#ask Troius

[troius]

I just want to say a few things before you get to the end. First up, it's been a pleasure to read your thoughts on the series; like any fan, you have your own unique interpretations and it's always good to read how fans see certain scenes. It's also been fantastic to see fellow fans respond to your posts adding on to what you've written, again bringing your thoughts out more and generating discussion.

Also, seeing your thoughts has made me appreciate scenes and characters I never thought I would -- Yamamoto for instance, who would've thought?! They've also reminded me of why I fell in love with the series as much as I did, from the artwork to the themes to the incredible bonds between the characters. You've reminded me that BLEACH has it's flaws that can sometimes take you out of the story, but when it hits, it 100% HITS! It's a manga that's about the bonds we form, how they can help us overcome challenges and be a source of light in our lives. It's about the ways we overcome grief and the fear of death, whether it's literally fighting your way through it or slowly coming to a state of acceptance as time goes on. It's about the 'hearts' of people, about what they look like and how they're shared between those you choose. I could go on and on, but then this would become an essay and we'd be here all day.

All of this is to say, thank you for choosing to create a Tumblr account and deciding to read the series and give your thoughts along the way. I can't believe you've finally reached the end, it almost feels like I'm saying goodbye to the manga again!! I don't think I'm the only one here who sees you as a big and valued part of the community on here, so I hope you'll be sticking around! :)

Thank you so much Rays! Response under the cut because it went long.

This won't surprise you, but I too have grown in my appreciation for the series over the course of the uh three years that I've run this blog. Bleach has character concepts I've never seen elsewhere. It has moments of storytelling brilliance. It has truly, phenomenally astonishing art.

But more than anything else, I, like you, am impressed by the heart. For a story that's largely about the afterlife, Bleach is shockingly humanistic, locating virtue not in any system of belief, in any group or faction in the various conflicts that provide the setting for the manga, but in people. All people, whether they're our extremely relatable teenage protagonist and his friends, the occasionally sketchy adults in his life, or the various adversaries ranging from evil monsters to supernatural samurai to a regular-ass gang to a foreign apocalypse cult. Bleach never, not once, lets the viewer fall into the comfortable childish space of believing that there's good people and bad people in the world.

There's just people. Sometimes these people want to do bad things, like execute their sisters, or kidnap your girlfriend, or isolate you from your family, or destroy the entire world. Bleach doesn't flinch away from that either. But it (again, very humanistically) locates those bad actions not in the individual human beings, but in our relationships with one another through the systems and structures we've created to organize ourselves.

And yet in the face of the idea that humans do their worst work through other people, that's also where Bleach locates its greatest virtue. Alone, we're nothing. It's the bonds that we have with others that are what make life worth living, that are the source of everything good in this world. And navigating that dynamic, between spiritual bonds and structural shackles...that's really what adult life is all about, isn't it?

Anyhow, my adult life has been greatly enriched by all of you on here. But I'll take the chance to thank you specifically Rays, for being such a source of joy. Your positivity and passion are the sort of thing that makes a humble blogger want to come back for more, and I've deeply enjoyed hearing all of your thoughts, not just on my liveblog, but through your own posts and writing. I'll be sticking around for sure.

#bleach #ask Troius

[bleachbleachbleach]

Hi! I was the one who sent the asks abt: shinji and momo, the burdock imagery (of which I got to see in ur latest fic, comment pending), one stray ask abt the bathroom systems in soul society and that one ask wayyy back abt my thoughts on hinamori & Hitsugaya, esp how both are within the Institution that is the Gotei (can’t wait to see the manga panel side to side of ur answer to that hehe no pressure tho don’t worry). After much thought, I decided to go off anon cuz of your encouragement. I’ve been on the bleach fandom around 2012/2013 and got back on it during the TYBW anime bleach renaissance and it has been refreshing to see fresh takes on the Canon from you and tumblr user troius! As you can tell from the theme of my asks, u can already tell who my blorbo is lmao. I’ve always had a soft spot for characters who aren’t conventionally “strong” (aka yelling Bankai every other episode) like Hinamori and Orihime & it definitely hit harder for me back then the way these girls were put thru the absolute RINGER in the narrative & in fandom discussion PHEWWW. As an adult whose bound to navigate her own bureaucratic Institution in a specific field, Hinamori’s story now resonates in a different way. In particular, I love how ur academy era fics have her using the institution as a means to soar towards opportunities hard to come by & to fulfil a genuine desire to do some good while doing so. Like it makes so much sense!! Ppl tend forget that she had to have had a burning ambition of her own in joining the academy—to the point of making it to the honors class—an ambition outside of Aizen. (This kinda links to my hc abt hinamori being a ravenclaw but that’s for another time). Anyways, before I go off tangent, hi! I’m Xela and I’m happy to openly discuss bleach (aka my fave workplace comedy) with u haha.

PS. Per my previous ask, when I meant “weird boundaries” between Aizen & momo I meant like how companies who screw u over almost always blur boundaries by going “we’re a family here!” To let u get ur guard down before they screw u over which tends to be common in Asian workplaces. I didn’t mean it in That context but I understand that bringing up their dynamic tends to revive that discourse so it’s inevitable.

Oh yay, hello hello, Xela! <333 It’s so nice to meet you! We first got into Bleach 2007-2008, but got back into it, and really really into it in 2020, to the extent that we were then compelled to make this blog in 2021. At the time we had no idea there was going to be a TYBW anime so that was serendipitous! (And the Hell Chapter, too?!)

