#justletmebeokay

[gunnerpalace]

You know what we were robbed of? A good full tilt fight with rukia and ichigo acting as a team. Their height difference alone allows for a variety of combined moves.

There weren’t enough team-ups in general because everyone believes in some dumb “1v1 me coward” logic. Which is weird because the basis of Soul Society way predates bushidou and Japan traditionally only gave a shit about what worked. (During the Sengoku era, Japan was the world’s foremost adopter of guns, and most samurai used bows and spears. Like, the entire idea of ninja is “hey dude it’s war, whatever works.”)

In my opinion, the final Aizen fight should’ve been Ichigo and Uryuu finally doing the team-attack they were going to do against the Menos Grande, except Mugetsu and Letzt Stil. (Especially since they can both... reactivate their powers after they lose them...) Meanwhile Yhwach should’ve been Ichigo and Rukia blastin’ Yhwach with a combined bankai to bamboozle him and then Uryuu murdering his ass with the heart-silver combined into a Vollstaendig attack.

And that’s just like, two fights. There should’ve been more, and yes, some more common Ichigo/Rukia team-ups would’ve been baller.

[tasteofshapes]

Persephone and Hades! Cause I am not one to seperate them.

Thanks for asking, @justletmebeokay! 💕I’m with you, Persephone and Hades shouldn’t be separated!

Persephone: what’s your favorite season?

So, my country basically only has one season all year long, and that’s a blistering hot, sweaty summer. I only experienced the four seasons when I lived in the UK, and my favourite season was fall. I have so many good memories associated with the end of summer and the beginning of fall. Fall meant that I was back in England again, that we were all reunited after the long expanse of summer. It meant watching the land turn orange and gold, it meant the beginning of pub crawls and week-long Halloween parties. It meant the leaves crunching under our boots as we came home, drunk and laughing on nights out. It meant nights spent in the library, and playing hide and seek in the damp basement when we got bored. Fall was the beginning of our little kingdom again, when the days were endless and everything was possible.

Hades: do you believe in an afterlife?

I do. I believe in a heaven and a hell, and I believe that people’s souls are judged based on their actions, and not what they believe in. I don’t believe that you automatically get a free pass into heaven just because you’re religious. I believe that you have to earn it— and I believe that it’s simple, you just have to be kind.

-

Greek Myths Ask

[gunnerpalace]

▲ Rukia (I don't think this has been asked yet which is like...what?)

Unpopular Opinion #1: I’ve gone back and forth on it, but I think in general Rukia’s original haircut was better than her timeskip one.

Unpopular Opinion #2: If there was going to have been a timeskip like there was before the Xcution arc, then the manga should’ve followed Rukia for quite a while and actually set up all the shit that was to follow. We should’ve seen her become a Lieutenant, train the 13th Division’s Shinigami, go to noble functions, and so on.

Unpopular Opinion #3: Rukia’s initial fault was that she was too self-sacrificing. I think her persistent fault is that she is too kind. I like seeing her have a harder edge underneath that. I think she would’ve gained that from becoming a Lieutenant and being more directly responsible for others. I kind of want to see that slightly more grizzled side to Rukia more often.

Unpopular Opinion #4: I’ve really had enough of Rukia being shit on by the plot by being reduced to a damsel in distress (once with the Soul Society arc was fine, twice with Fade to Black wasn’t, and three times with Hellverse was…) She should’ve had a Rescue Ichigo arc and Xcution only kinda fulfilled that since it was largely from his perspective.

Unpopular Opinion #5: Basically half of the screen/panel time should’ve been Rukia’s. The moon eclipses the sun, Kubo, not the other way around.

Unpopular Opinion #6: There should’ve been more visible interaction between Rukia and Chappy (or, the Chappies, plural).

[gunnerpalace]

🔺 soul society. Also you're awesome, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.

Thanks, but I just can’t shut the fuck up, really. It’s not much to be congratulated for.

