Writing Bleach Fanfiction and Hitsugayas Strenght

I admit I have this love-hate relationship with Bleach. I loved it when it came out, but at one point it kind of overstayed it’s welcome, it got messy and threw all logic put of the window. I was glad when it was finally over, but every once in a while I go back and read or write some Bleach fanfiction, because I love shipping Bleach characters.

We’re getting close to the 5 year mark since the manga was ended and yes, I’m still salty over the endgame pairings. IchixRuki was a lot better developed and written than anything about or with Orihime, including her relationship with Ichigo. Also, the way the main characters ended up, just made no sense at all, because it was quite literally what none of them wanted.

Therefore, let’s dive into the wonderful world of fanfiction. The Bleach fandom quite literally pairs up everyone with each other, but I prefer stuff that makes sense. I’m open to some more experimental stuff, I mean, I can totally see the appeal of GrimmjawxIchigo, even though I don’t ship them myself. Ichigo belongs to Rukia, IchixRuki is sacred. By accident I rediscovered a delicious Omegaverse AU modern time IchixRuki, that I’ve read before and totally threw me back into Bleach fanfictions. Hot sex scenes, oblivious Rukia and overprotective Ichigo are just my thing.

Usually, Omegaverse is used in BL pairings in order to make babies and mpreg possible, it does work very nicely in heterosexual pairings, too. I’ve started reading a nice still unfinished Omegaverse IchixRuki with Omega!Ichigo and Alpha!Rukia, where their characters aren’t completely destroyed. Yas.

My personal favorite pairings are IchixRuki, of course. IchixRuki is life, IchixRuki is love. They’re my absolute favorite Bleach ship, they sail themselves no problem. That one time when Ichigo went ice skating with Rukia before he lost his ability to see shinigami and ghosts/spirits? That was the closest damn thing to an actual date we saw in canon. His world has literally faded away when we saw her. In canon, Ichigo never expressed any romantic interest in anyone, but his relationship with Rukia was the best developed point blanc. She made the most sense for him, she suited him best, they kicked the very best out of each other. I do find it quite hard to write about them, because I have trouble with their bickering sounding okay. I have a 20k words long IchixRuki fanfiction in the making, though. And yes, I may bash the idea of Ichigo having children with Orihime two or three times in that fanfiction, at least once from Ichigo himself.

My second favorite ship, which is my favorite to write fanfiction about is HitsuxHina. This is the childhoodfriends-gone-lovers ship in this series that I prefer. Honestly, like many others, I adore Hitsugaya, he’s such a cute angry cinnamonroll. He’s basically a child in this world full with crazy and strong people and behaves more mature than most of them. He’s awesome. And Hinamori is cute and together they’re even cuter. The way he opens up when he’s with her, actually smiles and wants to protect her from everything, it’s just too cute. I think in canon he just wants to protect her, because she’s his childhood friend, but his entire behavior towards her can be interpreted as a crush so damn easily, they sail themselves, too. I’ve written all sorts of stuff about them and since Hinamori has this tragic psychological abuse thing going on, you can make their stories center around her healing process or go further, say she’s fine and make it more spicy and fun. They give so much material to write about. Also, personally I love aging up Hitsugaya. He was a cute little brat, he’s a handsome teen, but he’s a banger as an adult. Momo… you’re in for a real treat. I have a 15k+ unfinsihed lemony fanfiction in the works about them post story aged up into adulthood. I would like to write an Omegaverse fanfiction about them with Alpha!Hitsu and Omega!Hina, where it starts out with Hinamori in a realtionship with Beta!Kira (I’m not very kind to Kira, he’s often her boyfriend until Mr Ice Prince comes around and steals Momo away in my stories), because she’s afraid of alphas, but Hitsugaya starts courting her anyways, pining over her and all that good stuff. Honestly, I just want to write Hitsugaya being nervous about his inner alpha wanting to provide for “his” omega aka Momo by making sure she properly eats and brings her bentos every day to work under the very amused eye of Shinji. Also, him blowing off steam in alpha-fights with Ichigo? Heck yeah.

