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littleeyesofpallas · 2 years

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Stupid exercise in futility but trying to nail down some sense of order within the Gotei 13.

Squad 1 as best as we ever knew was Yamamoto, Sasakibe, and Okikiba, three old men... Maybe they're all old because they've all just been at it for just as long a time, but I like to think that squad 1 is just the retire to a desk job squad for the gotei, so it's full of retirees.

But then Shunsui and Nanao get thrown in there to resume capt. and lt. duties basically just by way of Shunsui's senority. He definitely steps up to the task given the needs of the plot, but it would have been nice to see more of a total shift in personality once slacking off ceases to be a real option.

So as far as we know this squad is largely administrative and political. Whatever it is that unites the other 12 squads, and gives the Gotei as a whole direction comes from Squad 1. Presumably Squad 1 also directly negotiates relations with the Central 46 and the Royal Families.

We also know Genryusai is the founder of the Shinigami Academy that trains new shinigami, but it's unclear if he still had any direct interaction himself.

Squad 2 we know was initially just a "militia" which makes sense as a top priority in the Gotei's formation. But Yoruichi's ascent to head of her family, her family's secret police, and 2nd squad captain merged said militia with the Shihouin Family's special forces. The special forces seem to thus recruit from/thru the 2nd Squad now.

They consist of what are basically ninja police, patrolling, surveilling, arresting, and detaining. I kind of hate that they exist the way they do because they seem to just be a giant redundancy within the Gotei; various things the gotei would sensibly have specialized departments for that might be squad specific duties, the onmitsukido seem to have their own subdivisions handling already...

Squad 3 we have no damn clue about.... They're really never elaborated on in any meaningful way under any particular captain...

Squad 4 is all medical. Thank god this one's nice cut and dry. We know they have both nurses in dedicated medical facilities within the seireitei as well as field medics in 14 different subdivisions. It is not clear if those subdivisions have any specialized roles. They attend to prisoners as well as active duty shinigami that they follow out into the field. It is questionable if they offer any services to the souls in the rukongai, although Jidanbo's complete neglect would suggest not.

Squad 5 has no explicit roles or duties shown throughout the series. But there is some suggestion that they could be the gotei's liason with the academy, or otherwise something like HR, dealing with assigning incoming shinigami to squads and filling squad needs for personel.

We know Aizen had a hand in shuffling Renji, Kira, and Momo around in their early days with the Gotei, but it's unclear if those were attributable to his Captain rank in general, or if he did so in his capacity as 5th captain specifically.

Alternatively it could be something that would cover the information and resources that facilitated Aizen's specialized research into hollows, but there's not a lot to go off of there.

Squad 6 also has no clear roles.

They went to the human world to apprehend Rukia, but that feels more in line with Byakuya's personal responsibilities than his squad's.

The position appears to have been passed down several generations in the Kuchiki family.

We also know they have their own jail cells, and its not made clear if that's something every squad has although it very well might be. But given Byakuya's fixation on law, it's possible the 6th Squad is specialized in some form of law enforcement: tracking down, apprehending, criminal shinigami like Rukia, and detaining insubordinates like Renji.

Squad 7 is yet another super vague one. All we really know is that Komamura and Tetsuzaemon operate akin to a yakuza boss and underling, and that Komamura values loyalty above all else. Between Tetsuzaemon's name, his predecessor Jinnemon's name(which both refer to "gates" and contribute to the yakuza aesthetic) and Komamura's affinity for heavy armor, it's possible they are a defensive focused group. But what kind of actual responsibility that would entail under normal circumstances is super unclear.

No idea what Love lends to any of this.

Curiously, the Gate Guardians would presumably be part of a squad if they aren't their own independent force, but it's not clear whose squad they'd belong to if they belong to any at all. But Jidanbo's little brother Jirobo was part of 7th Squad. (Although once they brought up the that walls and gates surround the King's Realm normally... which makes very little sense anyway... it would suggest the Gate Guardians hang out up in the Royal Realm under normal circumstances???)

Squad 8's responsibilities are also just never really addressed.

