#Afterlife Quincy

[dushar]

AfterL!fe charm preorder!

Want your favourite reaper to accompany you in your daily life? I gotchu!!!

Preorder your charm with this form ☆

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More info in the form, make sure to read everything please!

[bin-boy-production-2]

This boy was my favourite person in 2021-2022

[daily-pink-character]

Pink character of the day-★

ᵈᵃʸ ⁷⁷

Quincy

from: AfterL!fe: The Sacred Kaleidoscope

[reineyday]

"how laughable that the head of the soul reapers would awaken the dead" ok wait but. theyre already dead? i thought the whole point of soul society/hueco mundo was that dead souls go there, and yet ur telling me dead souls can get even deader and yet still remain alive enough to be "awakened". is that what ur saying.

[rynea94924]

Petition to Bring Afterl!fe Back

@ReviveAfterLife on Twitter (Bring AfterL!fe back) has started a petition to at least try and get our voices heard. The link to the petition is below, as is the Twitter account.

https://www.change.org/p/bring-afterl-fe-back?recruiter=1282576948&recruited_by_id=a6ea4f10-55f7-11ed-98db-d7fbc69e2b42&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_34828434_en-US%3A7

https://twitter.com/ReviveAfterLife

[catboirights]

Little pink bitches from gacha idol raising games that are so so funny to me

[inbarfink]

So when discussing the ending of ‘Over the Garden Wall’ and the nature of the Unknown in general, I think it is important to remember that it’s left deliberately up for interpretation. You know, it’s not a Quiz with one concrete answer we must uncover, but it’s more about our interpretations and personal feelings. Each and every one of us experiences that journey with Wirt and Greg into the Unknown in a slightly different way. 

So what I want to do here is not present a Correct Interpretation that will dispute all the others and prove them all wrong and prove myself right, I just want to share my own outlook on the nature of the Unknown. In the hopes that others will like it and it’ll inspire more cool readings and interpretations

So on some level I do agree with the popular theory that the Unknown is some sort of Afterlife - but I don’t see it as a regular Afterlife for human souls, I think it is an afterlife for Stories. This place is where fictional characters and stories end up once they’ve been totally forgotten by the living, ‘lost in the clouded annals of history’. and become.... unknown It is quite literally a place where ‘long forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood’.

That’s why the Unknown is a mishmash of different time periods and primarily visually and narratively influenced by stuff like fairy tales, ghost stories, children’s books and old cartoons - these stories have a high-tendency to be forgotten and thus get lost in the Unknown (whatever it’s because they rely on oral traditions or because they suffered from very poor preservation historically). 

And that is what the theme song, ‘Into the Unknown’ is talking about…

Where can we pretend that dreams do come true? In Stories.

And what are ‘the loveliest lies of all’? Now that would be Fiction. 

The entire concept of stories is a huge theme of this song, I think.

Beatrice and her family, Adelaide of the Pasture, Auntie Whispers and Lorna were all originally fairy tales. Maybe the same fairy tale, or maybe they were originally separated before being ‘melded’ together. (If, for example, the last child to Remember them before they were forgotten just assumed the Bad Witch in both the Auntie Whispers and Beatrice stories was Adelaide)

Pottsfield was an old urban legend about a haunted ghost town, Wirt and Greg basically played through its ‘plot’ directly. 

Miss Langtree, the schoolhouse and the other associated characters come from a long-forgotten and out-of-print children’s book. That’s why those characters tend to talk in comically-stilted expository dialogue. 

The Tavern was the setting for a series of 20’s animated cartoons.  (Although obviously set long before that era). The Tavern Keeper was created as a Betty Boop clone and was the main character. The Tavern setting was probably a mere framing device for all sort of musical animations. The reason why none of them can comprehend the idea of not having some sort of Title or Label is because that’s how they were written - all given job-related titles but not named.

Fred the Talking Horse was a main character from a forgotten tradition of humorous oral stories where he was sometimes a trickstery anti-hero and sometimes a straight-up comedic villain protagonist.

Quincy Endicott and Margueritte Grey were characters from a satiric limerick about the greedy rich and their wacky habits. (Quincy was at least inspired by a real-life person since his name appears on a tombstone in the real world)

Possibly the same limerick where the punchline was the status-quo at the beginning of their OTGW ep, that both rivals’ mansions have become connected and they assume the other is a ghost haunting their house. Or maybe they were each from different regional variations of the same limerick about a greedy rich weirdo being lost in their own house and going mad. 

Frogland and their little boat might be from a children’s book as well, but I also think that maybe… from the vignettes shown at the opening of the series…

That one might take place outside the Unknown, and shows the real inception of Frogland. Two brothers making up stories with their toy boat by the river. Since they never shared these stories with anyone else, when these two brothers died or maybe just grew up and forgot their boyhood misadventures by the stream - these stories also ended up in the Unknown. 

The Fishing Fish we see briefly in ‘Babes in the Woods’ might be a small comedic illustration from a children’s book, or another piece of limerick, or just someone’s random notebook doodle that gained a life of its own first in the creator’s mind and then in the Unknown. 

Cloud City, the North Wind and the Queen of the Clouds were also, much like the Tavern, from a very old cartoon.

The Beast was once just a mere Boogie Man to keep young children from wandering off into the woods. Ending up forgotten in the Unknown just ended up giving him a whole world of lost souls to harvest. 

Maybe the Woodsman and his daughter were always a part of the story of the Beast. But since it seems that the Woodsman being a lantern-bearer is a fairly recent development - they might have had their own separate story. Some sort of pastoral novel about a family moving near the woods? But their narrative has been ‘hijacked’ by the Beast. 

Wirt and Greg ended up lost within the Unknown cause had they actually died in the lake that night - they would have become a Story in their town. I mean we have a moody lonely teenager and his adorable little brother disappearing/dying - on the night of Halloween - after last being seen in a graveyard - with the older brother’s last act on this earth being to hand his crush a cassette of his love poetry. Can you imagine what sort of Urban Legenda you can grow from those seeds?

But as they were not yet dead, and not a Story yet… so they were technically an Unknown story. Between the borders of life and death from a human perspective because they were about to die, and from a Story perspective because they were just about to be born.

And the ending sequence, with the little vignettes showing where all the characters from all the episodes ended up. I think that’s almost like Wirt and Greg back in the world of the living and the real - being able to create happy endings for all of those stories they've met. That’s how the Woodsman’s daughter ended up being alive all along - it was less that the Woodsman's whole tragedy was a wacky misunderstanding all along. But it became so as a gift of thanks by their new storytellers - Wirt and Greg.

Because if dreams can't come true, than why not pretend?

