Pokémon Just Hold Still

[Chibi Pika]

Alrighty, for these chapters we get the fun of going through my original, in-the-moment notes, with occasional interjections from today-chibi who has the benefit of hindsight. Should be fun. :copyka2:

Spoiler: Chapter 2

OH NO I UNDERSTAND LESS

It's absolutely incredible how we actually see the moment where everything crashes and burns, and yet we're left every bit as blindsided as Wendy. Non-chronological storytelling ftw.

So I'd originally thought Nadine got burnout or something but now it seems more likely that it was also a falling out.

I love Wendy's internal thoughts, realizing that there must have been a pattern leading up to this that she missed, but not being able to voice it. It's all so real.

Ohh my god and then Aaron goes aggro immediately the moment Wendy asks about it, geez.

You can’t just pretend to be that good of friends with somebody for that long. Nobody can.

Man...

“Just take it back,” she said, hoping against hope he’d grab the rope she was lowering him. “Just say you made it up because you’re mad.”

God, Wendy is relatable here

The thing is, I can genuinely believe that Aaron is just rationalizing to himself after the fact too. It’s so, so easy to believe that they really did have perfectly friendly interactions all this time, but now that it’s gone sour, he has to retroactively justify it to himself like Luke was bad news all along. Wendy’s reaction is practically identical to mine in that kind of scenario. Spot on. (Regrettably, this isn't a hypothetical, speaking from experience.)

[Hindsight chib here with a massive :copyka2:]

She would never say it out loud, but Wendy almost hoped the JCS or the Rangers would perform some age fraud on Amanda’s behalf, if only because this way Amanda was more likely to pursue her long-term goal through cleaning trash, monitoring Pokémon populations, etc. instead of bombing power plants.

dying, I love Amanda, what a memorable side character

conservation pales in comparison to my strategy, firebombing a pokemart,

I enjoy how naturalistic it feels to encounter a shiny while tagging wildlife for a conservation group. Also enjoy the vague allusion to Wendy peacing out of some other random drama with Amanda's friend group. Just being like "nope."

Spoiler: Chapter 3

Oh dear, Luke's been socially awkward penguined into a gym battle.

“She can’t stand quitters”

Thiiiis has some hidden context, I'm sensing.

[Hindsight chib: ahahahahaha]

Oh nooo I am cringing so hard at this group badge pact, oh no. But Luke feels like he's gotta, or else he won't be able to keep being friends with Wendy.

So I was in the middle of typing this up — I dunno if this is meant to have continuity with GSC but I like that it’s easy to imagine old man Pendergast retiring sometime in the next 6 years and leaving Bugsy as gym leader in 1999 — and then right in the very next bit we see that Bugsy is indeed the overeager gym trainer. Excellent.

Spoiler: Chapter 4

Present Wendy: *instinctively second-guesses if others mean what they say*
Past Wendy: *takes her friend at her word*
Me: hmmm

Perchance, something has made her realize that people don’t always speak their mind until it’s too late,

Really enjoy Wendy’s way of looking at her own perception of events and contrasting it with what someone else might think, and re-evaluating her gut expectation that other people would actually say what they mean. It feels really natural that she might have developed this habit after all the… everything.

Oh no. I suspect that Nadine is in fact not saying what she means. And Wendy is here taking it at face value.

If people would just speak their mind it sure would make things easier huh. :copyka2:

To Aaron’s credit it ssseeems like he’s handling Nadine’s departure in a more mature manner than I'd have expected. It's easy to see how he might just legit think it's better to give Nadine space here. But at the same time it's like... he knows something.

[ahahahahah]

Really easy to feel for both Wendy and Luke here, and also easy to see how they'd end up bonding over this.

Spoiler: Chapter 5

>Krabbyfern
I am certain that this is a pun on what these are called in Japanese but dammit I can’t find its common name anywhere, just a million results about it being invasive in the US.

It's easy to see how there's loads of tiny points of friction between Luke and Aaron, but Luke course-corrects before letting it turn into resentment. Sooo we're probably gonna have ourselves a straw that broke the camel's back situation.

[hindsight chib: the straw was a cement block]

That settled it. He would call this a happy ending, with this perfect letter as the last word. This was it.

Mmm I don’t belieeeve Luke, much as he might think this should be it, with how avoidant he is.

Spoiler: Chapter 6

Man, this unofficial gym is making me nostalgic for WSSTK. Love seeing ways that trainer culture is embedded in everything, even outside the classic League circuit we all know.

Man, Wendy's feelings of growing up and looking back on being a kid are real. It's so easy to believe that she'd be feeling this as her journey comes to an end, after all the experiences she's had.

It's a neat detail how Japan's entrance-exams-into-high-school thing slots neatly into kids taking the middle school years for Pokemon journeying. Nadine feels thoroughly like a college student here despite being 15, and it makes perfect sense.

[Hindsight note: it makes a lot of sense that Nadine would catch feelings for a boy making her feel smart after all those years spent with a friend making her feel stupid and inadequate.]

It’s a lot of fun to watch characters deduce things that we already know from previous scenes. And here we have the recurring motif of Wendy replying to someone, and then immediately thinking of what she’d rather have said. Communicationnnnnnn, why is it so hard (this is self-targeted).

Spoiler: Chapter 7

God, this cold-open dream sequence hits like a truck. And there's that "quitters" line back again. nnnn.

“Like, am I missing something? Did your team get good enough to earn a vacation while I wasn’t looking?”

[And here we see that the benefit of the doubt has been beaten into an unrecognizable pulp]

Luke's so, so close to giving up, but giving up means losing Wendy, aaaaaaaaa

Really like Wendy getting Luke to keep talking, sharing random details from anecdotes as a grounding exercise.

Spoiler: Chapter 8

Man, the entire Mt. Moon segment was captivating from start to finish, I don't even have any notes for this chapter. I was as enraptured as Wendy was and it is illegal that I will never go on a Pokemon journey.

“It’s like… even if it’s years from now, I think I’ll see her again. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Lines that hit harder on a reread—it's hard not to apply this to Luke and Wendy.

Laughing extremely hard at Wendy flustering herself thinking about with "bassy, heartfelt words." It's very "hormonal allo teenager crushing" while being cute and genuine and not relying on tired tropes (even if I'm going off secondhand accounts here, aha). Being the resident asexual curmudgeon, I so often find that kind of stuff trite, so it's a real accomplishment that I'm so charmed by it here!

Spoiler: Chapter 9

nooo this dream cold-open is even worse than the last one. 🫠

It’s not enough to be lucky. You have to know what’s lucky when you see it. You have to be ready for it, know what to do with it, and be really, really patient for it. Otherwise, you won’t be lucky often enough.

Man, this feels like the thesis of the fic, huh.

Also, I'm still not over just how perfect the title of the fic is. Chasing a face-to-face meeting that might never happen. Looking back on the impermanence of youth, unable to stop the march of time. Photography.