Whatever it is the squad does, Nanao's the one doing it, so possibly something fitting her bookish demeanor more than Shunsui's?

With Shunsui's slacking there's no reason to suspect that any part of the squad's duties particularly suit him. And whatever Nanao did as his lt. Lisa had done before her, and resumed doing as new captain once Shunsui moved to 1st squad. But then Lisa's demeanor is, superficially at least, identical to Nanao's. So that doesn't really add any clues.

Squad 9 has some clues, but none that really add up.

We know they run the cultural magazine on the side.

We know Kensei ran them like a biker gang in the past.

We know they were the ones sent to investigate when shinigami disappeared in the rukongai.

So it's possible they could be the vanguard? Either like scouts or as the first line of defense? Feels redundant with Squad 2's spec.ops. patrol squad though, but again most of 2nd squad's existence as a partially independent organization suggests they just internally do all the same things the gotei does more broadly...

The biker gang thing would sort of suggest high mobility as a specialty skill/group tactic?

Squad 10 unclear.

Hitsugaya's got a whole boy detective thing going on in the SS arc, but that might be circumstantial to the conspiracy plot and not related to his duties as 10th captain. Plus more of a personal character quirk than a job role.

Matsumoto does not appear to be an asset to these duties in any case.

The late addition of Isshin also does not make clear much of anything.

We know they received some kind of casualty reports but it seems like they weren't reports from their own squad. (the reports were filed late due to Isshin and Rangiku's shirking, but if their own squad members had been dead and missing for months surely they'd have noticed.)

We know Hitsugaya was the supervising captain in the Karakura stakeout after the first Arrancar attacks. But it's super unclear what the process there really was; he may have opted into it as a personal matter wanting to deal with Aizen's affairs, and it sounded like the other team members had been selected first and independent of his command. So not clear if any of it really aligns with his squad duties even remotely...

Squad 11 is nice and simple. The fighters of the Gotei wind up here. But notably not the formal militia that make up squad 2, even before the incorporation of the shihouin spec.ops.

Given the general thuggishness and wild demeanor of the most of the squad it's possibly these are categorized by kill count or otherwise fight record and not by qualifications of formalized training. That or their overall tone is a result of Zaraki specifically being their captain and previous iterations didn't necessarily have the same delinquent vibes.

Squad 12 is Research & Development. Nice and simple.

Given Hikifune's role as creator of the Soul Candies prior to Urahara's remodeling of the squad, and her subsequent focus on food as part of the Royal Guard, it sounds like they were always a group outfitted for mass production of synthetic goods, Urahara just happened to modernize their process from what was likely a more traditional arts kind of focus into something more industrial.

Given the importance of food and hunger as correlated to the emergence of spirit powers in Soul Society that kind of role within the gotei is actually a lot more important than it sounds. I again turn to my tangential speculation and head canon that specialized food in soul society relates to size relates to spirit power, as exhibited in Hacchi's inhuman size(over 8 feet tall) and themes of food in parts of his name and powers, which in turn points back to the gargantuan gate guardians.

Despite being one of the squads with the most intimate focus, Squad 13 is yet another super unclear one.

We know they deployed Rukia, afro guy, and Ryuunosuke & Shino to Karakura.

We know Ukitake gave Ichigo the substitutes badge, and that Ginjo seemed to know Ukitake personally, likely thru the substitute shinigami position as well.

Together those facts might suggest they're specifically the ones in charge of human world activities; whether that's something that would be focused on slaying hollows, rescuing humans and ghosts, or delivering ghosts to Soul Society first with the others as incidental responsibilities is unclear.

Also the Royal Guard were presumably all previous captains of Yamamoto's earliest iteration of the Gotei 13, which suggests that whatever role they filled then were the basis of the squads going forward.

So is there a squad that specializes in clothes that Shutara had founded? (i want to say 8th personally)

One in charge of distributing the asauchi to new shinigami that had been Ohetsu's old squad?

Kirinji seems to have implicitly been the original 4th captain while Unohana had been 11th.

