You have a very distinct way of playing Yoruichi! What would you say is the most important distinction your girl has vs say Canon or other Yoruichi blogs? The 'Defining Factor' as it were?
I would say that the main distinction between here and both canon and other portrayals is that I don't have reservations about ending up in the weeds by imbuing Yoruichi with experiences, knowledge, and influences from actual history. While that might compromise how canonical she feels to others, it makes her far richer and more dynamic, thereby making her far more unpredictable, and thus in my opinion makes her feel 'truthier' as a whole.
I try and capture the spirit of what I imagine Yoruichi to "actually" realistically be like, not the letter of her as observed in Bleach.
I know that Kubo, and by proxy Bleach itself, are completely uninterested in what she's been up to for the last century, and really with things before then as well. Kubo doesn't care about history, and he isn't particularly interested in delving into the pasts of any his characters except in so far as it facilitates the forward motion of an arc. (Narita relating in CFYOW that he and Matsubara begged Kubo to draw a whole manga about how Yoruichi and Kisuke met is a great example, as is Kubo whining about people pestering him to continue NBFH; he only does what he wants.) He's not interested in characterization for its own sake.
However, I think this has produced a measure of timidity when it comes to people building on what characterization he did set up for their roleplaying. For younger characters with more exposition, like Ichigo, sticking to what's charted out is feasible (in the moment) but for older characters with centuries or millennia of lived experience, it starts getting really dubious—especially if those characters aren't sedentary and fixed in their ways.
I think Yoruichi is the foremost example of a character who's not fixed, and therefore ought to have a lot of interesting background. I also think filling that out is hard. That manifests in canon as ignoring it entirely. It usually manifests in portrayals as glossing over it. I think other portrayals try to focus on capturing her canonical voice and feel more, and I think many of them do that better than I do.
To me though, that canon is not all there is to a character. Because this is a shōnen with a large cast, we see most of that cast in what would be unusual circumstances for normal people—wartime conditions and situations. Whatever we see of them is really just a slice of who they actually are, and not necessarily reflective of who they are most of the time. In addition, we rarely see into them—we get into Yoruichi's head maybe 1.5 times throughout the manga, and those are when she's facilitating Ichigo's training, and worrying about Yūshirō. These are hardly normal frames of mind and thoughts for her. While they reveal some things about her (she's actually quite cold and logical internally), they don't tell us that much about what she's normally thinking about.
We really have no idea what she does with most of her time. We can only draw inferences.
There is no canonical reason to believe she's done any of the things that I attribute to her between 1900 and 2001, and before and beyond, but there also isn't any canonical reason to not believe them. I take it all as free real estate, I do whatever I think is most interesting with it, and I enjoy adding those extra layers of detail to them when I do. I think creating limits and "facts on the ground" actually makes it easier to write, not harder. It comes down to a certain maxim, I guess: "When everything is possible, nothing matters."
Knowing she was here and here and here and did this and that and knows about so and so is freeing to me rather than constraining.
While she knows quite a lot as a result—I've called her a living embodiment of the 20th century before—and that leads to a certain amount of, for lack of a better word, Deadpoolization, I also think it makes her surrealist and whimsical in a way that isn't just "not like the other girls" or being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She has lived most of her life for herself, and she has her own agenda and objectives that have nothing to do with most if not almost all other muses—she doesn't need anyone (except Kūkaku) and she's okay with that.
Some people are not okay with that.
Some people want Yoruichi to be predictable, like in canon.
Some people want Yoruichi to be readily moldable into some new form more agreeable to their muses.
I have nothing against people with those sentiments, but I don't think they'll be satisfied here. It's part of why I take time to promote other Yoruichis when I see them: I would always rather that someone find a portrayal that clicks with them and makes them happy, than feel the need to interact with a portrayal that doesn't. I'm not here for followers for their own sake, and if someone doesn't vibe with what I do, that's okay. No one is under any compulsion to engage with it.
It's just how I feel Yoruichi would actually behave. I think she is almost like a force of nature in some ways, and I think that being like that achieves what most people can identify as an aspiration to freedom that she embodies. (Though it's more complicated than most people imagine, as she clearly has a sense of duty too.)
I think there is merit to both approaches, of voice and spirit, but I'm suited to the approach I take, and it's my preference, so it's what I do.
A summary of this might be, it's very possible to write in the image of Yoruichi as she is known, but this portrayal is about the Tao of Yoruichi, the way of her, whether that be known or not. Maybe that sounds pretentious or elitist to some, but to me it's just a way of saying I try to imagine what she would actually like, what she would actually be into, what she would actually do, and the "truth" of those things is what guides me.
(And as always, they're frequently not things I personally agree with either. We always bring something of ourselves, but I would say Yoruichi challenges me to expand my own limits.)
I said a lot, huh? I hope it actually makes sense. Anyway, thanks for asking!
