[BitP:R] BleachITP Reborn OOC Thread 19: Dempsey Rolling with SWORDS!

[Kuroimaken]

If I may add my thoughts to a discussion far above my wisdom, I think there might actually be another possible reason for why there is a distinct lack of animal plusses in the Mortal World. Namely that plusses only seem to stick around if they are attached to or held back by something from their mortal life.

It may simply be that most nonhumans don't have the cognitive complexity to develop any attachment this important in most cases, and thus there would only be very few spirits of animals who do not immediately go on to Soul Society and even fewer who become Hollows of any kind.

This is just my mad hypothesising, though. So feel free to correct me on something I missed in the manga so far. Such as the presence of animals in Soul Society, which would have to be at least similar to the Mortal World. ^_^'

Would be fun to play a nonhuman spirit, though.

There are a couple of possibilities that disagree with you.

1) Komamura from canon. We never really learn why the freaking heck he's got a dog-face. He could very well be an animal plus.

2) Many domestic animals have the ability to emotionally bond with their masters, and many wild animals do so with their offspring. There's this cute chapter in the Yu Yu Hakusho manga in which Yusuke is told to convince a dog's spirit to leave his former owner's house, but the dog doesn't want to because his former owner can't fend for himself. Long story short, he puts on a show and the kid matures a bit, so the doggie goes. Granted, we have no evidence of this in canon Bleach, but the many wild, animal-shaped Hollows seem to suggest there could be animal pluses.

In any case, as far as Shintoism goes (Buddhism is an INFLUENCE on Shintoism, and Shintoism is pretty much the official religion of Japan as far as I know), EVERYTHING has a soul. Humans, animals, trees, rocks, cooking implements, weapons. Of those, however, only humans and animals are sentient and cognizant. Animals think on a simpler level, but they do nonetheless, and their experience may well lead to them having regrets. Humans are much more complex in that regard, and their society is so full of nuances it's probably hard NOT to die with any regrets.

I'm getting the idea of a dog that can see/hunt spirits now. Would be really freaking hard to RP though. Far moreso without a master around.

[Frozen_Feet]

My pet theory is that loads of animals are more sensitive to the spiritual world than humans, mainly because it's so in folklore. Notably, dogs are often portrayed of spotting ghosts before their masters, and corvids famously have connection to death and afterlife.

[tgva8889]

There is, specifically, an episode of the anime in which Kon saves a little girl from her dead dog that's become a Hollow. Dunno if you want to take that as canon, but it's pretty close and actually in the storyline.

Edit: You know, I was just thinking. If the walls of Sereitei prevent you from standing on air, shouldn't they prevent shunpo also? Aren't those performed in the same exact method? Or did they clarify that in canon and I just forgot?

[Kuroimaken]

Last I checked, for one thing, the walls aren't always down. Secondly, Shunpou and Reiatsu platforms don't work the same way - with the platforms, you expel the energy and compress it underneath you so you can stand on it, with Shunpou, you release said energy in short, explosive bursts, and it's the release itself that propels you.

Otherwise we couldn't ever have the Captains or anyone else shunpoing from one office to the other like has happened so many times in the game already.

[Frozen_Feet]

We've seen Captains Shunpoing while the walls are down (See all instances of Ichigo Vs. Byakuya). So no, it does not interfere with Shunpo. It only prevents airwalking and doubles as a physical barrier so that no-one can just walk into Seireitei.

Mechanics of Shunpo haven't really been elaborated, but it's really just leaping around really fast. You only need ground to be able to do that.

Airwalking, on the other hand, needs loose particles from air, and the walls work like magnetic lodestones, absorbing loose particles.

[Kuroimaken]

Which reminds me, we should really consider detailing how Sekkiseki is supposed to work.

To me, they're kinda like a black hole - they suck reishi in, and then convert them into nothing (mind, Reishi is energy, so unlike matter, it CAN become nothing).

However, there should probably be a limit on how much any given amount of Sekkiseki can absorb in this fashion, otherwise just carrying around a couple of pebbles of the stuff here and there should be enough to stop whatever kidou/energy blast is tossed your way regardless of potency.