Oh man, it’s so easy to read how Luke's thinking about the whole “she hates quitters” thing while also so easy to see why Wendy wouldn’t be thinking about that while trying to compliment him for sticking to things. aaaaaaaaaaa

>“You can’t just quit now!”
oh no, this one isn't even a hypothetical, this is actually what she ended up saying. oh no. Rereading their final conversation in chapter 2 is gonna be pain incarnate, isn't it.

Spoiler: Chapter 10

Aaron over here calling Luke a narcissist when he’s the one who made everyone's Pokemon journey about his desired pace. Also the chapter title feels extremely appropriate here, but not for Luke.

Look, I get that kid-Wendy was physically incapable of reading subtext, but not being suspicious of everyone’s motives isn’t a bad thing.

Having seen Luke’s internal narration, it’s really hard to believe Aaron’s story. This is the guy who gets paralyzed every time he wants to voice his mind. Snapping unexpectedly makes way more sense than having a history of being aggressive.

Now, while I don’t exactly trust Aaron to have an unbiased take, I can at least guess that there genuinely was a pretty visible contrast in the way Luke’s bottled resentment over being pushed so hard manifested depending on who the source was. Luke’s own narration acknowledged that he didn’t feel angry with Wendy despite clearly feeling just as much anxiety every time she mentioned it, so the double standard is real. Buuuuut there’s also no ignoring that even if Aaron and Wendy both were pressuring him, Aaron was waaaaay more guilt-trippy with it.

Also “I got an earful” was probably just code for “Luke attempted to assert himself” let’s be real. But the point is, it feels believable that Aaron could have this take and feel in the right himself.

The thought of disappointing you scared the shit out of him

Aaron you gave him that phobia,

It's like... there are grains of truth here, it's not a total fabrication, but it’s missing crucial context.

I’m just over here like bro, you’re waxing poetic about your dream. Even if it’s angled like “oh it’d be so great for them” it’s still your dream.

One thing I really appreciate is how even though Luke and Wendy both obviously devote quite a bit of time to thinking about the other, they still feel wholly themselves, as opposed to revolving around the other person. They've got lives, hobbies, they've moved on, they've grown up, even if they both really could use some closure on their shared past.

Allright I think that's probably where I'll leave it! I wanna take my time with the final three, and get this posted before Week 2 ends. Seeya in the next one!

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 9

Stop. Please. Stop.

The Typhlosion’s claws came down once more, knocking her flat again and drawing even more blood.

The Poké Ball still didn’t work.

Please. Stay down. Stop moving. Please.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. Wendy was there—hazy, but there. Now twelve, now fifteen, nothing the same from moment to moment except the eyes and the smile, taking in the scene like nothing was wrong.

Her lips moved. “If you can’t take it, just leave.” It was Aaron’s voice.

Both a Pokémon battle that he can't stop, and him wishing he could just stop doing this, I expect. Of course Wendy is speaking with Aaron's voice :copyka2:

He stood up, shaking his head at his hollow reasoning. If there were any way to forget about her, he would have managed it by now. He knew he was going to write back. He knew he wouldn’t go a day without re-reading one of her letters. He knew that every time he kept Zoe in her Poké Ball at night to give her a break from the nightmares, he would spend the following day stumbling around like a worthless zombie, and that was that.

Too bad he's going solo and can't do the thing with having her use Hypnosis and then someone else recalls her afterwards before she can eat his dreams... (I suppose there's no way for Pokémon to self-recall in this universe.)

Enjoyed the look into the photo development process, as somebody who's not very familiar. The test strips with different exposure lengths is neat.

December 16th, 1990

Woof, just a week before the big falling-out... Guessing we won't see the immediate leadup quite yet, but.

Luke couldn’t bring himself to answer. Six weeks of walking that nearly crippled him and left him sore for weeks after… endless grief from Aaron for putting them so far off course… hours and hours of extra training to placate him… the final hike up the mountain and every care taken to get the shot just right…

All for nothing.

A blind hand touched his arm. “Luke?”

He took a deep breath. Obviously, it wasn’t for nothing: It was for Sharpy. And for Wendy. Even if the picture was junk, it was for her, so he had to print it. He wiped his eyes, hoping she couldn’t tell.

Oof I'm sure it's genuinely not as bad as Luke feels like it is, but legit for him to feel like it's the worst, most worthless photo ever taken after all this.

“Hey, how about these?” asked Amanda.

Was this scene meant to have a date heading? It sounds like this is taking place in 1993, but it's immediately following the December 16th, 1990 scene. (Reading further, it looks like this chapter we're swapping rapidly between time periods with no indicator. I think it might be nice to include them, even if it's technically redundant once we catch on, just for consistency?)

It was strange how conscious Wendy was of being in a boy’s room. She’d never thought twice about being in Aaron’s room, but being in Luke’s was “being in a boy’s room” for some reason. She didn’t even know why it was supposed to be any kind of big deal. Maybe she had heard and read the words together often enough that she couldn’t help but be aware of it.

This is cute. She's twelve, there's nothing actually sexual about this, but it still feels scandalous.

Luke continued. “So, what I mean is that even though you have to be lucky since you can’t control the Pokémon, if you can wait that long, and you recognize what’d be a good shot, you’ll get lucky before someone who…”

He trailed off again. She tried to guess the words he was looking for. “Someone who gives up?”

Luke looked away. “…Yeah.”

Wendy wondered what had him distracted. There was nothing where he was looking except bare floor. She tried to bring him back to the topic at hand. “Well, no wonder you get all this good luck! You stick to things better than anyone I know!”

Luke said nothing, and continued to stare at nothing. It puzzled her.

Woof Inadvertently, the worst thing she could possibly say to him. Making sticking to it sound like it's simply his own principles about photography, even! It's got to have really, really stung for him to get to that point and then have Wendy of all people finish the thought.

The thought had come to him earlier that afternoon and kept resurfacing: The only reason he could keep up this just-distant-enough correspondence with Wendy was because, as a trainer, he was nearly impossible to reach. When he had an actual permanent address again, a home phone number, and maybe an office number, what then? How was he supposed to stay exactly this far away from her?

He couldn’t. It was either get closer, which was impossible, or go where she couldn’t reach him. So again, he found himself pulling the Introductory Galarian textbook off the shelf.

Galar or Unova would be far enough. Every kid learned the alphabet and a handful of useful words before age ten, and he’d gotten further than most of the kids in his class. He could learn enough to survive in either region in a few months, and his chances of getting work as a photographer would be the same no matter the local language. Flipping to a random page, there were already several words he recognized and even a sentence he could read.

He could have thrown up on the spot.

Luuuuke

Why, why, why did Wendy have to say he was good at sticking to things? Had she never noticed how whenever she said something to that effect, never once did he thank her for it or even acknowledge it? Did she honestly not know this was the last thing he wanted to hear, especially from her?

