#also i think they sorta live with Urahara

[mr-kamiyama]

Quick thoughts about Digimon:

I tuned in one morning I wasn't working, which was rare at that job I was at at the time, caught 02 ep 10, and was hooked. I later realised the writer of all the Dark Ocean content was Konaka Chiaki, whose work I generally like, so no surprise there.

I gotta say, they probably should've just gone with 「相棒」 for partner. This word is usually a partner in context of a business partner or police partner--in fact, a show called just that has been running for the entire 21st century about detective partners (and it's a pretty good show. I've seen it be sympathetic to the plight of undocumented immigrants, for one)

Using "partner" the English loanword...well, the context I really hear it in is same-gender partner.

Now, mind you, I only figured things out as an adult, and native Japanese speakers here are and always have been treated pretty miserably. (Which is why "exotic Japanese garnish for my human default English" is very, very much rubbing your priveledge in our faces, incredibly offensive, but hey, y'all also repost Japanese fanworks without permission to the point many delete their accounts and give up because y'all are so married to the idea we're not people, which frankly, y'all's treatment of queer men in fandom is equally garbage)

But the reason that point is mentioned is that we're so sidelined, it's hard to even find and connect with each other (e.g. SF Japantown only has Japanese speaking clerks on one floor of Kinokuniya where the books in Japanese for us are kept. It's now "look Asian for the tourists") so a lot of us end up having trouble accessing random words in our own language because we're so used to either no one around us speaking it or bad consequences when we break our English with Japanese.

So, as I've never experienced queer life in Japan, and Japanese immigrants commonly end up yoyoing back to English, I'm not entirely sure "partner" the loanword is the only way to express same-gender partner as opposed to just the only one I've heard.

It does stand that it is *a* way. (Well, obviously, you could still use terms like "boyfriend" or "wife" but think the same as English speakers use it)

When watching 02, it's pretty easy to not go there because they're so young, and interact with the digimon during downtime like siblings, as the digimon are children as well (and you can't tell me that Wormmon isn't spot on for a younger brother in an abuse situation caring for an older brother)

Tailmon isa bit different, and obviously more mature, but ep 10 was the only Hikari-centric episode, and I never really had the desire to go back and watch Adventure. I don't feel like it had something for older viewers like I got out of 02-Frontier (Savers was intentionally about older viewers, and it was like a Doogie Howser/Men in Black/Digimon crossover, and I love it. And it had adults and even an elderly character with Digimon partners! Yay for useful adults!) so I admittedly can't decisively say about Tailmon.

But the rest do seem like siblings to their human children. And they're pointedly all children.

But just now, I was watching the new short, To Sora.

I have to say, as Piyomon has an adult voice, and Sora is an adult, my mind definitely went to "maybe the nomenclature could be better."

I do also have to say that I'm rather disappointed that they're ending this with "adults can't be Chosen anymore." At least there'll always be Savers, and maybe someday, I'll have enough of my massive dual-prong Digimon and Bleach project up that I can call it "extant" (I'm having a handful of the Bleach gang become Chosen as well as Osamu put into a gigai, and if you know Bleach, just imagine Coyote Starrk getting a new friend. Of course, he still has Lillynette and also adopts most of the Arrancar as his own children, but yes, Coyote gets a Digimon friend, too. And they're specifically trying calling adults because the kids keep getting too traumatised)

Ah, things run away from me.

But yes, especially with adult chosen and digimon, "partner" the loanword with no qualifier (i.e. "partner digimon") sounds like something else entirely to my queer mind www

And also "boo" for usefulness having an age limit. I wouldn't be saying this if this weren't specifically being aimed at fans who grew up with Adventure, and, while younger than me, are still well into adulthood. Cross Wars or the reboot have no reason to concern themselves with adult viewership, but Kizuna is being made for adults. So "end of childhood=end of your ability to be a hero" seems kinda... Even if they're just trying to end the original Adventure franchise, seems like a...they can do it better.

While no, Ken's and Daisuke's parents and Jun really *don't* deserve love, just... I dunno, there's just a deluge of teen heroes with powers and some immortal hero stories, but there's not a whole lot of the kind of adults you see in Savers. Yeah, they're side characters, but I'll take what I can get. Kizuna's approach is more common, which is a shame now that the average fan is roughly 29.

(Doesn't it also mess up the whole making the epilogue make any sense, what with everyone being with their digimon in that?)