And what about Ichibee's prolific set of skills? His knowledge of true names, theme of rakugo wordplay, theme of calligraphy, and joining theme of artisan monks all seem to suggest he was the original Kido specialist, turning truth into words into poems/chants into magic. But his name also means "military commander" which could suggest he ran the standard militia at the time before they were merged with Shihouin special ops.

edit: right i guess this whole bit has been debunked since the random release of the original gotei roster

And on the subject of the Royal Guard, what is up with their random subordinates, whom I assume live with them on the big city plates in the Royal Realm? Are they shinigami? Are they considered part of the Royal Guard? And is the Royal Guard still part of the Gotei? The Captains are clearly of a higher authority, as is the group itself, but the captains were "promoted" from within the gotei, and share the captain coats, as well as the Gotei diamond insignia. Which begs the question, are the inhabitants of the Royal Realm thus also elevated Gotei members? Or is it an entire literally stratified upper class, (somehow even above the royals and lesser nobility that inhabit the seireitei) who have families and children and communities within the Royal Realm without ever having the go through the academy or gotei service?

(I think the obvious answer is that Kubo did not think it through and that the contradictions just need to be ignored)

Also the Kidou Corps is in there some place outside of the gotei proper yet apparently still abiding a capt.+lt. system of command...(although that feels like a half assed addition of the TBtP more than anything sensible) They have their own jailers that handled Rukia and Aizen, and a separate type of uniformed member that handled the execution ceremony after Rukia was delivered from her cell.

Their uniforms are different from standard shinigami and distinctly monk and even nun like which would have suggested they functioned not dissimilarly to the warrior monk and general buddhist temple during warring states era, where they were considered autonomous from the military caste structure of the samurai and imperial court.

They also supposedly operate the gates to the human world.

And then the late addition of Tessai and Hacchi in formal captain & lt. roles introduced a set of totally different uniforms that are just a coat and mantle over basic shihakusho. Again this feels like a crappy halfbaked idea rather than something that adheres to the established aesthetic of the kidou corps at all.

And the Central 46 all wear shihakusho, despite their apparent nonmilitary role in Soul Society, and autonomous structure outside the Gotei.

Aizen also seemed to suggest that it's possible for Gotei captains to be promoted to the Central 46, and we've seen several of them are elderly, so it's possible the previous captains from Yamamoto's generation are/were among them. Curiously, the Central 46 aren't specifically all elderly when we see the aftermath of Aizen's slaughter, but in the TBtP sidestory the few we see the faces of are specifically much older than basically any other shinigami we see outside of Yamamoto and squad 1.

Yhwach also distinctly calls out the Gotei as having grown weak in peace time since his original invasion 1000 years prior, which suggests that there wouldn't be much cause for casualties among the captains in that time, save the Kenpachi in squad 11 killing eachother in succession. So, the turn over of captains might be accounted for by Central 46 promotions.

#bleach #bleach meta #pointless ramblings #excuses to crop stuff into little portrait jpgs

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iamnotshazam · 3 months

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still kinda upset that the word for "the love of words" is philology. one reason is i think most people after realizing philo- = "love" would think adding the common -ology ending should make this "the study of love" but that's an accidental backwards etymology, as i just discovered. "words" as in explanations came to mean study of.

but also . . . the main reason is it sounds kinda ugly? the word for when you're a nut that just likes certain words more than others sounds kinda ugly? who decided this?!?!? when i first heard it my knee-jerk reaction was "urgh 🤢!" and i still have that feeling years later. it has many sounds that normally sound nice (F, L, english J [d͡ʒ] which some people really like but i'm ambivalent about) but strung together in this order i just . . . don't . . . like it.

on reflection this is probably an accident of english pronunciation, specifically north american english, which uses neutral or darker vowels until the very end is suddenly "GEE," [d͡ʒi], bright as the sun holy shit calm down. even more specifically, my texan (god save us) accent has a terrible car crash with the double L's, sounding like the tongue is making a break for it into the esophagus. on the accented syllable, even.

it sounds so much nicer in spanish or greek. hurdur i'm a hipster ancient history and languages fan, you've not really lived until you've heard it on vinyl the original greek. but it's so true.

