#686 aftermath

[junko222]

the ending of bleach makes me go insane, but i am curious, what is your opinion about the ending? does it make sense at all?

I honestly think this is something Bleach fans are going to be left to unwrap for the rest of our existence.

I’m going to be honest with you, @zhanxixii, the ending hurt me.  If I take it on face value my OTP married the wrong person.  And, I’m not even talking about the two big, popular het ships.  I mean I wanted Renji to end with Byakuya.  I’ve only spent the last four years devoted to writing the epic soap opera of their love life.  Which might be fine if I were writing an AU or even a canon-divergence, but I’ve been really quite strictly trying to stay within canon.

But that’s not even the part that about this that’s killing me.

The thing that hurts is that the story has no resolution.  Okay, Yhwach is dead (and supposedly, somehow, they got a brain-damaged Aizen back into prison).  Right, that just means that the main antagonists are taken care of (kinda.)

There was a war on.

Yes, Yhwach absorbed some of the Sternritters, but did they all disappear? What about the regular Quincy soldiers?  

Ishida didn’t.  

He’s not only a Quincy, but the HEIR to Yhwach’s power and a Sternritter.  Did Ishida get the power or just the title? Is Uryu Ishida the Soul King?  (Who is the Soul King???) And what happened to the Quincy in Hueco Mundo?  What happened to Hueco Mundo?  What happened TO ANY OF THE ACTUAL PLOT POINTS.

Getting people hooked up and producing babies does NOT ACTUALLY END ANYTHING, but it certainly doesn’t RESOLVE PLOT.

I literally don’t understand how the world still exists.  We were told over and over in this arc that we must protect the Soul King, because the Soul King sorts Souls and holds the world together. When Ichigo slashed the Soul King, we flashed to all these earth quakes and it was all apparently so dire that Ukitake sacrificed his LIFE for it. But, then Yhwach absorbed Mimihagi and now Yhwach is dead.

The actual plot is hanging wide open.

We actually have no idea how the actual story ends.  Who is Soul King?  It’s not Ichigo.  It can’t be Ichigo’s baby, no matter how super powered, unless Orihime was ready to give birth the second Yhwach died (and she was on the battlefield), it’s just not possible that the world just said, “Oh, cool, I’ll just wait for people to marry and have babies.” That’s not how things are supposed to work.  Especially since it was set up in the story that the earthquakes started IMMEDIATELY after the Soul King was dead.

Remember Urahara’s “OH SHIT” face? We were supposed to feel like the Soul King’s death was a really big fucking deal.

That’s what the story was about.

This story was not about who will Ichigo end up with, no matter what some factions of fandom want us to believe.  This particular arc was about something entirely different.  The threat to the universe that Yhwach and the Quincy posed. It SHOULD have always been about the clash between the Shinigami and their own past with the Quincy too.  It started out with that great line from Kyouraku, I think, talking about there are no winners in war, everyone has dirt on their faces, as it were.

Do you even remember that this arc started with a new substitute soul reaper being assigned to Karakura Town?  (http://www.mangapanda.com/bleach/480). We never even saw that character after the first three chapters.  If people want to shout about how things should end where they start, we should have at least seen that guy again at least once, to check in.

The whole mystery was about a great unbalancing. 

We literally don’t know how the balance got fixed.

That’s the DEFINITION of poor storytelling: not even answering the basic questions of your story by the end.

[junko222]

how come ichigo can't be asexual while still accepting how bleach ended? (unless u seen him as sex repulsed too or s/t then >.< ok) i actually liked having a headcanon for him as aro ace too. but if it's just asexual than i think that can still work into canon pretty well? idk, i know not every asexual feels the same on certain things so... this is pretty interesting?:)

I actually think that ace Ichigo goes really well with the ending, actually. I never entirely saw him as aro (but that’s probably because I’m a deeply romantic person, myself.)  But I agree, whichever way, I think canon supports either view and probably dozens of others (even sex-repulsed, because just because the baby has the Kurosaki last name and looks doesn’t mean anything. There are things called surrogates and sperm donors.  I’m a married lesbian and our child was born to my wife and a [in our case an anonymous] sperm donor and has my last name. And my son looks exactly like me and my family and we technically share no DNA.  Nurture is actually a very strong force; stronger than you think. But a sex-repulsed ace Ichigo could totally donate his own sperm to Orihime.)  

Look, if I’m disappointed in the ending in terms of ships, it’s because I’m queer and married and, I’m sorry, but marriage is not the end of adventure.  It does not put a bow on a story about a war with an ancient enemy (–unless you married Ichigo to the queen of the Quincy, I don’t even see how there’s been plot resolution AT ALL.)

[theshouten]

How can Kazui casually take his Shinigami form like that??? Isn't it supposed to be his soul? He also presents himself as "kind of a Shinigami", what does "kind of" even mean god I'm lost

Yeah, I have to admit that I NOPED a lot of this chapter and I haven’t even been able to put much thought into trying to make 686 work within the universe of Bleach.  

One thing I will say, is that I’ve been wondering if Ichigo is dead.  Byakuya cut his soul chain way back in the beginning of the rescue arc. Urahara did some science-ing that supposedly saved his life, but I don’t know, man.  I mean, he also technically doesn’t survive his soul chain getting cut AGAIN by Urahara during training and becomes a Hollow.  I mean, he’s able to tear the mask off, but what happens to him is legit what happens to Pluses that become Hollows. Only there’s something about Ichigo that he still retains some part of his human-ness, presumably because his father is also dead (and as a Shiba, and a noble, may have been BORN dead.)  

It has also bothered me in this last arc that no seemed to need their soul butterflies to travel between the worlds any more.  In fact, after returning from the Rescue Arc no one seemed to need them any more.  Kyouraku nearly (or did?) kill Chad in their first meeting.  Mayuri nearly (or did) kill Ishida. Orihime… may have never been human to begin with.  So, I almost wonder if somehow they’re all partly dead, too, and so when everyone headed off to Hueco Mundo, Urhara didn’t even pretend they needed soul butterflies anymore (and of course making the bridge between the worlds was suddenly NOT a two week process.)  What if the reason it was easier was because they’d already “crossed over” in more ways than one?

It’s a curious question.

But, it’s possible that this “kind of” thing has something to do with that.

[junko222]

I keep seeing this picture of Ichigo:

And I keep interpreting that shirt of his like this:

(The Asexual Pride Flag)