[fanfic] armistice day

[kuruk22]

Title: armistice day
Fandom: Pokémon
Summary: He returns broken, and they dutifully give of themselves to repair him, erasing the borderlines they'd drawn.
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Angst, Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort.
Warnings: graphic sexual situations, language, self-harm, suicide.

Comments

[solarpillar]

The first thing I want to say is that seeing that Pokeballs are designed to release the Pokemon when it hits the ground, I doubt Red's Pokemon could die that way. A more realistic suggestion would be having them die from an avalanche caused by the battle. But then it wouldn't be painless, more like being torn apart then buried when still breathing and bleeding.

And the drug part felt uncharacteristic of Red too. Someone that stubborn is unlikely to use drug as escape. He would rather go punch or headbutt a rock or something. The only person in the Kanto trio I can see with the possibility of taking drugs would be Green as he's the one who tries to change fate by any means possible and a very unstable self-esteem while Red is someone who tackles any obstacle head-on with violence. Really, is there a problem that wasn't solved by violence? Ok, the parcel and the Copycat Girl's doll. That's it. It's practically Red's law. "My chilldhood friend doesn't like me anymore! I'll steal his dream and beat his pokemon to a pulp so he'll look at me again!" When that failed, he went to Mt. Silver to beat the crap out of wild pokemon and trainers alike. Heck, even Silver, the most sociopathic rival in the series, is less violent than Red (Silver doesn't always fight you when he sees you, even in his tsuntsun phase, and you can have some peaceful chat with him post-game when he's all deredere). Sure, Red's in depression now, but the violence is still more or less in his nature. In this fic we see that violence, mixed with other things, when Leaf found his shrine. Without an 'other' to release his violence on, I think it would be likely that he release it on himself. But who knows, maybe he's so depressed at that point (on top of his loss, having forced himself on Leaf and have Green caught him in the act) that he doesn't even have that anymore.

I also have to complain about Leaf here. She is a bit too flat. She has a function, but I can hardly see her personality. Every time she shows up she is attached to another character, serving as some kind of talking prop with generic, stereotypical descriptions. You might as well take a broom, put it in a wig and dress and call it Leaf. I would not mind if you make her the other half/mirror of another character, making the triangle 2+1 (Leaf&Green + Red or Red&Leaf + Green), but here it should be 1+1+1 from what I understood with Leaf as some sort of balancing point, so it's really unfair to write her like that. Only in the last part did she behaving independently and I'd love to see more of that kind.

Maybe you were writing Leaf flat until the last moment so the distance between them during the stalemate and the effect of them being pulled back together at the armistice, and the contrast between them, could be more visible? But Green got a lot of Red gaze, so I'll just take this as Red was secretly more gay than straight in his bisexuality. Or just more Greensexual. More emotional encounters with Leaf please, if you indeed intend to write the trio and not duo plus one NPC. We don't need to have Red tell us that Leaf has the perfect lips. We need moments like where he lied on the grass with Green, saw the moon and felt alive.

In general, this fic appears to be more chaotic than the other fics of yours that I've read. It accentuates Red's "lost and cannot be put back together" feel, so I guess that's good. It's good that you can adapt your storytelling style to the mood of the story.

I ranted a lot this time, but it isn't actually that bad. I don't think I could do better if I was the one writing this. This is hard to write. This fic is a moment that's atypical in their life. It's really demanding in character understanding and then you have to write it in a way they won't normally do without making it out-of-character. You are doing a pretty good job. The treatment of Red you did here can be taken both way and I think overall it was well done. The despair he felt was quite well expressed, as well as his hopes. The chaotic telling and Red's constant rumination is pretty much how a depressed and suicidal mind would be. Did you do research on it? It's fairly accurate. Again, a very human Red, though a bit clinically sick in the psychological side. Understandably so.

[kuruk22]

Wow... this gives me a lot to think about...

While it's true that poké balls are designed to open upon hitting the ground, I don't think that they're made of strong enough material to withstand impact against a mountainside at a high enough velocity. I know this is game-fic and not anime-fic, but Ash and Gary broke a poké ball by just pulling at it. Granted, it was rusted, but there have been many instances where pokémon can just force themselves out of their poké balls (i.e Misty's psyduck and Jessie's wobuffet).

None of these prove my point entirely, but they do serve to show that they're a lot more fragile than we give them credit for. I'm not sure if it's the "they broke" or the "breaking the poké ball killed them instead of releasing them" part that you found to be unbelievable, but seeing as how there's no basis on which to qualify this (and there likely never will be - a franchise aimed at appealing to kids wouldn't include such risqué material - unless it's the manga), I think it's just based on each person's interpretation. So let's agree to disagree.

I agree with you 100% on Red being the most "violent" out of the trio. In retrospect, I should have included more of that. But like you said, this is a unique and unlikely situation that they're facing. On his own atop Mt. Silver, I think it's safe to say that Red takes most of his self-value from his pokémon, since they're the only significant contact he has, besides the few-and-far-between challengers. If they died... well, I think it'd be fair to say that he'd react... unexpectedly. I made him more "depressed" and "morose" because he's naturally not a communicator. Plus, he still feels guilty about how things turned out with Leaf and Green, so he's not going to lash out at them. So I chose to make him more withdrawn. He's always had problems expressing himself verbally, hence the violence. However, since his usual method of expressing himself (battling) is now unavailable to him because his pokémon, except Pikachu, are dead and he's been injured (thigh) so that he has a sort of limited mobility, I thought that violence would be unlikely, hence the drugs.

I originally wrote Leaf as a foil to Green. I wanted her to seem "perfect" and "flat" in Red's eyes, which would contrast to his doubts about Green. Therefore, when Leaf leaves after his suicide attempt and he and Green share that emotional moment, I just wanted it to be a shift in Red's perceptions of them. Leaf isn't perfect. I made her so flat so that I could show that Red's taking her for granted, in a way. That's why I limited the emotional moments involving Leaf to the end, when she returns with the egg. I see how this can be off-putting. In fact, after rereading, I think you're absolutely right. I should have included more significant moments with Leaf. I always like I do her a disservice in my Kanto OT3 pieces, either by not showcasing her enough or making her too flat. The good thing about you pointing this out though is that I can address these issues in my Big Bang fic. So thank you for pointing that out.

Thank you for your kind words there at the end. It was difficult for me to write. I didn't research depression, I just tapped into that part of myself, I guess.

Thanks again for reading and commenting!