ribbonverse

[ribbonverse]

Chapter 3

Notes on chapter 3.

Not too much to say about this one. It might be my least favorite chapter, mostly because it was something I felt needed to be written rather than something I wanted to write.

I consider this a "glue chapter" and it's not very inspired. It mostly exists just to get character(s) from one place to another, though there's obviously some other stuff in there as well. Definitely not my A material, but just skipping it didn't feel right either.

I think I ended up cutting about 4 pages from this chapter. Though there was some relatively interesting stuff about Urahara, things were getting even more drawn out than they already are. When it seems like things are stretching too much past 10 pages, I feel like cutting things, especially if it's not really pertinent to the core of the fic.

At least we're approaching some actually interesting stuff. Chapter 4 still isn't quite finished, but it probably won't take too long. And the chapters get shorter from here on out.

[ribbonverse]

Chapter 2

Notes on chapter 2.

Rukia is the most difficult to write for me, emotionally speaking. Maybe because she's the most like me, or maybe I appreciate her too much and don't think it's really possible for me to do her character justice when writing from her perspective.

This is also the only chapter written completely from Rukia's perspective. Most of the rest is from Ichigo's perspective, and occasionally from someone else's.

What I am satisfied with in the last two chapters is the charaterization of Ichigo's time with Rukia in terms of how hard the work was for him. I consider this a very lore friendly element.

Already in Bleach chapter 7, Ichigo complains about losing some of his sleeping time to Shinigami work. This isn't really brought up again as far as I remember, at leat not directly, but in the anime episode 10 (or at least one English translation of it), Rukia states how there's going to be more difficult fights in the future. Which indicates that things didn't really get easier for Ichigo over time.

In the same chapter, there's a pretty sweet moment where Ichigo is surprised to hear that Rukia cares about his well-being. We don't hear these thoughts of his in the anime episode, though you can still see his surprise.

In any case, this moment does make clear that Rukia does understand the need for a Shinigami to rest, but in my continuity, she doesn't yet understand how much rest a living human needs. This is one of the ideas I like the most, as it draws from Rukia's canonical background. Since she died as a small babby and has lived her entire life as a spirit, she would have had no personal experience on what being alive is really like. This would've affected how she treated Ichigo while he was helping her with Shinigami work.

Just a note on Rukia being a 3rd Seat now. I really don't like it when promotions are used in fiction as rewards. It's a dangerous way of doing things when it comes to running a serious organization, though that's sometimes how it works in real life as well, so I guess you could say it's realistic.

It's just really dumb when at the end of a story there's a time skip to show where everyone's life has gone since the story concluded, and instead of the characters having done something that fits their previous charaterisation, it turns out everyone and their mom has become a Captain/CEO/President/insert-highest-position-here. You know, because after everything that happened, the author still needs to highlight how the main characters are Very Special And Amazing People™ and therefore they must occupy the highest positions in the Hierarchy of Life™.

That's not why I made Rukia a 3rd Seat in this story. Similar to the Reiatsuppressors, it just arose as a device to fill a purpose, in this case to give her enough autonomy that she could leave for the Human World on her own initiative without getting into too much trouble.

The hierarchy within the Divisions isn't really covered enough where you could say how much power the position below a lieutenant would have, so I decided to just make her a lieutenant. And since the 13th Division doesn't actually have a lieutenant/2nd Seat and instead has two 3rd Seat officers, a third person sharing the position didn't really seem so far fetched.

It also served as an excuse for Rukia being buried in work and was the catalyst for making workaholism a coping mechanism for her. Her insecurity about her position also adds a dash of realism, I think.

I'm not all that satisfied with the conversation between Byakuya and Rukia. I say conversation, it's basically just Byakuya talking and Rukia listening, which is how it would go, seeing how their relationship is depicted by the end of the Soul Society arc. This part of the chapter was incomplete for the longest time and held up publishing the fic almost all on its own. I finally decided to just finish it up the best I could, even if it still leaves a lot to be desired.