It pleases me greatly that Hinamori is one of your blorbos. <33333 I love her so much, and she deserves all the love. I’m always excited to meet a Hinamori enjoyer. (And Orihime, too!)

Thank you so much for introducing yourself!

#it's exciting to meet an anon 'in person' so to speak #i guess anon culture on tumblr is just confusing to us? like i get it for potentially sensitive questions or stories and such but #1) this is the oversharing website and #2) we don't tend to get asks like that--it's innocuous bleach asks but anon--and it's confusing because i feel like fandom is space meant t #connect to others through fannishness #but that doesn't really happen if you never know who you're talking to and if you're just one-sidedly responding to an ask without the othe #person also getting to share their thoughts it feels like the conversation could be so rich! but it's not because it's not a conversation #i'm sure all of tumblr's anons have their reasons but we really could not think of any and so remain in the dark #so yeah! that's why we keep writing that invitation in tags to anon folks haha #asks

[anzacanary]

@troius​ For a moment I thought “did I miss something about Soul Society voice memos” but right, Tousen’s management style, haha. Yeah, I think it was in the back of my mind that we’d had a conversation about how he comes across like somebody who never bothered teaching Hisagi anything if it was quicker and easier to do it himself. And so Hisagi was left in significantly better mental health than Momo post-betrayal and Izuru in general, but also in a uniquely bad place to suddenly be in charge of an entire division, but not such a bad place that he’s going to get any help (”this is a lot harder than I realized it would be,” he says, and he gets a sympathetic look, and then everyone continues to deal with the bigger problems)

The idea that’s getting me right now is specifically Hisagi having to go through Tousen’s schedule/organizer, and all of that being on recordings, however they’d do that in Soul Society. Going around picking up scattered, unlabeled cassette tapes (Tousen just kinda remembered where he’d put them), trying to gather the details of how-to-be-a-captain from crackling taped muttering like

 “Monday, rookies did well at drill, run that again in two weeks and pick out the dozen most improved,”

“next meeting, better ask Captain Unohana if she can send someone to give that field-medicine demonstration again,”

“remember to tell Komamura about that training incident, he’ll think that was funny,”

“Hisagi’s birthday is next week, do something appropriate for the occasion, maybe order cake for the break room - ”

#can you record voice notes on a soul phone? maybe? #but alternately: Hisagi having to scavenge up tapes like a survival horror game in their own offices #listening to this like #'that was really good cake' #'it was thoughtful of him' #'man you really can't tell he's planning to stab us all in the back at all huh' #bleach

[rays-of-fire-and-ice]

I posted 2,272 times in 2022

That's 568 more posts than 2021!

151 posts created (7%)

2,121 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@im-still-bleach

@bleachbleachbleach

@dont-look-up

@hitsugaya-toushirou

@canariie

I tagged 2,256 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#bleach - 313 posts

#hitsuhina - 230 posts

#toshiro hitsugaya - 227 posts

#ichigo kurosaki - 178 posts

#queue - 126 posts

#momo hinamori - 112 posts

#byakuya kuchiki - 103 posts

#rukia kuchiki - 96 posts

#asks - 95 posts

#shinji hirako - 93 posts

Longest Tag: 130 characters

#i think there was also a post here a long time ago where someone estimated how long (in hours) momo would've had to be interviewed

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Happy anniversary! After seeing your latest post, I'd like to request another gif dancing post!! Maybe with Grimmjow, Neliel, Orihime, Chad, Yamamoto, Kenpachi, Ikkaku, Shunsui, and Jushiro? 🙏

Thanks anon, this one just as fun to do as the last! Although for a few of these it was harder to find gifs that matched how I see them dancing XD Hope you enjoy it!

Grimmjow

Nel

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76 notes - Posted May 21, 2022

#4

For my request, could I ask for gifs for how Hitsugaya, Hinamori, Hirako, Mayuri, Renji, and Hisgai dance? Or maybe how each other react to seeing the other dance?

Oh my gosh anon, thank you for sending this one in! I hope you don't mind but I decided to add a few more characters to the ones mentioned above!

Hitsugaya

Hinamori

See the full post

78 notes - Posted May 7, 2022

#3

Looking Back: Analysis and Thoughts on Hitsugaya and Hinamori's Recovery

This was all originally going to be part of my headcanon post about how Hitsugaya and Hinamori reconciled after Aizen's defeat(which I will hopefully be posting sometime this weekend), but it became so long and unwieldy that in the end I decided this needed to be a separate post. Here I'll be analysing and giving my thoughts on:

If Hitsugaya and Hinamori reconciled in canon

Why Aizen hated Hitsugaya and Hinamori (looking at what he did to them, who he is, and why I think he treated them the way he did)

Hinamori's injuries and why it took her so long to recover

Hinamori's view of Aizen and how it's changed

Daiguren Hyourinmaru's Completed Form (the result of his training after Aizen's defeat) and how it relates to Hitsugaya's goal of protecting Hinamori

Why am I doing all this analysis in the first place? Well, aside from being for a bit of fun, these were the topics that just came up while I was thinking about how Hitsugaya and Hinamori reconciled. I feel like these all feed into how and when they would reconcile and where their character arcs go from after everything that happened in the Fake Karakura Town arc.

Also, I would like to thank@troius, who's insights have not only made me rethink my view on several characters but also was an inspiration for some of the analysis in this post. I will be mentioning this blog a few times in this post and including insights they have made, but please check out their content if you haven't already; their rereading of BLEACH is so enjoyable to have on the dashboard.