Of course not. If she knew, they wouldn’t still be friends. The question would then come up, “Why don’t you like being told you’re not a quitter?” The answer would be obvious: Because I am. It was the same reason he couldn’t tell her what honesty demanded he tell her right now.

When you and Aaron went to the Gym yesterday, I didn’t have an urgent errand to run for my parents. I lied. I wasn’t there because I’m never stepping foot in a Gym again. I don’t want to put Zoe or Shane or any of them up against another trainer as long as I live. They can’t handle what it takes to reach the Indigo League, and neither can I. I don’t care if I promised.

I quit.

Oof, this is agonizing. Wendy there having what she thinks is a romantic moment with the boy she likes and Luke there just internally screaming the whole time.

Everything she might say if he openly gave up went through his head.

“How can you even say that?”

“This isn’t who I thought you were.”

“You can’t just quit now!”

There would be anger, then tears, then nothing. It would be over. There would be no goodbyes—only go-aways or I’m-leavings.

Luuuuke you're making this up in your heeead because of things Aaron told you (and things Wendy said in blissful ignorance)

His breath caught in the middle of whatever he was saying. It didn’t have to go that way, did it? Couldn’t he keep faking it, keep shielding his Pokémon in secret to stay with her—to not lose her laugh or her smile? Wasn’t that more important than even his own health?

Wasn’t she worth it?

Noooo that's not how anything healthy works D:

Second, everything had blown up within a week, after which she had every incentive to forget about it. And since she never learned whether it had amounted to Luke as anything more than a momentary invasion of his personal space (regardless of how intense it had felt to her), she could easily recateogrize it as a passing misunderstanding. Not one worth remembering.

Ahahahaaah Wendy it was a lot more than a momentary invasion of his personal space but not in the way you wanted it to be

“Second, I was going to say you got two letters today. Another young man was here around noon.”

Oh boy.

I get the point. I’m on my way to Ecruteak, going to be in the area around there through the end of November. I’ll be at the small-time gym north of town every mon/wed/fri evening. If you want to talk that bad, meet me there. – Aaron

Not exactly a bastion of friendliness, is he...

General oh boy here. Wendy's going to see Aaron, and I'm guessing the title of the next chapter is something Aaron's going to say about Luke but applies more to him. The real question is to what degree will Aaron attempt to directly manipulate Wendy.

I think you did a great job on the whole buildup here, the contrast of Wendy's oblivious twelve-year-old crush feelings and Luke's despair stress feelings. The general descriptions of hormones and confused attraction felt very genuine and true to life. I can get why Luke's being avoidant but stillll, please at least meet with her alone. Now she's going to see Aaron first and who knows what he will attempt to put into her head, which is Concerning.

All in all this is agonizing, and I will have to read more immediately while whispering "oh no, oh no" under my breath.

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 10

I think Mt. Moon would be a nice dream-destination, too. I’ll put in a good word with dream-me to install an escalator before you get there. In all seriousness, though I’ll never agree the picture was perfect (the enclosed one from the Natl. Park is closer in my book, hope you like it), it does makes me happy that you think it was. Thinking back to when I made the print, I wish I’d taken your appraisal as “mission accomplished” instead of letting the flaws I saw get to me. Mind, I would have spent the same amount of time working on it, just that I shouldn’t have let it ruin what might otherwise have been a perfect day.

Luke, learning to accept a compliment! That's progress!

Maybe I shouldn’t bring up the day in particular because of how close it was to when things went south, but I think a lot of what you told me then stuck even if I didn’t realize it at the time. When I look at my old pictures now, I don’t kick myself as much as I used to, and I even like some of my newer ones. Not that I don’t see the same things to fix I’ve always seen, but it’s a lot easier to take them as lessons-learned and not get mad over them. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I stopped doubting I could make a living out of photography someday, and I think it’s thanks in no small part to you.

❤️ Aww.

I’m really sorry, but I can’t see Aaron. It took me a long time to find something like normalcy again after what happened, and I can’t risk losing that. I don’t want it to sound like I’m blaming him—I don’t want to hold a grudge. Nobody’s the same at fifteen as he was at twelve, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to be angry at whoever he’s turned into since then. But for my own health (and for Zoe’s until I throw in the towel and get addicted to sleeping pills instead of depending on her), I just can’t be around him. I’m sorry.

If you don’t want to keep writing while a reconciliation isn’t on the table, I understand. But I hope you’ll keep writing anyway. I will as long as you do.

He's also good about this, bless him, which is perhaps one of Wendy's best signs that it's Aaron who was the problem here. Luke's trying so hard to be fair to him, and to Wendy, while still protecting his own wellbeing and setting boundaries. Somehow I doubt Aaron will be doing the same :copyka2:

“Wendy… just, no. Luke’s a violent narcissist. People like him don’t change.”

And there we go. :copyka2:

There were no trainers in earshot. They were all either sparring their Pokémon in the outdoor gym’s arena or hanging out on the bleachers. Aaron had been among the former when she arrived, and had kept her waiting for twenty minutes after that. This line of thought wasn’t calming her down after all, so she got it over with.

Oof.

He snapped his head up and looked her in the eye. “It’s the same reason you didn’t notice what he was the whole time: You’re not hard to fool.”

Wendy froze stiff.

“Sorry,” said Aaron. “That came out worse than I meant. The thing is, you only see the best in everyone. You don’t question anything about them. You just assume everyone’s as sincere, well-meaning, and good as you are. That’s not a bad thing. It’s why everyone likes you. But… it makes you vulnerable to people like Luke.”

And the funny thing is it's not entirely untrue but it actually applies to her inability to see the red flags in Aaron.

Wendy stayed frozen. She had known this about herself for years—about her chronic inability to see past people’s literal words—but had never reckoned with the implications. She’d never considered how this might fundamentally, categorically made her unqualified to judge character. It had never stuck out as potentially the missing piece of the puzzle.

…It couldn’t be, though, because Aaron couldn’t have been telling the truth, not then and not now. There was no way Luke had tried to beat Aaron to a pulp simply because that’s who Luke was. Nothing else fit that explanation. Her mouth opened in the hope of delivering a retort.

All that came were sputters. “But… but Luke’s not like… he never…”

She wasn’t a reliable witness. She never had been. Because she was that easy to fool.

She fought to keep to her eyes dry. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry in front of the imposter. Even if it turned out he was right the whole time—which he absolutely wasn’t because that was impossible—he was still the imposter.

Wendy nooooooo

“All right,” said Aaron. “Here’s the thing. You liked Luke, Luke liked you, so you got Luke at his best. What you saw was how he acts when he wants someone to keep liking him. Whenever you weren’t around, I got the rest of him.”

Wendy couldn’t believe Aaron was angling for sympathy. She still didn’t say anything.