My unpopular opinion is that Soul Society is a fucking awful and barbaric society by any remotely modern or humanist standards, and it itself is the main bad guy of the entirety of Bleach. (This last point is essentially the one and only thing I will agree with CFYOW on, sort of.) Aizen, Ginjou, and Yhwach were all essentially right for wanting to destroy it, they were all also just egotistical and murderous assholes. The whole point of the series was to watch Ichigo and Rukia reform it from the inside (rather than it being cast down through revolutionary action), until that was thrown out at the end along with everything else.

It is the perfect fusion of the worst aspects of empires like those of the Mongols and Aztecs, and police states like East Germany and North Korea. Its one and only somewhat positive aspect is that it seems to be an equal opportunity employer, as it doesn’t seem to care about gender, sexual orientation, faith, or ideology. All it cares about is that you serve.

Maybe that sounds a bit harsh, but I’ve been over it before in a lot of detail.

A Brief Overview of Soul Society’s Bad Points

A More Extended Overview of Soul Society’s Bad Points

A Very Extensive Overview of Soul Society’s Bad Points (my most famous post ever)

An Addendum to the Above

Some Tangents Including Soul Society’s Bad Points

The tl;dr here is that Soul Society is trash and if all of reality didn’t rely upon its continued operation it should’ve been burned to the fucking ground. But it did, and so it needed to be reformed. Which we were told was happening in the Xcution arc, only for all of it to be thrown away in 685 with the two-mile tall rebuilt execution stand, which is why the ending didn’t start to suck with 686 the way so many people act like it did.

(Just like how Mass Effect 3 started getting nonsensical at Thessia, but didn’t start getting really bad until the Kai Leng fight and going back to Earth, TYBW started getting really bad when Ginjou and Tsukishima showed up in 681 and stole Rukia’s job, leaving her to say not one goddamn word. 685 and 686 are the Star Child and color-coded endings, in this comparison.)

(A lot of people liked and still like Rukia’s captaincy reveal because superficially you can go, “My girl made it!” but really, if you actually like Rukia, then in my opinion you should fucking hate that moment because that was when she betrayed everything she had previously stood for and believed in and allowed the system to grind her down and make her another cog in the dystopian hellhole nightmare machine. It was the ultimate character assassination of her, and thus the entire premise of the series.)

Even dudes like Ukitake, who seems nice, were kinda bad (and this is without getting into the whole Ginjou thing). People just don’t really wanna think about it too hard because it starts making all the Shinigami really problematic instead of it being limited to just Mayuri, Yamamoto, et al.

On another note, literally almost nothing about Soul Society makes sense. Token example: after Gin repulsed Ichigo & Co. from the one gate, they go to Kuukaku because Yoruichi says it would take them 10 days to walk to another gate. Let’s assume a 12-hour forced march at 4 miles per hour. That gives a quarter of the Seireitei’s circumference as 480 miles. That would mean Soul Society was 680 miles across. What if it was 10 days of walking with no breaks? Then it’d be 1,220 miles across. So the Seireitei is supposedly somewhere between the size of Texas and Alaska. And later Ouetsu tells us there are only about 7,000 or so Shinigami. So there are 7,000 people (much less, actually, given deployments; Karakura is “District 3600″ so assume half of those should be deployed at any one time) in a city supposedly the size of Texas or Alaska. I don’t fucking think so. It’s all nonsense and bullshit.

[gunnerpalace]

Out of Yoruichi, Ichigo, and Rukia. Who do you see as saying I love you first?

Rukia.

Yoruichi would, I think, go as far as, "I like you," as she does in Got Our Wires All Crossed, but I think she would A. always be trying to mentally shortcut her awareness of her own feelings (for various reasons, but mostly trained behaviors she’s adopted), B. try and tamp them down when she couldn't, and C. try and communicate it through her other love languages (doing things or through physicality). In this capacity she’s probably more in line with Japanese cultural mores than the other two, because it feels like a big commitment for her to say it out loud.

Ichigo, in my estimation, doesn't tend to say “new” things outright without some kind of inciting incident that provokes him into it. So, if they're in a situation where he gets irritated it's not coming across (like those little snippets where he gets annoyed and says it to Yoruichi) or there's something that's weighing on him (like when Rukia is going away for a week in Demons of the Sun and Moon) he'll do it. But I think it'd have to be very dramatic for him to be the first one to say it out loud; it’s unlikely, but possible (as, again, he did say it first in at least one setting.)

