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It matters because I gave it meaning bitch

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What do you think about the concept of time travel ? Are there any ideas you’ve always wanted to explore in any of your fics ?

time travel is intriguing, because you can do a lot of interesting things with it, but i am personally not smart enough to handle a concept like that with the complexity it deserves. i feel like the best kinds are the ones that actually engage with the narrative's chronology of events and do something interesting with it, but idk what that would look like! i don't read them! i did once write a snippet for someone who requested for a time-travel fanfic based on a fan art from twitter that i can't find anymore. it's not smart or complex or anything, it's still a WIP, and it's mainly just comedic/crack, but here it is:

The Hollow is ugly, is the thing. It takes all but a minute for Chad to finish it off with a clean swipe of his arm, but the mess it leaves behind is nasty, a sludge of ominous green goop. It stings, with little wisps of smoke curling into the air like snakes. 

Uryuu tuts and slings his bag to his other hand so he can offer Chad a napkin.  “Kurumadani is being rather neglectful again.” 

Chad hums, wiping off the sludge and extending his arm so Uryuu can get the parts on his back he missed. They’ll be late for school at this rate, but Chad would rather not show up smelling like a medium-rare Hollow when he already gets weird enough looks on a normal day. He flexes his arm. “Do you think it’s poisoned?” 

Uryuu cuts off whatever response he was about to make in favor of squinting into the sun, hand already shifting to his belt to retrieve a weapon. For just the tiniest flash of a second, there’s a pitch-black hole in the sky, and before they know it, a small, human-shaped shadow rockets down at an alarming speed, a familiar fireball of orange contrasted with jet-black hues. It’s a kid, Chad realizes as he gets closer, lunging forward with both arms to grab him. 

The boy lands with an ‘oof!’ 

“Oh. Hi, Uncle Chad!” he greets, unfazed by the fact that he’d fallen out of the sky. 

Chad and Uryuu exchange a troubled glance. 

“Say, Sado-kun,” Uryu mutters under his breath. 

“Hmm.” 

“Doesn’t this child look a lot like Kurosaki and Inoue-san?” 

“Hmm.” 

“You don’t think…?” 

“Probably.”

________

The boy can’t look more like Ichigo and Orihime if he tries. Kazui, that is. He has an endearing mop of orange hair that falls into his eyes—eyes that are distinctively Orihime’s, bright, curious and full of awe. He had—or so Uryuu and Chad had gleaned from a meandering conversation with him—been trying some new tricks with his flash-step and accidentally created a tear in the space-time continuum that sent him to the past. 

As one does. 

“So you’re from the future,” Chad concludes, glancing up at the little boy that is currently riding his shoulders happily. 

“Yep!” He cranes his head around left and right. “Where are Mom and Dad?” 

Uryu smirks. It’s of no surprise to him that Kurosaki and Inoue are married in the distant future. They’re obvious, even when they aren’t trying to be. Uryuu’s spent enough evenings with his friends to read an entire undercurrent of language in their behavior—the way they dance around their feelings like everyone else around them are idiots. 

Or at least, that’s what Uryuu comprehends. What he sees is usually a tender glance, a fleeting touch, pointed moments where they withdraw after having revealed too much of themselves to each other. When he looks at Chad, his friend is smiling wistfully. Uryuu shares the sentiment; he just wishes he could be a fly on the wall when present-Kurosaki finds out about his son though. 

“...I suppose we should take you to see them,” Uryuu says eventually. They’re standing in front of Karakura High’s gated entrance, though neither Uryuu nor Chad have any idea how to explain the kid. While his shinigami form should keep him hidden from most students, even their least spiritually sensitive friends like Tatsuki, Keigo or Mizuiro would be able to see him. And ask questions. And while Uryuu would love to watch Ichigo and Orihime squirm under their friends’ scrutiny, it would be too much chaos for them to handle. 

Plus, there’s the added question of how they’re going to send Kazui back to the future. 

“I’ll bring them here,” Chad says, setting Kazui down on the sill. “You wait with him.” 

“Wait, Sado-kun—” Uryu begins, but Chad has already joined the throng of students heading inside. He wants to curse. He isn’t the best around children. 

Kazui, however, looks rather relaxed, his legs kicking up and down from where he’s sitting on the gate’s surface. It seems, from his demeanor, that accidentally traveling to the future is no big deal for him, which, in a weird, roundabout way, makes sense. Uryu knows his parents, after all. 

“Are you okay, Uncle Uryu?” Kazui asks, fixing his big eyes on Uryu. 

Uryu struggles not to squirm. “I-I’m fine.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.” 