filología. english approximation "fee-low-low-HEE-uh." spanish [filoloˈxia], greek [filoloˈɣia]. ohhhhhh so nice

#pointless ramblings #philology #linguistics #languages #phonetics #greek language accidents #i don't like it when people rag on english so much but here i am doing the same thing

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cadaverkeys · 22 days

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I complain about American-centrism on the internet but yknow what. At least American ignorance allows me to perform my favourite little hobby (convincing Americans of grandiose lies and attributing the knowledge to my experience outside of the USA)

(Have convinced many Americans that duels ARE still legal in Scotland BUT only if you cannibalise part of the body after the fatality)

#rambles #me if telling pointless lies was a crime 😽

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redonionlover · 26 days

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sunstone..? perhaps???

anon ur so real for this... they're my faves since i first played rw

havent drawn them in a loong time though so i doodled these real quick :^)

#rain world #five pebbles #seven red suns #rw sunstone #my art #also to clarify because im annoying and love overexplaining things ☝️🤓#the quote on the second pic is supposed to summarize their feelings towards the great task #and each other too of course #in that theyre kinda right to feel isolated because a lot of other iterators dont talk about this feeling of pointlessness #but theyre still being a tad pretentious here #just because people dont talk about their struggles doesnt mean theyre not struggling!#suns does understand this to a degree #but still #so much of their dialogue reads like a “you're the only one who gets me” kinda thing #okay ill stop rambling #ill never get over these two

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aingeal98 · 5 months

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Orv said hey what if you accidentally created a clone of yourself that went rogue with some of your memories and ended up time travelling to a different world line and becoming the leader of the main characters and helping them reach the ending of the story while being hotter and more powerful and competent than you and developing a chain smoking habit to deal with the stress and then still not satisfied that clone went back in time in your original worldline to meet the man you love when you were both children and ended up becoming the architect and creator of the world, dooming millions as she writes the story of the apocalypse using your possessed sleeping body, all to keep the boy you love alive. What if she becomes the most tragic narrative figure in the whole story, working every night for years and years to keep him alive only to fade away out of existence and remain only as a part of your memories once you reach the end. And what if before you know she exists you end up reading the story she's writing and being like "damn this sucks", unaware that she's the reason your own writing talent has bloomed just like she's the reason you're constantly exhausted and you found this novel in the first place and also the reason you're addicted to sucking candy because she needed a child friendly substitution to her cigarettes.

Orv dares ask "What if your accidental clone is the God of this universe and within this universe you are the narrative's favourite little jester?" and the answer it discovers is that you become the best tritagonist in fiction.

#orv spoilers #orv rambles #I'm trying to process my feelings so have this pointless ramble #han sooyoung #Character of all time what the hell #orv

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noose-lion · 11 months

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Hot take of the day;

Dazai is more of an alcoholic than Chuuya.

Chuuya drinks by occasion (sometimes that occasion is a celebration, sometimes it's a bar). Yes he drunk calls his ex-partner, but people can get drunk and not be alcoholic.

Dazai has a room full of empty sake bottles.

It doesn't matter either way, I just tend to ramble. (They both seem pretty alcoholic)

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gravitysoda · 10 months

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Relief.

#mobile suit gundam #mobile suit gundam the witch from mercury #gundam witch #gwitch #sulemio #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #the last few episodes were messy as fuck ngl #but hey at least sulemio are canon married #just wish the series had done a better job of establishing its stakes near the end #like they never really even explained what was so bad about quiet zero #or what it would do in general #the giant space laser was just pointless and ultimately affected nothing #i kind of expected spirits in the data storm also #but would have liked to have seen notrette more than el4n #anyway here’s my ramble in the tags #overall good show just wish the end hadnt been so messy #soda art

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motley-cunt · 2 months

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titty evolution in my instagram explore page I guess

#pointless posts #andy biersack #andy posting #andy black #motley rambles #he went from an a to a c congrats <3

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sophsicle · 9 days

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Soph I love you but Taylor Swift does not “make herself the victim” there’s so much valid shit that has happened to her for us to feel that way about her, which most of her fans honestly don’t even see her as - granted there as some obnoxious ones but that goes for all fandoms.