Rukia is always there with the words, even if she also sometimes seems oblivious to her own feelings or tries to sort of reprogram them in her speech. I think she would be the first to really admit that it was love to herself, and I think she would likely be the first to vocalize it as such, although I think it would likely be almost more out of annoyance than anything (in some circumstance that provokes A Traditional Rukia Speech™, but in this case to do with the two of them not admitting it to themselves).

Once it was out in the open, I think Rukia would sort of weaponize it (in a caring way!) against the other two, before they started to adapt to it. Ichigo would adopt it a bit grudgingly if he didn’t start it, but would do it in short order (because he’s actually a sap and a softy at heart). But it’d probably give Yoruichi pause for quite a long while, and I think it’d be a rare thing that could make her demure. She’d probably get wide eyes for a second and then very deliberately narrow them back down and mumble it back, earning further teasing. That’d likely make them do it more as friendly teasing and as an almost kind of exposure therapy.

[gunnerpalace]

How would youbhave developed Chad's powers? Idk if that's been asked before.

Tough question. Chad’s real problem is that his powers are poorly defined. At first it’s just some weird affinity with Hollow energy, and then we get told he’s a Fullbringer. 

The issue with that is that Fullbring is introduced way too late into the series to really stack up versus Shinigami, Hollow/Arrancar, and Quincy powers. We’re left with the impression that the latter three are all roughly comparable and the former is strictly inferior. Xcution’s ability to keep up with Shinigami for a little while really comes down to their abilities just being weird and wacky; in terms of power they’re completely outmatched. (CFYOW’s efforts to make Fullbring scary with Aura are, frankly, stupid.)

So, first and foremost, Chad is screwed by the fact that his potential upgrade paths (soul manipulation) are shuffled off 424 chapters into the manga, and it’s all a bit late at that stage. He is also screwed over by the fact that his power activation doesn’t make sense even in that context. Every other Fullbringer has their powers from birth, usually awakened by some kind of traumatic event. Why did Chad need Hougyoku exposure? He went through plenty of trauma.

(Orihime has this even worse because her powers are not identified. It would make sense for her to also have Fullbring. But they don’t recognize her as one. Meanwhile, Hachi does describe her powers as being similar to theirs, and claims it has been “a long time” since they met someone like them. While Ichigo is right there training? So Ichigo isn’t a Visored? [He clearly isn’t, since his Hollow/Shinigami synthesis came about through a completely different means, and it is basically “impersonating” such things.] But Orihime is similar to one? But she has no Hollow or Shinigami powers. So what the fuck is Hachi talking about? That it’s actually bullshit made up by the Hougyoku? Unknown. Maybe it was just a bad translation. But the fact Orihime’s powers were never delved into is another big indicator of exactly how much Kubo really cared about her.)

Chad also gets screwed by his most obvious Fullbring item (his grandpa’s coin) not being his focus, but rather his skin. Like, what? Talk about a bait and switch and subverting expectations for the sake of it. (The coin completely fails Chekov’s gun.)

And finally, he is screwed by how limited his powers are. Okay, so he’s got one defensive arm (that can shoot Shouryuuken punch-beams because Kubo realized how hilariously limiting that was), and he’s got one offensive-arm that shoots more powerful (skull-shaped!) punch-beams.

Like, uh.

That’s never going to not suck in this setting where defense is mostly trash and even a slight difference in ability means your opponent is practically teleporting, from your perspective. It is always going to be a trash ability set.

There are three solutions that I can see:

Fullbring needed to be introduced much, much earlier. Like in the first Karakura arc. In this case, Chad needed to focus on using their high-speed movement and increasing his attack speed. This is a major rewrite.

Chad needed to adopt some seemingly-universal abilities, probably from Uryuu. Early on, Uryuu uses reiraku, which is acknowledged by Rukia as a “high-level” Shinigami technique. Why a Quincy knows a Shinigami technique is never addressed, but it suggests that there are crossover abilities that can be learned universally. So perhaps Chad could pick up flash steps or hirenkyaku. At any rate, he needs some kind of mobility-up.