Final note before we get to it: I know I can absolutely go overboard with these kinds of posts, so if you're looking for short and sweet versions my analysis and throughts on the topics I'm covering here, skip to the end for the tl;dr versions.

So, with all of that out of the way, let's get started!

How do we know they’ve reconciled in the first place?

I’ve seen a few fans speculate that maybe Hitsugaya and Hinamori had yet to reconcile by the time the TYBW arc started, mostly based on the fact we don’t see them interacting at all in the last arc. However, the TYBW arc plot being what is was, there really weren't many opportunities for them to interact. With that said, for me there’s proof they have reconciled by then:

13 Blades: coming out in 2015, the databook has sections in the character profiles where a few other Shinigami characters make comments on each other’s profiles. On Hitsugaya’s, Hinamori says her and Hitsugaya have been close friends since they were young and even calls him by his nickname before correcting herself and calling him by his title; as far as I can tell, there’s no past tense used here, so it's not 'we used to be close' or something to that effect. On Hinamori’s, Hitsugaya acknowledges the impact Aizen’s action had on her, but says she’s much better now and asks the interviewer to tell her to refer to him as ‘Captain Hitsugaya’, indicating she still slips up with his name. For me, this means they’re interacting at least, with Hinamori feeling comfortable enough around him that she slips up and calls him by his nickname.

Maybe it's a stretch, but let’s also not forget that in chapter 659 she calls him ‘Shiro-chan’ and shows a great level of concern for him, and in return he gives her a softened look (I know there’s some debate about whether or not he really is looking at her, I must admit on my first reading I didn’t see it that way but on my second read it hit me).

Also, let's not forget she used this nickname during a traumatic moment for both of them, but for me the fact she continues to use it shows it doesn't hold any negative connotations for her.

For me these are indications that they’ve reconciled on some level. They’re interacting with each other, with Hinamori acknowledging they’re close friends and still falling back on old habits regarding how she refers to Hitsugaya. One could argue it might just be out of habit not an indication they've reconciled though, but as she still considers him a close friend, for me it indicates it's probably combination of habit and feeling okay with interacting with him.

It doesn’t indicate to what extent; they might just be good with talking about work-related matters but get uncomfortable when something about what happened in the Fake Karakura Town arises or one of them just can’t get the image of something they did against the other when they’re with them for too long. If this were the case, then it feels realistic. Recovery and reconciliation can take a really long time, and as I’ll be discussing later in the post, Hinamori’s recovery has taken and is still taking a long time, and I imagine on some level it was the same for Hitsugaya.

However, the main point here they have reconciled, and even it's only to a certain extent, it is a step forward to moving on from what they went through.

Why Aizen hated Hinamori and Hitsugaya

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78 notes - Posted March 19, 2022

#2

The Reconciliation of Hitsugaya and Hinamori: Headcanons

Okay, it’s time. I decided to finally sit down and write all the headcanons and ideas I have around how Toshiro and Momo reconciled after Aizen’s defeat. I’ve scattered a lot of these ideas across my fanfics, with some having come up more than once in different or similar forms.

You can read this as either as platonic Hitsuhina or a shipping post, I really don’t mind either way. There’s also some brotp moments here (Momo and Shinji, Rangiku and Toshiro, and a smattering of others).

However, what started as wanting to make a simple list of headcanons quickly turned into a mega post. Firstly, it turns out I had a lot more headcanons then I thought, and I think it's becomes more of an outline of the events that I headcanon took place in between the end of Fake Karakura Town arc and the Full Bringer arc.

And second, while this post is specifically for headcanons and my ideas based on my interpretation of the source material (mainly the manga), I’ve also done some analysis over in this post (I couldn’t help myself!). The analysis was originally going to be part of this post before it got too long. You don't have to go read that post to know what's going on with the headcanons, but if you're interested and have some time, I would appreciate it if you could check it out!

With that said, let’s get to it!

CONTEXT

Before we go into how I think Toshiro and Momo reconciled, we need to cover a few things that will help with context for some of the headcanons and ideas. These will be short and sweet versions of the analysis I've done in the post I mentioned above, so for the full version you can go look at them over there. However, feel free to skip over this section if you feel like you don't need it:

When did Aizen switch places with Momo?: I’ve talked more about this over in this other post, but in short, I came to the conclusion that Aizen switched places with Momo when Soi Fon went to attack him a second time to activate her shikai ability. However, there’s also the possibility he actually switched places after Soi Fon made her second attack, and while she was shocked and confused by her shikai not working, Aizen put Momo in his illusion’s place on the ice for her to create a shadow and get injured by Kyoraku. This bring me to…

Momo’s injuries and recovery time: during the Fake Karakura Town arc, Momo sustained injuries from Ayon, [potentially] Soi Fon, Kyoraku, and Toshiro. According to Death Save the Strawberry, it took her 4 months after Aizen's defeat to recover in the Fourth Division. Her recovery is the longest amongst the BLEACH cast, with most of the characters who were at the fight against the Espada and Aizen having recovered and returned to their daily lives ten days after Aizen's defeat; at that time Momo was still in the Twelfth Division receiving treatment to repair her internal organs.