[littleeyesofpallas]

At this point I've basically long since run dry on Bleach funfacts, certainly out of any that have any real weight in the broader readings of the series. But I do have one not-so-fun fact still left up my sleeve --a real dead end nothing contribution... So buckle up, I guess? I apologize in advance if this ends up, like, I dunno, spoiling the aesthetic(?) for anyone. Feel free to just ignore this and move on if you're touchy about keeping your obsessive fandom experiences squeaky clean.

So, I noted back when I was combing thru Quincy terms, that it felt a little less than comfy that in addition to the general n*zi aesthetics Juugram's official title was in fact "Sternritter Grand Master" which felt, at the time, like an unfortunate coincidence that it would fall in line with the naming scheme of the K*K's nonsense titles like Grand Wizard/Grand Dragon, Grand Cyclops, Grand Magi and various other ridiculous sounding occultist LARPer horseshit they've cycled thru over the past century+. But I just kinda left it at that and didn't think to dig any deeper,

But then I was reminded that in the early days of the K*K one of their stated goals was to establish a white supremacist "country" inside the united states, and as they dabbled in this insurgency fantasy, they dubbed this goal of a secret, second, white nation within the confines of the USA, their "Invisible Empire"...

And although the word we hear throughout the TYBW arc is the German Wändenreich[ヴァンデンライヒ] from Wänden:“Walls” and Reich:“Empire/Realm,” the Japanese meaning underlying that term is [見えざる帝国]: “Unseen/Invisible Empire.”

In fact the white robed and hoods tradition stemmed from what were initially petty pranks(although they escalated very quickly in seriousness and danger) in which they would menace black communities and abolitionists by pretending to be the ghosts of dead confederates. In this capacity the imagery and language around them also evoked an "Army of Ghosts."

And although it was never properly addressed, there was always this vague issue of the Quincy's ages... Those with clear backgrounds like Juugram and Bazz-B seem impossibly old. And we see that As Nodt is recruited on what appears to be his deathbed --in a hospital, on life support and in fear of dying, with a bible on his bedside as if ready to be read his last rites-- and of course the Quincy genocide of 200 years prior.

And tangential to this, we see the brief, if mostly pointless, return of the three dead Fullbringers --Ginjo, Tsukishima, and Giriko-- who all seem to have retained their memories and powers across the borders of life and death. (We won't ask about how or why their fullbring items are still usable) Is it safe to speculate then that the Quincy are in fact a literal Army of Ghosts? It explains how they're able to go toe to toe with the shinigami in ways Uryuu's initial explanations of their skills would've suggested wasn't possible. (i.e. that they were describes as being regular flesh and bone humans and only their weapons are actually supernatural, and thus they are not capable of particularly extraordinary physical feats, or blessed with any superhuman durability.) And it also sort of makes more sense that rather than being a bunch of flesh and blood humans who survived losing the war, somehow spiritized themselves to get into the afterlife, and then hid for 999 years, that they could have just been humans who died first and were recruited as ghosts, having been spirited away into the shadow realm. Or Quincy that died with the full intent of reuniting as ghosts, having some kind of assurance that they would retain their memories and powers.

I like the former over the latter though, as it means the Ishida family really were the last living Quincy. But I do like the morbid idea of Yhwach commanding his army, Jamestown style, to kill themselves as the first step to them going to heaven. Only in this case the kingdom of god as they imagine it has to be fought for because the shinigami are already have a whole society there and need to be driven out first.

There is also a lot of "Knight" and "White Knight" imagery and titles evoked in the K*K's long history, and while that's absolutely vague enough to be handwaved on its own, it's definitely not not adjacent to all this....

(This has nothing to do with anything I just had already slapped the uniforms pic together and wanted to use it somewhere)

So to sort of loosely review everything going on with the Quincy....

Catholic inverted priest frocks, crosses, silver and exorcisms, holy eucharist angel wings&halo final forms, blood eucharist schrift, conversion based recruitment policies, the whole "one kingdom under god" shtick, miracle baby son of god christ figure, explicit mention of monotheism

but then also 5 pointed crosses/stars and pentagrams,

victims of a genocide with a dr.mengele nemesis, YHWACH-v-YHWH

inverted Hugo Boss uniforms, german themed attacks, skills and tools, crosses again, explicitly evoking the Schutzstaffel with Yhwach's royal guard, and nonsense blood purity eugenics b.s.... weirdly not touched upon "black sun" or swastika imagery tied to Ichigo

For some reason a few loose threads of what appear to be Loius XIV and his sun god apollo fixation, purifying light and sun and stars motifs

YHWACH having big Backbeard energy, the literal evocation of Backbeard, being a western ghost army

and now these mismatched crumbs of what appear to be deliberate K*K references: ghost army, invisible empire, grandmaster, etc...

Like... I don't think this makes them worse, or paints Kubo as some kind of crackpot racist --in case my stance on his use of n*zi imagery didn't make that clear-- but like... I don't know what to make of it honestly... It's as inconsequential to the actual message or plot as anything else, including the n*zi stuff, but it just feels weird knowing it's there? Just sorta loitering around in the background?? Also the Quincy are just such a bizarre clusterfuck of unfocused nonsense ""themes"" with like zero actual content just in general. Given everything that's in that slurry I think that might be for the better? Because any coherent message drawn from all of these influences probably couldn't have been any good...

[ultimateinferno]

Yknow. I do forsee a potential plot point for Netflix-levania to somehow have Dracula as a villain back, even with the end of the previous series. Obligation. He's no longer the weary widower, and with Lisa's return there's closure. He's lived as a man. He understands man. He may not even hate man. Maybe.

And yet he's back because the other Vampires are fucking it up and now daddy's home to bring back order. He's no longer gunning for genocide, but honestly, the politicking of the vampires who are so far up their own asses, they need to be reminded who's really in charge. His death left a power vacuum, a particularly annoying vacuum. Maybe the little things of humanity irk him, but vampires are everything they have but turned up to 11.

So at the end it's a formality. He'll come back, clean things up among vampire society, make enough of a mess to get a Belmont to kill him, then turn in for another 100 years.

Does this make him too noble? Probably. If you want the grandiose "What is a man" Dracula, you can extrapolate from "It's an obligation" and have him actively resent people pulling him out of the afterlife from Lisa so fucking much, that he leans too hard into the role. The part of him who's evil out of obligation and the part who's evil out of resentment begin to blur the lines. Is he the lord of darkness because that's the role he's been cast and is simply going through the motions or his he just so simply done with the whole process that he refuses to give up an inch of power to any other Vampire (or human) because they're all just children in his eyes?

It could still ultimately culminate in a Soma Cruz plot line where after 1999 he quits so hard that he refuses to even return to the role properly but it doesn't matter because his mere presence fills the vacuum, even when he does nothing (not for the lack of trying from others).