I do like other pairings, like ShunsuixNanao, but that one got quite a blow by the fact that Shunsui is Nanaos bio uncle. Their relationship is awesome, they pretty much behave like a married couple anyways and they’re a lot of fun to play around with. They’re adults, wirte some lemony stuff, no problem. I love them … and than the entire family connection thing happend and it took my fun wout of this ship. I still kind of ship them and I think Nanao has a legit canon crush on Shunsui, if only he wasn’t her damn uncle.

Ishida deserves someone, too. Ishida can have Orihime, their interests and personalities match so much better anyway, And Renji can have Byakuya, I don’t mind.

So, the other thing is, due to going back to writing about Bleach, I reread some parts of the manga, watched some anime clips and stuff. I ended up watching an amv about the chase scene from Diamond Dust Rebellion where Kira and Hisagi are trying to capture a severly wounded Hitsugaya and fail very much so. I know it’s a movie and therefore not canon, but I’ve always really liked that scene, because it puts Hitsugayas strenght as a Captain in better perspective than the normal storyline does. He’s severly injured and completely destorys two Vice-Captains. Whoever had the bright idea of sending two Vice-Captains to capture a captain is bonkers anyways, but it helps to show how strong Hitsugaya is compared to “normal” Shinigami.

Hitsugaya is that boy genius. Shunsui said he would be stronger than him in a 100 years and Ichimaru said he’s a genius that only ever shows up once in a 100 years, he wields the strongest ice type zanpaktou, he’s the youngest Captain of all time. He’s a grumpy cute little dude, but he’s damn strong and his potential is acknowledged in canon. As a Captain who often fights at the front lines alongside the core cast memers he get’s himself into some very dangerous situations and is paired with some very very strong enemies and doesn’t always win. In the main supporting cast, he sometimes looks like one of the weaker guys even, but he’s actually a LOT stronger than Rukia and Renji from the main cast.

Honestly, at the very end of the manga when he shows his perfected Bankai where he literally needs to age himself up (however that works, but at that point Bleach had no logic left anyway so whatever) in order to manage it, he’s frightenly strong. Rukia has an ice type Zanpaktou as well and she’s strong, her Bankai is strong. Hyrourinmaru is on an entire different level, tough. I like that the story remembers Hitsugaya has this insabely strong Zanpaktou and is supposed to be special, by showing his potential as an adult with access to his Bankai’s true power, which is insane. He gains the power to freeze everything at will and he doesn’t even need to do anything for that. He flicks his finger and flashfreezes everything. Try to get close enough to him to hurt him, good luck and if you manage to and you touch him? You’re frozen. You can’t touch him. He freezes freaking fire. And when he freezes someone, their abilities are rendered useless. Why in the world, didn’t he fight Yhwach? Freeze him, render his ability useless, shatter him in a million pieces or just keep him in that block of ice for all eternity for all I care, but wouldn’t that have worked to much better than using Ichigo with his brute force?

Granted, aside from Hitsugaya himself, nobody knew he could even do that and he never used it in battle before, but instead of sending Rukia and Renji for sentimental reasons, even though they can’t do shit about Yhwach instead of sending adult!Hitsugaya true Bankai from, who could actually make a difference, is just mindblowingly stupid. Plot convenience for main characters, though.

As much as Bleach did some very stupid things, every once in a while there was that comedy that I loved in the beginning and for example in that particular scene when Renji and Rukia face adult!Hitsugaya Bankai and they assume he’s his own older brother and he just goes along with it, was hilarious. Byakuyas comment about Hitsugaya not even bothering to explain himself was the icing on the cake. Yeah, those two idiots won’t even get it anyways, why bother? I loved that.

Something about Fanfiction II

… or: me petpeeving again.

For part one, it’s here: Something about Fanfiction

Yes, I’m back into fanfiction thanks to the gloriously gay and amazingly sparkly Yuri on Ice and with that comes my general annoyance by certain things writers tend to do. Before we take a huge bite out of the cake of crap, I would like to point out something I recently discovered and that I just absolutely love: soulmark fanfictions.