EDIT: With that said, the Sekkiseki's anti-reishi property likely works on an exponential basis according to its mass.

[Frozen_Feet]

Well, first of all, Sekkiseki is not immune to mechanical forces. It can be lifted, for example. It doesn't create an "antimagic field" that nullifies all supernatural powers. It's just immune to supernatural powers itself. If you were to blast someone carrying it with Kido, the stone would be just fine, but you could be pulverized. You can see this in effect when the armless chick demonstrates how it works. Everything around the stone is pulverized by her punch, leaving only a tiny stick keeping the stone up... and soon after, even that stick crumbles away.

[KnightDisciple]

I dunno. A black hole comparison is troublesome on some levels. For one thing, exponential absorption of energy ought to mean even Kido don't work.

What if it's more of a disrupting influence? The walls are massive enough the field covers the whole Seireitei. But it dilutes enough that it's only the super-fine stuff, like air-walking, that's really disrupted. That way Kido and the like still work. And Quincy are so good at absorbing and reusing Reishi it doesn't affect them unless they're amateurs. And really, they won't show up there anyways, so it doesn't matter!

[tgva8889]

Mechanics of Shunpo haven't really been elaborated, but it's really just leaping around really fast. You only need ground to be able to do that.

Except for the part where that's not true, people shunpo in mid-air in Sereitei all the time, even while the walls are down. I point to Ichigo vs. Byakuya for the several times this happened.

Clearly this shouldn't be possible if shunpo is just "leaing around really fast" since in mid-air there isn't anything to leap off of and you can't make any air platforms because the Sekiseki walls prevent it.

Also, we know Hirenkyaku is the creation of reishi platforms under one's feet to move. Is shunpo similar, or not?

I don't think the walls "absorb" loose particles in the air, because otherwise Quincies shouldn't be able to do anything in Sereitei while the walls are down.

[Frozen_Feet]

Maybe it only severely affect airwalking near the walls? When Ichigo fought Byakuya, they were right in the middle of Seireitei, furthest from all walls. The really important bit is that the barrier is impenetrable to airwalking, if people are able to get few feet of the ground inside the barrier, it doesn't really change anything.

Also, one thing to remember about Kido: Shinigami abilities are internal in nature. The power used in Kido come from within. Unless you aim it straight at the wall, you should be fine.

The thing with airwalking is that it uses free particles already in the air to form a foothold. We could assume this means things like dust etc., which a Sekkiseki would tie up and clear from the air. A Quincy might be skilled enough to do this regardless of Sekkiseki (effectively being more "magnetic" themselves), while a Shinigami might fail due to different nature of their powers.

[CMOTDibbler]

Ok, so would it be possible for my mortal world character to devise something like a geiger counter, but for spiritual pressure/energy? Basically something to detect reiatsu in a short radius. I think he has the intelligence for something like that, but I don't want to cross the line here.

[Kuroimaken]

Well, first of all, Sekkiseki is not immune to mechanical forces. It can be lifted, for example. It doesn't create an "antimagic field" that nullifies all supernatural powers. It's just immune to supernatural powers itself. If you were to blast someone carrying it with Kido, the stone would be just fine, but you could be pulverized. You can see this in effect when the armless chick demonstrates how it works. Everything around the stone is pulverized by her punch, leaving only a tiny stick keeping the stone up... and soon after, even that stick crumbles away.

See, that's my point. If it just so happened that the stone itself is immune to energy blasts, but that it didn't create any sort of field, then it should be possible to airwalk in Soul Society. Plus Ichigo and co. wouldn't have had to be shot out of a cannon to infiltrate the place, because the field protecting it wouldn't be there (at least I THINK that field is created by the walls. Damn you for your inconsistencies, Kubo. Damn you to hell).