Chad could pick up Hollow/Arrancar abilities. Same as the above, except for sonido and cero.

Point ultimately is, Chad is too slow, weak, and focused on tanking to possibly be relevant to serious combat in Bleach. He needs mobility and DPS since he’s not ever going to be a burst/alpha strike kinda guy. So he needs to go fast and be able to just pump damage constantly. His mindset also needed to change because he kept running into serious opponents and then getting totally clowned on by them.

I don’t play League or DoTA, but he’s like, a jungler? He’s there to clear out and CC trash mobs. That Exequias guy who could copy himself that Rukia tangled with, Rudbornn Chelute? (Who didn’t even die from that fight, WTF?) That should’ve been Chad’s thing. Ironically, him getting stuck fighting shitty sand statues to keep them off Ichigo’s back in TYBW was perfectly emblematic of what he should’ve been doing the whole time.

Ultimately, Chad is simply never going to be an impressive character and fighter no matter what you do with him simply because he was never intended to be, and was never meant to be a main focus.

[gunnerpalace]

Have you thought about the marrige of the OT3? Cause nothing really says that in your universe marriage is limited to just 2 people.

I absolutely and quite casually imagine them as eventually deciding to get married; in a lot of the follow-on WIPs to Grounded! that are set notably later, I have them idly referenced to each other in narration as “husband” or “wife,” as the case might be.

I think it would be easy to make having a polyamorous/non-monogamous relationship be a source of ongoing angst and tension in any of these AUs, or any AU involving YIR. (Although a serious, committed, and closed triad/ménage à trois isn't very complex by the standards of such things, it's still different enough that it could easily be viewed as highly unusual depending on context.) The thing is, I'm also not very engaged in exploring that aspect myself (though if someone else were to, I think that would be quite fascinating). I'm not particularly interested in framing a story around the sociopolitical ramifications of their love itself (although I am interested in the political ramifications of them coming together because of who they are as individuals), or seeing them struggle against societal expectations, although I freely acknowledge that could (and in many circumstances absolutely would) be an ongoing plot point. It is, I suppose, one layer too many and distracts from where I would like the focus of their story to be, at least when I’m writing it.

Doing some token research suggests that, as things are in reality, somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of the population engages in some form of such behavior at some point in their lifetimes. So, certainly in the BattleTech AU (being very distinctly set in the future) it could just be assumed that group marriages aren't uncommon. (This is a recurring thing in science-fiction anyway; the most recent major example I know of being James Holden in The Expanse, who is the only child of a "marriage co-op" of 8 adults—5 men, 3 women. The wiki for the series goes into some detail about how the concept works in-universe.)

So, my sense is that in the BattleTech AU group marriages are just a thing, if varied in nature, and that doesn’t mark out their relationship as unusual. What would is who they are—a Shihōin, a Kuchiki, and a Shiba getting together is bound to be a major political headache for absolutely everyone.

In the other AUs, I’m personally fine with just hand-waving it and saying that historical divergences led to more open attitudes regarding relationship configurations and the law followed suit accordingly. (And I guess in the QZGS AU it’s just different through authorial fiat.)

(An interesting point that’s been brought up by others is, if such things are fairly common, it would be interesting for there to be some other assemblages of characters in the background in similar such relationships that could perhaps be used as a model or at least a point of comparison in them deciding how to structure their own relationship. I have yet to really figure out who, or in what configurations. I think Grimmjow, Nelliel, and Harribel being a sort of “dark mirror” of them could be interesting, but I don’t think they would appear anytime soon [especially as I sort of imagine the Arrancar and Espada being associated with the Clans].)