Despite what some summaries of Death Save the Strawberry say, I suspect what kept her in Fourth Division was not her physical injuries but the mental trauma she went through during Soul Society and the Fake Karakura Town arcs. I also imagine, certain facets of her personality would make her be hard on herself, like the part of her that's a hard worker and is generally organised and responsible. I can see her feeling pressured to recover, and she wonders why she just can't shake off the melancholy consuming her. There is no captain now, she is the only leadership Fifth Division has, but if she's like this, how can she lead her division to prosper again? Who will be their captain now that Aizen is not only gone but not who she thought he was? Is everyone moving on without her? Why cant she catch up to them?

Then exactly four months after Aizen's defeat, in comes Shinji who tells her what she needs to hear. He essentially says ‘You’re not useless, you’re still a good lieutenant and I think you can help the division prosper again. Your friends aren’t leaving you behind, and I’m not going to either, let’s work together.’ The future is suddenly a bit clearer, enough for her to want to return to her duties and forge a way forward to move on with everyone only a few days after speaking with Shinji. he gives her a goal, guidance if you will, and this sets her on the path to recovery. However, let's not forget that in 13 Blades she not only credit Shinji for her recovery, but also Rangiku, who I imagine had visited her often and helped her return to her lieutenant duties.

Why am I doing all of this?: mainly because over the years I’ve been reading/watching BLEACH, this is the one thing that I have never been able to shake off. I have always wanted to know how these two made up after everything they went through.

On one hand, Kubo not showing us allows fans to imagine whatever they like, creating their own scenarios and headcanons about how it happened (or in some cases, if it even happened at all). On the other, it almost feels like something is missing. Of course, BLEACH is not Momo or Toshiro’s story, they’re side characters who ‘compete’ with other characters for panel/screen time in most chapters/episodes; but as someone who loves both of these characters, seeing these two reconcile and move forward from what happened feels like a vital part of their character development. It’s such a shame we didn’t get to see it in canon.

Also, it’s just fun to write this sort of stuff, it’s what being in fandom is all about, right? :D Now, finally, on to the headcanons!

Side note: if you're someone who likes to listen to music while reading, I would recommend listen to this fantastic playlist of BLEACH songs that I listened to while writing this whole post. Otherwise, find something that's either calming, sad, or both to listen to.

HEADCANONS

PRE AIZEN'S DEFEAT (AKA, THE PAIN, THE PAIN! AKA, PRE FAKE KARAKURA TOWN ARC, THEN CHAPTERS 334-422)

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95 notes - Posted April 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Ok I've got one. Can I request gif reactions to 10 of the male characters reacting to the Women's Shinigami Association approaching them to do a calendar photo shoot?

Okay but seriously these gif reaction asks are so much fun, keep sending them in everyone!

Shinji

Hisagi

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107 notes - Posted May 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #personal #yeah some of these aren't surprising XD

[ichihime]

Question for the mod(s): could you help me out with the phrase "one-sided sympathy"? It stuck in my head reading Memories in the Rain, but I'm having some trouble parsing it out. Wouldn't most sympathy be directed by one party towards another?

Hi !

One sided sympathy refers to Orihime learning about Ichigo's past without his knowing, and as she herself understands the pain of losing a beloved person, she feels a sympathy that is one sided because Ichigo isn't aware that she knows. ( Im also not sure if she knows that he actually recalls her from that time she came at his family clinic. )

Another reason might be that, by what Kubo said in one of his Q&A, Ichigo never forgot about Orihime ever since she came to the clinic with her brother, because he understood the pain of losing someone dear to oneself. In the same way, he felt one sided sympathy towards her because he understand her without her knowing. ( since she didn't learn about his past till the chapters you mentionned ).

I might also point out that viz translation aren't always accurate/ could be faulty and blurr author intent when it comes to characterization. So it be good to try and check out a more accurate translation if my answer to your question didn't help !

#ask #troius #mod moni #hope it helped !

[recurring-polynya]

Favourite thing about Byahisa?

I feel like people have gotten the mistaken idea that I am a Byahisa shipper, which I really am not, at least not in the way I am a Renruki shipper. I am interested in their story, which is a tragedy, but I do not, say, think about them kissing in my spare time. I don’t have favorite tropes or anything like that. I guess the thing I like best about them is simply that it happened.

I have said this before, but Hisana is not, in my opinion, a character. She is a plot point. We see her only through Byakuya's memory. We don't know what she was like. We don't get any of the circumstances that lead up to her abandoning her baby sister. Nevertheless, she is the catalyst for Rukia's adoption, for Rukia and Renji's separation, for Byakuya and Rukia's long estrangement, and, I like to think, that their attempts to rememer her played a role in their eventual connection.

I think a lot about this excellent post re: Rukia meeting Kaien by @troius about how Kubo is able to tell incredibly poignant stories with just a snapshot, but I think this one hits it even more: The assistant captain had a wife. Pardon my French, but fuck that hits hard. The assistant captain had a wife.

The panels of Byakuya telling Rukia about Hisana hit similarly to me. It's not a full story. Byakuya has just been stabbed through the heart, and he is apologizing to Rukia, trying to explain himself as he sweats and bleeds all over the ground in a very non-Byakuya fashion. The first thing he says is that she died. There's something I want to tell you. One spring morning, 50 years ago, before the first plum tree blossomed...I lost my wife.

