At least one good thing had come out of that awful, rainy, blood-soaked day. Rukia had grudgingly admitted that human or not, Karin seemed to have some of the same innate potential for shadow magic he had, they couldn’t be everywhere at once, and his sister might as well learn something to defend herself. By the time Rukia had been kidnapped and Ichigo had left for Soul Society to rescue her, Karin could patch up small wounds and charge a rock – or a ball – with enough shadow magic to hurt a Hollow.
Wouldn’t kill it, no. But the point was to keep herself alive long enough for him to get there. And that, she could do.
Still, if Sandal-hat hadn’t promised there’d be someone around to look out for them while we were in Tsukikage… I never could have gone. Ichigo shook his head. Still can’t believe Ishida came.
Not after the history the angry Quincy had revealed to him in a Hollow-filled park, arrows of shadow magic leaping from Lone Sparrow to shatter white masks. History of a rare, tragic people who could see the Hollows, who’d lost loved ones to them, who’d fought them….
And who’d realized, two centuries ago, that they were dying out. And tried to expose Hollows to the world, while there was still time.
But if regular people figured out magic to see the Hollows… they’d be able to see shinigami, too.
And once mainstream clerics got the chance to figure out what a shinigami konsou actually did-
Soul Society would die.
Hence the Quincy massacre.
So Ishida had a legitimate beef with shinigami. Especially since someone in the upper ranks of the Gotei Thirteen – and having been there, Ichigo thought he could make a good guess who – had held back the shinigami who should have rescued Ishida’s grandfather from the Hollows.
You don’t get over that. Ever.
But Ishida had gotten past it. Kind of. At least enough to fight back to back with a substitute shinigami against a wave of Hollows. If only so he’d get a chance to kick Ichigo’s ass later.
Funny thing was, later never seemed to come.
He tried to stop Byakuya and Renji from taking Rukia back, Ichigo thought now, heading around the front of the Kurosaki Clinic for the side door that would take them into the main house. Ishida was a few steps behind; a gloomy, morbid shadow. He came with us to rescue her, though I think he had a better idea of the odds we were up against than anyone. He didn’t deserve to have Sandal-hat screw with his head like this.
Thanks.
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I don’t think anyone deserves to have Sandal-hat screw with their heads, period…
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…Not even Aizen? *Halo*
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Aizen fully deserves whatever nastiness fertile minds can come up with. And I do trust that Urahara could come up with something very nasty for said egomaniac . . .
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*G*
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Okay. Maybe Aizen. //Maybe.// A strong argument can be made that Aizen and his merry mess are all Sandle-hat’s fault to begin with, so…
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*Snrk*
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Canon, Aizen was actively secretly performing human experiments well before Urahara was aware. (Kid Gin got ticked off at Aizen’s experiments, and adult Gin helped Aizen blindside Urahara.) Should he have stopped Aizen? Maybe. There is an argument that Urahara’s activity started after Aizen’s.
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>And once mainstream clerics got the chance to figure out what a shinigami konsou actually did-
Soul Society would die.>
Not 100% sure of the situation here. So what, konsou steals away souls that would normally go to their god’s afterlife or something?
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“Borrows”. But that’d be enough to possibly spark a crusade….
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>“Borrows”. But that’d be enough to possibly spark a crusade….>
So a person dies and would originaly go to thier faith’s afterlife and get reincarnated etc after a while. Only the shinigami runs by and kidnapps the person to be reincarnated in Soul Society. And only when they die again (and shinigami can live a very long time) do they ever reach the proper afterlife.That’s assuming they’re even still followers of said god after all that time.
Yeah I can see why the clerics of almost every faith would want to roast the shinigami soul-thieves alive. Some of the gods would probably be interested in taking pot-shots at them as well.
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Bingo! 🙂
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>Bingo!🙂>
Probably gets even worse if and when they Konsou a priest/paladin etc that is favored by a god. That sort of forced afterlife switcheroo reminds me of the short ‘The Saga Of Biorn” (you can find it on youtube).
Seriously how has Soul Society not gotten it’s ass kicked by swiping the wrong soul(s) over the millennia? Yes, they are powerful but these are D&D dieties we’re talking about. Pushovers, they are not.
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And this is why they steal ghosts. Souls that were already stuck! 😉
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And this is why they steal ghosts. Souls that were already stuck!
Sensible.
Still has “and then it got very ugly very quickly” written all over it.
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*Nods!*
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Like making it more a matter of survival for both sides of the conflict . . . through one could argue that is the situation in canon considering destroying the Hollows destroys not only the original soul but all of the souls they ate, meaning a lot of people never get a proper afterlife or reincarnated and since some of the souls eaten by Hollows are Shinigami, you can see why they aren’t happy about them being destroyed.
On the other hand, genocide is not okay.
On the third hand, yes it was wrong of the average Shinigami to carry out said orders but the real culprits are the people who gave those orders. Which were probably the Central 46 and Yamamoto.
On a fourth hand, in cannon, it seemed like the situation was in a stalemate before all of a sudden getting red hot. Which makes my deeply suspicious mind suspect either an singularly nasty incident that we have not been told about . . . or deliberate sabotage on the part of someone.
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When in doubt, blame Aizen.
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Because 9 times out of 10, you will be right.
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This actually sounds like something we should be blaming the guy that Fake-Zangetsu borrowed his face from for.
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Heh!
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Sandal-hats’ gonna get a pounding…I’m more curious about what Yoruichi knows about this. Because she has to know something.
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…And is probably laughing herself sick. Cats.
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>>When in doubt, blame Aizen.