So, yes, I think they’d get married. An interesting question then becomes how quickly they’d decide on that and how the proposals might happen. @duckiesteasmiles​ wrote this (which I have lightly edited) for the Modern AU, and allowed me to post it. I quite like its take on the idea of how it might go:

Some days were harder than others—everyone can understand that in some way. Waking up was a pain and leaving the arms that always seemed so welcoming and present was to be ripped away for the everyday grind. Rukia found herself curled up in a bath that was readily awaiting her when she came home. Yoruichi had taken her bags while Ichigo had pressed a kiss to her forehead. She knew very well that she should be grateful for the life she had been given. Every life had suffering. Every person cried. Every person found some parts of their lives unfair. Why should she be exempt from this? Surrounded by water one degree above lukewarm, she felt too vulnerable—too human. Her nails wanted to claw at her skin and her soul craved to find refuge. She allowed herself neither. With her face buried against her kneecaps, she heard the faint click of the door opening but did not move. She was too tired to fight off any comfort that would be given to her now; she wanted it more than anything, really. She just wanted to be home, all the time. But she could no longer utter the words, It's not fair. She felt slender fingertips gingerly parting strands of her hair and scratching behind one of her ears. There was no need to lift her head, no need to register who it was. Yoruichi sighed softly as her heart jumped into her throat and then sank into her stomach. This wasn't a pain that could be whisked away—only coaxed and cooed at until the demon Rukia was fighting wished to settle for another day. It was all she could do, but it would be enough. After a few moments of gentle caresses, cheek strokes and shoulder kisses, Rukia carefully shifted her face from her knees to Yoruichi's lap on the tub’s edge. The warmth of her face muddled with a small stream of tears that would fall every now and again, puddling against Yoruichi's skin before dripping back into the bathtub to become one with Rukia again. Little fingertips reached up just slightly and curled into the fabric of Yoruichi’s shirt. Yoruichi began to focus on this contact and rubbed a thumb against the back of Rukia’s hand. It was only a breath later that Rukia's ears perked up to an unfamiliar sound. She wanted to turn toward it, to see what it was, but found Yoruichi’s other hand against her hair, silently telling her to remain where she was. The soft humming was pleasant and caught Rukia off guard. It was surprisingly girly and melodic, not at all like the low purr that she had always imagined it would be. It was a tune somewhere between You Are My Sunshine and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. She dared not complain—but god, it was beautiful; Yoruichi was beautiful. Rukia’s muscles relaxed and she slumped against the edge of the bathtub, wanting to lean into the warmth of the other woman as a new wave of tears shook her breath and blurred her sight. Yoruichi complied and let Rukia nuzzle her face against her belly, not caring about the damp stain it would leave on her shirt. Between her hums and touches, she softly soothed Rukia, calmed her, adored her, and convinced her. “You're such a strong girl, dear one. You're so very strong. And every day you're able to get out of bed and do what you need to is another step closer to coming back to it; to coming back home. I know it isn't easy. I know you're trying your best, and sweetheart: that's all he and I can ever ask of you. If it gets too much, you're allowed to take some time. If it gets too overwhelming, you're allowed to cling. You've done nothing wrong; your thoughts aren't wrong; your pain isn't misplaced. I miss you too—so does Ichigo.” Yoruichi's throat felt tight and she too curled up around Rukia, burying her face into her hair. “It's not easy for any of us. I want to be home too. I want to be with you and him all the time. But you aren't ever alone, Rukia. You have us; you'll always have us. We're your partners. Whatever you need us to be, we'll be, without question. I know it's not fair. But you're only human. You can only do so much, and I'm so proud of how much you've grown. You're such a wonderful little bunny, darling; such a beautiful empress. I couldn't wish for you to be anything more.” Unbeknownst to them, another set of eyes watched over them, pained from a lurching heart. Ichigo gazed over his girls, both of them tired and clutching at one another like they were each other's life supports to keep afloat. He swore that he would do all his two hands were capable of to keep them safe; to keep them loved and cherished. It didn't matter how many extra hours he had to suffer with the world; didn't matter if he was away longer—if it was for his girls, he could do anything, anything at all. With each step towards them, his resolve grew stronger and more powerful. And by the time his arms caught hold of the two most precious things in his life, it was absolute. It was time to make them understand just where they belonged. If not in this moment, when? Once he had held them for long enough, he carefully found their left hands and looped a gold band around each of their ring fingers without a word. It wasn't needed.