One aspect of Byakuya that was mentioned but never explained in canon (as far as I can remember, anyway) was that Byakuya has never really looked at Rukia. In light of the reason for her adoption to the Kuchiki family, the reason should be pretty obvious, but IMO it should've been mentioned explicitly in canon. So I've just gone ahead and done it here.

For the record, I don't like "the Old Ways" as a name. It was originally just a placeholder or a colloquial in-universe name, and I intended to come up with an "official" one at some point. But I'm terrible with names and just couldn't come up with anything better. It would've held up publishing even more, so I'll just leave it as-is for now.

[ribbonverse]

Chapter 1

Notes on chapter 1, as well as some ranting about Bleach.

I thought it would be pretty natural to start with Ichigo, though I'm not sure I actually wrote any of the stuff in this chapter first.

In hindsight, I feel like it might be a bit long-winded or info-dumpy, but I really can't be asked to change it now. I've always disliked the "recap" chapters at the beginning of books that are part of a series, but here I am writing one myself.

It's basically a bunch of thoughts of Ichigo's I wrote down and later expanded upon. I thought it was pretty interesting to see the events in Soul Society from Ichigo's perspective. It's not really something a reader/viewer gets a chance to do during the actual process of reading/watching Bleach, and there's especially no time for any of that in canon, which just launches into throwing more bad guys at him instantly without giving him or the viewer time to think.

In a very real way, Ichigo failed to save Rukia in the end. He did help with stopping the official execution, but when Aizen had extracted the One Ring from Rukia after Urahara used her as a magical Tupperware container and Gin was going to finish her off, it was Byakuya who saved Rukia in the end. A very impactful moment for the audience, but where was Ichigo while all this was going down? That's right, helplessly lying on the ground after Aizen almost cut him in half. feelsbadman.jpg

After all that, he wouldn't be feeling all that powerful, I think.

Looking at the whole Soul Society arc in hindsight, it was basically a suicide mission as far as Ichigo is concerned. He never really had much of a chance to save Rukia by himself or with the help of the small group of people who accompanied him. It took a combination of people from Soul Society independently working towards saving Rukia to actually make it a realistic possibility, and none of that was collectively planned or known about by Ichigo beforehand. He just had to go with it.

So in the end, Ichigo almost got killed multiple times, went through training hell, and corrupted his soul in order to save Rukia, and he didn't make as much of a difference as he'd probably hoped. Even in his fight with Byakuya, had Ichigo only relied on his own (and Zangetsu's) power, he would've died.

Not a great place to leave off for Ichigo. Even though Rukia still lives, he still lost her in a way. And for Plot Reasons, he's basically not a Shinigami anymore, giving him time to think. Probably too much time.

I basically began by writing down things Ichigo would be thinking after not seeing Rukia for a long time. They spent two months together, but neither of them were in a particularly good place for most of that time, and it's hard taking an interest when you're stressed and overworked. Not to mention the awkward living arrangements.

I thought the part about the Hollow was genius, but as per usual, right after writing it I realized I just stole the idea from Order of the Phoenix.

I did want Ichigo's Hollow problem to be solved though, or at least out of the way, and I thought this was a nice method of doing it that also encapsulated a lot of Ichigo's character as I would have wanted him to develop post-Soul Society.

The Hollow could've been an interesting part of canon in Bleach, but instead it was completely wasted. Remember how Ichigo defeats it in canonically? Instead of the power of love, it's literally about finding his instinct to fight people and to murder the fuck out of them using his power. A power he originally acquired in order to save someone very dear to him.

Ichigo's family runs a clinic btw. How very in-character of him to do a complete 180 from a deeply humane person who only fights to protect the people he cares about into someone who actively seeks out battle.

Thanks, inner hallucination of Kenpachi. Now we have a budget version of you running around as the main character.

This actually encapsulates the dramatic shift in tone post-Soul Society. You can almost see the author wagging his finger at the characters. "No thinky-thinky, no lovey-lovey. Only fighty-fighty."