Maybe that's a bit petulant in its own right. YMMV, but I think that's the point. For being such an archetypal lord of all evil villains, how he fills it is shockingly dynamic. He's evil for evils sake, a beacon of arrogance, or a truly tragic villain. Depends on what's needed. If he does come back, I do want to really see a "Castlevania does Bram Stoker's Dracula. Genuinely. It's just an adaptation for the original novel because that's Canon to the original Castlevania timeline, and it'd be funny to properly reveal that Quincy Morris is a Belmont (And his son fights WW1 vampires and grandson WW2)."

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach 080]

I'll be honest, I forgot that the walls were made out of a special stone. I always get distracted by the part where the walls live in the sky and only slam down to ground-level sometimes. Though... post-ryoka invasion, do they ever go back up? I feel like they're down in all the bird's eye shots we get, but what do I know. They're down in all the diagrams various shinigami use to describe the Seireitei, but maybe that's more indicative of a shinigami worldview than the literal fact of the walls normally existing on the ground. I'm sure the Ruth Wilson Gilmore of the Seireitei is thrilled about every part of that sentence!

4 Questions I have:

1. Who mines the sekki-seki?

Similar to I guess... all mining... it seems like it would be deleterious to your health to be around sekki-seki, if you had any spiritual energy to speak of, given that touching it (bare-handed) would wither you and it also emits deleterious waves. When Kuukaku talks about "spiritual energy" she uses the term reiryoku. If reiatsu is the outward, exerted spiritual pressure, reiryoku is, like, the in you version--the you version, which makes it seem to me like it's not just, oh I can't attack this thing. I feel like the wall should have a Surgeon General warning sticker on it.

Option 1: Rukongai souls mine the sekki-seki. Imagine showing up in the afterlife and not even getting to die of boredom in some crappy village. You have to go TO THE MINES.

Option 2: Maggot's Nest folks mine the sekki-seki. If they get weird and warped due to exposure (despite their protective gear, which I assume the Seireitei surely invested R&D into at some point), or explode, well... Did it really happen if no one saw it? Maybe sekki-seki exposure gives you cute horns.

2. Where is the mine?

Certainly, wherever they mine this stuff would have to be an incredibly controlled area, given that in the right hands (the wrong hands?) it would be a potent weapon. Luckily not one either Quincy or Hollows would be able to use easily, but 1) if you don't mind also dying I'm sure it would become very usable, and 2) I'm sure there's other beings out there.

I assume this stuff is also used in the Aizen Prison, and perhaps the Aizen Prison is just part of the mine, which would make it nice and easy, logistically.

3. Is there...radiation protection?

So... the walls... emit reiryoku-dissolving waves... That descend into the ground and dome over the city. Is there a reason the waves don't also just radiate through the middle of the whole city? I assume there's probably some additional spellwork that bounces those waves in some other pattern, or I perhaps some fancy doodad that lives in the middle of the Seireitei and emanates different, cancelling waves that extend exactly to the limits of the walls. But this all seems very tenuous and quite dangerous.

If you live near the places where this wall comes down, is there risk of residual sekki-seki radiation?

Is there an Erin Brockovich of the Seireitei?

How robust are these mirrors or anti-waves or whatever they're using to keep the center sfw? Like we're sure this works, and a natural disaster or a thousand-year blood war or something wouldn't compromise this?

Is the thousand-year blood war actually reiryoku leukemia =_=

Or does sekki-seki have...poles? Does only one side of the rock have wave emitting properties, and you just have to point that side outward? But then the dome thing would be hard, I guess... Actually, I guess if it's a dome over the city, the central point from which these waves are radiating is not the middle of each slab of rock. So the rocks, arranged in a ring around the city, are "speaking" to each other somehow via these waves, and the path of least resistance is in a dome shape over and under the city. I feel like I could buy that; like, cryptogeologically, why not?

Do I trust that enough to want to LIVE there lol, is a different question.

Boy, this just all seems wildly dangerous!!! Surely I can't be alone in this? And it amazes me daily that the Seireitei hasn't wiped itself off the face of the afterlife. But I also feel like this tracks, and is very true to life, and I wonder this about the human species all the time, too.

Last question:

4. How much does it cost to take a tour of the mine

[aurvmz]

bleach by tite kubo, review, small description of characters and story, and thoughts

MASSIVE BLEACH SPOILERS!!!!! BECAREFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

small description : i started bleach around 7 or 6 months ago, mainly cause of my friends, the main character is this person called ichigo kurosaki, he's a high schooler who's known for being able to fight and see ghosts (this is important later), one day, he's in bed doing whatever when a girl in some black robes jumps in through hiswindow, after he thinks it's a robber, he kicks her in the back and she's suprised he can see her. she introduces herself as rukia kuchiki , a soul reaper (she is also VERY important later), and she's from this place called the soul society where they exercise lost souls and sends them to the soul society (this place is VERY VERY important later), where the souls can live a happy afterlife in the Rukon District, which is a village for exorcised lost souls to enjoy, and later, sometimes become soul reapers, similar to rukia, these ghosts are the ghosts which ichigo was able to see. rukia later explains that there are some souls that aren't exercised in time that turn into hollows. hollows are flesh seeking brainless creatures which have immense strength, soul reapers are also made to kill and exercise these creatures to stop any harm reaching lost souls and regular humans.

after this, a hollow breaks loose and grabs ichigo's sister, about to kill her, remember, most humans CANNOT see hollows and soul reapers due to not having any reiatsu or spiritual pressure. in order to keep ichigo from harm, rukia uses a kido spell. kido is a certain type of power that soul reapers can use to help them exercise hollows better. she uses a kido spell on ichigo which immobilizes him as she goes to kill the hollow and save ichigo's sister