I think it would probably always be Ichigo who brought the rings, though I’d be willing to hear counterarguments. Regardless, I like the idea that their proposals tend to be soft and quiet and intimate things, rather than flashy or dramatic (as they get enough of that in other ways). They don’t need to be grand gestures because by the time they happen, they all already know, and it’s just the final bit of physical proof of a truth long since established.

[gunnerpalace]

In your OT3, the Battletech one, do you have any notes, that you're willing to share, on how you're going to handle Urahara and Soifon? I know in the past you have said that you found Soifon's character to be creepy in how its seen or portrayed in relation to Yoruichi.

To be specific, I called how she’s often portrayed as obsessed with Yoruichi in extended universe material (e.g., anime filler and omake, video game story lines, etc.) as being cringey in one post, and kind of gross in another. I didn’t really mean to suggest that Soi Fon herself is creepy, but the people writing her sorta are. Her canonical characterization and character arc in Soul Society is fine without being overwrought in my opinion (considering she looked up to Yoruichi as basically an idol), and thereafter in the manga it doesn’t feel very played up; her characterization is ironically a way in which the manga is better. (Although a lot of that comes from it not being much referenced again...)

I haven’t really written things out for her or Kisuke in the BattleTech AU. (I have in the Modern AU, to an extent; Kisuke’s circumstances are decently elaborated upon in the notes. Soi Fon I assumed would still be a Navy pilot and her bitter early self if encountered again.) But, to contemplate it now... I think Soi Fon would be associated with the Draconis Combine and still be in their employ. She might’ve suffered a loss of face following Yoruichi’s desertion which would probably amplify her feelings of betrayal (putting her in line with the sort of darker take on Byakuya and perhaps Renji) but given her character, she likely would have made every effort to “redeem” herself in the eyes of the state. I sort of imagine Yuushirou is in charge of the Draconis Combine and is not at all keen on hunting his sister down, which probably chafes at Soi Fon, but she is simply biding her time. I didn’t immediately plan out her getting involved but it’s certainly an obvious pick for them to run afoul of her eventually. I think she would be very disappointed in Yoruichi choosing to establish a mercenary group and likewise be very dismissive of Ichigo and Rukia; she’d probably make them priority targets if she gained any sense of what was going on between the three. (It probably takes a lot longer and a lot of fighting and intrigue to come to a truce with the main antagonists than in the source material.)

Regarding Kisuke, I find their source relationship a bit odd. She always calls him “Kisuke” in TBTP (e.g., Chapters -107 and -106) but in the present she varies between that (e.g., chapter 195) and calling him “Urahara” (chapter 185) even when no one else is around but them. It’s strange, and combined with their relationship dynamic completely swapping across the century, it suggests to me there is a certain distance between them. (Which her unexplained absence seems to reaffirm, as Jinta and Ururu have never seen her before.) Which is why, in these YIR fics, she is usually describing her relationship with him as some variation of on-again, off-again. Even when I think of UraYoru, I feel like they have closer and more distant periods.

I think in BattleTech AU he and Yoruichi are more close friends and confidants than having ever been lovers, although they still might have been. I do think he’d support her desires to be happy. Of course, either way it’s still kind of a bit awkward for Ichigo and Rukia, because in this particular AU he’d technically be their boss.

I get the sense he would be a bit teasing with Rukia but mostly polite (as in the source material), but I think it would be a bit different with Ichigo. While Kisuke would mostly still put on his good natured and jokey persona, I do get the sense he’d pull Ichigo aside at some point, do the shadowed eyes under the hat thing, and say something like, “If you break her heart, I break you.” And Ichigo would probably say something like, “You’ll never have the chance. She’d do it herself first, and if she didn’t, Rukia would still beat you to the punch.” They’d probably stare each other down for a bit and then Kisuke would laugh and play it off like a joke, satisfied for the moment with the response.

I think he would be very involved with trying to suss out their path of survival and offloading that burden of leadership from Yoruichi so she could enjoy herself as best she could. That kind of silently taking on responsibility is very much his thing.

Beyond that, I’m not too sure. I’m kind of open to ideas and commentary. (I do get the sense that Yoruichi might continue trying to provoke Soi Fon by suggesting she was interested in Kisuke, which would probably not irritate her in this timeline, but absolutely infuriate her.)