(And for that matter, I would've loved 02 parents to have names, and maybe they could've gone into Miyako's more. She seems like she has a solid family. We see Ken explaining the digimon, and his parents exploited him until he had a breakdown. Heck, his dad continues to jump down his throat over things. Why couldn't Miyako's get some love? Why can't we see Miyako explaining digimon to her family and stay up all night with her older siblings hanging on her every word? Which considering how much real life kids get sorta discounted when two adults are talking (which I'll often just walk past and wave to the kid, so they know someone sees them) might have actually been an empowering fantasy for viewers. And a really great balance to Daisuke and Ken's home lives. (The kids with unpleasant families feel represented and empowered because they can still be heroes, but kids can also have the empowerment of watching Miyako's whole family, of which she is the baby, hanging on her words

(Also, why can't we see how someone from that family could enjoy the company of someone who slaps her kid brother around? And has some kind of stalker complex? Sure, it's stuff I can make answers for myself in my project, just like the initial reason to cross them was explaining the Dark Ocean, but I really would've loved something in canon about them)

Typically, adults in any kind of action hero story--let's look at Star Wars. The people who raised Luke are non-combatants. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda (an older Muppet, but older still stands) are just there as mentors, like Urahara in Bleach. It's really on Luke's shoulders. Han Solo is as old as a hero gets, and he's pretty young himself. (I've seen the original trilogy, and it was forever ago, so if Luke Skywalker is actually a teenager, forgive the error)

You don't see anyone between 20 year old hero and 60 year old mentor doing much of anything. Buddy cops are the only exception to this.

Shame that digimon is gonna follow that pattern instead of buck the trend, especially now that their fanbase is getting older. I dunno how much of a letdown the apparent Kizuna narrative is for a 29 year old as opposed to someone who wasn't even a kid when it was new, but I'm sure it's there. Even if I am decidedly older than that, I can't be the only one disappointed by it. If I thought I was, I wouldn't make this post.

And it kinda messes up using this to make the epilogue make any sense. When it was first revealed that Yamato suddenly became an astronaut, Gabumon was there with him on Mars. So on and so forth, and all humans had partners. Which naturally includes all the people over 23.

I guess we'll always have Satuma and Kudamon. (Miki and Megumi are nice too, and are also teetering on the edge of canon ship, which it's nice to see queer female fans get that, but they do seem like they're in their early to mid 20s, which arguably puts them at the end of typical "useful age range")

I'd love to already have an alternative up, but for now, I only have a few Bleach prequel one shots posted and over 800 pages of bullet point notes.

[akaluan]

Why do I have the sudden mental image of Erich (reluctantly) adopting Bazz post-TYBW?

.... Probably because he would, in an awkward “you might vaguely be more powerful, older, and know more Quincy skills than me, but I’m actually the more mature adult of the two of us” sort of way XD

Also, I feel like there’d be some, like... common-ground sort of thing between the two of them because of the trauma Bazz went through when young and the things Erich lived through in Great War. If anything once Bazz settled down and realized that he wasn’t around people who’d stab him in the back, and was, in fact, around the people who’d fought Yhwach and won, I think they’d have a pretty good rapport going on.

Bazz would be a lot wilder than Erich is used to, but I think by the time post TYBW came about, Erich would be REALLY used to Kisuke’s version of crazy, and would just sorta... roll with it? Bazz is a hot-head and a certain brand of crazy, but nothing impossible for Erich to work around.

In short:

Erich, despairingly: I’m the only sane man here.

Uryuu: Stop lying, you’re just as bad.

Erich: No I’m not.

Uryuu: YOU’RE IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH URAHARA KISUKE, YES YOU ARE.

Erich: Eeeehh.

Uryuu: And I thought ICHIGO’S habit of picking up strays was bad...

Erich: But he’s another Quincy, and helped us out, and was clearly left to die because of it.

Uryuu, groans: Point proven...

[stephanericherthanyou]

Ch221-250

i see i no longer have a choice about using the new post editor, but it also gives me 2 choices of heading size, so...win win i guess

i was thinking in general this morning about isane's "cell phone for tall people" idea from one of the omakes i read yday....that's actually pretty handy, as a tall person who used to drop their phone a lot, heh

Ch221: Let Eat the World's End

haha "thrust down on his blade"

ooo ken-chan in his mind.....nice. i do love the parallels between them :thinking:

"battles are different from quarrels. and if both sides end up living afterwards, it definitely ain't over." i love him...."we're always gonna keep on searching [for power]!! ichigo!!"