He goes on to tell the facts of the story as they relate to Rukia-- Hisana abandoned her, Hisana never stopped looking for her, Hisana died full of regrets. It's so curious and mysterious to me out of a fairly small flashback, half a page is taken up with Hisana apologizing to Byakuya for not being a better wife, but I don’t get the sense that Byakuya is bitter or mad about it. It's never entirely clear in these flashbacks how much the nostalgic character (in this case, Byakuya) is actually saying out loud, and how much they are just remembering. This is the only part of the flashback that is not actually relevant to Rukia, and I think that this is a part that Byakuya is remembering to him--with pain--that along with everything else, he could never impress upon Hisana how much she meant to him.

We get only a handful of reflections of Hisana-- Byakuya contemplating her portrait during two end themes, Rukia being asked to perform a dance Hisana once performed with the implication that this is a matter of great personal importance to both Byakuya and Rukia, a scene in Fade to Black where Byakuya walks with his wife and supports her as she collapses. These are so brief, but they all impart the same idea, Byakuya had a wife, whom he loved. She died. In the spring. Before the plum blossom bloomed.

Byakuya, as a character, is very stoic and rarely shows emotion, so these glimpses are so poignant and powerful. The other thing that we do know about him is that he was a hothead in his youth, (and then some things happened) and now he's Like That. The (and then some things happened) is so intriguing and mysterious and sad. I was only planning on including the top three panels of the page above, but that last panel-- the hugely empty room, the sun pouring in, Byakuya’s posture. I lost my wife.

I did not have a lot of sympathy for Byakuya as a character when I started writing fanfic, but I had to deal with him, so I dug for something I could latch onto, something I liked about him, and that something was that he had a wife and he loved her. She was common. Marrying her cost him a great deal of political capital and possibly also his relationship with his grandfather. She was chronically ill. She was crushed by the trauma of her early afterlife. Byakuya loved her.

The other thing I like about Hisana, writing-wise, is that she connects Rukia and Byakuya, but she is wholly absent. She is a void in the space between them, a thing they can explore together, but only if both are willing. I am also fascinated with the way Hisana's gravity effects not just them, but Renji. If Hisana had never abandoned Rukia-- an act that she regretted for the rest of her afterlife-- Renji never would have met Rukia, the defining event of his own existence. On the other hand, if it were not for Hisana, they wouldn't have been separated, either, the other defining event of Renji's existence. We don’t really get to see it, but as Renji settles into his role as Byakuya’s second, he must, at times, act as a weird conduit between his boss and his best friend. In some extremely weird ways, Renji, a loud, 6′2″ meathead with too much eyeliner and too few social graces, has taken on Hisana’s role in connecting two people who are absolutely terrible at connecting to anyone.

Bleach is a story about ghosts, or perhaps many stories about many ghosts. Byahisa is a love story that is also a ghost story, and that is one of my very favorite things in the world.

#byahisa #byakuya kuchiki #hisana kuchiki #i have another ask in the pile about byahisa fanfic so hold on for part ii #i said i don't care about tropes of whatever but i DO have a byahisa theme song #which is 'cold is the night' by the oh hellos #it's really a byakuya song #it is HELLA depressing don't say i didn't warn you #SOMETIME I LIKE SAD THINGS #byahisa is just a place i can go to roll around in sad feels when i need to #there's also a very specific thing about plum blossoms being the harbinger of spring in japanese poetic symbolism #they come before the cherry blossoms. when it's still cold #like spring is coming but not quite yet #and given byakuya's spring associations this is particularly meaningful #sorry i couldn't figure out how to work that in earlier but i think about it a lot

[green-blooded]

Well, coward, gimme your most aggressive Star Trek opinion. u won't.

I was asleep when you sent this, so that’s why it took a while, but here you go.

I don’t know when, as a whole ass fandom, we decided that Kirk is 100% respectful toward women.

Because, I am so, so sorry, but it’s not true. And you can say it’s not true of any of the characters, but I would argue it’s particularly not true of Kirk.

For example, he’s REAL WEIRD about women being in his landing parties more than once. In Dagger of the Mind, he’s really pissed off that McCoy assigned the person best for the job because they messed around at a party or whatever. In Space Seed, he’s SUPER FUCKING DISMISSIVE of McGiver’s expertise in history and keeps forgetting her name like a jackass. In Return to Tomorrow, there’s all kinds of weird things going on, but he centers in on the woman who is part of the landing party.

Also, just… I feel super uncomfortable through the entire first season whenever he gazes longingly at Yeoman Rand. I guess we’ve all chosen to see this as one-sided on her part, but it seems clear to me (especially from that awful scene in The Enemy Within) that it’s not and we’re supposed to Feel Bad for Kirk because he doesn’t act on it. Oh and, by the way, remember how he was annoyed Starfleet assigned him a female yeoman? And that he’s “already got a female to worry about, the Enterprise”??? Okay.

But hey, those are relatively small things, so how about in Bread and Circuses when a slave woman was told by her master to sleep with Kirk, and he fucking did it? What about the Elaan of Troius when he shouted at a woman who just didn’t want to be forced into marriage, actually uttering the line “Nobody’s told you that you’re an uncivilized savage, a vicious child in a woman’s body, an arrogant monster!” What about in Gamesters of Triskelion, when he seduced another slave woman and then just left her behind for no fucking reason when she basically asked for sanctuary and he didn’t even give a shit?

Look at this face and tell me Kirk’s not kind of a fuckboy sometimes.

NOW, ALL THAT SAID.

If you want to ignore this shit because the 60′s were a mess and you like other aspects of Kirk and there are moments where he’s not a jackass, that’s cool with me. I generally ignore it when I’m writing fanfiction, myself, because I do love aspects of the character! But acting like it’s not in canon is Real Damn Frustrating.