“Whenever Luke didn’t get his way about something—and I mean anything—he got angry. No sense of proportion whatsoever. Whenever you or I voiced an opinion about what we should do next, I got an earful later, or worse.”

Some real DARVO going on here :copyka2:

Leaving even a single detail to her imagination was too much. She found her voice again, at least for the moment. “What’s ‘worse?’ No hints. If you’re accusing him of something, accuse him of it.”

Aaron sucked in a breath and let it out. “Shoving, usually. Sometimes spitting. Every other month or so he’d try to throw a punch, but pushing back was always enough to get him to quit it. Till the last time, anyway.”

Lies. Stupid, obvious lies. This was the kindest, gentlest boy in the world he was talking about.

Unless it only looked that way because I can’t see through people. And I did see him draw blood at the end.

No. Shut up. That’s not it. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Feeling her compulsive doubts and what-ifs about Aaron's narrative to my bones, oof.

“Yes. You’re the one who came up with that ‘promise’ we made. The thought of disappointing you scared the shit out of him. But he figured if both me and him said we should give up, then you’d feel like you had no choice but to go along with it. The longer I told him ‘No,’ the longer he had to pretend to try to keep up with training, and the less stable he got.”

Gee, I wonder why Aaron responded to this by just telling him no and making him keep going instead of doing anything decent :copyka2:

Aaron took another deep breath. “…I was going to get to that. For starters, he only bothered when you were in earshot. Any time we were one-on-one? Nothing. Just whining and arguing. And when he actually had to get his Pokémon out, he learned every trick in the book to keep things short. I caught him once teaching his team to feign fatigue. He started having them take dives in battles just to get us out of the Gym faster. Absolute crazy-person stuff.”

I bet this probably did happen. But it's not absolute crazy-person stuff, it's a kid who's desperately overworked wanting to get out of something he hates and feels pressured into, like we already knew was happening. Give me a break.

“I know now I shouldn’t have kept quiet while all this was happening. I guess… I was afraid of upsetting you in my own way. After how hard you took it when Nadine quit, I didn’t want you to go through that again. I fooled myself into thinking if he really started trying, if he got even a little caught up, maybe he’d get some confidence and start being more like he acted around you. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

Wendy didn’t want apologies. She wanted retractions. She was about to beg for them.

“I really did think he could catch up. Obviously, he wasn’t on the same level as you or me, or even Nadine before she quit. But he was smart enough to learn a thing or two. I kept trying to convince him he was getting better, that he could do it if he just took the next step for real, but it was like talking to a wall.”

The absolute condescension of this.

“Okay,” he said. “I know it’s a lot. Just let me say one more thing: You do not want to get back in touch with someone like Luke. Narcissists don’t know how to be real friends—they can only fake it. Sooner or later, you’ll get hurt.”

Wendy knew she had to say the one thing which might get him to stop talking to her. She just had to fight her gag reflex to say it.

“…You’re probably right.”

Oof at the fact she knows admitting he's right is the only way to get him to stop.

There's something basically true in everything he says, but he's either 1) saying something about Luke that actually applies to him, or 2) describing something in a biased way as if it makes Luke look horrible when it really doesn't so much. But that's how people can get you, isn't it. It's all such a tidy narrative where Aaron did nothing wrong other than trying to shield Wendy and Luke is just an awful person and Wendy's an idiot for not noticing - big contrast to how Luke treats the whole thing.

There was a decent remedy for both aspects: Wendy let Sharpy out of her ball. Then, without a word, Wendy got on both knees and wrapped her arms around her warm, pudgy fairy Pokémon. Sharpy’s arms weren’t made for hugging back, but she mumbled a rhythmic, comforting noise and gently swayed back and forth. This day more than any other, Wendy needed to soak in the presence of the one friend she knew to be exactly what she seemed.

Oof, ow. That one hits hard.

With that in mind, she dismissed the diagnosis of “narcissist” as assuredly as she’d dismissed “psycho” in 1990. She’d never known Luke to rank anyone’s suffering below his own—it was more like the exact opposite, especially when it came to Zoe. Even if he could fake all the cares he’d shown Wendy herself when Nadine left, no “narcissist” would undergo the pains she’d seen him take to spare Zoe from bad dreams. On this count, at least, Aaron was guilty of being a malicious liar at worst and not-a-doctor at best.

You can do it, Wendy! You can figure it out!

It should have been enough. For anyone who could trust her own judgment, it would have been. But that wasn’t Wendy. The only way to get her answers now was to see Luke in person. He no longer had a say in the matter. She would hear his version of the story in full, look him in the eye while he told it, suppress her incurable naïveté to the end… and judge.

Her eyes welled up. She squeezed them shut and pressed the letter to her chest, hoping against hope he would forgive her for whatever followed. She promised to make it up to him somehow, after she found him innocent.

Wanting to just see him and not create a reconciliation, at least, makes it something Luke might actually be down for.

She blinked. The question came to her out of the blue: Why was she treating this case like there were only two witnesses?

Nadine. Not only had she quit for basically the same reason as Luke, but when she’d first explained it to Wendy, she’d framed it as something between her and Aaron before correcting herself. Pressure from Aaron, corrected to pressure from how good at battling he was, then clarified to include Wendy as well. Was the reality truly two corrections away from the first thing that came to her?

Theeeere we go. Good job, Wendy!

Aaaahhhh, the tension. Truly painful, stressful chapter to read, but I'm betting Wendy getting Nadine's perspective is going to help a lot, and I'm glad she's going for that, rather than Luke ending up having to answer for all that in person. Ghhhhhh. Really hope things turn out okay for them. And that they can all blissfully leave Aaron behind.

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 11

I completely understand if you don’t want to see Aaron, and by no means do I want you to stop writing because of it. Anyway, even if you’d agreed to it, I’ve since learned that Aaron wouldn’t. To get it out of the way, I was able to talk to him recently. It wasn’t pleasant, and I didn’t believe most of what he had to say. It’s hard to see any reconciliation with him for a long time, which makes me angry at him, but mostly sad. When I read your letters, it’s like we never left, but with him, it’s like we were never close.

But even if it’s impossible for all three of us to be friends again, I want to see you. The first and most important reason is because I miss you badly. The second is because there’s still a lot I don’t understand about what went wrong. I worry it’s putting distance between us, and I don’t want there to be any distance between us. I also don’t want to ask you my questions on paper, because I worry if you don’t hear the tone of voice, they won’t come across the right way.

I don’t want to conceal anything, so I’ll tell you that before I wrote this letter, I was waiting for you to get here. I have to go home tomorrow morning to see Nadine, so I’m leaving you this instead. I’ll be coming back in your direction soon. My next surveys for the JCS are the Ice Path and Route 45, but I can put those off as long as it takes if it means we can meet in Mahogany Town.

I trust you, and I want you to know you can trust me, too.