(and again they are on a first name basis....even tho this is just a mental image. it's interesting that that's what his mind would choose to show him...like yeah the first time this kind of thing happened was in the kenpachi fight so it sorta makes sense...)

(so is the new one 10 images per post or is it 10 images per image set)

also interesting to note that realgetsu stabbed ichigo right where grimmjow's hollow hole is

and the same in return.....wrow

Ch222: No Shaking Throne

i do like the king/horse extended metaphor...and that realgetsu calls ichigo 'king' in general

KUBO!!!!!

tatsuki :(

oh yes speaking of aizen's objective....why did he go through all the trouble of what he did when he knew he could have just taken the hogyoku from rukia's body? even if he thought she wouldn't survive he could make that the red herring...tho it did serve him to throw the SS into internal turmoil and try to get them to off each other, slaughter c46....and well it's aizen he likes things complicated

Ch223: The Scarlet Creation

yes the royal key...the royal guard...the soul king....launcher of 1000 fan theories

'we have time...it's 4 months :)' yamapls

i do love the way the manga is anchored to the seasons/time passing tho

well it's obviously gonna be momo who's talking to him right?

Ch224: Imitated Gaiety

yep it's momo...man aizen really did a number on her. the way she still talks about him, even tho he straight up said 'that person was a lie' (tho perhaps not to her or mb she totally blacked it out)

idk i think aizen's villainy is, well. it's a battle shonen so ofc it's gonna be somewhat ott but it's a mix of 'totally evil let's destroy the world' + complete narcissism + on a personal level, it's...idw say realistic, but he makes people want to believe the best of him even when he shows his true colors and idk. it's easy to see that quality transferred to irl stuff

teehee i'm just a shopkeeper! ily urahara <3

nnnn love & rose as the peanut gallery

Ch225: Slip Into My Barrier

oh dear is she gonna upset it

nah...but damn ichigo you're so cool, saying "it'll be alright; i'll be the one to stop aizen"...baby

Ch226: Right of My Heart

ASDLFKJ all of u pls....

ryuuken wow he's totally unscathed...

why is the moon always a crescent? it was just like that the other night; it should have waned.

anyway, uryuu and ryuuken continue to be incredibly similar. we love a generation xerox.

Ch227: The Swordless Soldier

wait is the moon reversed....oh that's hueco mundo

so did urahara say that to orihime sos that she would get captured or what. does he know about what happened with hachi and the barrier.

Ch228: Don't Look Back

is this like a rukihime ver of that john & yoko album

oh that is very rukihime well well

SHE!!!!!!!!!!!!

"the 'how to' is not important. it is the 'how do you want to do it' that is" HACHIIIII

Ch229: Howling Tempest

speaking of pretty, i talk up rukia & urahara a lot but...

ulquiorra is lovely

wait it's been a month? has he been skipping school this entire time? is kon in his body? what about his grades? what about his family? sure isshin knows and karin has a guess but he doesn't know isshin knows and what about yuzu?

peas in a pod i see

Ch230: Dead White Invasion

oh! shuuhei!

"friends are a good thing even if they tread a different path" ukitake T_T

man shuuhei does all the work of captain and vice captain and doesn't even get a promotion for it in the end....how sadly relatable

OH grimmjow's scar is to cover the tattoo....yeah ok i get it (how many times can i repeat that haha)

Ch231: The Mascaron Drive

(why does the title page say 221....a misprint?)

nnnn

lovely kubo panels....especially the last one with urahara......

Ch232: The Mascaron Drive 2

wrow so bloody grimmjow....again, i see i see

redacted

10 images per post...? >:( i guess i'll have to go back to 20 chaps after this. pretend i put the kubo panel in anyway, it's there, it's beautiful, the screenshot's on my hard drive

Ch233: El Violador

falling together like that huh

candyshop.mp3

O SHIT ITS HIM

Ch234: Not Negotiation

We, / in the first, / shall never blend together. / In the second, / shall never hold the same form. / The third, / as he who has no eyes. / The fourth, / with no direction. / And the fifth, / lies in the heart.

"what you hold i your hand is the rope to the guillotine above your friends' necks. Nothing more." godDAMN does he know how to get her already

"if your weapon is 8 arms, mine is all the water in the atmosphere" DAMN HITSUGAYA!!!