#call me a coward will you #well here you go i'm talking shit about kirk #negativity #Anonymous

[troius]

i think the worst part is that urahara doing that to yoruichi is technically in character but it lacks the depth, i suppose, of his previous shitty manipulative actions. for much of bleach, its unclear what exactly kisuke's motives and goals are, but after the fullbringer arc, that lack of certainty is gone. Now the narrative expects you to think of him as ultimately a good guy even while he continues to act shitty, and the only way to do that is to frame him doing this to yoruichi comedically, and that makes it come off worse if anything

Not much to say here, except that I basically agree with all of this. The Giselle and Orihime stuff wasn't great, but you could basically forget about them as soon as you turned the page because there weren't entire fights built around those moments, like what happens here.

I don't even see this as about fanservice. As you noted, Yoruichi could have turned into a mostly naked cat lady on her own and I would have rolled my eyes a little but not really been upset about it. It's the violation, and I'm really struggling to imagine why it was necessary to add to the story here.

#bleach #ask troius

[troius]

I feel like aizen’s speech about how a world where death exists, courage exists, shows that Yhwach didn’t really have any courage at all perhaps. He was terrified of death.

I dunno if "terrified" is the right word-- Yhwach is functionally immortal, after all. If he were afraid of death he would have just not started a massive war and chilled in the Schatten Bereich.

It's more that Yhwach has a philosophical opposition to the concept, to things growing and dying and evolving and changing instead of simply existing in eternal forms. I'll try to get a little more into this in my big arc write-up.

#bleach #ask troius

[troius]

Bouncing off your Ichigo being sidelined discussion (which, yes, where's he been this whole arc?) One thing that really made TYBW suffer imo was the lack of inner character insight from the main squad, Ichigo and Uryu (poor boy got practically offscreened in an arc about his own people) especially, given that the supposed rift between them is meant to carry the Karakura gang side of things and only got /one/ quick scene (and where, i think, the arc being cut short suffers). Where Hueco Mundo managed to balance both Ichigo/Orihime/the Six Hearts gang, their issues and give them a narrative to follow and spent time with them and gave them genuinely compelling moments (the Lust mini arc centered around Ichigo/Orihime/Uryu/Ulquiorra remains, imo, the very best writing Kubo did, it had great art, genuinely compelling writing, good fighting and interpersonal relationships between Ichigo and the three of them, and kept us hooked because we /care/ about these characters and the despair they're going through), and made room for the SS Captains without them being overwhelming (Mayuri/Szayel was tedious, I'll give you that), TYBW really became a Shinigami fest (the extended time spent on characters like Mayuri (two fights, restores everyone's bankai, gets "closure" with Nemu and conveniently zero repercussion for his crimes against the quincies) Shunsui, Urahara and Zaraki (also two very lenghty fights) which yielded, ultimately, not all that much in terms of meaty character development and relied on a lot of convenience/deus ex machina/plot armour, and feels unsatisfying when you're waiting to get back to Ichigo and the squad where the emotional crux of the arc lies (Yhwach killed his mother & Uryu's mother, and it yields... also very little), the arc, despite being super long also did extremely little in developping the Quincies (aside perhaps from Jugram and Bazz, and even that was limited. Uryu suffered the most for it imo, but I guess showing any hint of inner conflict with him would have gone against what Kubo tried to pull with him, the anime also cut out his exchange with Jugram, where Jugram spells out for him that the blood ritual has essentially trapped him on Yhwach's side and Uryu being clearly horrified by it & Uryu's reaction to Yhwach asking him why he's alive), and dropped the ball big time on the main characters we *should* be invested in (poor poor Chad tbh). It's a shame, when you see what Kubo /can/ do with a contained story like Everything but the Rain; which had heart and character development, and made us care about Masaki/Isshin/Ryuken and Katagiri because what limited stuff we were given was actually compelling, and we're already attached to both of their kids and the friendship between them. The Gerard Valkyrie fight goes on for just as long as ebtr, features the three most popular captains, but has none of that heart (and a lot of plot convenience), which is why people bemoan it so much.

It's pretty telling that even anime fans last cour were clamoring for Ichigo to come back after episodes of mere cameos from him, but also nice to see that while Mayuri/Byakuya/Zaraki and co are popular, *Ichigo* is the one who remains the heart of the story, the nexus that pulls together the Shinigami, his gang of friends and the audience. Given that animation can oft make what feels long and tedious in manga (Gremmy vs Zaraki was one ep in anime vs going on forever in manga), the Pernida/Lille stuff should hopefully not last beyond 2/+1/2eps. With all the talk about Cour 3 having a lot of addition, I'm crossing my fingers the anime will spend more time with Ichigo/those close to him (*cough* and the dad squad) in the next parts! Visual fights are nice and all, but character relationships, conflict and depth are, ultimately, far more compelling and memorable than any Cgi flashing swordfight and brute strenght boost can do, there's a reason ppl remember the Ulquiorra stuff on the dome as the pinnacle of Bleach, and not, say, Zaraki vs Gremmy. While I'm not expecting a Lust arc round 2, if the anime team takes their time, I'm hoping the ultimate Ichigo (&co)/Yhwach showdown to be reworked into something just as compelling.

Lol I feel kinda guilty posting this because there's not much to say in response. Get yourself a Tumblog anon, otherwise I'll get all the credit for your meta!