, ichigo breaks loose from the kido spell due to his father being a retired soul reaper. ichigo's siblings and him were able to see hollows and soul reapers due to reiatsu passed down from his dad, isshin kurosaki (who is actually isshin shiba, the kurosaki comes from his mother), ichigo's mother was killed by a hollow named grand fisher ( I THINK I DON'T REMEMBER WELL ), ichigo's mother was a quincy,

a group that existed alongside soul reapers in killing hollows, before being driven to extinction by soul reapers. back to rukia and ichigo, rukia wasn't able to kill the hollow, and in a last resort, gave ichigo her soul reaper powers, which intended to be a bit of power, he ended up somehow stealing all of it

and killing the hollow in a power he didn't know the name of, called Getsuga Tenshou,

which starts his journey with soul reapers, Arrancars, and the Quincy. review : world building : 5/5 there's ALWAYS A NEW PLACE, FIRST SOUL SOCIETY, THEN HUECO MUNDO, THEN WANDENREICH, and the squad 0 palace i can go on and on, no complaints about the world building (Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, and Wandenreich)

power system : 4/5 reiatsu and spiritual pressure, bankais, ressureccions, vollstandigs, all super interesting and cool but it can feel a bit eh sometimes and a bit too complicated especially with reishi with quincies and stuff (Ulquiorra's Ressureccion, Segunda Etapa, Bambietta's Vollstandig, and Unohana's Bankai)

female cast : 4/5 so many cool and strong women in bleach that aren't overly weird like yoruichi shihoin, rukia kuchiki, senjumaru shutara, retsu/yachiru unohana, nelliel tu odelschwank i can go on and on, all have powers that are really cool, and yoruichi just going left right , but there are some characters like rangiku matsumoto and orihime inoue that just have unrealistic physics... (Nelliel Tu Odelschwank's Segunda Etapa and Rukia Kuchiki's Bankai)

pacing : 3/5 pacing is a lil slow at some times but it goes well MOST of the time, not really much to say on this.

conclusion : 4/5 i love you tite kubo, so much detail and good background on characters, AMAZING plot twists and introductions, and there's never "main character plot armor" (except for ichigo vs ulquiorra , ichigo should have NOT won that tbh!!) overall, definetly an AMAZING watch

[merakiui]

What's afterl!fe? The characters look so cute and the artstyle is so pleasant to look at! I know you said it shut down, but I have to wonder, what it's about? Something to do with reapers? (I mean, I wouldn't mind if you started posting fic about the game because honestly, I'll read anything you write).

It was an otome game in which you play as the new manager for the 14th branch of Soul Reapers, all of them ranging in backgrounds, ages, and even species (Ell is an angel, and Quincy is a devil for example). There are different dorms, each housing four Soul Reapers. Mane (the Morning Team) consists of Ell, Jamie, Ghilley, and Licht. Die (the Day Team) consists of Theo, June, Louis, and Ethan. Hesperide (the Twilight Team) consists of Sian, Cyrille, Kati, and Noah. Noctu (the Night Team) consists of Nine, Day, Kirr, and Aitachi. Diluculo (the Dawn Team) consists of Youssef, Mori, Quincy, and Verine. As each team name suggests, it is the time at which they work!

Essentially, as the manager you're in charge of training and managing the Soul Reapers as they go about their daily work lives. All of them are dead and have past lives, and if I remember correctly they work to help guide vengeful spirits to the afterlife by sealing and purifying them within a kaleidoscope, hence The Sacred Kaleidoscope part of the game's title! :D I think they were also working towards reincarnation??? Although I might be wrong about that. I do know that when they came to the Reapers Department they all had a certain number of karma points which they had accumulated in their past life from various good and bad deeds.

You could send the Soul Reapers on cleaning shifts, read SNS posts, collect cards in the gacha, participate in limited time events, and read the card stories about various characters. There was also a feature where there were chat rooms for each dormitory and for each individual character, so you could chat with other players about your favorite dorm or characters! And aside from side stories and events, there was a main story!

It was a really fun game with lots of potential and many unique characters!!! Hopefully one day it will return, but until then I will hold the memory close in my heart. (ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ.ﾟ

(And thank you for saying you would be willing to read stories about it!!! I'm honored you would want to read anything I'll write. T_T thank you so much!!! That is a relief to know because lately I have been wanting to write for Hetalia. ^^;;;;; but for now I'm glad others can be interested in Afterl!fe!!!!!)

[recurring-polynya]

Ok stupid ask but like how do you think the story of ichigo and his friends will be perceived in like the soul reaper/ academy, ichihime and renruki parts of it as well….because like those 4 have to be in the history books by now right?.

I don't think it's a stupid question at all! The nature of history and remembrance in Soul Society is actually one of my favorite things to talk about.

What I love about Soul Society is that it's ancient and continuous and time is sort of made up in the sense that you can have two people who are 900 years old and one looks like a teen and the other looks 90. It's sort of immune to a lot of the historical events and trends that create distinct eras in the World of the Living, things just sort of mash together instead, like a garage where you keep throwing stuff. You might think that they care very deeply about record-keeping and history, but in fact, it is an afterlife. There is such a natural tendency toward forgetting and revisionism. There are archives, but they are difficult to traverse and have a tendency to eat information rather than retain it. Probably the number one source of actual information about the Soul Society in canon Bleach is the shady guy who got kicked out and runs a candy store in the Living World. (Does anyone else think constantly about how Rukia didn't know what a Quincy was before she met Uryuu??)

So onto the question of Ichigo and his legacy. One thing to keep in mind is that while Ichigo and his nakama have done a tremendous service to Soul Society, telling those stories truthfully does not exactly paint anyone in the Seireitei power structure in a particularly good light. In fact, just about every good thing Ichigo ever did would have been completely unnecessary if the Gotei 13 could find its ass with both hands and a flashlight.

What parts of the Soul Society Arc, for example, would Soul Society consider worthy of enshrining in a text book, for the edification of future shinigami? Well, there was Aizen's betrayal, of course, which would need to be a cautionary tale. Soul Society loves to heap blame on people, heaping blame is fun, so there would probably be significant page count devoted to how evil and corrupt Aizen was, detailing his horrible deeds. You definitely don't want any young people coming to their own conclusions about Aizen or any of the points he was trying to make. Now we, the readers know that this came to light because of Ichigo storming the Seireitei, but he wasn't the one who discovered the bodies or uncovered the conspiracy, was he? No, that was Captains Hitsugaya and Unohana. I'm not sure they would necessarily merit a mention either. I feel like Soul Society history texts are very fond of the passive voice. "The bodies were discovered." When you think about it, even as it's happening, Ichigo is erased from the narrative of Rukia's execution. My memory of it was that her specific crimes were (1) staying in the Human World too long and (2) giving her powers to a human, but when I tried to look up all the places in the manga where I expected her crimes to be spelled out, it was just like "for your crimes." I think if you asked a good half the captains what she was being executed for, they wouldn't be able to answer. Further, Soul Society couldn't have cared all that much about (2) given that Byakuya just left Ichigo for dead without even checking for a pulse or anything, and I'm not sure anyone (aside from Renji and Byakuya, who didn't seem to care) made the connection that the ryouka coming to rescue Rukia was the same human she gave her powers to. There isn't even a tendency to list Ichigo and his friends by name. They are simply the ryouka, which, as Yoruichi points out is the same thing they call anyone who makes trouble in Soul Society.