Like for example of the experiences I was talking about.

- being sexually assaulted and then being called “greedy” for suing the guy.

- being painted as a “snake” because she didn’t react well to someone writing a misogynistic song about it. Which I feel like is a valid reaction as a woman in entertainment.

- being groomed at 19 by a 30+ something year old.

- getting called a snake worldwide for a narrative that 2 people - who were more famous than her at the time invented.

- being bodyshamed constantly when she had an eating disorder

Yes she’s privileged and has always been, coming from money and having fame, but she does not portray herself as the “victim” and the fact that people think she does just for standing up for herself makes me sad, not because of her but because being a woman myself it just paints the picture that women’s pain or experiences will always be brushed under the rug because we’re classified as “dramatic” and “we should take it with more grace” “be thankful about the good things” like??

I understand that you don’t like her but that assessment just seems wrong.

like i just. you realize you're proving my point right? like this - not just this message, but all of the ones i've gotten where people are waxing poetic about all of the struggles taylor swift has had and how she is absolutely a victim and how dare i suggest otherwise - is exactly what i'm talking about. you feel the need to jump down the throat of anyone who says anything remotely negative about her. this is the whole "victim" narrative, that she is vulnerable and must be protected and defended from all negativity at all times at all costs.

and like. that is on purpose. she has cultivated that narrative for this reason. so that publications are now afraid to post reviews of her albums with bylines because their journalists are getting death threats if they criticize her.

i am not suggesting that taylor swift has never had anything bad ever happen to her. that would be insane. i am trying to say that this culture that has been cultivated within her fanbase of defending and protecting her, is extreme and irrational. and when you don't buy into it, it makes a lot of the content surrounding taylor swift very hard to swallow.

#this is pointless #i know that #you can be devoted to her if you want to be i really don't care #but i will once again point out that i made a very mild negative statement about her #and i now have an inbox full of messages like this #and can you perhaps see how that is #an overreaction to me making a post on my blog #not tweeting at taylor swift #not yelling at her on the street #not starting a campaign against her #surely if yall can make posts about how much you love her i can do the opposite #and again #this is pointless there are so many more important things to discuss and fight about #i swear to god i did not mean to post that post because i knew it would inevitably lead here #but i made the choice to leave it up so this is my penance #soph rambles

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littlekohai77 · 25 days

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Thoughts so far (Ikevil)

🄲🄾🄽🅃🄴🄽🅃 🅆🄰🅁🄽🄸🄽🄶: This is nothing but just a ramble, a bit suggestive, op is clinically insane.

*･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･*

Okay so I finally tired out Ikevil and I just wanna say....

I'm in love with William. I have known him for no longer than an hour but I'll commit war crimes for him. Wtf how can someone be so lovely??? How can someone be so captivating that other people become this obsessed with them?

I can't even begin to fathom what I'm feeling right now.

I'm so confused and intrigued because usually, the recommend suitor tends to be really cold or the route turns out to be boring. Basically they tend to be the golden cow.

But William is an anomaly. He's not cold or rude or harsh or as morally gray as others.

He seems quite level headed, polite and morally good.

At least from my impression of him so far.

Also Harrison is so 😍😫😩🙌🙏😫😭💀🤔🤤😓😬🤒🤗😘😚😡🤬😤🤯🧐😳🙄😳😳😳😍 🙇‍♀️🤰💃💃🏃‍♀️👀👁👁👀👁👁💦🔥💦😻😫😖

But I still didn't pick his route for now. I'll probably go for him after William.

Strangely enough, Liam doesn't interest me in the slightest bit in the romantic aspect. But I do want to be his friend, if that's even possible, cause he seems to be suffering.

Also Harrison gives off traitor vibes which is even more 😍🤗😍😳🙌😩

April 24... I'll keep it in mind and see for myself.