#bleach #ask Troius #but not really #no but seriously folks if we're gonna have some dialogue here I need an interlocutor

[troius]

Now that you’re near the end of Bleach, how has it been blogging through it this whole time ? Are there characters/arcs or scenes you weren’t too fond of in the beginning but now you kind of see in a different light ?

Also how likely do you think it is that Kubo would ever continue Bleach after the anime adaptation is finished ?

It has been great blogging through it this whole time. I started this project because I came across this tumblr community and it rekindled my decade-old love for the series, and I thought "hey, I never actually finished it", and then decided to do the read-through...and it's been probably the second most rewarding three-year project I've ever done, just coming short of law school.

More detailed stuff under the cut!

I like to think I've learned to appreciate everything a little more this time around, but here are some big ones:

Renji Abarai. It's not like I hated the guy before, but on this read I really came to appreciate how carefully and masterfully done his arc is. Renji would have been a really easy character to screw up, considering he starts as an antagonist, and is besotted with our female lead despite having had a tortured breakup with her in the past. And then they get together! Those things aren't a recipe for success (as you can tell given his uneven popularity in the fandom).

But I love the guy. It's not totally surprising, I think anybody who has been super In Love can relate to him, and certainly we all want somebody in our lives who has his level of passion and consideration towards the object of his affections. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, and he fucks things up, and then rather than just sit around in his failure, he gets up and tries a different way. And sometimes he fucks that up too! But he never stops trying, and he never stops caring, until by the end he is the one giving the advice, because he put himself through all of that, and he's better for the experience. He's just great.

The Fullbringer Arc. It totally collapses at the end when the Soul Reapers get shoehorned in for no reason but everything leading up to that is sick. It's just a completely different style of story, focused entirely on the alienation of the youth, a tale of what's going in in Ichigo's head. I was really, really impressed with it, again up until the end where everything was screwed up.

Zaraki vs. Nnoitra. I remember hating this in the anime (and not really understanding it the first time I read it a decade ago), but it was actually pretty good! A good development of the themes of the Arrancar Arc, and a testament to how Kubo can make you feel even for an absolutely horrible person like Nnoitra.

How likely do I think it would be for Kubo to continue Bleach? Heck if I know! But the story's kind of over, from what I understand: Ichigo grew up. That's usually the end of things in shonen manga! I'd honestly be more interested in seeing him do more Burn the Witch, something that I understand he has not yet finished.

Or he could just do a Hitsugaya-centric spinoff. That might work, because that guy 1) is not grown up and 2) still has a character arc to be resolved.

#bleach #ask Troius

[troius]

"idk I kinda wish his bankai had been like Unohanas" "just a total reversal from what you'd expect"

Im sorry but I have to dissagree here. Unohana´s bankai worked as a reversal because it was an actualy reversal, we were lead to believe she was a peaceful person, but in reality she was bloodthirsty.

Her bankai reflects her hidden bloodthirsty nature. Kenpachi´s arc wasnt about growing out of his brutish fighter ways, or revealing something hidden, it was about becoming the best version of that.

His bankai is straight forward because thats what Kenpachi has always been. There may have not been an epiphany moment that leads to this end point, but the end point itself is perfectly fitting

But Unohana was a peaceful person, that's the trick.

Yes, she was, back in the day, the most notorious criminal in Soul Society, a brutal swordfighter who helped Yamamoto carve out Soul Society from an era of blood, and probably killed her fair share of Quincies in the first war.

But she was also the peaceful healer, the mentor, the quiet pillar of strength that supported all the other companies of the court guards. That's who she chose to be, and while you can say it was a facade...at some point, the facade has enough impact on the world that I don't think you can discount it as a part of the person. If that Unohana was never real, then who wrote that last letter to Isane?

And I know we're all in love with badass Yachiru Unohana, but she was really a terrible person! She apparently used to go to the outer districts and just butcher people in the hopes that somebody would resist, and once again provide her with the sweet taste of mortal combat. That's not just unhealthy, it's horribly immoral. And it created a monster, Zaraki, who behaved in more or less the same way.

But Unohana changed! She's not the only one-- it's a big theme in Yamamoto's fight with Yhwach as well, this idea that actually being a hard-ass killer isn't what should be valued in life. Yamamoto left his arm in ashes back in Karakura town so that he wouldn't again misplace his priorities, and he dies to Yhwach in part because of it, but he leaves Shunsui in charge, somebody who he specifically taught not to value the monster he used to be.

And that's what Unohana does to Zaraki. She brings it all out of him, he finally has everything he wanted, and then he kills her, and realizes well fuck. Maybe fighting to the death isn't the goal of life. Maybe it happens, but it's not your purpose, it's something you do if it has to be done for something in your life, something you care about.

It's the exact same lesson Zangetsu was teaching Ichigo during that first fight against Zaraki in Soul Society, and it's not a coincidence that Zaraki's first fight after this is rescuing Isane, the other person that Unohana deeply cared for. Fighting for a purpose, in sharp contrast to all his previous fights, which were fought more or less because he wanted to fight somebody.

Anyhow, my point with all these words is just to say that Zaraki should be growing out of his brutish fighter ways. Being a brutish fighter is not cool, it's literally how hollows exist. Zaraki's first fight with Ichigo is even titled "the Undead". But I'd prefer it if he lived, life has so many possibilities.