Soulmark fanfictions revolve around the idea soulmates exist and every pair of soulmates has a matching pair of soulmarks to identify them as such. Sounds cheesy, cliche and hopelessly romantic? Hell yes. Do I enjoy it nonetheless? Fuck yeah. However, I have to add I enjoy it in Yuri on Ice in particular, that is because the relationship between Yuri and Victor is so natural I can totally picture them as being meant for each other.

Yuri on Ice in general walks a very fine line between beeing the cutest thing ever and the biggest cliche ever. Somehow, even though it has it all to be as sassy and cheesy and disgustingly unrealistic, it’s the exact opposite. Victor and Yuri are meant for each other and I believe it. Therefore, soulmark/ -mate fanfictions fit.

Now, let’s get to the bad stuff. Why do so many people think it’s a good idea to convey a character’s feelings by writing out their thoughts as if they were talking silently to themselves inside of their brains? Maybe I’m just incredibly abnormal, but I don’t really talk to myself in my brain. Well, maybe the occasional: “Damn, I’m supid” but that’s about it and even that often ends up vocalized. Chances are high, if you try to remember the last time you found yourself conciously telling “OMG, I didn’t just say that!” you’re not going to remember anything, because there’s nothing to remember. That’s simply not how our brain works.

The thing is, when we do something wrong, we know we did something wrong, but we usually don’t put it into words unless we’re going to say them. Again: unless I’m just incredibly abnormal for not conciously talking to myself inside of my brain. When someone tells you he’s in love with you, there’s no voice in your head that goes “OMG! Did he really just say he loves me?” That’s just not happening, even though you probably are overwhelmed and in disbelieve and this is exactly what’s going throught your brain, but you don’t put it into words. Look: this is your brain. You don’t need to tell your brain what your feelings are right now, your brain is the control center of your body it knows what you’re feeling without being told.

To make a long story short, talking to yourself in your head the way you would be talking to another person, is so unnatural, because this is you. You don’t need to tell yourself about what’s going on inside of yourself, because this is you and you already know all that without putting it into worlds. Therefore, every time I read something like that, it’s quite literally making my toenails roll up. If it doesn’t belong into your head, it doesn’t belong into the heads of your characters in your fanfiction. … if we’re talking about people in a state of mind that would be generally accepted as “normal”.

As for the reason why I think so many people do it, sometimes to the extent they’re giving thoughts their own quotation marks to differentiate them from outspoken conversations, I think it’s probably just the easy way out. It’s short and it’s very much on point and that’s the problem. In my first fanfiction-rant-thingy I was talking about the need of desciption. You’re not telling a story, if you’re just stating facts after facts. Unless you’re writing a stage play, you need to describe.

And yes, it’s perfectly fine to put your character’s thoughts into words, how else would you convey them to your readers? There’s just such a HUGE stylistic difference between writing: “Did he just say he loves me?” and “She stood before him in utter disbelieve, his words still ringing in her ears. Never did she imagine, even in her wildest dreams, the day would come when he would confess his love for her.” Are you noticing that difference? Isn’t it  cristal clear?

If you want to write a fanfiction, you need to be aware of the fact that you are telling another person (aka the reader) a story. There’s a connection between the author, the reader and the story. Imagine it as a triangle. It doesn’t matter what kind of narrative form you choose, if you’re going for a third-person narrator who stands above everything and knows everything about every character, or if you’re going for a first-person narrator who’s one of the characters of your story and only knows about himself. These are the two most common narratives you find in not just fanfiction, but also in novels.

You, as the author, give the narrator your voice to tell your reader the story you thought of. You can tell the reader about the feelings of your characters, that’s perfectly fine: “She knew she was wrong.” However letting the character tell to himself what he is feeling, as if he was talking to another person in direct speech inside of his head, that’s just wrong on so many levels.

Of course, like ever, there are situations where it’s okay to write like that. However, the rule of thumb is: whatever you do, is okay for your characters to do. Try to think when you talk to yourself in direct speech and if you do so in your brain or if you vocalize it. Chances are you vocalize it. In most cases, we’re writing stories about humans. You are human, you are the best example, try to write what you would do and if you notice this is something you never do, like talking to yourself in your head as if you were talking to another person, then just find another way to express whatever you were about to write. Instead of using direct speech, use indirect speech or descibe.