If you aren't familiar with it, Color Bleach+ is sort of a databook, but it's really half omake comics and the conceit of the other half is that it's the special edition of the Seireitei Communication that was published after ryouka invasion, the issue Shuuhei is passing out to Ukitake while Rukia and Orihime are training together [Note: It is wonderful and hilarious and I recommend that everyone buy a copy, it is my prized possession]. Overall, it's a pretty lighthearted book and not meant to be taken seriously, but I do want to point out that the Seireitei Comm absolutely paints Ichigo and the gang as Serious Criminals, whose motivations are unknowable and sinister. I mean, look at the entry on Orihime, the most precious flower in the universe:

Her offenses are odious.

In other words, we're not starting out well here, but Ichigo is the one who defeats Aizen, right? And he saves the Soul Society from the Quincy War, right?

Well, you and I know that's true, of course, but if you were writing a history book, think about all the other stuff that was going on. Moving Karakura Town to Soul Society and vice versa! Guarding pillars! The Head Captain releasing his sword! I feel like it would be very easy to fill up a lot of text book space with troop movements and Central 46 debates, and to really gloss over the unflattering fact that Soul Society had to rely on the kindness of some kid that they had no actual control over to save their bacon.

But everyone knew him, right? Surely, people would talk about his deeds, right? Well, maybe. For starters, how many shinigami really do know him? The filler arcs tend to make it seem like Ichigo is pals with most of the captain class, but I think that's pretty exaggerated. Obviously, Renji and Rukia know the whole Karakura gang well. The Advance Team lived in Karakura for a month, except that Ichigo, Uryuu and then Orihime all made themselves scarce during that time, and I'm not even sure how much, say, Captain Hitsugaya got to know Chad. Obviously, Byakuya, Kenpachi, and Yachiru, and Ukitake know Ichigo decently well. Chad taught Shuuhei to play the guitar. Orihime and Rangiku are close. But for most of the other captains/vice-captains, they may know about the events that happened, but only second-hand. And also, how much do the rank-and-file troops socialize with these folks? Also, a ton of shinigami died in the war. Just a metric assload. According to We Do (Knot) Always Love You, half the Gotei was lost and two-thirds of the Academy instructors. There was a huge recruiting and rebuilding effort afterwards, and we see that ten years later, things are starting to get back to normal, but at this point, there's a lot of new people who simply weren't there.

So here's my take on it. I think Ichigo et al's contributions are greatly diminished in the official texts. I think that most of the decisions and actions that were taken was attributed to Yamamoto (or later Kyouraku) and the Central 46 (even when they did nothing). The captains probably get about the right amount of credit. The vice-captains get about 1/10 of the credit they deserve. Kurosaki Ichigo and his pals are a footnote.

That being said, the guys still exists. Most people who serve in Squad 13 have probably seen him walking around and said hi to him and have probably seen him spar with their captain or her husband, likewise Squad 11, and know that this guy is for real and that his power level is horrifying, even when he's just goofing around with his pals. I think he takes on sort of a cryptid state actually: everyone knows he was a real guy who was involved to some degree in the wars, but was he really a human-shinigami-Hollow-Quincy hybrid? Sounds fake to me. Lost son of the banished clan? If you say so. I think there are a ton of Kurosaki Ichigo stories, and some are very real and some are very fake and I think after a few dozen years, it's hard to remember which are which, even for the people who were there. His friends likewise take on slightly legendary status: Orihime, his beautiful and kind lady-love with her otherworldly healing gifts. Chad, his lion-hearted, faithful companion, of unparalleled physical strength. And of course, Uryuu, Ichigo's narrative foil, brought back from the side of evil by their bonds of companionship. It really does have the ring of a folktale, doesn't it?

70 or 80 years from current time, when Ichigo makes the permanent move to Soul Society, I feel like he's going to introduce himself and people will be like "Oh, you must have been named after the Great Hero of Soul Society, eh? There were three Kurosaki Ichigos in my middle school" and Ichigo is just like "yes, that's it exactly."

You mentioned Rukia and Renji, and of course, they are there and exist, with all the concomitant weirdness that shinigami captains who don't hold themselves completely apart from normal people have. Ukitake was thousands of years old, and on one hand, he liked to send everyone he knew cardso on their birthdays, but on the other, I feel like sometimes he would drop some casual allusion to how much work there was during the smallpox epidemic of 735, or perhaps mention one of the dozens of times he had to face down some ultra-powerful opponent who would have collapsed all of reality, except he can't actually remember the guy's name, there have been so many. Renji and Rukia are very very young in comparison, but I feel like they are very much on their way to becoming that guy. They have seen some shit. I think Renji, in particular, will be running a drill and launch into some aside about the time he killed 17 Menos who happened to be standing in a row in the Forest of Menos in the depths of Hueco Mundo, back when he had his worse bankai, anyway, guys, don't line up like that, it makes you vulnerable. Hey, is it lunchtime yet? It's not necessarily that no one believes the stories they tell, it's that the stories they tell are simply unbelievable. Unreconcilable with your daily experience. They're heroes of the Winter War and the Thousand-Year Blood War, because of course there are, but there will surely be more wars and more dimensional collapses and more Valleys of Screams and at some point, they're just Old Shinigami Captains, because that's just what you turn into if you manage to not die enough times.

I think there actually is one accurate account of the Karakura Kids' contributions to Soul Society and that only exists because it is the duty of the Kuchiki to compile and guard the history of Soul Society and Byakuya is autistic enough to want to record the actual truth and not the official version. Rukia and Renji actually wrote down most of it, and then Byakuya translated it into over-flowery, formal academic language, and it sits on a shelf in his library somewhere, gathering dust. In case someone ever wanted to read it.

[lunarsilkscreen]

Bleach {And how show's magic system works,}

Bleach is a show about power and who controls it. With those who have the most power literally forcing those with less power to behave a certain way or be [Erased] or worse...

Ichigo is the outsider, the only one who can reveal the institutional biases and save the system from itself. But I'd rather talk about the magic system than the imaginary politics--it's more interesting.

There are several systems of utilizing special powers in the series, including one added bonus in the anime filler arc; which despite being completely non-cannon and wholly unimpactful on the overall story, is actually important to understanding the underlying systems at play.

Were introduced to three types of beings in Bleach in the first season; Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy.

Shinigami {non-literallly: Grim Reaper, literally: Death God} come to reap the souls of the recently passed and Shepard them into the soul society--The afterlife which resembles feudalistic Japan.

Hollow are beings, similar to western Banshee or other restless souls. They had a lot of grief or other strong emotions in life, and then those emotions turn them into monsters that prey on the weak humans or human souls. And sometimes weaker Shinigami, who are tasked with destroying these monsters on top of there Grim Reaper job.

Quincy are Mortal Humans that have developed a system of magic in which to combat Hollows. And they don't really like Shinigami because they see them as no different from Hollows.

And Full bringers; While Quincy share a blood line and lineage; Full Bringers show us that you don't need to be related to the Quincy to develop these powers. Which gives us important insight into how the "Mortal Magic" actually works. In that; it's not inherited or genetic.

Ichigo; the lead protagonist learns all of these different schools of thought; while his friends typically only develop one or two.

Rukia is our introduction to Shinigami, and bestows Shinigami powers onto Ichigo when a Hollow attacks his home.

Orihime has a very unique ability; but mostly because she isn't Quincy. It seems her powers are in the same category as Fullbring.

Uryu is a real Quincy and starts a rivalry with Ichigo until he realizes that Ichigo isn't a "Real Shinigami".

And Chad; who develops a kind of Quincy power to increase his strength and defense.

I didn't really go into all the characters, because it's the main group of protagonists that showcase the majority of the magic system and how it works.

The key component to remember about the difference between Shinigami and Hollow is that Shinigami wield that dark emotions that create a Hollow as a sword, while a Hollow is consumed by that same weapon and is controlled by it instead.

Ichigo however; is special in that he develops the ability wear his personal Hollow as an Armor, while wielding his sword like a typical Shinigami.

Which puts him in a category known as "Arrancar" antagonists in the overall series who, despite becoming Hollow, had found a way to shed their emotions and become Shinigami. The issue is that in the soul society; they're still seen as Hollows.

Ichigo on the other hand did it in the opposite direction; starting as Shinigami while hollow emotions boiled beneath the surface. There was a whole arc of him being forced to overcome them or become The hollow and be killed by his friend Rukia. (Accuracy)

The full bringer arc showcases Ichigo's ability to develop mortal magic as well, but it's taken away from him because the Manga didn't have it.

What this suggests is that all of these different systems of magic actually stem from the same source.

Quincy's are secretive about where their powers actually come from; but they're dressed similarly to Arrancar. Their garb being an extension of their magic; and their weapons being a part of them similar to swords Shinigami wield.

Basically; all the magic stems from emotion. Shinigami showcase their power based on how well they can control their emotions. And Quincy are similar in execution.

Hollows power comes from the inability to control your emotions and being consumed by them.

And the other powers? Are a mix between the two. Orihime's power is the closest we see to a mortal basically controlling their inner Hollow. She ends up creating sprites that can act independently; which is similar to letting her emotions run free.

But also similar to a Shinigami weapon which carries its own soul and name. And obviously similar to Hollow in that they're kind of uncontrolled; but also not all-consuming.

The common theme to DBZ? Ozaru, SSJ4, and Ultra Eggo are similar in execution to the Hollow perspective. The emotions become all consuming and are allowed to take over. (Vegeta being able to control his emotions completely are why he couldn't turn SSJ4 in the first place, and why he needs to develop the skill in DBS)

Arbitrarily; that's about it. As the complete control of your emotions as Shinigami indicated that it's not as strong, or a person is in complete control of their emotions if they don't let them out.

And that you can let out your extreme emotions in a constructive manner. And that's one of the indicators of *true* inner strength. Not just blocking them off and using them as a weapon; but letting them out if the situation calls for it.

[berrymascarpone]

While watching the latest episodes of TYBW, one detail caught my eye: the way that Rukia calls out the temperature as she lowers her body temperature. And when she does this, she uses…Celsius. Now, you might say that’s not too strange, all the reasonable countries use Celsius, but consider that Rukia is a near century old ghost, who before the series began hadn’t been to the living world since she died as a baby, and didn’t know how to use a straw when she first got there. So why would she use Celsius? And how does she know about Absolute Zero to the precise tenth of a degree?

Well, you might say, she did spend a few weeks in human High School, where she learned how to drink juice out of a box, and maybe she learned how to measure temperature there. And absolute zero is definitely a high school chemistry topic. But then I looked back and found…

…when Yamamoto used his bankai, he specifically mentions that it’s 15 million degrees (Celsius, presumably), aka the temperature of the core of the sun. (I looked it up, he says 15 million degrees specifically in the Japanese version too, so it’s not a translation thing)

Why does Yamamoto use Celsius??? He’s over a thousand years old, and a cursory google search shows that Anders Celsius, the inventor of the Celsius unit of measurement, lived in the 1700s. So Yamamoto must have picked it up sometime after then, but how? I find it hard to imagine that the Captain Commander himself ever goes to the living world short some major emergency like Aizen’s coup, and in that case when would he have time to catch up on the latest scientific advancements?

Perhaps the 12th Squad or some other squad (maybe Ukitake’s 13th?) that is more familiar with the living world holds regular seminars to update shinigami on the modern world? Does Yamamoto also attend occasionally? Or, is there some other way for the living world to seep in to the afterlife? Some subconscious transference that means shinigami and the citizens of Rukongai too, somehow gain knowledge of the living world through a kind of osmosis? Yhwach is able to absorb and redistribute knowledge, power, etc. of the Quincy, so perhaps the Soul King, being Yhwach’s father, has a similar ability?

Also, how does Yamamoto even know how hot he is? He probably hasn’t used this technique since the last time he fought Yhwach, which is definitely before the invention of Celsius degrees, and probably before humans measured the temperature of the sun. And I don’t think he’s the type to humor any 12th division offers to measure his temperature either. Maybe he just pulled the number out of his ass because it sounded cool, since if he really were the temperature of the sun, Seireitei would probably be literal ash.

Anyways to summarize, here are the theories:

1. That Rukia or some low level shinigami went to the human world and learned about this cool new way of measuring temperature, and the knowledge somehow filtered up to Yamamoto (though I wouldn’t put it past, say, Ukitake to bring it up in a meeting sometime)

2. That Celsius degrees were invented separately in Soul Society, and they also discovered absolute zero

3. That somehow the knowledge filtered in to soul society through osmosis, maybe through recently deceased human souls, or through some other mysterious soul king related metaphysics.

[arlequinelunaire]

Society of the Dead (Doctor WhoxBleach fanfic)

A/N: Crossover between my own Doctor Who fan-season and Maugan Ra's Bleach Quest Transfix Creation.

ooooo

The mission young, angry, magenta-haired Makoto had chosen to accept was... unique, to say the least, and high-paying too. She had hesitated beforehand though, as from the sound of it the challenge would be more in confirming the targets' existence, rather than any physical threat they could pose to her.

Namely, two living humans had somehow made their way into the Soul Society. Well, one living human anyway, going by the readings of her spiritual energy. From the sketches of her Makoto had been handed, this apparently full human did not look like much if anything, her prey was but some mousy pigtailed bookworm apparently. But who knew? Maybe there was more to her if she'd been able to wander around the Soul Society this long. Quincy maybe? No, for even if they were somehow still in existence, the energy readings on this girl would've long given that away.

Or perhaps she'd wandered around the Soul Society this long due to the second 'living human' she was with, who at least looked more imposing. A pale, ebon-haired figure who looked like the walking corpse of a noblewoman, dressed darkly yet extravagantly, going by those sketches anyway. Readings on her had been even more unusual, indicating she was somehow alive yet had died at the same time. A Bount was the only answer Makoto could think of, but that still didn't feel quite right. Well, if either of these two could provide a real challenge, it'd be her.

It took her sweet time to finally track them down, including having to pester locals and passersby for any info they had, but Makoto finally took sight of the two walking alongside a lake ringed by cherry blossom trees. That the two had managed to avoid any high-ranking Shinigami for this long raised two possibilities to her, that either they were that much of a threat, or that the Shinigami were so couped up with their own power struggles and politics that even two living humans in the Soul Society had slipped their notice. The thought of some mercenary like her dealing with them before any true Shinigami got to couldn't help bring a smile to Makoto's face.

Her impulse was to immediately draw her sword, but she then steadied herself, as she thought it might still benefit her to at least eavesdrop on these two before charging in. Only for a minute or two though, with her deciding that her patience couldn't hold out any longer. What she then heard, however, only made her want into charge into battle even more.

"So, could this really be the afterlife, Doctor?" the bookworm-like girl asked, "I mean, since the TARDIS readings kept saying this place is Earth, but you say these people really aren't, well, 'alive'? But if it is, it's not really Heaven or Hell, not how I was ever taught about them, so... is this place Purgatory?"

"I may be convinced to meet this 'Soul Society' halfway on this afterlife business, Lavinia dear," the pale noblewoman that Lavinia had called 'Doctor' said, "All evidence points to this being an afterlife, but I wouldn't say for sure it's the afterlife. I've come across many other claimants to that title in my travels, like all those mutterings I've heard about a 'City of the Saved' at the end of the universe. Oh, and I do forget if I've told you this, but all of us Time Lords have our biodata re-loomed once our regenerations are gone, so afterlives just aren't our style. Usually."

The Lavinia girl had to breathe deep before she asked, "Then, we aren't dead, are we, after the TARDIS got pulled in here? No, everyone we've met here says we aren't, and you would've regenerated-"

City of the Saved? Biodata re-loomed? Time Lord regeneration? Makoto had never heard such inane blathering, in fact she started to wonder if this was all some elaborate prank. Patience tested enough, she then yelled out as she unsheathed her blade in a single motion, this 'Doctor' directly in her sights. The Lavinia girl was quick to scurry back, barely escaping being a sitting duck, but The Doctor, the real prey Makoto had figured, simply smirked at her and side-stepped her charge.

"About time you made your presence known, dear girl. Didn't anyone tell you know how rude it is to eavesdrop?" The Doctor then said directly to Makoto. Not being in the mood to humour her, Makoto turned around and swung again, only for her to keep on dodging any blow she tried to land.

"How can you know Hohou footwork?!" Makoto eventually had to ask her. "It's impossible, all your talk made you sound you'd just stumbled into the Soul Society, so how could you ever learn a core Shinigami technique?"

"Really, simply moving fast is a 'Shinigami technique' now? Why, I never knew," this Doctor said, "As for how I know, it's no big secret, dear girl. I've simply had a lot of practice running about, that's all."

Again with the 'dear girl'. Makoto annoyance motivated her to accelerate her flurry of strikes, but still The Doctor kept on dodging without launching a single strike back at her. "Stop dodging and fight!" Makoto roared out, before she dropped her voice to a hiss, "Coward."

"Oh, a coward, am I?" The Doctor said, hardly looking fazed. "The way I see it, giving into your demands to fight back would if anything be the weaker-willed thing to do. Now my dear, hold still would you?" She then made another step right towards to Makoto, and with some glowing metal wand she had pointing at her sword's hilt, activated a whirring noise that made her sword's blade suddenly reverse itself, the sharp edge now pointing back at Makoto. "A little reminder for you, violence has a nasty way of coming back to bite its own wielder."

"You don't think I've gotten that same little speech from a bunch of elders before you?" Makoto hissed. Her instinct was to keep on lunging at this Doctor... but by now she had to wonder what'd even be the use? Either she'd be hitting her with the blunt end of the blade, if at all, or she'd be limiting her range by attacking her unarmed. "You do know if I had a real Zanpakuto, that little whirring wand of yours would've been done nothing to its blade."

"Whirring wand? I believe the term you're looking for is 'sonic screwdriver'," The Doctor said, "And clearly you needed me to give you that little speech again, as it didn't stick with you those previous times. Alright, Lavinia, you can come out now," she then turned to call, "Our would-be assailant here has been neutralised."

"I will be anything but 'neutralised' once I get this sword the right way round again," Makoto muttered, as she fidgeted with the hilt only to find it'd been turned around surprisingly tight. "And what even is a 'Time Lord' anyway?"

"Well, what even is a 'Shingami', when you put it like that?" The Doctor said, only then being more straightforward with, "It's what my species calls themselves. Can't blame you for not hearing of us, my people ever so pride themselves on avoiding death. We're able to regenerate when we die, then be loomed once again when we're out of regenerations. Mind you, all this is assuming of course your Soul Society's jurisdiction expands outwards from just the Earth."

"...You're seriously claiming to be an alien?" Makoto asked.

"Your people seriously claim to be spirits. Fair's fair," The Doctor said.

"Not just spirits, Grim Reapers," the Lavinia girl said as she walked one step at a time back over to them, "Ah, if I've understood the term 'Shinigami' correctly. The Doctor says the TARDIS comes with translation circuits, but I feel it doesn't hurt to double check."

"Then you've understood wrong," Makoto told her, then snarled, "Only the elites among the Soul Society get to be Shinigami. Though that'll be me, one day..."

"Yet from the tone of your voice, sounds like you have little fondness for these elites," The Doctor said. "Not that I don't get where you're coming from, I had little patience for my own society's elites. So little patience that I ran off instead, for I knew how fruitless it'd be to try saving a stagnant hierarchy like that from within."

"Ran off?" Makoto picked up on, then glared at The Doctor. "I knew it, you are a coward. You got me wrong too; I don't want to save or redeem the Soul Society or anything like that. I want glory, I want to rise through its ranks till even its utmost authority kneels before my blade. And before you go accusing me, I know you will, that's no different to what anyone else in the Soul Society wants! What else is there to want?"

Makoto anticipated The Doctor to snap back, but she instead said, "...I see, I did misjudge you. Tell me, dear girl, what would you have everyone call you should you succeed in slaughtering your way through your whole Society? 'Master', perhaps? In my travels, I've seen all too many who've gone down the same glory-seeking, self-destructive path as you, so I say with full authority that it brings them little but humiliation and misery."