#bleach #ask troius #look I know this is a very humanistic reading of bleach #but I do think it's supported by the text

[troius]

Mayuri of all people getting so much positive focus in the last arc is still baffling to me. I know he's the author's fave and lots of ppl like him bcs he's *quirky*, and i just don't get it at all. He's horrible and insulting towards Nemu and genuinely unpleasant, he //should// have gotten his commeuppance with the Quincies (ik Yhwach does't really care and Uryu let the affair go but still, dude is still a shinigami Mengele, he still tortured a bunch of quincies and brutalized Uryu's grandfather, and that NO quincy whatsoever came after him reeks of favouritism) and while yeah, he restored the stolen bankais, I don't get how his science gimmick personnality is supposed to be endearing enough to absolve him of the awful stuff he stoll does as a guy on the morally good side (Szayel was awful, what Mayuri did to him is still monstrous and far worse than a lot of villains have done), dude has so little growth. Uryu should have killed him or at least seriously wounded him, as retribution or as a means to prove his loyalty to Yhwach/Jugram, or *something* so Mayuri doesn't just get to /walk free/ and get served his narrative desserts. I genuinely thought Nemu's arc was going to learn how to free herself of him and gain autonomy and independence, and to see where it ends is really disappointing for her. She deserves so much better.

I think I'll have more to say on the Nemu side of things later, so I'll hold back on that for now.

But as concerns Mayuri, I mostly agree with you. My one point of difference would be to suggest that I don't think his personality is supposed to "absolve" him of his moral depravity-- the story has stayed pretty clear in painting him as a bad person, and I think you're supposed to hold that in your head at the same time as he's fighting for the (alleged) good guys. Done well, you could even see it tying into the moral ambiguity in the conflict that has been infrequently raised throughout the arc.

But where the story gets into trouble, I think, is in Mayuri's presentation. He's such a quirky and interesting character, and has so much of the author's soul in him, and the story just sort of coasts on that? It would be one thing his objectively entertaining presence were examined in the story as something that allowed him to abuse his power. But the critical eye just isn't there. And contrary to Carneades, I think we can know enough of virtue to know this isn't it.

And perhaps, in a work that is intended for the youth, it might not be the best idea to make a person so morally bankrupt the de facto protagonist of a battle.

#bleach #ask troius #yeah sorry folks not a Mayuri fan #I recognize that this is an unpopular position on here #but the guy doesn't get nearly the skepticism from the narrative that his deeds demand #truly the most “playing favorites” of all Kubo's characters

[troius]

Now that you've reached the end of the TYBW, is there anything (themes, story, characters) from the arc you think could/should have gone differently or would have liked to see expanded upon? I always enjoy reading up on your thoughts, thanks for the ride, its been a blast! Looking forward to your closing thoughts on the last chapter :)

Well yeah, the entire final fight with Yhwach. It's pretty clearly intended to wrap up several things:

Ichigo's character arc

Ichigo's relationship with Orihime (and therefore Orihime's larger character arc.)

Renji's character arc (and therefore by definition his relationship with Rukia)

Uryu's character arc

Aizen's character arc, for some reason

Jugram as an antagonist

Yhwach as an antagonist

The Thousand-Year Blood War, as a whole

The story of Bleach

But we basically only hit the plot points. There's a sort-of build during the Yhwach vs. Ichigo and Orihime fight, contemporaneous with the Uryu vs. Jugram fight, so we get a little of (2), (4), and (6), but only the briefest glimpse of (3), and (5) only really works because we don't care about Aizen so a surface-level treatment is fine.

But it completely fails to deal with the two big thematic things, which are (1) and (7), and therefore (8). These arcs in Bleach, as they are in all comic books aimed at young adults, are meant to demonstrate and even serve as something of a metaphor for personal growth. And we don't get that at all. Yhwach dies basically because he's enough of a piece of work that even Aizen wants him dead, and then Ichigo just chops him. Fin.

And that sort of leaves us flailing with (9) as well! I'm sure he'll try and tie it up in the final chapter, but it's going to feel a little flat considering how the big fight with the ultimate big boss ended. Anyhow this all should have been expanded on, and absolutely would have been if the author had been capable of it. I'm excited to see what he does with more time.

#bleach #ask Troius

[troius]

I think that, had the still silver been introduced earlier and we'd actually spent time with Ryuken and Isshin crafting their arrow and gotten a sense of urgency from them, that it would have felt much more like a payoff. I genuinely like the idea of Yhwach getting his commupeance at the hands of those he made suffer (Katagiri, and both Ichigo and Uryu are Quincies he'd deem impure and half breeds, and represent, in a way, all of the impure Quincies he's killed in his quest for power, after all he told Uryu to his face he should have died), but the execution, even if it gave Soken reason - that Shinigami and quincies indeed could work together - as has been mentioned, was unfortunately very rushed, which I understand were due to the circumstances surrounding the publication of the manga. Hoping the anime, with more time and Kubo having more creative input, will try something to fix it though!

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I think was planned as well. Really the entire final fight has just been Things Happening that should have had more emotion behind them, but didn't, because the story is sprinting to the finish as quickly as possible. Here's praying we get some of this stuff expanded!

#bleach #ask Troius #ironically the Aizen stuff is what works the best #because he's got such a limited character that even “he did this” counts as development #our main characters have no such luck

[troius]

The Orihime hate came out hard at the final fight. The main problem with ywachxichigoxorihime fight was the time constraints to finish the series

Yeah, I'm definitely getting that sense.

#bleach #ask troius