Ch235: The Frozen Clutch

RUKIAAAAAAAAAAA

Ch236: The Sun Already Gone Down

idk how to say but i do like how so many of the fights just end interrupted, only to resume after everyone has a chance to level up or think about things more (or both)

but lol @ ulquiorra just grabbing grimmjow and peacing him out of his fight with shinji

Ch237: Goodbye, Halcyon Days

well i guess if it's been a month it's fine for the moon to be crescent again

"If only I had 5 lives! Then I could be from 5 different towns and stuff myself full on 5 different types of food and have 5 different jobs...and I could...fall in love with the same person 5 times"

i do think about this quote a lot. idk i feel all kinds of ways about it....

Ch238: Eagle Without Wings

oh long time no see! byakuya & ken-chan!

Ch239: Winged Eagles

TATSUKIIIII :'((((((((

i just. yeah. it would be easy to drop the high school stuff and vanish it from the plot but i just. ouch.

"Believe in us, Ichigo; don't carry the burden by yourself. That's what friends are for!" CHAD :'((((((

Ch240: Regeneration

garganta....just like the black hole in interstellar! (or maybe that was gargantua)

nnnn grimmjow impaling luppi with his hand....i would screenshot but i wonder if it is sfw enough for this website (also i am, still, out of images) it is also a brilliant kubo panel

nnnn ulquiorra's done face at grimmjow

Ch241: Silverflame

alskdjf uryuu rules lawyering PLS PLS PLS (and technically, ichigo is other things as well....helping out a fellow quincy, that's fine :D)

"that's some messed up logic." "just admit that i've found a paradox in the promise." uryuu PLS

"i'm your enemy!" ICHIGO PLS

RYUUKEN CALLING ISSHIN "KUROSAKI" & ISSHIN BEING SURPRISED BY THAT :O

dr ishida you shouldn't smoke! you're a doctor! well i guess he stresses himself out huh

"what a shitty dad" "just trying to one-up you" THEY REALLY GO LOW!!!!!!

Ch242: Two Men Are Burning

"We'll take care of this" :'))) chad & uryu so dependable!

(nnn flashback ryuuken is doing the glasses thing just like uryuu)

"shall we counterattack?" i love him

Ch243: The Knuckle and the Arrow

"My king, / we gaze upon you in the same way / that we gaze upon a peacock / and that is framed by hope, / adoration, and a bottomless something / that resembles fear"

i wonder what exactly this is referencing...aizen as king? is the peacock thing yumichika? or is it ichigo and realgetsu? or everything at once?

oooh it's a longbow....be glad you aren't in fire emblem, uryuu

and in the cover page uryuu is dressed like ryuuken too

FLYING LEGS OF PURITY URYUU PLS

(alsdlfkj the shady translator's note...'bad spanish for')

Ch244: Born From the Fear

cool_guys_dont_look_at_explosions.mp4

"Tell him the quincy are here, and that, in reality, it os not the shinigami he should fear but rather the quincy!"

WELL. TECHNICALLY. ICHIGO AND BACH /shot

path like a moonbeam eh....would it happen to be.....a moonbeam on the water..........kyoka suigetsu........

i've come to like the reverse moon

interesting that grimmjow did not have orihime heal the scar from ichigo! also....SZAYEL IS THAT YOU

ah yes teatime with aizen-sama

Ch245: The Way Without Enemies

oooh what a fancy pourover setup aizen-sama! and in what, 2007? 08? sighs the wiki won't tell me >:( my kingdom for a better bleach wiki....maybe wikipedia would have it but i'm not gonna trawl rn no time

asking the blind guy for a visual seems kinda insensitive but

grimmjow's '!!!!' well well

ooh man i can just hear the scolding tone in aizen's voice....if i were him i'd curl up in shame like those plastic fortune fish

another good reaction face from ichigo

Ch246: The Great Desert Bros

enter_sandman.mp3

yes yes...sand weak to water....just like pokemon and one piece...