At first Makoto didn't respond to that, she wasn't even sure how to. In the end she just remarked, "Some company you keep then, Doctor."

"Indeed, my dear. Oh, you've just reminded me," The Doctor said, her voice suddenly lightening, "You would've heard that this is Lavinia, not the first girl I've travelled with to call herself 'Lavinia' curiously enough, and that I'm The Doctor, but we still haven't had the pleasure of learning your name." By now Makoto couldn't help but take the word 'pleasure' to be anything but sarcasm.

"Kobayashi Makoto," she said, as it wasn't like knowing that alone would give them much power over her. "And what are you talking about? Just 'The Doctor', how is that a name? I know full well you're hiding something."

"A mite ungrateful, are we? For most I meet, just 'The Doctor' works perfectly fine," she said. Makoto's unamused expression plain to see, The Doctor then added, "Alright, if that won't satisfy you, call me 'Naotake Kaguya' then. Yes, that'll do." Makoto was left rolling her eyes, wondering why she ever pressed the issue.

"So, ah, you mentioned something called a 'Zanpakuto' then?" Lavinia asked Makoto, but she then switched and stepped back, "Assuming it's not classified knowledge or anything."

"No, it's common knowledge. Well, unless you're an alien, apparently," Makoto said.

"Lavinia is very much from Earth, I assure you," The Doctor said, like she was pretending not to know who Makoto meant by that.

"A Zanpakuto is the sword of a Shinigami, forged from their very soul," Makoto said, getting back on track, before she smirked back at The Doctor, "Whereas nobody's ever heard of a Shinigami with a Soul Screwdriver."

"Pity, perhaps they would've raised a less warlike society had they gone down that route instead," The Doctor gazed down at her.

"We've had to fight Hollows, Quincy, even ourselves. Were we any less warlike, 'Doctor Kaguya', there would be no Soul Society!" Makoto stood up and snarled right at The Doctor.

"A mindset like that can only fail to see peace when it presents itself," The Doctor said back, not flinching at her gaze.

"Hold on, there's something else I wanted to say!" Lavinia had to raise her voice, despite looking like the sort of girl who never would. She flinched as Makoto turned to look at her, but found it within herself to say, "Listen, I'm a stranger to the Soul Society, but... this isn't the first time I've heard about Soul-Forging. There's this place, a sub-dimension just like I think the Soul Society is. It's called, it's called..." her face grew paler and paler the more she tried to bring it up.

"Castle Oterne. The powers who run the place use Soul-Forging to punish even the slightest dissidence, making you spend the rest of your next life as a brick, or a support beam, or a book, whatever they fancy," The Doctor had to fill in for her. "The TARDIS, my timeship, once got sucked into there too, much like now with your Soul Society. It's there Lavinia and I met, and we had the good fortune to escape."

"'Oterne'? Never heard of it, but not like the Soul Society then. We would never use anything as powerful as Soul-Forging so cavalierly," Makoto said... crucially leaving out that was as far as she knew. "A Zanpakuto is an achievement, not a punishment. Anyway, if this Oterne is a threat to us, then the more powerful they are, the more glorious it shall be when it's crushed by Shinigami might!" Also, 'timeship'?

"Rather bold thing to say about a threat you only learned even existed a few seconds ago, Makoto dear," The Doctor said, her arms crossed at Makoto.

"But isn't that what we were looking for, Doctor?" Lavinia then asked. "People who could take on Oterne, so someone like me would never- would never have to fear getting kidnapped by them again."

"It's not just whether this Soul Society could take on Oterne that I'm worried about, or even if they'd agree to do it," The Doctor said and sighed, "It's what they'd risk leaving in their wake."

"Whatever. Since you seriously needed proof that the Soul Society was in fact the afterlife, I should ask what proof you have that this 'Oterne' even exists? I've got nothing for it but your word, y'know," Makoto said.

She expected The Doctor to get dismissive again, but her eyes widened when The Doctor actually smiled at her. "Good on you, Makoto dear. Asking questions, finally putting your brain to use instead of just your brawn. But now, there does appear to be one vital question we've overlooked," she said, then leaned in at her. "What made you attack us? Looking to test your new blade on some unsuspecting passersby, hmm?"

"I'm a mercenary, I was paid to track you down," Makoto told them, then pulled out their Wanted profiles. "You two were asking for attention, walking around here alive and... dead and alive at the same time, guess that's what that 'regeneration' thing read as."

"A mercenary, oh dear, why does that not surprise me? But anyway, easily solved. Whatever your mission's asking price, I'll double it!" The Doctor said, but had to ask, "How do you feel about accepting psychic currency, my dear? Don't worry, to anyone not in the know, it'll read as yen... or whatever the Soul Society uses, not quite sure yet."

"...'Spose I'll take it," Makoto mumbled out, "It's not like my income's that stable to begin with."

Lavinia then smiled, her whole body starting to relax. It was then she asked Makoto, if not without some hesitance, "Makoto, oh, is it alright if you call you that? Miss Kobayashi then, we really weren't planning to stay in the Soul Society long, just till The Doctor got the TARDIS fixed. But um, you said 'What else is there?' a while back, didn't you? There's-there's always something else out there, hundreds of 'something else's you could say. I used to think there was nothing but the Castle of Oterne, then The Doctor showed me there was a whole universe out there. So please, you don't have to act like your path's set in stone."

"...Makoto's fine, 'Miss Kobayashi' sounds all weird," was all Makoto said in response to her.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Lavinia," The Doctor had to rub it in.

Hearing only that from Makoto, Lavinia then added, "Also, The Doctor said something about having a picnic while we're here, since this lake by the cherry blossoms looked like a good place for one. What I'm asking is, do you, ah, would you like to-"

"-Join you?" Makoto finished for her, having sensed she asked that just to placate her, rather than it being any honest invite.

"Why yes, I was wondering when we'd get back to that, Lavinia dear. I brought along quite the collection of Draconian sake just for the occasion," The Doctor said, before she then whispered to her, "I've only just introduced Lavinia to the drink, pity she's such a lightweight. She collapses with one drop of anything stronger than Junmai."

"You brought booze? Guess I'm in then," Makoto said, giving more of a smile than she ever thought she could around this Doctor. "Just one more thing, 'Doctor Kaguya'," she had to add, as she leaned right into The Doctor's ear, "Should I see you again after achieving my Zanpakuto, there'll be no holding back, no psychic bribes, no blossom-viewing truce."

"...So be it, since you've so locked yourself into your fate," The Doctor said, then smirked, "Suppose I'll have to practice my footwork then."