsis isn't known to be a rapist in canon, and Ghetsis's disregard of anything but himself shows that Ash's father views any woman he impregnates as nothing but breeding cattle.
Do people die in the shopping madness of Princess Day?!
Is Ash the only person Sabrina brought to her gym with an Abra against his will?
Consider the sheer number of children Ash's father has all over the world. It's very possible that some of them might fall for each other not knowing they're related. In fact, they might unknowingly select for one another due to genetic sexual attraction. Add in the fact that many of them are very attractive, some of them taking full advantage of it, and the fact that bloodliners are uncommon (and frequently discriminated against) and thus tend to gravitate towards each other for friendship and more often than not romance — all this makes the potential for unintended incest disturbingly high.
In the main story, Dawn is set to be one member of Ash's harem. Even if it's not canon, a side story shows that Dawn is one of Ash's half-siblings. Uh...note Even if it's not canon, I still find it unsettling.
Ash and Dawn are not the only ones with the risk of having a Surprise Incest relationship. Red and Yellow are also at risk, since in Pokémon Adventures (Yellow's home continuity), Yellow had a crush on Red (and the presence of the Red String of Fate was implying they were meant to be together), and the only thing that stopped them from having a relationship there was that Red was oblivious. And while Yellow did learn of the possibility she and Red are half-siblings, there's still the genetic sexual attraction thing mentioned above.
Chapter 39 has a moment where Giovanni declares that Red is The Corruptible compared to Ash. It isn't elaborated on, leaving questions as to how, and more unnervingly, what a fallen Red might end up being like.
We get some glimpses of that in the Seven Island Interlude. Apparently, it all began with Red wishing for Mega Stones, and somehow it led to him clashing with Ash in Geosenge Town, with the heavy implication that he's trying to bring someone back from the dead. Which can only mean the Ultimate Weapon. The future apparently changed slightly, but it's still uncertain whether that'll come to pass or not.
The Bloodline King had John Archer murdered because he was infertile, but he didn't do the same to Belladonna despite her being unlikely to have children on two counts (being a lesbian and not having a permanent home). There are a few possible explanations for this (he might have something else in mind for her, her being a skilled fighter and traveling with her lovers might make killing her more difficult, etc.) and one of them is rather disturbing. We know he's willing to have women with the right genetics forcibly impregnated to bring more bloodliners in the world for his own purposes... is he planning on doing that to Belladonna as well? Would he do the same to her girlfriends?
and she is from farm stock.