Ch247: United on the Desert

is it a lil hammered down straight through the plaster that ichigo needs to rely on his friends more (and in general that reliance on others isn't weakness)? maybe. do i like it? yeah.

byakuya runs on the same logic as uryuu lmao "i brought you back but no orders after that :)" also....the filthy-looking boy line!!!! *

a lively bunch

oh this is a bit of a mirror of rukia in prison and hearing from renji about everyone coming in...."for them there is no other reason than that" :')

orihime you are loved! (and, thinking about this in a metaphorical sense, the symbolism of being captured in a prison of low self-worth and your friends lifting you out....nnn) but then going back to tasuki....do they ever tell her, and i wonder how that makes her feel bc obv she doesn't love orihime any less even tho she can't understand her or physically rescue her ah (cries in tatsuhime)

Ch248: To Live and Return to this Place again

i wonder who was faked out by all this, like thinking she really switched sides....i prob woulda been

"you know how it goes, rudolph with his nose so bright" ICHIGO PLS

Ch249: Back to the Innocence

so uryuu meets szayel....rukia meets aaroneiro..../squints who else does what. or is that later.

damn ulquiorra....it's logical and manipulative but. still flawed.

im very sure aizen know what orihime is planning....that or it's totally irrelevant given later events

Ch250: Five Ways to Three Figures

well ichigo is in a place where he's protecting someone so that's how he fights best....when does nel get her magical ageup tho

asldkfjslkd the reaction faces....gold

right, dordoni and the privaron

lsdfkj gin and tosen....give me all of them

"splitting up lowers their chance of winning, don't these kids know their limits?" "no"

[akaluan]

Hello! So I've been thinking about your DE universe (as I often do), and this one thought's been nagging at me. This isn't a prompt, I just wanted to pick your brain a little bit, if you're up for it? (Feel free to shelve this ask if you're focused on other things atm.) Just--what does Isshin think about everything going on? Like, in terms of Kaito's appearance? Is he aware Urahara's SON is in town? What does he assume about him? What does he think of his sudden presence in Ichigo's life?

Hi!

Hmmm… I will probably write a short about this at some point, I think, but for now…

1) Isshin’s thoughts on Kaito and on Kaito being in town

He’s… a bit confused. He never thought Kisuke had a son: Kisuke never mentioned it, never acted differently, never even implied that he was/could be a father. Kaito DOES look like a young Kisuke, though, so that’s a thing; however Isshin is a doctor and is well aware of the sorts of things that the Living World is capable of doing to a person’s appearance.

(He also hasn’t ASKED Kisuke or any of the other Shoten members, so he doesn’t know the official story.)

From a distance, Isshin thinks that Kaito seems like a good kid (remember he hasn’t actually met Kaito, just heard about him from his own children a bit, and seen him once or twice at a distance), and hopefully a good friend to Ichigo, but he’s 100% certain the timing of Kaito’s arrival, and Kaito’s integration into Ichigo’s life, is suspicious.

2) Isshin’s assumptions

Kaito is one of Kisuke’s trump cards, a failsafe in case things with Ichigo don’t work out properly. He’s not convinced Kaito IS actually Kisuke’s son in the Living World meaning of the word, but he’s not going to argue it.

(I HC that ‘legitimacy’ in Soul Society isn’t really the same thing as it is in the Living World; given that I’ve stated that souls born in Soul Society are BRAND NEW souls, and that it takes plenty of power to create a new soul. So adoption doesn’t have the same stigma of being “not really family” that it tends to have in the Living World; the issue that the Kuchiki have with Rukia is thus less that she’s adopted and more that she’s Not Fitting Noble Standards. Also a powerful Noble family like the Kuchiki would have a bias towards Actually Born Children vs Adopted Children. Sorry, tangent.)

So, Isshin assumes that Kaito is… sorta like Kon? If that makes sense? A created soul that Kisuke spent decades perfecting in order to make powerful and skilled in order to combat Aizen. And being like Kon, Kisuke spent some time making Kaito’s form look like him in order to blend in better.

(This Kisuke, at least, doesn’t really like relying on a Human Teen to solve Soul Society’s issues, so it would make sense for him to come up with a Better Answer.)

3) What he thinks about Kaito’s sudden presence in Ichigo’s life

SUSPICIOUS.

I mean, he appreciates that Kaito is teaching Ichigo about combat and survival and such, but… really? Ichigo becomes a Shinigami and suddenly a previously unknown son of Kisuke The Mad Scientist appears? Yeah, no. That’s no coincidence. Still, Kisuke’s proven to be helpful, and against Aizen, so… Isshin will deal.

(He’ll keep an eye out for betrayal, though. He doesn’t trust this situation THAT much.)