Hello Everyone

It's kinda shocking that my fic has come this far. I'm officially 1/3 of the way through, with 2 of the 6 planned arcs being finished. Progress has been going well on the Hoenn Arc, though it might be a few weeks before it is finished.

Anyhow, I thought I upload a bit of an interlude chapter to divulge some of my own thoughts, as well as answer some questions regarding my fic.

First I would like to explain what's become a source of confusion for the fic, the merging.

I've noticed some people believe that the "merging" of the anime and manga universes created two universes, one where some characters went to one universe and some went to the other. However, I would like to clarify that the idea is that the universes literally "merged". Every character from the manga and anime exist in one universe. Admittedly, there are some assumptions that are made with this premise. Mainly being that every location that exists in one universe also existed in another.

Now of course, the real world implications of this would be catastrophic. Society would likely go into a lengthy period of complete chaos when once considers the entire population of the planet nearly doubling.

However, this fic was made as a crossover with the focus being on the story and characters, so I decided not to bring to much focus to the consequences of the merging, toning it down so that society functions as normal with a few quirks. I guess this would beg the question as to why I came up with this concept in the first place, rather then going with the usual "portal sends a handful of essential characters to the other world" idea that's common in most other fics. To put it simply, I wanted a premise that stood out. Now there issss more to this premise, but that will be revealed later in the story.

Another were people theorizing that Ash wasn't Red counterpart in this series. I'm… not sure where this idea came from. Perhaps it is the obvious character differences between the two, with Ash being less serious and stoic then Red, especially the Red as we saw him in the FR and LG chapters. However, it should be noted that characters who we all know are look-a-likes can have wildly different personalities. May and Sapphire are probably the best example of this.

Now, I have some direct questions to answer.

From MegaSalamance64, one of my most avid commentors so far.

1: As of this Chapter, Where are Serena (Again, I'm sorry to bring her up once more when it's not time for her to appear yet but just bare with me ok?), Greninja, The Team Rocket Trio and the Kalos Dex Holders are located?

I can't answer this one juuuuust yet, as some of these characters will definitely appear in my fic and I would like to keep them a surprise when they do. I will say that one of the characters listed here will be appearing quite soon. Its likely you know who it will be, but still. We can pretend that I'm good with surprises.

2: How much of the World Fusing between the Anime-Verse and Manga-Verse in this Fanfic is considered the Anime-Verse and via-versa with the Manga?

As said, it's a complete merge of the two worlds with the assumption that every physical location that appears in one appears in the other, even if off screen. As noted I have created a bunch of new locations for the fic as well, for the sake of worldbuilding.

Also, in terms of the movies being canon, you can assume they are, though I don't have direct references to them planned as of yet.

3: Would Ash be obtaining Mega Evolution in your Story?

I will say that I don't have plans for this right now. I get that Pokemon battling is a big part of the series overall and a lot of people place importance on how powerful characters can become when compared to others, but I personally place less emphasis on that. My action sequences are relatively short as you might have noticed because of this. Right now, I have a different idea for the rest of Ash's team as well. You'll see…

Now for a question from cricketlaxwolvesbandy

1: Are Ash and Serena getting together?

You'll just have to wait to find out, I suppose.

Not a lot of questions, but still a decent amount to answer. There are some other things that I'd like to air my thoughts about.

As mentioned in the first chapter of this fic, I wanted to make this fic since there, at least to my knowledge, a completed crossover between the anime and manga on both AO3 and . There exists a handful, but non of them were really what I was looking for. Of note are…

Pokespe meets anime

This one is likely the reason I've gotten praise for "respecting the anime" cause this one quite infamously… does not. As admitted by the author, it basically serves as a parody, using most of the anime characters and scenarios as punchlines. As it was written in 2010 the sense of humour is… quite 2010 in nature. Most of the humour boils down to "the animes logic is cartoonish and therefore, bad", and the manga characters exist mostly to boss around the anime characters.

While the fic isn't great, what is amazing is its comment sections. Its basically people either defending the fic and praising it for its mockery of the anime, or chastising it for that same reason. The best part is that both sides are very angry, and very instant that the other side are the actual angry ones and that they aren't themselves.

Gotta love the internet.

When pokeworlds collide.

This ones also fascinating in that it exists as almost a response to Pokespe meets anime., in that the author routinely insists on their intent to have the manga and anime characters be equals. The story's fairly standard, with the characters from the anime and manga form kanto to sinnoh joining together to figure out how they have come together and how to fix the issue, with plenty of battles and throwbacks along the way. Admittedly, the writing here isn't the strongest, and a major problem occurs with focus as ALL the characters are travelling with each other at ALL times. That means in a single scene theres almost 20 characters present.

However, what's really interesting is how the author began responding to his comments. The fic garnered a number of trolls on it, mostly slamming the author for portraying the anime characters being as competent as the manga characters, with one user in particular combining this criticism with intense sexual provocations. The author however decided to respond to said criticism in the fic itself in the authors notes which weren't relegated to being in the beginning and end of the fic. As the fic goes on they become more and more frequent and frustrated, and is somewhat more of a fascinating read then the fic itself.

Crises on two pokeworlds

The first fic mentioned that doesn't have drama in the comments, like Collide, it's what you'd expect from a crossover fic like this. Characters from one world are thrown into the other and have to find a way back while stopping an evil force that will destroy both worlds. The writing here isn't great but isn't the worst either, and most of the characters aren't too out of character (by fanfiction standards where most characters are ooc by nature). However, there's a lot of switching between different groups of characters at a quite frequent rate, and there are a glut of OC's which begin to steal the show at points. It is a shame that this was abandoned like the others though, as it seemed to have the right intentions and remained focused throughout.

Ash Grey Chapter

This ones conflicting. It is easily the best written of the four, and makes the decision to gradually introduce characters throughout while maintaining the focus on the kanto characters, keeping the story stable. The characterization is solid as well, with a proper dynamic between Ash and Red that serves as the emotional core of the series. That's also however where my major problem lies. Ash's characterization is solid, with him having residual angst from his league losses and him being at a point in his life where its starting to eat away at him. An angstier ash isn't anything knew to the world of fanfiction, but it works here. The Issue however lies with Red. Red in this fic is meant to feel more grizzled then when we saw him in the FRLG chapters, however he mostly comes off as being incredibly mean spirited, especially to Ash. The issue is immediate as well, with Red almost immediately discounting Ash simply because he didn't have a league victory. Red in the manga is one of the simpler characters, and like ash is subject to a lot of change when it comes to fanfictions, but this version feels quite a bit to unlikeable, and sours my views on this fic. It is nice however that it has been reuploaded to AO3 for people to check out however.

I think I'll end this lil bit with that. I wonder how folks will regard my fic when compared to some of these others. It's been well received so far. But I could always make people angry in the future for… whatever reasons they deem appropriate.

Maybe I'll have my own spats with people in my comments. Maybe it could be fun.

It definitely wont be, but you never know.

Also, I have a surprise coming in next week. Not another chapter, but a cool little idea I had with the artist who made the cover for this fic on . This one however will only be on AO3, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading.