[BitPR²] OOCVII: Kidnapping aunts for fun & profit

[Frozen_Feet]

I'm aware of that. I have no access to the light novels either, so I've had to do with cliffnotes gleaned from TV tropes, fan wikis, etc.

I can't realistically expect you to either (re)read the manga or even our own game just to check which talking point refers to what, nor will I pretend my own attempts at continuity are flawless (they aren't; I know because I went back and checked). But that's why I'm listing these points in the OOC. They're on a short list of things I wish you to not contradict.

[KnightDisciple]

In character? You're right, it's dangerous to assume.

As readers?

Let's recap, again:

Ouken being flesh and blood of the Royal Guard? Straight from the manga.

Being able to create Ouken by sacrificing 100,000 souls on Juureichi (= hallowed ground, important spirit ground, spiritual nexus etc.)? Straight from the manga.

The creation of Ouken being synonymous with creating life? Straight from the manga.

The Soul King missing his arms, legs and heart & being sealed inside a crystal/barrier? Straight from the manga.

The Soul King being the lynchpin of existence, without which everything falls apart? Straight from the manga.

The Shinigami being responsible for sealing the King? Straight from the manga.

The setting of Bleach being fundamentally fake/artificial? Straight from the manga.

The creation of Soul King being the "original sin" of Soul Society and the Noble families? Straight from the light novels.

Replacing the Soul King with a corpse (specifically, Yhwach's)? Straight from the light novels.

The process of creating/sealing the Soul King being horrifying? Straight from the light novels.

What's my invention, is the sequence of events, where first attempt at creating the Ouken lead to all the other stuff, as well the motives behind it. Of those, contesting the sequence of events nets you nothing, it just forces you to come up with alternate explanations to link all of the above. Contesting the motives I have no issue with.

By



It's a disservive because a) it was an unnecessary deviation and b) it makes the deductive chain harder.

You're not the original offender, Tebryn was. The point still stands. Bringing up other deviations is neither defense nor rebuke.



The problem's not with contradicting Shen Yi, it's with contradicting things that've been established elsewhere, things you as players should already know.

Additional people living in the Royal Realm is not my idea, nor was it Razade's; Royal Guard has servants in the manga, and the first instance of a servant being allowed up there in our game was when Kisaragi (when played by Tebryn) admitted Li in the Guard. The part about Orihime's realm having loads of people was written by Nicklance, first established in Orihime's character profile and then illustrated in a series of private messages we had to flesh out a meeting between Orihime and Li.

The "unilateral decisions" weren't; I'm just the last player left carrying out these torches.

For the Ouken, there isn't a whole lot to it. All the relevant parts I'm using are from the manga, and there is zero reason to contradict those.

For Asauchi, Shen Yi's only barely talking of those here, yet, again, his PoV is based on Nimaiya from canon to the point of parroting some speech bubbles. There's not much to contradict there.

I'm aware of that. I have no access to the light novels either, so I've had to do with cliffnotes gleaned from TV tropes, fan wikis, etc.

I can't realistically expect you to either (re)read the manga or even our own game just to check which talking point refers to what, nor will I pretend my own attempts at continuity are flawless (they aren't; I know because I went back and checked). But that's why I'm listing these points in the OOC. They're on a short list of things I wish you to not contradict.

Frankly, I never read the Light Novel, I don't care about the Light Novel, and I do not feel beholden to many of the points you listed above, and have no compunctions about "contradicting" them.

[Frozen_Feet]

Which makes it that much harder for me to set up any kind of reasoned conflict or retain consistent characterization.

The whole reason I'm going back to the source material and being so vocal about this is that you'd, even in principle, have an external checklist which isn't me or my characters. So you'd have a metatextual clue for when the characters aren't deliberately misinformed or lying.

The less you care about that, the more you both miss and defeat the point. You take a story that's about the Bleach setting and turn it into something lesser and, to me, less interesting.

[Kuroimaken]

Guuuuuuys. You're getting a little belligerent there, even if you don't mean to. It's in a lot of undertone.

KD, I get that we have had our characters' competency undermined throughout the game for a while now, and that this kind of REALLY gets on our nerves. I really, really do. But Frozen is actually being consistent here, and either way Shen Yi is no longer a problem cuz he was eaten by a grue.

Frozen, I get what you're trying to do, trying to make the characters question the world around them and how they relate to it. I think that KD is more interested in playing out the interpersonal conflict rather than question his characters' place in the world though. For instance, waaaaaay back when Masaru was reprimanded for his opinion on Hideki's family having generally been terrible to Momoka, I didn't see KD being annoyed by it, though Masaru definitely was. Engaging him on the state of the world would probably be easier from a different angle than you're taking now.

[Frozen_Feet]

I have no such angle. Untill Naito reads his e-mail or someone actually goes after Shen Yi, I have nothing to add to the main thread. Meanwhile, the Gaiden thread is too far along for me to change the angle or add new dimensions.

Also, I'm gonna wait and watch you and Rater do things untill your characters get on the move again.

[Dorizzit]

That, I can help with. Has the text of the email already been printed somewhere?

[Frozen_Feet]

Yes, I'm pretty sure I send a link to you via PM. If you've lost it, it will take me a while to find it again.

EDIT: checked my PMs, I sent you a notice but no link.

EDIT2: here we go:

"Hey. I got a letter with parts dedicated to you. It's sort of weird, so I'm just copying it word-for-word at the end of the message. I hope you all are fine. Say hi for me to the rest."

"Hey-o, Torahiko-boy. How's it hanging?

This is your host of few weeks back writing. Good Ol' Blackface asked me to check up on you. Says it's getting lonely without you and your pals around.

Did you learn anything about that cross-thing? We sure did! It'd be nice if you could get over here so we could compare notes. Anyways, I hope you're well. Remember to write back!

Yours truly,
You-know-who

PS: oh yeah, the white suits figured out what makes your pal Demetrio tick. They even made a girlfriend for him, but she sort of ran away. Send our greeting to Naito-guy, couldn't have done that without him and the wackos who put him together.
PPS: oh, and Lobo says that Alpha-1 chick has a body of her own now. He'd like to know if she's single and whether she could catch coffee at Friday night

[Rater202]

I mean, it's canon that Hollow's have the original human's head as their own.

Ichigo realizes that Acidwire will target Orihime when he partially breaks his mask and sees that it's her dead brother underneath, we see that the Demi-Hollow still has it's human face both when it first forms and the mask closes around it and when it coughs up film as part of an attack and we see it's actual mouth underneath the mouth of its mask

Spoiler

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Rukia even mentions that the reason she was encouraging Ichigo to stab Hollows in the back of the head becuase Shinigami trainees are encouraged to do so so that they won't lose heart if they see the human-who-was behind the mask.

It's also explained in the lost Agent Arc that the hollow's mask is both the source of its power and the remains of its heart and forms to protect what remains of the original person from the raw instinct of their new form(and likewise that Fullbringers, as humans with powers awakened by mutations of the soul triggered by hollow energy, also have heart derived powers)

[Kuroimaken]

Isamu is not doubting that. However, it's worth noting that the part about "protecting the self from the raw instinct" is either horse**** or theory, because practically speaking, a Hollow is invariably a beast at birth, so what good did that actually do? They only show signs of intelligence later on after eating a bunch of souls, if they do so at all. Striking the mask itself essentially does nothing except hurt like hell, and Acidwire actually regained some consciousness upon looking at Ichigo with half a human face again, however briefly.

However you look at it, Sarah's outlook is wrong from a spiritual perspective, even if not from a factual one.

[Rater202]

Acidwire actually regained some consciousness upon looking at Ichigo with half a human face again, however briefly.

That kind of supports the stance that the mask/heart is sealing away what's left of the conscience.

[Kuroimaken]

Except for the part where it's possible to regain sentience without taking it off.

[Rater202]

Except for the part where it's possible to regain sentience without taking it off.

Yeah. When you've fought tooth and nail to make yourself the dominant ego in a mass of thousands of souls and then eat thousands more to keep the other ones from organizing and bringing you back down.

and they still need to become Arrancar to regain it completely and permanently.

I think you missed my edit.

[Kuroimaken]

The main point, which Sarah has apparently missed, still stands.

Gangrene is a natural way to die. That does not mean you just stay there and wait for it to rot away at the REST of your body. To be human implies choice. Once that choice is gone, you're left to the laws of the environment. Which does not mean you behave at your basest as a human, you behave as the environment forces you to behave.

[Frozen_Feet]

Isamu took a weird roundabout route to get there, though. The argument over the function of a Hollow's mask was completely besides the point.

I am hugely amused by the fact that Svetlana ended up asking Isamu the same question Zheng Li Lin asked of Koutarou waaaayyyy back in Episode 1.

[Rater202]

So, has anyone hear seen hide or hair of that BURN THE WITCH oneshot that Kubo did thispast July?

It's basically what Soul society is in the Western World, but TVtropes has no entries for it.

[Frozen_Feet]

I read it. Not much more to say about it.

[Rater202]

I've found info on it.

I am both fascinated by the fact that western shinigami(Witches) are considered human rather than pluses and kind of disturbed that they're farming resources, including meat, from a race that has at least some fully sapient members.(And how a human bitten by a dragon counts as a dragon as far as Wing Bind is concerned.)

edit: The irony is that the difference between mortals and spirits and the very existence of death are artificial constructs in the Bleach setting.

[Frozen_Feet]

Burn the Witch being in continuity with Bleach is speculation so far. Untill the new manga gets into speed and makes it more explicit, I'd chalk any similarities to Tite Kubo being unimaginative more than anything.

As for the irony of the entire Bleach setting being artificial, that was already implied in Bleach itself (by Yhwach) and it's why the angle I took in the Gaiden thread is what it is. Speaking of, I'm waiting for Sarah, Svetlana or Koutarou to do something.

[Rater202]

that edit was referring to Sarah's latest post in the Spirit World thread.

She claims that she doesn't see the point in mortals being afraid of Shinigami becuase death is natural and inevitable and the Reaper's not theone that kills you.

the irony being that death as a concept only exists becuase a bunch of shinigami broke reality into three pieces, so the Shinigami are in fact directly resposnible for literally all deaths ever.

As for Burn the Witch being in continuity, the Logo on the last page has darkened out portions that spell "bleach" and the one Witch's comments about how over in Japan they just kill their "dragons" seems tobe a referance tothe Gotei 13 slaying hollows.

[Frozen_Feet]

Re: Burn the Witch: yes, I know, I read it. Still speculation.

Re: the rest: it's actually five pieces if you count Hell and the Royal Realm as separate from Soul Society. (Human and animal realms are just Earth.)

But yes, all appeals to nature are ironic in an artificial world. But that irony touches a lot more people than just Sarah.

[Rater202]

And now I'm thinking of ways to make a pure-bleach version of Ashley*, so that's gonna be bugging me all day.

Anyway, I'm just gonna say that it's up toKuroimaken to move the Gaiden Thread forward as I have no idea what to do.

*Thought experiment character of mine, originally for Marvel but has since expanded out to other settings. "How to justify a character being a hybrid of all/most power types in a setting from the start without it being over-powered or silly." It's particularly tricky with Bleach since such a character exists in canon and is ridiculously overpowered as an inherant property of said hybridization.

[Kuroimaken]

I have an inkling or two as to what MIGHT be going on, but no leads on where to take it.

[Frozen_Feet]

Don't overthink it. On a basic level, you have a couple options:

1) follow the footprints.
2) give up and return to their apartment.
3) make camp and wait for morning.

Etc.

Whatever you think is going on, your characters are by a lake at night and they don't have to stay rooted in one spot.

[Kuroimaken]

...there were footprints all along?

- - - Updated - - -

Sarah needs to read more Terra Formars.

[Rater202]

If you break it, you don't get to repeat the process with another Asauchi

Renji did.

[Kuroimaken]

Isamu never got to meet Renji.

[Rater202]

I mean, it's canon that an Arrancar is a shinigami-like being as the result of tearing down the barrier between Hollow and Shinigami, and thusare "Half Shinigami" the same waythat the Visored arehalf hollow--I mean, they've got about as much in common with full hollows that Arrancar have with Full Shinigami...

Question: Do Bount exist in this reality?

Anyway, Sarah's mostly speculating on how exactly that works.

(And I will never buy Fullbringers not being partial Hollowfication. They come from absorbing hollowfied energy, are mechanically simila in nature and origin to hollow power, and the Fullbringer abillity to exchange powers is arguably a form of exhanging/comsuming portions of soul.)

[Kuroimaken]

Fullbringers are an asspull that Tite Kubo needed in order to give Ichigo his Shinigami powers for the Nth time.

The sooner you accept that, the better it works.

[Rater202]

Fullbringers are an asspull that Tite Kubo needed in order to give Ichigo his Shinigami powers for the Nth time.

The sooner you accept that, the better it works.

But Sado and Orihime were around from the beginning, they gained their powers in a manner consistent with how Fullbringer's are described to getn their's, their powers worked the same way that a Fullbringer's do--especially Orihime's, as it's both conceptual(as the majority of Xcutions were) and channeled through aphysical object of emotional significance.

I mean, the reveal that the hollow was the real Zangetsu all along was neatly and cleanly foreshadowed hundreds of chapters prior, so we know for sure that Kubo planned somethings in advance--more relevantl, the reveal about the Substitute Shinigami Badge.

Maybe Fullbringers were another thing planned from the beginning and it only seems like an asspull becuase of how much time was spent on the Arrancar Arc at the editor's insistance?

[Kuroimaken]

Nah. Chad and Orihime being Fullbringers were a clear retcon. It was easy to do too, because up until that point Quincies were the only kind of mortals that developed powers in a specific fashion, but they were also their own thing.

It SEEMS consistent in hindsight because it's a half-assed explanation.

EDIT: It's also worth noting that the whole "break down the barrier between Hollow and Shinigami" talk comes out of Aizen's otherwise lying mouth, and he uses the Hougyoku to that end, which our game does not have a need for.