YMMV / Latias' Journey

• Condemned by History: The story was originally considered to be one of the best written Pokémon fanfictions back in the early 2000s to early 2010s. But as time passed, its fans turned against the story citing its Too Bleak, Stopped Caring nature; copious amounts of padding; abuse of Genre Roulette leading to a confusing and disjointed narrative; needlessly graphic descriptions of rape, torture and murder; and a retcon chapter posted years after the story was completed that completely negated the entire story. Nowadays, the story is almost forgotten with the influx of equally long, and more importantly, better written Pokémon fanfiction that started in the mid 2010s.
• Fan Nickname: a few notable ones, though they're all spoilers:
  • Seraphim Forme Latias (Seraphim Latias) - Latias resurrected after she is killed by the psychotic Red Ranger.
  • Taloscario (Colossuscario) - Rukario (name used in the story) with his 11th-Hour Superpower. His entire body becomes metal
  • Misty The Seadragon (Waterbender Misty) - Misty with her 11th-Hour Superpower, hydro-kinesis.
  • Reverse Pokémon Battle - The modified rules of the Battle Palace's that require the trainers to fight each other with their Pokémon giving commands to them.
  • Archangel Charizard (Mithos Charizard) - Ash's Charizard resurrected after a crazed Blaziken kills him in an extremely brutal fashion. His wings made of light
  • Rocktimus Prime - The giant mech used by the Pokerockers.
  • Guardian Forme Groudon - Groudon's 11th-Hour Superpower, a suit of custom made metal armor.
  • Guardian Forme Kyogre - Kyogre's 11th-Hour Superpower, a suit of custom made bone armor.
  • Pants Forme Groudon - What? Groudon really likes his new pants.
  • Sandstorm May - May with her 11th-Hour Superpower, (control over sand)
  • Electro-Ash - Ash after he becomes Crimson Lightning Ranger
• Funny Moments: The cast is invited to a ball before the final round of the Pokemon Tournament. Some of them go for more...involved celebrations than others. After drinking copious amounts of punch, Phanpy goes into the bathroom, only to walk in on Uncle Brother Pikachu going at it with Sadic. Traumatized, he runs to Aunt Corsola for help, and walks in on her right in the middle of Crawdaunt's massive orgy. You can probably imagine what happens next.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The fanfic has the Cyberpunk region of Silica. Now look at Black City in Pokemon Black...
  • There's also a ghost dragon trapped in a depressing nebulous realm, and an embodiment of evil that lives in a bizarre Hell-world. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl would later give us Giratina and the Distortion World, which more or less fits both of those.
  • There's also a God of the Pokemon universe. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl would gives us Arceus, who shows up in the second-to-last chapter and was implemented in this fic's sequel.
  • During the final chapters, a lot of the Chosen would gain super forms. Pokémon X and Y would much later give us Mega Forms
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Deoxys crosses this when he destroys an entire city, then personally tortures and kills the Pichu Brothers for funsies.
  • Ford has his partner Blaziken brutally torture and mutilate Charizard, and then forcefully turns Ash into the Alpha Ranger.
  • Mariah tries to destroy May's will during their battle by curb-stomping and nearly killing her Pokemon, and insulting her every time. After May has been sufficiently traumatized, she tries to steal her soul.
  • Dark Latios torments his sister, kills their father Ho-oh, immortalizes Lady Ho-oh so he can torture her repeatedly before eating her, force-feeds Latias her father's genitals(!), and then repeatedly rapes her both physically and mentally until she becomes an emotionless killing machine.
• Narm: The concept of a monster made out of knives is way too ridiculous to find scary.
• One True Threesome:
  • A particularly weird Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action example: Wobbuffet, Milotic, and Cacturne. You may now scrub your brain with peroxide.
  • If one recalls properly, it becomes fairly obvious that Groudon/Kyogre is really a case of Groudon/Kyogre/Groudon's awesome pants.
• Squick:
  • The descriptions of the undead and mutilated Legendary Beasts, followed by a graphic demonstration of how they got to be that way. Ugh.
  • It gets to the point during the final arc where one of the ghastly settings is actually disregarded as "kind of so-so as far as generic hellscapes go".
  • The final arc involves Eldritch Abominations trying to destroy the world by causing a demon Zombie Apocalypse, so it has no short supply of this.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • In general, most of the pairings in this fic, especially the ones involving the supporting characters, pop right out of nowhere and contribute little, if anything, to the story. For example, Psyduck and Skitty fall in Love at First Sight, and Lombre and Midkip just up and announce to Brock that they're seeing each other out of the blue.
