#it's exhausting & unfun for me to have to think about renruki as parents i just want to think about them doing stupid things and making out

[recurring-polynya]

*raises hand slowly* major fan, love your work! I actually only recently discovered your Bleach works in the last few years and I think I've reread all of them at least 3 times. But after reading your "The Greatest Family in Soul Society" series, I've been wanting to ask: How do you think they reacted/handled the aftermath of events in the Bleach Special One-Shot? Specifically Ichika, who possibly for the first time witnessed one of her parents in legitimate danger?

But anyway, CONGRATS ON 1 MIL!!! YOU DESERVE IT! :)

Thank you very much!! 💕

So for starters, if the Hell Arc every actually becomes a thing, I strongly suspect that this will be get addressed on-screen. Kubo clearly intended both Ichika and Kazui to have prominent (although probably not protagonist-level) roles. If this happens, Rukia and Renji will probably either handle this in some terrible way that causes Ichika to feel like she has to go against them and redeem herself or they'll get, like, trapped in Hell or something and she and Kazui will have to go rescue them. It is incredibly rare to see good relationships between parents and their children portrayed in fiction, and my expectations are on the floor for this one.

I talked to my husband about this for a long time this morning because I couldn't think of a single example of a good parent-child relationship in media where both characters have roughly equal narrative weight, and he couldn't either. Usually, the choices are a) parents dead or out of the picture, b) parents are awful and selfish and learn the error of their ways, or b2) generational trauma, which is the same, but parents bad behavior is excused because their parents did it to them. There is also c) stoic parent with lifelong duty raises stoic child to fulfill the same duty, which is the best of the lot, but it's still not great. It's also not really Renruki's style, especially because they've got Byakuya right there as an example of what being raised like this does to a person. 

Maybe Kubo will come up with something interesting, though! I would love to see it if he did!

With all that out of the way, I'll lay out how I think it should go, or how it would go if I were writing it, I guess.

For starters, we are still in a shounen anime. Bleach plays the "young person witnesses an act of violence and is saved" card constantly. As anime goes, I think Bleach actually does a fairly decent job of acknowledging the trauma that goes along with this, but it's also usually deployed as a thing that spurs the "witness" character to want to get stronger. Furthermore, the witness character usually has no sort of support system and receives no comfort after the fact--Kensei saves child-Shuuhei and then calls him a wuss before peacing-out. I doubt Shin'ou had any sort of trauma support group for Renji, Momo, Izuru and Shuuhei after their disaster fieldtrip --in all likelihood, the attitude was more like "wow, you got to see Captain Aizen in action, how lucky for you!" Even in the aftermath of the scene where Renji rescues Jinta and Ururu, Jinta is shown sitting by himself rather than seeking comfort from either of his "parents" (who, granted, are focused on healing Ururu).  That one has an added bonus ofJinta-has-always-treated-Renji-extremely-disrespectfully and then Renji saves him and gets gored pretty gruesomely.

In contrast, Rukia and Renji have both been on the "witnessed the trauma" side of this before, and never had adult figures in their life to help them process anything. They lost and buried three friends before they even went to shinigami school. I think they know how much that sucked and how much damage it did to them psychologically and would be pretty sensitive to what Ichika is feeling. It's actually kind of funny because if they hadn't gone through a lot of trauma together, they might just be stoic about it and think that maybe their own kid should just suck it up, but they were definitely able to see how much it affected the other one. Like, part of the reason they even had a kid was to try to make up for the shitty childhood the other one had to go through.

Rukia and Renji probably run a pretty weird household because on one hand, they spent their own childhood taking care of themselves and making their own decisions and living with the consequences. They did a lot of actual crime, like a lot. Trying to tell their kid what to do would feel like a weird overreach to them. On the other hand, they're soldiers, so they are used a formal discipline system where sometimes you get punished because that's how you learn and make up for your mistakes. Overall, though, I think they respect Ichika as a person they are trying to guide to adulthood, much the way you guide a green recruit into becoming a strong officer. Yeah, she shouldn't have snuck along on a mission for lieutenants, and now she knows why. They're probably still going to yell at her and make her sweep the yard or something, but that's she's their kid, and they know that waiving the punishment would make her feel even worse.

Also, while this may be the first time Ichika has witnessed her dad getting stabbed (and it may not be), it's not like this idea is new to her. I'm sure Rukia and Renji have come home with injuries before, or not come home, and she had to go visit them at the Coordinated Relief Station, or possibly had even go stay with Uncle B for a while. (Uncle B, whose own father actually did die in the line of duty and I've read at least one fanfiction where he was there). A thing I like about Rukia and Renji as characters is that they respect each other's decisions about what danger they are willing to walk into. If they err, it's generally on the side of not stopping each other enough, and I think that is both very stupid and very charming of them. It speaks to the overinflated confidence they have in each other, and also I am tired to death of overprotectiveness being spun as romantic, when 90% of the time it's just patronizing or selfish.

I guess to sum up, I'd say I would like to see Ichika come out of this with more respect for the gravity of her parents' job (vs. the 'dad and Ikkaku went to have fun without me no faaaaaiiirrr' attitude she started the one-shot with). It is interesting that she was able to see the Hell-guys when the lieutenants weren't able to. I hope that isn't something that just gets dismissed (and if nothing else, I think this is a case where Kyouraku as Head-Captain would be like "no I want to hear this" where Yamamoto would have been like "I don't listen to children!") I would prefer to see her get included in the action intentionally, where she's nervous about it, but trying to put up a front of bravado (both because she doesn't want anyone to know how much it scared her seeing her dad get stabbed trying to protect her and also because this is peak Young-Rukia-and-Renji behavior). Seeing what her parents are like on the job, realizing they're both extremely cool but also huge doofuses, and slowly gaining real confidence in herself because they show confidence in her would be a pretty refreshing story, imo.

#ichika abarai #no breaths from hell #i answered this b/c the asker was really nice and b/c it hasn't come up in a while so i'm sure some people weren't aware #but i generally do not take asks or requests about ichika #i tried real hard b/c i know people really like her and i wrote those stories in an attempt to make Parent Representation that I didn't hat #but a thing i learned while doing it is that #it's exhausting & unfun for me to have to think about renruki as parents i just want to think about them doing stupid things and making out #and i don't want to come off as a hater but i get SO many asks about her if i don't put my foot down #anyway this post comprises my ichika content for 2024. thank you in advance for your understanding. #i also want to say that i am not *advocating* raising your kid to be a child ghost soldier #rukia and renji are fictional characters in a fantasy warrior setting #i let my kid go skateboard by herself at the school playground we are not the same