Really good and cathartic seeing these kids continue to ultimately be pretty good about communicating in their letters even when they have a lot of confused internal screaming going on before they write them. Though... I can't help but notice she mentions she's going to see Nadine but not why she's going to see Nadine, so Luke does not know that Nadine will be able to counter Aaron's narrative.

Run away? No. He could never beat her in an endurance race, and she was a tracker.

Die on the spot, then?

The only option he couldn’t picture was sitting down and talking. He couldn’t even imagine what he’d say. What could it possibly amount to besides avoiding eye contact until she eventually walked away in frustration?

Aw, Luke, c'mooooon

More scrutinizing. By now, she would have guessed he’d been putting off Gyarados Lake as long as he could, meaning he was out of specific destinations after that, meaning he would have no reason not to stay for Christmas and New Year’s when he got back. All true enough. She even might have already guessed that he—

“You want one of the one-twenty cameras, right?”

Luke had to crack a smile at this. “If Dad doesn’t mind, yeah.”

She grinned and pointed at him. “I knew it! I knew you’d have snuck off straight north if you didn’t need something from the shop first. But I’ll forgive your pragmatism. Have you eaten?”

Enjoying this whole interaction between Luke and his mom. I think you nail these sorts of incidental interactions with minor characters and make them feel alive.

Dinner came and went. It must have been good, but Luke didn’t notice. Afterward, he again confronted the question of what to write Wendy. Whatever it was, he knew he wanted to have it written in full that night, since it would be safer to have the letter in hand when he went to the Center for Zoe’s pre-trip checkup. That way, if Wendy was waiting for him there, he could throw it in her direction and escape in the momentary confusion.

He acknowledged this to be the single stupidest thing he’d ever thought in his life.

Bwahaha. You awkward kid.

Sometime between then and when he got to sleep in a real bed for a change—on the very sport where, in hindsight, Wendy had properly introduced him to puberty—Luke managed to write the worst letter he’d ever written.

Oh no (though I suspect it's better than he thinks, as is often the case with Luke's works!)

“Is she faking it?”

Luke twitched. “…How many times do I have to tell you we aren’t doing that anymore?”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “So sue me. It’s the one thing your team’s any good at. How am I supposed to tell?”

Goooood Aaron

Luke jabbed a finger at the yet-nameless Rhyhorn. “Your Pokémon took a headshot while she was on her last breath! Is that enough? Do you want me to shake her?”

“It’s your fault for not recognizing a Head Bash stance. You still think every move’s going to come after the trainer calls an attack?”

That's not even a relevant response, you dick

“That was too quick. She can keep going.” Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out a clear vial containing a single yellow pill in the shape of an elongated octahedron.

Luke couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “…Those are for emergencies.”

Aaron glared. “If you’re a scrub or a wuss, sure. Every serious trainer uses a Revive to salvage a lousy practice now and then.”

Gooood you absolute bastard.

It should've been predictable, probably, that this was about Luke's concern for Zoe. You've been building that up since chapter one, and doing a good job of it; of course it checks out that when Luke really sees red, it's to do with Aaron mistreating Zoe.

(Also makes sense, doesn't it, that Luke wanted to apologize to Ace. He was concerned about Aaron's treatment of him too, wasn't he.)

Aaron spoke up first. “I’ve given you every chance to prove you’re taking this seriously again. Wendy and I don’t need a hopeless, lazy quitter with a hopeless, lazy team dragging us down when we’ve got the next level to worry about. Lazy Pokémon are contagious. If yours are going to keep hanging around ours, they need to catch up.”

Luke broke eye contact. It was impossible. He was already doing everything in his power. It simply wasn’t in him to be that caliber of trainer. It had to end. But he couldn’t let it. The same problem, the same non-answer, day after day after day after day.

Oof, calling it that caliber of trainer, as if Aaron really is just doing this because he's at a higher level.

Aaron went on. “You owe me extra. You think I bought that lame excuse you made up to stay away from the Gym last week? That ain’t happening again. We’re not going to keep coming back to your hometown over and over just so you can keep not getting this Badge.”

He doesn't owe you shit you miserable excuse for a human being

He didn’t know how he would do it, but for an second, he pictured Aaron lying limp on the ground with his head split open.

:copyka2: Oh boyyyy

“Here’s how it’s gonna be,” said Aaron. “You can either get your stuff and go home now, or you can tell Wendy you want to train more, so you’d like us to stay at the lake through the holidays. Pick one of those, or I tell her about you throwing those battles. Your call.”

Just casually trying to blackmail his holidays with his family away from him, like normal reasonable people do :copyka2:

His veins were about to pop out of his head. If someone tried to talk to him, he’d explode, and it would be over. If he left without a word, Aaron would tell Wendy everything as soon as she asked what was wrong, and it would still be over. All the ways to forestall it were gone. It was going to end in a matter of minutes.

He was losing her. She wasn’t coming to his house for Christmas. He wasn’t going to see her again. There wouldn’t be a second time her body leaned against his while she stared into his eyes.

He wouldn’t have to pretend nothing was wrong while she smiled and laughed about everything, either.

He wouldn’t have to pay for her blissful ignorance with Zoe’s blood ever again.

His fists shook.

The words entered his head:

To hell with her.

Ooof. His rage is very well written, super tangible. (Sort of vaguely surprised he can even think about hormones right now, but he is on the cusp of being a teenager.)

“Hey, Luke,” said Aaron. “You were saying something earlier about our plans for—”

Oh boy, and now we know why this particular simple sentence prompted him into a rage; he's trying to prompt Luke to start saying what he blackmailed him into as if it had nothing to do with Aaron :copyka2:

There was blood. Still not enough. Luke wanted bone.

You don’t get to surrender.

He swung again, harder, and connected again.

See how you like getting hit when you’re already beat.

“D… did he deserve it? You didn’t s… stop after his nose started bleeding.”

He sure didn't, which is exactly what Aaron wouldn't have done for his Pokémon :copyka2:

This wasn’t it, he realized. She needed to want to leave. Forever. Or it would never stop hurting.

His voice wobbled and croaked as he spoke. “But if I ever, ever see Aaron’s face again, I’m going to break his teeth.”

There. That had to have done it. She would hate him for saying that. She would leave. She—

“Please… Just tell me what’s wrong.”

Luke couldn’t believe it. He tried to make a fist, but it just sent an ache running up his arm to stab his shoulder again. Hadn’t he said enough? Hadn’t he done enough? It was supposed to be over. What was her problem?

All of this hurts. If only he had just communicated properly right now, but no, even despite how much he despises Aaron he could not get it out of his head that Wendy agreed with all this and would never want to see him again if he told her anything and he just needed to get her to go away. Painful in light of how he's still avoiding her so hard.

“I’m on both your sides!” Wendy sounded like she was crying too. “Just tell me what it is! I won’t blame you!”