They stare at each other. Uryu looks away but keeps a part of his gaze stuck on Kazui out of the corner of his eye, studying him. The boy is in typical shinigami garb, and the hilt of his sword is similar to Ichigo’s, but Uryu doubts his skills have advanced beyond the basics. If his reaitsu is anything like his father’s, it’s highly unlikely he’ll be safe here. 

Uryu tuts impatiently, but his irritation ebbs when he realizes that Chad and Ichigo are approaching. Ichigo looks annoyed at having been summoned out of class. 

“...don’t understand why you won’t tell me what’s going on,” Uryu hears him say as they near. Ichigo takes one glance at Kazui. “Who’s this?” 

Uryu and Chad sigh. 

“Hi Dad!” Kazui beams. 

Ichigo frowns. “What’s this?” he asks Uryu, which instantly pisses Uryu off. 

“Why are you looking at me as if I have something to do with this?” Uryu demands. “Acknowledge your child!” 

“Uryu…” Chad tries to butt in. 

“What do you mean ‘acknowledge your child?” Ichigo imitates Uryu, accentuating his words with exaggerated bunny-quotes. “What does that even mean?”

“Ichigo…” Chad tries again.

Ichigo looks at him. “What?!” 

Uryu ignores Ichigo’s outburst and asks Chad, “Where is Inoue-san?” 

“Couldn’t find her. Probably with the Health Club,” Chad says, a little regretful, though it’s uncertain how much better she would have handled this.

“Hey! Can you guys stop ignoring me already?” Ichigo asks pointedly. 

Neither Chad nor Uryuu come up with a response in time, so Ichigo narrows his brows at Kazui, who taps his chin and says, “Maybe I should introduce myself! My name is Kurosaki Kazui, I go to Mashiba Elementary School, my favorite hobbies are ping-pong and karaoke, and my parents are Ichigo and Orihime Kurosaki!” He beats one fist against his chest. “I’m from the future; nice to meet you!” 

Ichigo stares. His eyebrow twitches. Uryuu isn’t sure what exactly must be going through his head right now, but he looks at Kazui like he’s a two-headed creature, and as someone who has plenty of…daddy issues himself, Uryu really wishes Ichigo would just get it together. Childhood trauma is not easy to heal.

“Are they really going to just keep staring at each other?” Uryu mutters under his breath to Chad, who is scratching his own head in secondhand embarrassment. 

“It’s…probably going to take some time for Ichigo to process a bomb like that,” Chad admits. 

They turn their gaze back to the scene. Kazui is still blinking eagerly and hopefully. Ichigo still looks like he accidentally swallowed something he shouldn’t have and is having a hard time bringing it back up. He turns concerning shades of red as he begins to process some things. Then he turns into concerning shades of purple. 

Then he says, very coherently, “WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 

_______

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see now i'm thinking about how cool a sci-fi orihime AU would be

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ORIHIME IS SOO COOL!!!! 🧡💛🤍

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Future Society AU for Bleach Brave Souls.

Tite Kubo really giving us AUs after AUs after AUs.

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soi fon from volume 39 of bleach

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favourite IH romance tropes they've got in canon?

- sunshine x grump

- character A wants to protect everyone, while character B wants to protect character A

- calling each other by their last name all along + the special feeling of saying the given name for the first time (i think all my favorite anime ships have this one)

- strangers to friends to best friends to lovers // slow burn

- healer/knight

- battle couple

- power of love

- temporary amnesia + power of love (sort of, loosely)

- declaration of protection

- dying declaration of love / unheard declaration of love

- (temporary) character death

- technically not high school sweethearts, but also??? maybe?? maybe college sweethearts? growing up together would be most accurate, i think

- the "met as children, then met later" one

- everyone ships them

- seemingly unrequited // silent suffering // pining

- physical contact during moments of high adrenaline (idk what this one is officially called, but i LOVE a thoughtless body contact moment!)

- tough guy/punk guy softening up around the bubbly girl

- happily ever after // endgame :))

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Orihime literally livin’ the dream:

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what’s are you favourite IH romance tropes?

tropes in fanfic or tropes they've got in canon?

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A remake of the very first Ichigo x Orihime art I ever drew!

I could not find the original, but I did find the second version of the drawing. Here is a not so great photo of it (embarrassing old art alert!) for comparison. ⬇️🙈

I'm not sure what teenage me was thinking with Orihime's hair. 😅

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the genuine horror and tragedy of early orihime's storyline is that, when a loved one dies, we all comfort ourselves with blanket statements about what they would have wanted for us by saying "they would've wanted us to be happy" / "they would have wanted us to move on" and we try to make meaningful lives for ourselves because that's what they would have liked for us (even if we ourselves feel like the world has stopped in their absence). so much of post-grief behavior is performative, trying to convince people you're fine and you're okay and you're moving on, and this is doubly so for orihime, who doesn't know much about the afterlife yet and is convinced she's got to put on a believable enough performance for her brother so he won't worry about her.

and most of us will never know or see if we grieved our loved ones right or not, but for orihime, the curtain is ripped apart and it turns out her performance is too good, her brother actually believes it's real and he lambasts her for grieving him the wrong way. of course, it's his hollow that's turned him to be selfish and possessive, but it couldn't have been easy for orihime to have been telling herself "i just have to smile for him, i just have to push through for him" only for him to go: why are you smiling? why are you pushing through? i'm dead. to make matters worse, he adds that he's lived his whole life for her, which is such an insurmountable guilt for her to bear and such a messed up thing to hear from a caretaker at such a young age!!!