  • The relationship between Latias and the Ghost King, and by extension, Rayquaza is the most disliked aspect of the story. From the very beginning, Latias has been dreaming about marrying the Ghost King, even though she didn't even know what he looked like. Later on, she forgives the him for razing her hometown and murdering everyone in it in a childish fit of rage, all because because a hologram of Latios said they should get together. She obeys it without question, the reason given that she "just knew" the hologram was the real Latios. At the same time, the Ghost King shows no real remorse over destroying Alto Mare nor killing everyone in it; the only reason he regrets doing it is because it upset Latias. To add insult to injury, their love for one another is mostly told and not shown and Latias even considers marrying the damn guy end of the story! Many readers were not at all satisfied with the story's explanation and especially not the tacked-on revelation that Kyogre secretly made the Ghost King do it at the very end, and consider it little more than glorified Stockholm Syndrome.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Ghost King/Rayquaza was much better off as a villain. The fact that he's a mysterious unknown entity that holds power over all wild Ghost-type Pokemon and makes them destroy entire cities is sinister to begin with. Then he gets worse when we learn about his revolting entitlement complex toward Latias, and that he's been spying on her since she was born. He is also incredibily flippant about his massacre of Alto Mare. He apologizes to Latias about it, but the second she's not around, he dismisses it in the most offhanded manner possible. As Project A.F.T.E.R's defunct forums pointed out, he largely treats it as an obstacle for Latias to get over. He later confesses to Dark Latios that destroying the city was for Latias' own good because Misery Builds Character. Finally, his obsession with keeping his promise to kill Ash despite making the situation worse just shows how unreasonable he is. He actually makes a better Big Bad than Deoxys, who is really nothing more than a cartoonish Generic Doomsday Villain whose only motivation is to destroy everything For the Evulz. Sadly, the fanfic keeps insisting that the Ghost King is a good guy.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Besides the sheer amount of over-the-top violence, graphic torture, and Gratuitous Rape scenes at the hands of Eldritch Abominations whose only redeeming feature is that they're shamelessly honest about liking to do all three of those, all the crap that our heroes get put through makes it difficult to sympathize with them. This wasn't already difficult enough to do so, no thanks to them being Wangsty (Latias, May long before anything terrible happens to her), preachy (Sadic and Mewtwo), pervy (Crawdaunt and Brock), stupid (Jirachi, Max, Phanphy, Misty's Psyduck/Golduck, May's Skitty/Delcatty), or downright villainous (The Ghost King, Molly). Then there is Latias' relationship with the Ghost King, which completely destroys all hope of the main heroine being seen as sympathetic. And there's Ri2's refusal to show and not tell. The ending tried to do away with this, but then there was that Sequel Hook...
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: During the Tryranitron arc, a Murkrow steals Latias' Dragon Flute, forcing her and Togetic to go after him. They only find the flute after the Tyranitron is destroyed.
• The Un-Twist: Deoxys turns out to be the Cataclysm. Even HE knew in in-universe.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: Latias' Journey is Pokémon tripping balls on every hallucinogen known. On meth. And PCP. And Rare Candies. While huffing nitrous oxide. And off its mood stabilizers.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Yes, Latias' Journey is based on the kid-friendly Pokémon anime. But it also contains Nightmare Fuel, intense violence, intense gore, horror, sexual situations, Gratuitous Rape, profanity, and philosophical/religious overtones.
• The Woobie:
  • May. First she gets Overshadowed by Awesome and ditched when Ash has to go solo at the beginning. Her crush on him goes unrequited ^note (we later find her first crush was too — he was actually going out with another guy!) Then she gets curbstomped and insulted by a godmodding Humanoid Abomination. And when the grand finale kicks in, her Munchlax is shot, Drew's head explodes in her face right as she's realizing her feelings for him, and she is led to believe her parents were killed on public TV. Once she gets an 11th-Hour Superpower with the rest of the cast, she's tricked into killing her REAL parents thinking THEY were demonic fakes, and Max disowns her for it. Finally, her and her remaining Pokemon are slaughtered by Dark Latias in quite possibly one of the most brutal fatalities of the book. Holy shit.
  • To a lesser degree, Wobbuffet. He was abused as a child by his grandfather, and abused as an adult by Jessie. Just when he quits Team Rocket and things are starting look up for him, Shalor invades Mirage Island and kills almost everyone, including Milotic. Only he and Cacturne make it out alive.

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