I think that was ultimately the downfall of Bleach. It became a series purely about fighting. In such a universe, love can't be allowed to exist, it must be stamped out so that fighting can happen.

It's a sad inversion of what the series was prior to the end of the Soul Society arc, in which Ichigo sacrificing so much to save Rukia communicated his feelings much more effectively than words ever could.

I never liked the canon continuity where fear basically became Ichigo's permanent emotional state and everyone's running around with Halloween masks on and pulling powers out of their asses, thinking they're hot shit. It had this air of "the author thinks this is cool, so instead of convincing you by developing the world and the characters and actually building towards impactful moments, you must accept without question that this is cool."

You know what I see in my mind whenever I look at one of those supposedly cool Hollow masks on a Bleach character? A fat otaku/Redditor guy with a fedora and a katana. That's what post-Soul Society Bleach feels like for me.

teleports behind you "Nothing personnel, kid"

It became kinda like bad fanfiction, except that it's the actual canon. A very sad state of affairs, and a waste of so many interesting and beloved characters.

I mean for God's sake, Ichigo went to the literal afterlife and basically fought deities one-on-one in order to save someone very dear to him. Even the ancient Greeks knew you only something like that when it's about love. Ichigo is basically Orpheus saving Eurydice, even the part about the girl staying in the afterlife after the mission was over is the same. The parallells are significant.

Even though the mission wasn't strictly speaking a success (since Ichigo and the others were just inconveniences in someone's suspiciously well-laid plans), you'd think that would give a guy some self-confidence or allow him to grow as a person. But we can't have that happen in canon, because fighting must continue immediately no matter the cost. Get in the arena, you have people to entertain!

A lot of things were left by the wayside in canon, such as the fact that in the very first chapter/episode, Ichigo is trying to help spirits move on, even though he doesn't have the power or know-how to do it successfully. There's something very sad about bringing flowers to a dead girl being the only thing he can really do, when what's actually needed is a Shinigami.

That and his family running a clinic speaks of a deep humanism within Ichigo that was never really in focus after the first story arc. From this perspective, how Rukia changed his life would've been even more fundamental and meaningful to him than what was explicitly communicated in canon.

In terms of the timeline, of course the canon characters don't get to develop in any meaningful way. They never get a moment to think or live a somewhat normal life. This "war" with Aizen begins just two weeks after he got his hands on the One Ring the MacGuffin that's supposed to make him a literal god. That was convenient, wasn't it? Just in time to stop our characters from growing as people.

If the series had kept with the Ye Olde Japan theme of Soul Society, a proper mobilization of forces and fighting an entire war would've taken a long time, with a lot of planning required. This part was very consciously inspired by The Belgariad.

I don't really have an interest in trying to make that a central point or something that even needs to be resolved, but I think a slow preparation for a conflict makes for a much more interesting environment to set things in than trying to shoehorn stuff within the actual canon. And while Aizen's reveal as the villain was a bit much too mustache-twirling-villain-esque to me, his Shikai is extremely intimidating, both on a personal and societal level.

I originally intended to use Soul Society having to deal with the consequences of Aizen's power as a backdrop, but it never came to be. Soul Society systematically going through its history looking for anything suspicious, like drastically conflicting reports of the same event, and digging into it to see if Aizen had hypnotized someone would've been interesting.

Come to think of it, Aizen not even dying after all the shit he pulled was the ultimate cockblock. Just goes to show how things can never be resolved in Bleach, because The Fighting Must Continue and Aizen will get out prison eventually. Imagine if Harry Potter had ended with Voldermort being escorted to Wizard Jail after being sentenced to five million years of imprisonment. Just thinking about that makes me laugh out loud. But in Bleach it actually happened.

A word on the Spirit suppressors, or "Reiatsuppressors" as I dubbed them in my own notes. For a plot point that I decided not to go with in the end, I needed an excuse for the sensing of Spiritual power not be a thing in Karakura Town. The Suppressors ended up serving a somewhat similar purpose, and their in-universe justification ended up remaining the same.