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Hey the anon that asked about “any fics you would want to go back to sometime?” here 🤗 umm I really liked your answer, the situationship one sounds good and I could see it work really well within the context of your fic !! Thinking about any fics I think you should get back to ? The halcyon one, about her being a pop star is one I think about and I find myself reading it whenever I’m in a IH mood. So yes that one but tbh anything you write is amazing :)

oh, a lot of people seemed to really like that one, which is always nice to hear because i think it was soooo fun to write!

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Thinking about how Hachi & Orihime’s powers are similar (they are right unless I’m mistaken ?) I really like his & Soi Fon’s fight against barragan. It makes me think about all the possibilities kubo could do with Orihime’s powers. Do you think as she grew older she could’ve gone to him for more training ?

HACHI VS BARAGGAN IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE BLEACH FIGHTS EVER!!!! it's soooo good!!

i don't think the issue with orihime is a matter of training, really, and it's completely plausible she could have gone to him during the 17 month timeskip. i think the issue is that kubo probably had no idea what direction to take with her and chad's powers and ended up toying with them throughout the story, only to end that journey with, "...well, they're fullbringers!" (<- and the absolute kick of it is that we don't even get a mention of this in the actual fullbring arc for orihime, we just get a clumsy explanation in CFYOW)

i think, in the beginning, kubo didn't know much about what chad and orihime were going to be—he just knew he wanted them to have powers because he wanted them to accompany ichigo on his many adventures. the technical details were probably something he pushed to the back of his mind for later, which makes complete sense because when you're writing a serialized story, you don't need to have the ENTIRE thing figured out, and trying to have the entire thing figured out is probably exhausting when you're just trying to make it through writing the next 50 chapters. writing for manga involves a lot of logistics, not just creativity, so it's not surprising if some things were blank slates he was just waiting to fill in later. manga writing is such a touch-and-go, experimental process that sometimes you might tease or hint at a certain plotline, but then end up going in a different direction entirely, for a variety of reasons—editorial disagreements, pacing, lack of time, realizing a certain plotline doesn't fit the story at its current stage etc etc. one example i could give you for this is how orihime remarks that she wants to try and destroy the hogyoku, and then she.....never brings it up again. there isn't even a single panel with her reflecting about how she couldn't do it or how she didn't have the time. of course, people have taken this to mean orihime is a dumbass, but i think the more likely explanation is that kubo probably had 3-4 alternate plotlines, but ultimately he picked the one we got in canon because that's what worked best, logistically and creatively. another example is how there's a vague allusion to chad's powers being more demon-ish, more in tune in hueco mundo, but that never goes anywhere either, because again, i'm sure kubo had alternate plotlines/vague musings he was hoping to follow up on later, but ultimately decided to forego it for whatever reason.

this isn't even exclusive to bleach or even necessarily exclusive to orihime! serialized stories in general often end up writing themselves on the go, unlike in a published novel, where you get time to plan, to have a first, second, xth draft. i doubt mangakas have the luxury to prepare anything beyond a storyboard and a few handful of scenes that they really want in the story. it's just the way the industry works, and this is not even touching the impact that sales/popularity might have on the series' writing. i'm not sure what kubo's set-up was like and how much autonomy he did or didn't have to create bleach in a vacuum free of outside pressures, but no one is immune to these things and i don't doubt that they affected bleach too.

this is kind of why it feels like we get big build ups and teases regarding orihime's powers that don't conclude in ways we hoped they would. i don't know what other versions of bleach and what other versions of orihime kubo had planned, but it'd be interesting to hear about + speculate about whether or not that would've been an improvement compared to what we got.

i've said before that i didn't necessarily need to see orihime in a solo fight, and it was nice to see her using her powers more creatively (as a transport system, as drones, which was pretty cool, and even fixing ichigo's bankai), but orihime is not immune to the problems in storybuilding and she often falls victim to it compared to say, ichigo, but not as worse as, say, chad. it would have been nice to have more overt, creative, clever uses of her powers like we got in the hachi fight, but i guess i can live with the feeble attempts that were made in that direction!

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I keep forgetting Orihime is so small tbh she emits 5'11" energy