Howdy, just me again.

The fight with Groudon...always a treasure. But while I seem to remember this odd sort of finality and hopelessness to the original fight, Blazewing did a wonderful job lifting not only Juno's spirits, but mine as well. It still hurt when she hit the ground, a lot, but she inspired me as a reader to never give up hope in Juno's crusade. The personalities given to Randy's legendary Pokemon was also something that struck me. The same kid who could imagine such hateful, destructive, and monstrous creatures could also imagine something as noble and precious as Juno the Pikachu. It spoke to me, as, based off of my own experiences, creativity comes most powerfully and uncontrollably from the darkest and the brightest places. We humans devote our energies to our dreams, but not just the happy ones, but also the revenge plots, the loathing and bitterness that come with that. Randy's refs (I know, I keep coming back to them) are bland, soulless constructs because the teachers and bystanders that they represent are not the important part of Randy's humiliation, but it was rather the weakness of his Pokemon. If a Lugia had a mindset like the one you portrayed, there's a story right there, but to have such a deranged and powerful creature under the control of a middle schooler? Now that's scary!

Perhaps the one thing that really struck me reading these last few chapters was the implications of Jake bonding to Juno. Not only is he wrestling with new feelings of guilt and displacement, but the effect on his personality and outward appearance is causing concern from his family and his teachers. Maybe I never realized it before, but no matter how good of a person one becomes, the idea that there is something overwriting your personality is somewhat alarming especially since Juno is a dream, not technically "real". The idea of dreams becoming reality is certainly an apt metaphor, but instead of getting bogged down in these paradoxes and existentialism, we have Blazewing to pull us out. Nonetheless, Jake briefly wonders what Randy might have brought back from the world created by the Quista necklace, and while I like to imagine it was a few valuable lessons, I'm wondering if there was something physical that came with as well, like the shades or, my worst fear, one of those murderous legendary Pokemon inside of a previously nonexistent Poke Ball. Jeepers.

Speaking of Randy, I couldn't help but notice the banner for Part II and find myself wondering if the other Pokemon are the replacement for the Pichu and Charmander in the original telling. If so, I'm glad that Alex got to keep his dark-type theme going.

One final note, in addition to loving the new Blazewing, I also found myself really enjoying Vicky. Both of them share a kind of bluntness, but Vicky's honest bewilderment in the opening chapter of part two made me laugh out loud, which is probably a warning that I shouldn't be reading fanfiction in the office while I'm on break, but c'est la vie. As always, looking forward to what comes next.