Odds are pretty good that even if he *isn’t* behind it, given that despite his claims he actually isn’t responsible for everything from the Original Sin on, he’ll take the credit for it anyway.
And that is a very good point about Ishida. The way I see it, he gets attached to people. And then he goes tribal. The Quincy are his first tribe, and the Shinigami *hurt* them. Ichigo and Co are his new tribe, and Soul Society hurt *them.* So, he can deal with his shadow users, but the rest of them can go fry for all he cares. At least, that’s how I read him.
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Ishida needs hugs. Or a good brawl. Karin thinks so, at least…
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ouch, it doesn’t really matter how or why you build your masquerade. wait long enough and you will piss away your moral high ground maintaining it.
By the time Harry Potter takes place, anyone talking about witch-hunts as a reason for secrecy, should be answered with, “at this point you really have it coming”
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Obliviate. Grrrrr. The mere fact that that’s not considered an Unforgivable is infuriating.
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Not to mention all of their violations of what most people would consider basic human rights.
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*Nod!* I have to say the whole mice into snuffboxes gave me serious pause, the first time I ran across it. Bravo, guys. Teach your kids to have no empathy for other creatures whatsoever. Why didn’t Harry transfigure Voldemort into a snuffbox?
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Why didn’t Harry transfigure Voldemort into a snuffbox?
Because that would be a rather short book?
The editor complained that it was anticlimactic?
I think the thing that makes my bunnies grumble so much about the Harry Potter world is how they want us to take the world seriously and there are serious topics of death and racism but also believe that all this illogical stuff makes sense because it is funny. Or ignore the fact that some people or a lot of people’s actions are morally questionable to outright evil (and that’s the good guys) because again, the rule of funny or because we are being randomly silly. Or because we are using the standard children’s book tropes and following them to the letter.
Not saying you can’t have funny and serious and satire in the same fantasy world – Terry Pratchet did it beautifully in Discworld – but you know while reading Discworld that Sir Terry’s tongue was very firmly in check the entire time he was writing it. That is not the impression I got from Harry Potter. Harry Potter is not satire.
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Ever read Red Hen’s essays on the HP world?
http://www.redhen-publications.com/potterverse.html
They’re interesting – especially how she points out that nothing’s really changed, and the ‘verse is set up to create yet another Dark Lord in 20-40 years.
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Ever read Red Hen’s essays on the HP world?
Several of them. I believe you pointed me in that direction before. 🙂
Don’t agree with all of them. But I can usually find some good points even when I don’t agree with the conclusion. Makes me think. Which I like.
And none of it makes the bunnies any quieter. Sometimes it makes them louder. 🙂
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yes, Obliviate is treated way too casually, we don’t actually see anyone hit by Obliviate who didn’t also appear to suffer brain damage as well.
another thing that makes the inter faction karma meter plummet into the red is that, when a crime is committed with magic, the first priority of magical law enforcement is always, removing all evidence of magic. and then maybe, do something about the crime after they have destroyed all the evidence.
Just how big a priority stopping magic on muggel crime actually is depends on the setting. Being an ‘accessory after the fact’ is the unavoidable consequence of maintaining an Masquerade setting.
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*Nod*
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I figure Harry Potter’s politics make a certain amount of sense once you realize that Rowling experienced Portugal and was around for the late cold war, but is so trapped by the standard illusions that she cannot see beneath the beneath.
It is said that Clancy’s plots involving specific RL terrorist organizations get turned into domestic white supremacists for the movies.
Rowling seems to have about the understanding of terrorism of your average TV commentator or kindergartener.
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Clancy’s plots get horribly mangled by Hollywood when it comes to who the actual terrorists are, yes. Read the originals, you won’t regret it. 🙂
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I’ve read some of his books, but I pretty much don’t watch the movies.
I have a deep interest in telling stories about the evils of white supremacist domestic terrorism.
However, a useful cautionary tale is researched well enough that the reader can potentially choose to avoid a danger.
I was satisfied by HP #7, decided she’d done a good job, and pretty much haven’t reread any since. If the politics don’t stand up to any sort of analysis, I watch Gundam, and don’t really have grounds to complain. (In fairness to Sunrise, some of it may simply be issues of translation, and cultural differences.)
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They’re interesting – especially how she points out that nothing’s really changed, and the ‘verse is set up to create yet another Dark Lord in 20-40 years.
Aye. Which is one of the reasons why the bunnies will not shut about the wizarding world.
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*Wry G* I still like “There May Be Some Collateral Damage”. Served the Wizarding World right, having Ichigo dumped on them….
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It is also amusing to see how outsiders view that world. Especially when they call them on their BS.
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Or even less time. The last Harry Potter fanfic I read was “The Sum of Their Parts” (it’s on ao3) and it was totally worth it. While it is a Dark Lord!Harry fic, it doesn’t make Harry so OOC as to loose Ron and Hermione’s friendship, nor the friends he got to know though running DA.
The author makes a pretty good case for Harry always being the leader type at Hogwarts and him having enough influence that when he starts to go dark, the people he knew at Hogwarts want an explanation as to why he’s going dark as opposed to automatically turning on him.
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… Hmmm. Reading that last line again… If I thought Urahara was actually the type to do anything -… hmmm. Bad phrasing. If I thought Urahara was the type, I’d wonder if he didn’t intentionally set this up to give Uryuu a look at Shinigami from the other side.
Ishida’s been a Shinigami now, he knows what it does and doesn’t do to your head. Maybe he’ll be less ‘*grrrr* /Shinigami/’ and more ‘*grrr* /13 Companies/’ with his vendetta.
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🙂 Maybe!
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