I don't know what it is I like about Ellis. Maybe it's just that I'm into size kinks and he's one tall goofy little goober. Also the fact that he wants to make you happy 😏 HUEHWUHEHEHEH

Jude Jazza. Is giving frollo vibes. Idk why IT'S GIVING FROLLO FROM HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. Also he has a resemblance to Silvio. The tone, the 'woman', the hair, the face, the attitude.

I'm sorry but Elbert is giving FUCKING MAGPIE VIBES. It's kinda adorable. Until he steals your jewelry.

Idk what to feel about Roger. What's even more unsettling is the uncanny resemblance with Tray from Twisted Wonderland. I associate Tray always with good things but Roger gives off none of that and that clash makes me feel unnerved and queasy.

Victor... I don't know what to feel about him. His carefree and easy going nature makes me even more weary of him.

I don't like Alfons. Period.

He just radiates toxicity. He looks like he's an avid player of mind games and I do not wish to participate.

Yeah... That's about all of them for now.

ALSO KATE

KATE KATE KATE

I think I'm having another gay moment here cause goddamn is she beautiful and do I feel for her. I might just make another oc and ship her with Kate... For science..

I have bearly started the route but I'm already in love with William.

*･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･*

𝙰𝚕𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝... 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞. :)

#ikemen series #ikemen #ikevil #ikemen villains #ikemen villains jude #ikevil victor #ikevil jude #ikevil william #ikevil harrison #ikevil liam #ikevil ellis #ikevil elbert #ikevil alfons #ikevil oc #ikevil discussions #pointless rambling

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gojoest · 7 months

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sry i can’t stop whining about this today but gojoless jjk is so boring and pointless

#— ai rambles #nobody should be able to beat sukuna #at least that’s the logical conclusion #even gojo couldn’t do that how can others accomplish it??????#complete nonsense #idk gege you’re ruining your manga #unless evil wins and that was the point from the start #but still gojoless is pointless and boring i want to drop it but sigh #too late for that i fear but i’m not as excited anymore #in fact i’m not excited AT ALL

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sunnibits · 2 months

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loving reminder as someone who struggles with food: you are allowed to add joy to your food. you are allowed to add a little joy even if it’s a tiny thing, something silly or something weird. you are allowed to do it whenever you want, as many times as you want. anything that makes food easier and more enjoyable for you is worth it!! it’s your food, you can decide what to do with it!! you can add rainbow sprinkles to your ice cream. you can cut your food into little heart shapes. you can pack your snacks into cute little bento boxes. it is not pointless or childish, it is an effective and active coping tool that you are allowed to use.

give yourself a little joy. the little things add up.

#even if it’s just a teeny tiny thing it’s sooo helpful to get just a little bit of excitement out of ur meal!!#you are allowed to do it!! if it’s ’pointless’ then what’s the point in denying yourself from it??#I’m being so serious like. put stickers on your air fryer. put your meals into cute containers even if you don’t need them.#cut your food up into little cute pieces if you have the spoons for it. buy yourself Dino nuggies.#try to have at least one thing to look forward to in every meal even if it’s just a little piece of candy #just!! change things up!! be self indulgent!!! you are worth it and anything that helps you be healthy is worth it!!!#there are no rules!!!! you are allowed to be kind to yourself!!#anyways. don’t mind my rambling. I’m just trying to romanticize my own struggles rn #and it’s genuinely been very interesting to learn what helps and how my brain works!!!#idk I just think about it a lot. it means a lot to me rn.#also before anyone tells me I piss on the poor. obviously my experiences are not universal and will not apply to everyone #things that work for me might not work for you and that’s ok!! I wish you luck I love u!!!#tw ed #just a teensy implication #gem don’t look #arfid

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drawnfamiliarfaces · 4 months

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I was rewatching rc9gn and revisited “Dawn of the Driscoll” and I gotta say, Randy’s art of healing is crazily overpowered.

He revived someone who was reduced to nothing but bones and had been dead for who knows how long. Not only that but it was later shown that he revived various animals who had dissected and most were nothing but eyes. Not to mention he did all that from just skimming through the instructions.

Imagine the full potential that he could unlock if he studied the art of healing fully and practiced enough times!