Similarly, "immunity" isn't something passive; it's weird to talk about a rock that's immune to a kind of energy, but bear with me for a second. Think cockroaches: they can survive large doses of radiation, to the point where it's argued that in the event of nuclear holocaust, they'd be the only thing left alive on earth. Now, it's not that cockroaches just don't plain take in radiation - they do, it's just that their bodies manage to safely ignore most, if not all effects from it. Sekkiseki might hold similar properties - it could take in Reishi, break it apart and leave no byproduct. That, however, means there has to be some kind of limit to its absorption, otherwise even if it doesn't suck in Reishi by itself, we would begin to see adverse effects on anything it touched, and we all know Sekkiseki is safe to manipulate.

We would end up with a different kind of problem too. Everything in the spirit world is made up of Reishi. If it could absorb any kind, you drop a pebble of Sekkiseki and it slowly burrows through the ground as it absorbs the earth itself, or you end up with a black hole because the air is also made up of Reishi. You wouldn't be able to break it apart or manipulate it in any way, either. So I THINK it's safe to say Sekkiseki only interacts with Reishi as it is in energy form.

If it has a limit on absorption, then that means that if you add more dakka shoot enough energy at it, eventually it can't absorb enough and it blows up same as any other rock. If the strength it can do that at is not somehow proportional to mass, then Sekkiseki walls are useless, because if you use a sufficiently powerful blast you can punch a hole in it with energy alone.

Basically, goes like this:

Sekkiseki strength not proportional to mass => Sufficiently strong Vasto Lorde punches a decently-sized hole in it.

Sekkiseki strength proportional to mass => Needs brute physical/kinectic strength to break down OR something along the lines of, say, Hadou 96, meaning it'd take Primera or Von Geister levels of power to break the thing down. (Course, Geister has other options. He could just blight up the soil underneath, flex a proverbial muscle and make himself a gate. But you see what I'm getting at.)

[tgva8889]

I'm confused. Isn't Reishi not energy at all?

[Draken]

See, that's my point. If it just so happened that the stone itself is immune to energy blasts, but that it didn't create any sort of field, then it should be possible to airwalk in Soul Society. Plus Ichigo and co. wouldn't have had to be shot out of a cannon to infiltrate the place, because the field protecting it wouldn't be there (at least I THINK that field is created by the walls. Damn you for your inconsistencies, Kubo. Damn you to hell).

Similarly, "immunity" isn't something passive; it's weird to talk about a rock that's immune to a kind of energy, but bear with me for a second. Think cockroaches: they can survive large doses of radiation, to the point where it's argued that in the event of nuclear holocaust, they'd be the only thing left alive on earth. Now, it's not that cockroaches just don't plain take in radiation - they do, it's just that their bodies manage to safely ignore most, if not all effects from it. Sekkiseki might hold similar properties - it could take in Reishi, break it apart and leave no byproduct. That, however, means there has to be some kind of limit to its absorption, otherwise even if it doesn't suck in Reishi by itself, we would begin to see adverse effects on anything it touched, and we all know Sekkiseki is safe to manipulate.

We would end up with a different kind of problem too. Everything in the spirit world is made up of Reishi. If it could absorb any kind, you drop a pebble of Sekkiseki and it slowly burrows through the ground as it absorbs the earth itself, or you end up with a black hole because the air is also made up of Reishi. You wouldn't be able to break it apart or manipulate it in any way, either. So I THINK it's safe to say Sekkiseki only interacts with Reishi as it is in energy form.

If it has a limit on absorption, then that means that if you add more dakka shoot enough energy at it, eventually it can't absorb enough and it blows up same as any other rock. If the strength it can do that at is not somehow proportional to mass, then Sekkiseki walls are useless, because if you use a sufficiently powerful blast you can punch a hole in it with energy alone.

Basically, goes like this:

Sekkiseki strength not proportional to mass => Sufficiently strong Vasto Lorde punches a decently-sized hole in it.

Sekkiseki strength proportional to mass => Needs brute physical/kinectic strength to break down OR something along the lines of, say, Hadou 96, meaning it'd take Primera or Von Geister levels of power to break the thing down. (Course, Geister has other options. He could just blight up the soil underneath, flex a proverbial muscle and make himself a gate. But you see what I'm getting at.)

He could just leverage the fact that I built his basic release form around a Mantis Shrimp and punch his way through.

[Dorizzit]

Spoiler

Show

Dinosaur Arrancar!

Putting that aside...

I'm really hoping Allan kicks her teeth in or something. I'm tired of a character who's supposed to be a borderline Eldritch Abomination being nothing but a lecturer to the Shinigami who sounds reasonable. This is a soul-eating monstrosity, people! Surely we can balance "trying to cleanse the Hollow" and "not going bat**** crazy"!

Keep in mind, there is a difference between being a Hollow and being an insane monster; Hollows are perfectly capable of having good points. Allan is going to try to cleanse Elder, but he's also curious as to what she has to say.

Additionally, Terry, are you going to post in Hueco Mundo any time soon?

[Frozen_Feet]

Well, the barrier thing is easily explained as an effect of the Wall being sole Sekkiseki construct large enough to create an effect of such proportion. Same as with magnets, which Sekkiseki is compared to in canon: a massive magnet would halt metal objects in place, but a small one wouldn't help squat against a knife thrown at you, unless it was deflected by the physical object.

Also, I just looked it up in Bleach Wiki: Sekkiseki's immunity is specified to be against Reiryoku, not all Reishi in general. Which means Kido and Zanpakuto abilities, as manifestations of Reiryoku, would be unable to harm it.

But I think the basic mistake in your reasoning is that you consider Sekkiseki a black hole in the sense that its attraction overcomes forces holding other objects together. We see from people being able to touch and lift even massive Sekkiseki objects that it doesn't absorb material Reishi to nearly the same effect. Your hands don't glue to it, for example. But if you put a magnet in iron dust, the iron dust isn't absorbed into the magnet, though it can get so firmly fixed in it that you can't get it off.

... really, almost all problems with Sekkiseki vanish if you take the canon metaphor at face value and consider it akin to extremely hard and durable magnetized stone. You could maybe break through with siege weaponry (like a cannon, hint hint), but spiritual powers are no-go.

Finally, it's a metaphysical setting. By which I don't mean it gets a free pass because "wizard did it", but it can break natural laws and intuitive logic all it likes. A wall that can't be breached by spirits, ever? Perfectly fine by me. It's completely impossible if you try to fit it in context of naturalistic mechanics, but you can logically grasp the concept easily enough, so why bother.

EDIT: even more problems go away when you remember saying something is "made of Reishi" is like saying "made of atoms". Air? Made of Reishi, but non-magnetic, so it doesn't get caught by the barrier, but not suitable for creating airwalking platforms. Light? Insubstantial or moves too fast. Substances you use to make airwalking platforms? Magnetized, and light enough to be caught by the barrier.

[Kuroimaken]

That works better, I suppose. It also allows Kazuma to keep up his vaccuum- based techniques by using his Reiryoku as a source without the need for retconning, which is something I was afraid of.

Still, there should probably be a limit to how much reiryoku Sekkiseki can absorb. For comparison's sake, it just feels ridiculous to me that a pebble of the stuff remains completely intact whether there's a Byakurai being shot at it or a Hadou 96. I feel there should be a breakage point for the stuff, because absolutes are a REALLY BAD THING. (Otherwise why not teach Shinigami to use Sekkiseki bucklers or somesuch?)

[tgva8889]

Probably because a Sekiseki buckler won't protect you when you're fighting Hollows that attack mostly with tooth and nail. I feel it's important to note that 90% of all enemies most Shinigami will face are basic Hollows, the majority of which do not have any attacks besides bites, claws, and other dangerous body parts. Only rarely do Shinigami fight hollows with significant other forms of attack.

Also, bucklers disrupt spellcasting amd make it harder to wield a zanpakuto with both hands (which actually quite a few shinigami do).

Edit: I just figured out why Reikiki likes this game so much: they get to blow up buildings by complete accident.

[Frozen_Feet]

Well, we've established Sekkiseki can be lifted. Which means any external equipment can be wrestled away with physical force. Or, like with the stone and the floor, the bucklers can be fine, while the user is squished flat.

You can't make a complete set of armor out of it, because that will prevent Shinigami from using any powers besides physical strenght. Besides, you know what happens if you put something breakable in a box, and then shake the box hard? Yeah...

Finally, diamonds are the hardest thing in the world. Yet, we can cut them. With other diamonds.

[Draken]

Well, we've established Sekkiseki can be lifted. Which means any external equipment can be wrestled away with physical force. Or, like with the stone and the floor, the bucklers can be fine, while the user is squished flat.

You can't make a complete set of armor out of it, because that will prevent Shinigami from using any powers besides physical strenght. Besides, you know what happens if you put something breakable in a box, and then shake the box hard? Yeah...

Finally, diamonds are the hardest thing in the world. Yet, we can cut them. With other diamonds.

Or smash them because hard objects can still be very brittle.

[Frozen_Feet]

I hope Elder's propaganda creates a nice contrast with Von Geister's propaganda as to what role Hollows and Shinigami play in the natural order.

[Mina Kobold]

There are a couple of possibilities that disagree with you.

1) Komamura from canon. We never really learn why the freaking heck he's got a dog-face. He could very well be an animal plus.

2) Many domestic animals have the ability to emotionally bond with their masters, and many wild animals do so with their offspring. There's this cute chapter in the Yu Yu Hakusho manga in which Yusuke is told to convince a dog's spirit to leave his former owner's house, but the dog doesn't want to because his former owner can't fend for himself. Long story short, he puts on a show and the kid matures a bit, so the doggie goes. Granted, we have no evidence of this in canon Bleach, but the many wild, animal-shaped Hollows seem to suggest there could be animal pluses.

In any case, as far as Shintoism goes (Buddhism is an INFLUENCE on Shintoism, and Shintoism is pretty much the official religion of Japan as far as I know), EVERYTHING has a soul. Humans, animals, trees, rocks, cooking implements, weapons. Of those, however, only humans and animals are sentient and cognizant. Animals think on a simpler level, but they do nonetheless, and their experience may well lead to them having regrets. Humans are much more complex in that regard, and their society is so full of nuances it's probably hard NOT to die with any regrets.

I'm getting the idea of a dog that can see/hunt spirits now. Would be really freaking hard to RP though. Far moreso without a master around.

I kind of tried to pose it as an explanation for how there could be seemingly very few nonhuman spirits around compared to humans, not that the relative simplicity of nonhuman animal thought meant none did. Sorry if I was confusing. m(_ _)m

What I meant was that many domestic animals probably do develop bonds that could hinder them from going on, but that even those are much much more rare than humans doing so. As you said, humans are almost too nuanced to not do it.

A spiritually aware dog would be pretty fun, perhaps it could befriend a Mortal World character as it's master? Would that work?

[Kuroimaken]

Could be. The toughest part would be that said doggie can't speak. That limits its interactions a lot. Maybe if it were a spirit already? It could be an inugami.

[Mina Kobold]

I personally find it interesting to play characters who can't verbally communicate, but it does indeed limit what the character can get across. Inugami sounds like a fun solution to that.

[Kuroimaken]

So who's up for being an inugami-mochi?

[KnightDisciple]

A couple notes:

1.)Kuroi, still waiting on a response in Soul Society from Soushi.
2.)I'm stuck on what to do in the Training Gaiden Episode.
3.)In HM: Frozen, what Vicente pumps out is basically Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon. Not as much area as a Kamehameha, but it puts a lot of the same power in a smaller space. Otherwise, react as you will.

[Mina Kobold]

So who's up for being an inugami-mochi?

*Looks up mochi*

Made from pounding rice into a paste... Pick me! Pick me!

I need to actually introduce and do something with my Mortal World character anyway, and this sounds like quite a fun opportunity.

[Kuroimaken]

Does anyone object to the idea of me introducing a character and detailing his powers later? I don't have the foggiest what powers to give this character beyond "I'm a spiiiiiiiiiiirit" right now.

[Frozen_Feet]

No objections. It might be refreshing if he was "just a spirit".

EDIT: My apologies for not starting the Kido Episode. I unexpectedly had three days of work this week and it screwed up my schedule. I'll try to get it up come monday.

[Kuroimaken]

KD, FF, any objections to Serazel keeping Vicente from getting sucker-daggered, or do you have something worked out?