Saying she's on both their sides sure does not help in this moment, unfortunately :copyka2:

“We said we were going to Indigo, all three of us, and we’re so close!”

Get out. Get out. Go away. Get out. Go away. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out.

“You can’t just give up like this!”

The biggest :copyka2:

His voice gave out before the pain did. At some point, the doctor tore the bandage off and said something about needing to redo the stitches. Luke’s breaths came between sobs. They hurt each time.

Oooooofff.

Sure, that one friend would have been Aaron, but this was Wendy. Brilliant, driven, talented, tireless Wendy. There was nothing about her to bring out the sadist in Aaron. She might even have made a decent person out of him if Luke hadn’t been in the way.

He sighed. He really had ruined everything.

Luke noooooooo this is NOT your fault

This brought to mind something else that worried him. Was he going to cut it in the professional world if he needed this much time to get a picture that was worth anything? Everyone needed luck, but to rely on it as much as he did was time-consuming. Could someone who knew what he was doing have gotten three genuinely excellent photos by now? What were his options besides sitting here, waiting for a shot that might not come?

Luke. No. Stop! Stop beating yourself up about everything! You are wrong!

Luke found himself back in the hospital, telling Wendy to shut up and go away, even as he cried over her absence. Zoe shook him awake just in time for him to see the closest Gyarados yet dive back into the water. It was a good thing his first instinct was to hit his forehead and not the camera.

Zoe shoved him again, but it didn’t help.

He rubbed his eyes in a half-hearted attempt to keep them open.

Just then, something in his head jumped. His neck and back straightened up in a sudden, powerful jolt. He didn’t know what it was. Before he could consider what it might be, his eyes began to feel funny. A strange blue tint—almost a glow—was spilling into his peripheral vision. He found his focus drawn to a point out on the water to his front and left, closer than it was sensible to hope for.

Aw, look at Zoe being good! Genuinely looking out for Gyarados for him and making sure that he gets this one!

The red Gyarados is an amazingly cathartic moment - all this good brutal buildup about how grueling it has been and the poor mental place he's been in over it, Zoe helping him get the perfect shots because she really cares about and appreciates him too and has learned about photography from him and is determined to help him have this, the fact he's getting to photograph a shiny Pokémon after he missed the shiny Doduo/Dodrio before. Truly magical moment and I am crying about it.

Writing, he remembered. This was absolutely something he would have written to Wendy about. He also would have spent however long it took in the darkroom to print one more immaculate copy so she could keep one.

But he couldn’t have “mailed” a copy to her, since this was no basic 35mm shot he was thinking about. He couldn’t give her anything short of the best, and this picture would demand a larger print than he could put in an envelope and leave at the Pokémon Center. He’d have to deliver it in person.

Do ittttt

That was never going to happen. And even if he were to do her the injustice of leaving her a smaller print, he didn’t know—didn’t even believe—she would want any more letters from him after reading his last one, which she must have done by now.

His head fell to his knees. When was she going to vacate his brain? Against his better judgment, he considered the possibility that she did still want to write. If this kept going after he admitted to giving up on the pact without telling her—to deceiving her for so long—what would that look like? Would her words turn cautious, distant, merely obligatory? Would the letter-writing end not cold, not hot, but with a slow petering out into meaninglessness?

Luuuuuke, come on

“…Zoe,” he said at length, “what do you think about camping out here for a few more days?”

Zoe’s eyes narrowed.

You and me both, Zoe.

“Well?”

To his surprise, Zoe stood up. She stepped next to him, pushed one hand against the side of his head, and…

And pointed south with the other.

This was unprecedented. She never gave this direct, this human of an answer to a question. He almost said “Okay,” “Of course” on the spot. How could he refuse when she was this emphatic about it?

Zoe is Good.

“…I’m sorry. I can’t do it, girl.”

Zoe stared at him.

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

Zoe made a noise he didn’t recognize. Then she sat facing him, pushed the side of his head with one hand again, and placed other on his knee. It was hardly comfortable for his head this way, but he could never have objected, not when she was so obviously trying to make him feel better.

He could think of a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t. There was no keeping track of all the pain he’d caused her, or failed to prevent for her, everywhere from her stomach to her skull. But here she was, looking out for him.

Maybe she didn’t know any better. He felt sorry for her.

Luuuuuuuke, she knows exactly what she's doing!

Oh man, what an excellent chapter. Truly had it all. We finally get to see the leadup and then that fateful confrontation from Luke's point of view, and it's absolutely excruciating - Aaron's pure unspeakable bastardry and how well you do Luke's emotions throughout all of it and how it finally drives him over the edge. It's so, so well done, really putting us in his head as he feels absolutely murderous and letting us feel it with him. The biggest copykas on all of that, and on the bit where he actually tears up his stitches. Seeing all of Wendy's lines there again and how utterly badly they hit him is pure pain as well.

But then you also have Luke visiting his mom, and then Luke trying to photograph some Gyarados, and that was such a great sequence as well. Seeing Zoe stepping up to help Luke find the catharsis that he needs, and then try to encourage him to go meet with Wendy, and then just comfort him, is so good and important, especially after really driving home how much his caring for her drove what happened. You've talked about how you don't tend to focus on the Pokémon much in your fics, so I wasn't expecting this here - it was a really, really good moment and I thought it was very earned.

Really rooting hard for him to meet up with Wendy, and I think you will do it (even if it might be offscreen after the final chapter). Man. I think you mentioned to somebody else that chapter eight was your favorite but it's going to be hard to top this one, for me.

Spoiler: Nitpicks

“It’s your fault for not recognizing a Head Bash stance. You still think every move’s going to come after the trainer calls an attack?”

Should that be Skull Bash?

He didn’t know how he would do it, but for an second, he pictured Aaron lying limp on the ground with his head split open.

"an second"

His head whipped to the side as the oncoming force drove his body was in the other direction.

Don't think the "was" belongs there.

Things should never had reached that point.

*have

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 12

I can guess what some of your questions probably are, so I’ll try to answer them here. I don’t know how much of it Aaron’s already told you, but I assume he said everything was my fault, and to an extent, I agree.

Oof, Luke. But I suppose that is the real proof it wasn't his fault.

Wendy had to set the letter down. She could already tell this was going to be the worst thing she ever read. What followed was certain to be a litany of painful, technically correct facts in support of an utterly false thesis. She had heard enough from Nadine to know this beyond a doubt.

:copyka2: I guess it did end up being the worst thing Luke ever wrote, huh.

“It… started when we were nine,” said Nadine, eyes averted. “That’s when he first told me I… I had to work twice as hard if I wanted to keep up. And if I couldn’t keep up… neither of you would want to team up with me.”

Wendy was convinced she must have heard wrong. “What?”

Nadine pulled her legs to her chest. “He said he’d help me. But his help was… was…” She began to break up.