Oh BOI YEs. It's ridiculous how overpowered Randy can come across, because the show wanted to make a funny episode (and we love that of course but still xD).

Like, how strong of a potential this boy has, if he managed to execute what must be one of the hardest techniques in the Ninja arsenal? Just imagine all the implications of that ability??? To literally save someone from a brink of death/resuscitate them? No wonder some ninjas go power crazy! I would too, if i had ability to bring back the dead!

Though I do like to think that there are more nuance to all of that, than it was shown in the series. (A bit of a me yapping on beneath, feel free to ignore it.)

One of the things that actually bothers me about this ability - is that technically, for something called the Art of Healing, we never saw actual healing performed (because its a kid's show duh but still) BUT it has been used in the show more to 'restore' inanimate objects (the bike) and bring someone "back to life" (skeleton & dissected animals) - which IMO is not 'healing' but more of a necromancy ability.

After all, Randy didn't restore Driscoll to full life (gave a fully functioning body back) and the animals/body parts are also in their post-mortem states. So, what he essentially did is reanimate remains, by (perhaps) returning their souls and binding them to what was left of mortal bodies (which probably reflected very badly on their mental state = reason why Driscoll&animals were full of anger/insanity) or sharing some of his own life energy to restore minimal physical 'aliveness' (I mean a bunch of eyeballs in a jar could hardly be called alive, but they do perform their basic function of looking/blinking). Seems like classic nercomancy to me!

Of course one could argue that the reason it happened is because Randy didn't execute the technique correctly, because he 'skimmed' through instructions, and that potentially he could have restored their bodies too....but I like to think that the ability have its limitations - and returning long-dead bodies to full life back (basically rebuilding a whole creature from a body part/single cell scenario) is one of them.

Otherwise, in my opinion, while it is impressive that Randy 'revived' someone long dead, what he has done is technically one of the easiest (and thus more dangerous) variation of Art of Healing/basically Art of of Necromancy - reanimation through spiritual energy, but not actually returning someone to full life. Another variation of Art of Healing - is Restoration of Physical Body without any sort of Spiritual Energy - aka the freaking bike. I mean, is it really healing if one just restored the original form of the object without any actual prior life in it??? Bike is not the same as a human after all, its not alive in any sense, it doesn't have a soul/life energy.

So you see, in these two occasions Randy used Art of Healing, none of them actually healed anything. Because actual healing of live things is much harder! And further proof of my headcanons is in the plants.

The original reason Randy learned Art of Healing is to restore their Botanical project - and despite hitting at first full blast before Randy lost control of 'beams' - it never actually worked on it. I mean, we basically see the plant still dead even as an already alive Driscoll pops out behind them!

So obviously healing a recently dead plant requires a much more fine touch/precise control than just full-blasting healing energy at long dead remains. And further emphasize on it we have with The Skunk Pine. The pine cone is alive and in whole condition - but the application of healing energy gave it a boost that accelerated its growth to the point that Randy implied that in few days it would be a fully functioning tree.

It kind of aligns with my understanding of how magical healing works - the healer basically shares their energy with the target to kick start and accelerate their own healing rapidly and sort of suppliment their reserves with the healer's help. But again - the pine cone was not injured/dead/damaged so it would be much easier for Randy to 'heal' it in order for it to grow rapidly - but no actual healing took place.

So the point of all this rambling recollections - is that while Randy's raw potential made something like reanimating and restoring look too easy - the things he did were already the easiest parts of Art of Healing because either option essentially requires only one aspect of either soul/body to be restored. The true Art of Healing is much more complicated. Not only it requires concentration and precise control/application in restoration of both physical and spiritual aspects, it also most likely has power requirements and repercussions to the user if they tried to overcome those limitations.

All in all, thinking about application of fantasy healing is always fun when you look deeper into its simplified canon version. ;)

#que?#sorry.i went onto a something of a pointless ramble?? im pretty sure people smarter and more eloquent than me #wrote whole analysis on this stuff but i guess i just wanted to share some of my thoughts #but anyway basically ye i agree nonny #rc9gn #randy cunningham 9th grade ninja

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