For anyone curious, the plot point that never came to be was Rukia coming to visit Karakura Town but being too afraid to visit Ichigo. Having mastered the technique of visualizing Spiritual energy as Spirit Ribbons, she decides to make sure that at least his Spiritual power is there. The idea was that an advanced technique like Spirit Ribbons was able to bypass the interference from Reiatsuppressors.

The thing that was going to urge Rukia to go to Ichigo was her noticing that his Spirit Ribbon was a different color than a Shinigami's should be and not knowing why. The color of Spirit Ribbons was going to be significant in that the color of the Ribbon of someone who is Very Special to you was going to be the color you think is most beautiful. Your favorite color, basically. Probably subconsciously inspired by the scent of a love potion in Harry Potter, as I once again only realized after writing down the idea.

That ended up not being a thing, but maybe I can use that somewhere else. Or someone else can take the idea.

Something was also planted at the very beginning of the chapter. I've always wanted to "plant" something that comes up later, so here was my chance.

[ribbonverse]

y u do dis?

Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57162358

I feel like by the end of the Soul Society arc, the Bleach universe already had plenty of width, and what it needed going forward was more depth. Instead it kept piling powers upon powers and retcons kept accumulating on top of reveals. And for what?

To use an in-universe metaphor, Bleach lost its heart and became a Hollow long ago, and has been haunting the people who loved it ever since. That's the case for me, at least. It's very frustrating to me that a great series with a ton of potential was completely squandered because the author is apparently allergic to relationships or something.

Anyway, I think it's fair to say that along with just being Really Cool, Bleach until the end of the Soul Society arc had an emotional core that appealed to many people. It was pretty clear that Ichigo wasn't just saving Rukia because he felt it was his duty or whatever. He was saving someone who completely changed his life on multiple levels, including an emotional one, and he was saving her because he felt very passionately about it. This was clear because it was set up in the previous story arc, starting all the way in chapter 1.

But instead of what it was actually set up as, the story of Bleach until the end of the Soul Society arc became "boy meets girl, girl saves boy and his family by giving him her powers, boy and girl work together and become close, girl gets in trouble and is going to get executed, boy pushes himself to a breaking point and corrupts his soul to obtain the power to save girl, gets almost killed many times but finally saves girl (or thereabouts), boy and girl go their separate ways as friends."

A pretty ridiculous ending if you ask me, but it had to happen because it was in the script.

Hey, what's that on the ground there, is that the script? Let's have a look, shall we.

Huh? The main character doesn't get a moment's rest before being targeted by the Bad Guys and is now basically useless? And two seconds after obtaining the One Ring Hōgyoku that was supposed make his Hollow experiments a success, Aizen already has his own Budget Gotei 13, which is just the Captains and no other characters, and none of them are interesting because they're literally just self-centered and unhinged Bad Guys with no other purpose than being antagonists?

And when they're not out antagonizing the Main Character, they're just waiting for him in Budget Soul Society, a dimension that's literally just an empty desert with some simple geometric shapes passing for buildings here and there, like someone made their first 3D models in Blender and tried to create their own MMO?

And why's everyone got Spanish names all of a sudden? Where's all the cool Japanese stuff?

Wait, what's this? The girl that the boy almost destroyed his soul in order to save is back, and now she's grabbing him and shoving his face at the Budget Magical Girl and basically telling them to kiss? It's like she broke the fourth wall, saw that people were shipping her with the Main Character, and said "NOPE".

But I thought Bleach wasn't about relationships anymore, and now we're going with one of the least likely pairings in this particular universe?

Well, it's in the script, so it had to happen.

The so-called story really goes off the rails as time goes on. I don't even know how many people actually cared about Bleach past a certain point, because people don't keep reading/watching stuff they don't care about. And as a consequence, the fans that are left after a while are the ones who think the current state of the work is actually good for some reason.