Eughhhhhh AARON

When Wendy heard it first from Nadine, she’d been speechless. When she read it now from Luke, she wanted to scream at him through the paper not to concede Aaron a square inch of gray area.

Screaming with you, Wendy

(Love to scream with her instead of at her)

I’m equally sorry about my dishonesty. It probably goes without saying now, but Aaron and I had already hated each other for over a year before the end. Whenever we seemed friendly or joked around, it was an act. I can only guess Aaron’s reason for faking it: He made it perfectly clear that he wanted me to get better or get gone, so it still puzzles me a bit why he was willing to keep the status quo going for so long. I suspect he didn’t want to put you through the pain of losing another friend after Nadine. Maybe he felt responsible for not doing enough to get her to stay.

Oh boyyyyy. The benefit of the doubt he's extending in spite of everything is painful.

“Yes!” Now the words came between sobs. “I believed everything he ever said! Everything about me, about you… He was smart and good at things, good with Pokémon, and I wasn’t… He made of fun of me whenever I did something dumb and everyone laughed…”

“No!” Wendy was beside herself. “No, no, no! You’re the smartest person I know! I’d never laugh at something stupid you did if I didn’t think you were smarter than me! I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“I know,” said Nadine. “I know now. I still had to hear it. I just… I just believed what he said for years and years, even when I should have known better. He… he made me think everyone was just like him underneath, even you. And I believed him. I believed him, and I threw away… all the time I should have had with…”

Nadine broke down completely. She collapsed, shaking, into Wendy’s arms.

Guhhhhh. These poor kids.

“Pretended to be someone else.” Stupid. What an absurd, neurotic, point-missing, clueless thing of him to write. What did Luke think was so different about himself from the boy she knew then? That he could feign interest in something to avoid disappointing a friend? That he had emotional limits? Those weren’t things you learned about a person—they were things you learned about people over the course of growing the hell up.

But no, there was one thing she had learned about Luke in particular. Namely, he was the sort of person who could put up with all this to stay close to someone as despicable as this caricature of her Aaron had painted for him. Why would he even want to associate with someone so shallow and callous as to make their friendship contingent on his absolute devotion to her own goals? Just how bad could his judgment of character be? Or how little self-respect could he have?

Not that little anymore, she realized. He at least valued himself enough to avoid her now, and skip further grief.

Yeahhhh. I like that she has this reaction, just kind of almost losing respect for him for even liking this hypothetical other Wendy. What an utter tangled mess.

This couldn’t go on. At this rate, when Luke finally showed up, she was as likely as not to kick him in the shins for his intolerable stubbornness and tardiness. Why couldn’t he just be happy with the doubtless dozens of photos he’d taken so far? She knew they’d be good enough. His ridiculous perfectionism didn’t make an ounce of difference to any normal people looking at his pictures. What was the point of it?

“They’re fine!” she barked at the ground, drawing a number of stares and a concerned touch from Sharpy. She covered her eyes, feeling her face turn red. If she was getting this unreasonable about qualities of Luke she explicitly admired, it was time to find another distraction.

This is endearing and true.

Mrs. Andersen looked closer for a split-second, then said, abashed, “Oh! I’m sorry, you just reminded me of one of my son’s friends.”

Wendy hoped the hitch in her breath wasn’t obvious.

Mrs. Andersen made a show of tapping her own head with her knuckles. “No, of course you aren’t her. She’d be with that other boy right now. I always thought he was bad news, but I really liked her. Oh, but there I go rambling!” She patted Wendy’s arm. “Don’t mind me. Have a good one!”

Haha, well played, Luke's mom. (Unfortunately, it does not make Wendy change her mind about not approaching his parents. )

Well, this one was pretty cathartic as well - seeing just enough of Wendy's conversation with Nadine, and how Wendy has finally fully pieced things together, is really good after everything. I think her reactions are very good and realistic, how mortified she is about everything and just her bafflement at what Aaron had convinced Nadine of. So painful.

And Sharpy gets to be really good as well, making a heroic attempt to get the two of them to actually meet and talk! Unfortunately, Wendy resists despite Sharpy's best efforts. But at least she wrote Luke a new letter, and hopefully after he reads that he will finally chase her down and they can have the reunion they both deserve.

Feel so bad for Nadine; Aaron's bullying was even worse than I thought, starting long before they even went out on their journey. No wonder she was already acting so timid about Aaron from the first time they all met. Geeeez.

Despite everything, I don't think Luke's letter was too bad - blaming himself, of course, but he did manage to be honest, and that's what really mattered here. Eager to see what Wendy ended up writing to him and the conclusion to all this.

Spoiler: Nitpicks

Three hours into waiting outside the Pokémon Center, Wendy found herself in utter disbelief that she doing this again.

Missing a word here.

It had to be own words, her own voice winning him back.

Her own words, presumably.

Maybe nothing would have changed, or maybe it would gone even worse, but maybe it would have fixed everything, too.

Missing a word in "maybe it would gone" as well.

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 13

None of what happened was your fault. I’m ashamed I didn’t understand what was actually happening until Nadine told me what Aaron did to her, but now that I know, I need to repent of all neutrality and be perfectly clear: Aaron bullied you, lied to you, abused your Pokémon, and knew exactly what he was doing.

Very cathartic to see her write this after all this.

I don’t blame you in the least for throwing battles or anything else you did to cope with what I let Aaron put you through. There is nothing for me to forgive there. Nothing. And if I had seen what Aaron did to Zoe at the end, I can’t promise I wouldn’t have punched him either. If you insist on apologizing for hitting him on the grounds you knew better, or that you had only moderately superhuman patience, then I forgive you. Completely, utterly, without reservation. And if you feel what you concealed from me under duress counted as lying, I forgive you for that even faster. If you still feel an ounce of guilt over what happened, please let me carry it instead.

Also just really good - that you had only moderately superhuman patience and what you concealed from me under duress hit really well, sort of getting at exactly the protestations the reader will have internally raised to Luke's self-blame in just the right way. Seeing fictional characters resolve these sorts of tangles in good and well-articulated ways that drive straight at the point gives a lot of catharsis.

It was unpardonable. Wendy was wrong to forgive him.

Luke

This wasn’t what he wanted. It was bad enough to have years-old mistakes to forget. He didn’t need reminders of awful things he’d done this week. Leaving her to wait, watch, and agonize day after day? While he delayed coming back specifically to avoid her? It was abominable. And now it wasn’t even a secret.

This exact alignment of calendar, clock, location, precipitation, lighting, framing, and subject had formed the most wonderful sight he would ever see by the most cosmically happy of coincidences…

And he didn’t have a camera.

Luck had never beaten him so soundly.

but in a sweet way

I didn't end up noting down a lot of quote reactions last night because it was very late, but that's okay, because I can write up more overall reactions instead, for the chapter and for the fic as a whole.