I hope I was able to convey what I was trying to say about this and why I think this is one of the big no-goes so many people are guilty of doing.

Something about Fanfiction

Every once in a while I drop back into fanfiction. And every single time I stand and wonder why people do certain things. This is not saying I didn’t do them myself when I was younger, because becomming a good writer includes one thing above everything: practice, practice and practice.

I often feel people tend to pick up writing, because they suck at drawing, especially in fandom communities. While it’s true it’s immediately visible if you draw a bad fanart and you can’t immediately see if a fanfiction is badly written, it still only takes a few sentences to figure it out. If you suck, you suck and no matter what you decide what kind of medium to go for, you need to practice. I produced hilarious bullshit, too. And guess what I did? Years later, I took my own old fanfictions and turned them into parodies while pointing out the obvious crap.

Since my native language is German I guess I’m privileged, because the german language is amazing as a literature language. As complicated as many people claim it to be, it gives you so many possibilities if done correctly. If there’s one thing I like the most, it’s having the endless possibilities at hand to say something and it’s in the nature of my language to describe. English, for example, is traditionally very on point. Translations from English into German always need more space, because German needs more words to tell the same story than English does. And this is helpful, very helpful.

Everything can be a means to convey certain messages and therefore be used with a deeper meaning, but generally I’d say the less you tell and the more you show, the better your writing is. For example: “Maya is angry” vs “Mayas breath was vibrating heavily, while her chest rose and fall in a violent fast pattern. She clenched her fists until her fingernails began to dug into her skin and her body began to shake more and more every passing second.” The latter kind of gives you a better understanding of the character, while not telling you how she actually feels. Of course, it can mean a lot of things, that’s where you need the right context and you can’t detail everything out like this either. Which leads me to my next point.

I’ve always been a writer who loves details, but I never understood female writers obsession with clothing and style. Especially female characters are often desctibed from head to toe every single time whey appear in a new outfit and that’s usually every time they reappear. There’s nothing wrong with telling your readers how your character looks like, but there’s a right time and amount of everything. Instead of wasting lines on beauty terms half your readers never even heared of, I personally like it better to describe the general clothing style once and only redescibe when there’s a drastic change or the clothing is going to be important, because in all honesty, I don’t give a fuck if your characters wears blue on Sunday, a red skirt on Monday, a pink blouse on Tuesday and so on.

I don’t know why, but I guess this whole clothing stuff is a pet peeve of mine. I’m not a stylish person, I only spend as much money on clothing as absolutely needed and if it’s nothing special, it doesn’t need to be highlighed. You know, in a romantic story, the first kiss can be as detailed as hell, going over pages and pages how much they love each other… but you’re not going to do this every time, because you’ll find yourself at a lack of ideas very soon and repeat yourself. It’s a special event once and needs the attention given, but later on it’s probably not even worth mentioning again, because you kiss in a relationship and often times you tend to kiss very casually. However, if something happens to the lovers, for example they are focrefully torn apart and reunite after fighting for their love, then the kiss is special again and it’s okay to give it attantion again.

It’s the same with everything. If it’s important, it gets attantion and detail. If it’s not important, you leave the details out, or you end up writing like the guys did back in the era of Literary Realism in the 19th century and believe me: you don’t want that. I was forced to read two novels by one of the most well known writers of that time in Germany, Theodor Fontane, and it was boring as hell. I’m guilty of overdetailing myself, but that doesn’t make it any better.

To sum it up: you need to know what’s important and what deserves to receive attention to detail. And this is very hard. I personally like to write shorter stories that take place over a very short period of time, usually not even a day, so I’m highligting one moment entirely and just leave out all the rest. I still focus on the main characters and what’s important to them, instead of bringing more into it. I decide to give a very closed view and give a good understanding of one or two characters in this very situation. I’m terrible at developing a longer story, I’m a one shot writer and I’m jealous of the people who write stories with 20, 30, 40 chapters.

However, if I really wanted to, I could learn to develop longer stories. It’s all practice, after all.