Basically what I'm saying is, f the script, 'cause it's really dumb. I guess that's the essence of fanfiction a lot of the time.

In slightly less ranty terms

It seems to me that it became a less-than-generic, angsty series about endlessly fighting for some nebulous reason that everyone's long forgotten about, where Ichigo is stuck in an infinite loop of wearing a scared or desperate expression because he's failing, then getting a powerup, and either winning or losing before repeating the cycle. And the impressive part is that all of this happens without any major emotional significance or growth as a person.

It also didn't help that I found the attempts at Spanish influence that appeared post-Soul Society to be supremely uninteresting and strangely executed. It's basically just words that are entirely unconnected to the rest of the universe, making them feel really out of place.

The Japanese stuff, the characters and the exploration of certain aspects of the Shinigami world was what made things so fascinating. But then everyone put on these white Halloween masks and started playing Hollows, like someone was inspired by the least intersting parts of the first story arc and begun writing bad fanfiction (no offense).

The setting changed from an actual Society to a literal desert, the only purpose of which is to contain the Bad Guys that the Protagonist needs to defeat, like a cheaply made RPG where there's only one significant landmark in the entire game world and enemies just keep spawning on a flat field for the players to grind until they level up.

What's the point of an uninhabited place that's only populated by hostile NPCs with overinflated egos and nothing of interest to say? If I ever want to subject myself to that, I'll go play a Souls game (note: I'm not actually going to do that, so don't call the hotline. I'm not prone to self-harm).

Not that Soul Society was a masterpiece of worldbuilding either. Pac-Man, anyone? You could probably write a melancholy song titled The Walls of Seireitei in which Kenpachi laments how he can never find a worthy opponent in this endless maze, and if only he was programmed to have the ability to jump he might be able to escape this fresh hell. But the game only has quick-time events, so he can only jump at pre-determined points in the story.

I guess these days you could have an AI write and compose that song for you, and it would be pretty good.

But in any case, you can look at almost anything other than the empty environments in Soul Society and notice that at least an effort was made. Inspiration was taken, there was some really Cool Stuff in every volume, if not every chapter. And I don't mean the cosplayers-wearing-Hollow-masks kind of "cool" that things devolved into, I mean interesting things being said, characters/Zanpakutou shown, and events unfolding, putting the actions of our characters into a larger context.

In other words, worldbuilding. Now that was cool. And characters can only really be cool if the concept of "cool" is properly defined and established within the context of the fictional world they inhabit. Like the Bankai, for example. But who cares about seeing yet another one when everyone finds a Bankai under their seat and it becomes a requirement for participation?

It should also matter why someone attains a Bankai or any sort of power. Oh, what's that? The main character puts himself through training that amounts to torture and corruption of his soul, gets nearly killed in almost every subsequent fight he participates in, goes through yet more torturous training to attain the Ultimate Power, visibly ages during his journey to save a woman he has a very special relationship with, has some kind of evil demon take residence within his soul due to how far he went for her, and in the end they're Just Friends?

Sure, now tell me the one about the one-armed Shinigami and his rabbit-shaped Bankai.

All of this was probably said a million times over 15 years ago, but I don't particularly care. What I do care about is that great things were done and there was amazing potential for the future, but it was flushed down the toilet. Along with the Only Correct Ship™.

So I wrote a fic. It's an IchiRuki ship at its core, but I also added some things to the world when inspiration struck. I mostly wrote this as a form of emotional expression and to let out the ideas that came to me in the small hours of one morning.

So far there are over 70k 50k words that are mostly ready to be published, as well as some stuff for a possible follow-up series. However, some finishing touches need to be put on still, so it's not all going to come out at once.

Also, this is the first fanfiction (and really the first creative work of any kind) I've ever written. So keep that in mind.

It's also not going to be for everyone, because I've been heavily influenced by certain things (mostly David Eddings' Belgariad-verse and Harry Potter). And not everyone finds value in the same things. So if you find it long-winded, it's probably not just you.