Luke's avoidance here was truly agonizing - just compulsively unable to shake off that anxiety and take that leap to see her, even after Wendy had made it clear she finally understood everything, and had never cared if Luke was a "quitter", and does not blame him for anything. Straight back to worrying that being around Wendy will just give Zoe more nightmares and he needs to forget instead, even though previously he had already managed to uncover the right lessons about how to improve his dreams from Wendy, and even though Zoe herself was doing her best to nudge him to just go see her and not throw everything away to keep avoiding it. It's understandable, really, that after spending so long avoiding this, and finding so much self-blame and even feeling bad for Wendy forgiving him, his brain's first instinct is no no no keep avoiding keep avoiding, even though it's so painfully apparent to the reader that there has to be a better way and a happy ending for them.

Even then, though, he can't actually quite bring himself to leave that letter for her either. I enjoyed him feeling like he has to wait for her because she already waited even longer for him, and the contemplation on when it became too late to fix it, with his confused conclusion that either it was always too late or it's still not too late, never quite coming to a final resolution.

It was sweet to see them just finally actually meet and hug and kiss; it's very well written with cute little funny bits and some good happy-ending catharsis to all this. I was a little surprised at just how completely everything else fell away in the process, though; all of that enormous emotional baggage that we've spent this entire fic building up seemed to just evaporate a lot more suddenly than I was expecting.

To be fair, it's not like they didn't talk about their baggage: they exchanged all those letters, and we saw them work through everything that happened three years ago in those letters. I was half expecting the fic to end on an ambiguous note where they haven't met up yet, and that could have been perfectly adequate because you had closed the book on all that in the way that really matters with them talking through what really happened and coming to an understanding. But Luke has now spent most of this chapter absolutely convinced that being around Wendy again will trigger his memories of that time and he can't deal with that and that's why he has to tell her he can't see her and say goodbye, and then - nothing properly happens to that belief; he's in the middle of mentally rehearsing it to himself and then Wendy just appears and suddenly it never comes up again and he's just clinging to her without questioning it, like any other romantic lead, I suppose. I think I was expecting to see him experience more turmoil and conflict about it, to panic, to still feel like he ought to say goodbye even if he ends up being unable to or realizing he has to give this a chance.

I do think I get what you were going for, that this was all stuff that his avoidant brain was just desperately pulling out to cling to the status quo and he had already kind of gotten to the point of realizing it didn't make much sense and actually seeing her just brought down all those mental barriers and all of those tenuous excuses simply stop mattering, but I guess I would have liked to see a better sense of the barriers breaking down there instead of just suddenly not being there anymore, or at least more of a tangible sense that the Luke in that final sequence of pure romantic catharsis has just been experiencing all that inner turmoil about it at all.

Other than that, though, it really was a cathartic and enjoyable end, and again, it was a very cute, well-written romantic resolution. I imagine that moment where Luke realizes it's a picture-perfect scene but he doesn't have a camera was one of those ending moments that you have in mind from the start, and possibly the inspiration for Luke being a photographer in the first place - very cute bow on it, and a lovely way of bringing the theme of the luck you make through persistence around in a slightly cheeky way. I also think you did an excellent job with atmosphere in that whole scene, the Christmas Eve bustle and the cold and the snow - we can immediately picture how it'd be the perfect scene for a photograph (and Christmas Eve is a big couples day in Japan, isn't it?). The title drop is a nice way to tie things up; love how the title has many meanings that have applied to many things in the fic but you get a good simple decisive *just hold still* moment in there for the final line.

All in all, this fic was a great ride. I really enjoyed the subtle buildup with Aaron, a couple of Signs in the first chapter that then just keep compounding, and even then the full extent of his bastardry just keeps growing beyond what you'd previously imagined. I'm pleased I was picking up what you were putting down from the start, but you wanted to hit the balance where readers might pick it up from the start or might be more like Wendy and give him the benefit of the doubt until we start to really, really see him be monstrous, and I think you did hit that.

One thing I guess might have been nice to see, in hindsight, is more of Aaron and Luke truly appearing to be friendly from Wendy's point of view - I feel like I don't actually recall seeing all that much of that, in the end, which I guess mutes the impact of her being so baffled that someone could pretend to be that good of friends with someone a little bit. Luke also mentions that he did pretend to be friends with Aaron for that year and they joked around and such, but I think I can barely recall Aaron ever genuinely seeming nice or like he cares about Luke whatsoever - the bit where he's delirious suffering from insomnia and Aaron is just being kind of blatantly unpleasant about it in the background while Wendy's trying to help sticks out in my mind, for example. It might have been nice, to sell Wendy's perception of things, to include a little more of Aaron apparently not being a huge dick, which surely happened sometimes, right? But, then again, I am a reader who was bitch-eating-crackers at Aaron from chapter four onwards, so I was probably more inclined to read literally everything he says as him being a dick than average. :P

I think you did a great job on Luke, Wendy and their relationship development; they have their own issues and interests and things going on, but you also really sell how much they care for each other and why, with a lot of great moments between them that range from just goofy cute-awkward to strong emotional moments making it clear how well they're able to support and be there for each other. And the letters are really good, as I mentioned before - this progression of how they slowly get more honest and are able to express more things, and even when their initial reaction to a letter isn't the greatest, we always see them having managed to get it together enough by the next one they send to make it thoughtful and considered and introspective in a way that's just heartening to read on at least some level. The actual romance aspect is also spot-on; you do a really good job writing confused hormones in a way that's genuine and funny but not generic cliché. The emotional writing, in general, is incredibly strong, with intense scenes like chapter eleven just absolutely nailing the internality of the characters in a viscerally evocative way.

Zoe and Sharpy were a nice surprise - not the most important characters, but you do keep them present and characterized enough to get the emotional payoffs you wanted: Luke's concern for Zoe always, always shines through to make it check out when we fully learn Luke's outburst was about Aaron abusing her, and Zoe helping him with the red Gyarados photography was so, so good. Sharpy's role is a bit less important but still also very endearing and making good use of a weird Pokémon that I don't feel like we see too often in fanfic.

The side characters are also really brimming with life, as I've mentioned before, and you always manage to make them come across well and clearly even if they don't get a lot of space. Amanda is particularly memorable, but I also really enjoyed Luke's parents.

There's also a great sense of worldbuilding and of detail and nitty-gritty to the particular things the characters are engaged in, which makes it feel like there's equal nitty-gritty to everything and makes everything more crisp. Love all the photography stuff that comes up to make Luke's photography more real and believable, but also the Johto Conservation Society stuff and the Pokémon tracking that Wendy's doing - all just good stuff that deepens the sense of verisimilitude, and also contributes to making the characters feel like real people who are really passionate about these things rather than just sort of having an arbitrary list of hobbies.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable fic and I'm glad I managed to power through it for Blitz. I'd love to check out more of your work sometime when I can. Congratulations on finishing a good little story that didn't overstay its welcome, and I hope you'll keep doing fic!