Mod post, Chapter 318, fanart recs, How to be a Fail!Shipper in 8 Easy Steps

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

MODERATOR'S ANNOUNCEMENT: PLEASE do not post hate lists or "reasons why I can't stand this character" posts in this community. Keep those to your own LJs. If your hate lists have particular artistic, humorous or literary merit, someone may end up linking them here eventually, but just don't chance that random bitching is going to be appreciated. I'm all for character-bashing (truly I am! Call Ishida a fag and see if I care!) The only thing that will earn you a ban from this community is if you bash a person by name, but please use common sense when posting and try not to stir up stuff with random character hate posts. Jokes and outrageous comments are fine as long you're not --well, obviously picking a fight with someone. I'll bother you about it if you are.

Also, don't hotlink from Japanese websites. Recently pictures from an IshiHime website were posted. You can see the pictures at BYPASS.


Chapter 318 "Five Pillars, Four Corners" up here now at onemanga.
U.S. scans of chapter 318 are out and you can get them at Bleach Asylum's chapter thread.
The chapter should be posted soon.

Still no action. Like I said on BA, Kubo's been play arpeggios for chapters now and dinging his chimes but we haven't heard the tune yet. It works. It's exciting. More characters show up. It's going to be a doozy to see how he manages all the action, but apparently he's going to have to use bait and switch for the fights which means a fast pace and battles happening off-panel---weeeeeeeeee!

Kubo is having some fun.  First, the Ulquiorra and Ichigo reunion is something to see. Lots of EYEBALL!SMEX. On the shipping front, I believe this sinks IchiOri. Some were expecting an enraged Ichigo spouting stuff to Ulqui in defense of Orihime like he did to Byakuya in defense of Rukia; instead we've got Ichigo all eager to fighty-fight and smiling and asking if Ulqui considers it an honor to fight him. May as well ask the Espada to dance.

PRIMERA ESPADA--WHO IS HE?  Ever since Ukitake and Shunsui wondered a couple chapters ago, I know Kubo's been giggling over teasing us. I'm betting that Barragan is a red herring with his stately chair and crown and bossy ways. Stark is the one, baby. Not that I care what rank he is as long as I get more Stark panel time. He's so adorable.

HISAGI! KIRA! IKKAKU! YUMI! FANSERVICE!

Bring it on, Kubo!

I'll just wait patiently on my my Quincy.

ETA: NEHA! And I call myself an Ishida fan!  I totally didn't get that those five towers could be Ishida arriving on the scene to interrupt the little UlquiIchi Eyeball!smex scene!  For some reason I associated it with the KKT scene but it was never explained...

OF COURSE ISHIDA IS THERE. HE'S NUMBER FIVE. WHERE THE HEART LIES. XD

Meanwhile, WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THAT devosama    draws such fantastic RenIshi art? Well, someone (thank you LAURA!) finally did and omg, will you just look at this:

There really needs to be more RenIshi art in the world. I only know of one doujin. T__T. Kaya, who is a wonderful doujin artist, has promised me one but it's on her long list. Oh btw, Kaya drew a sexy Ichigo for his birthday and you can see him here (Ichigo by bananakaya    )

Oh, and it's been a shitstorm for Bleach shippers this week. I'll admit it. I'm a fail!shipper. We all are sometimes. We should try to be fun!shippers and avoid the pitfalls but alas, fail!shipping is as much a part of shipping as doubt is a part of faith and hate is a part of love.
Amen.

Perspective. It’s a blessing in fandom. I didn’t have it a few years ago and shed a lot of tears. This year RL woes and seriously ill friends and family members put the fandom snipes against me in perspective. Oh, you hate my fanart and noticed that I drew two elbows on Rukia's one arm and that made you shit bricks laughing? That hurts but it’s not like you injected me with AIDS. After a few years of being targeted by some serious little evil girl hate campaigns, the comments made by PMSing shippers who don’t agree with my fangirl ravings about this or that don’t even ping anymore.


How to Be a Fail!Shipper in 8 Easy Steps

1. Remember that line about how the lowbrow talk about other people and the highbrow talk about ideas? Fail!Shippers talk about other shippers, and fun!shippers talk about the manga. (Okay, well, lowbrow fun!shippers talk about manga people and there’s where ALL the fun is, obviously, heh heh).

2. Pretend to never be disappointed--even when a rival ship scores an obvious coup like a filler hand-holding scene or some actual manga panel time. Really, too much denial is creepy.

3. Cut and paste and manipulate pictures of your pairing in icons and banners to approximate actual canon poses of your rival pairing.

4. Tell other shippers aboard your own ship to stop whining and fearing the rival ship. Keep newbies in line. Pass around badges and party hats and brown shirts.

5. Avoid debate. Say “I could easily defeat you in a debate but I’m above debating.” Write long incoherent essay-length posts that nonetheless debate posts made by rival shippers.

6. When in doubt, attempt sarcasm.

7. Consult astrologers, numerologists, alchemists and your hair-dresser who LIVED IN JAPAN ONCE AND KNOWS THE CULTURE for affirmation of your interpretation of manga panels.

8. Use sparkle text whenever typing your pairing’s nick.

Friends, don’t fail!ship. Be merry and gay. Write fanfic and draw and icon and laugh and remember: you make Kubo-sensei a very rich man but he’s no happier than you are. We’re all just people who love our pet ferrets or goldfish or cats and annoy our neighbors and breathe the same air and see the same moon at night. Blessings on all you crazy people.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

I swear there was some fail!shipper who can't count insisting that Ichigo stood for five (as in "five is where the heart lies" in Orihime's poem) the other day. Ichigo is Japanese for fifteen. QUINCY MEANS EFFING FIVE!

*just patiently waiting here*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

OMG, NEHA, WILL YOU SLAP ME? I DIDN'T GET THAT THE FIVE TOWERS WAS ISHIDA ARRIVING ON THE SCENE. OF COURSE IT IS!

[nehalenia.livejournal.com]

LOL! No smacking around. You have to do Ishida PENANCE!!!! AHAHAHAAHAAHAAA!

[sincere]

Not to rain on your parade. XD But aren't they all hanging out in Tower 5? So it seems to me like it's literally "In the places where the battles are going down, there are 5 towers and 4 pillars respectively," and not like only half of it is talking about the battleground, and the other half is foreshadowing.

Also, for the record, juugo is fifteen in Japanese. The reason Ichigo keeps getting represented by fifteen is because ichi is one and go is five, ergo "1 5". And the name itself, as we know, means "one who protects".

Now, "quince" means 15 in Spanish. More Ichigo/Ishida cross-parallelism ftw

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

Yeah, as an IchiIshi shipper and a Spanish speaker, I knew about the quince... but but but QUINCY is still five! He's still associated with five! He's got to show up at tower five with bells on! (well, I hope not with bells on, but at least a sparkling new cape!)

The location thingie with the pillars makes sense... I thought about it over lunch break but I'm still betting that those towers look sort of animated and full of QUINCY ENERGY! XD

[nehalenia.livejournal.com]

Has the great fest of denial started yet? :-D

[nehalenia.livejournal.com]

You know what I keep thinking about? That scene where Ishida and Chad defeated the two Arrancar (and made Ichigo watch). When he's leaving, Ishida (god love him) says "Tell Aizen a Quincy has come... and that's what he really needs to worry about, yo!" (or something to that effect.)

I realize it's highly, highly unlikely, but I've always wondered if that wasn't more than just a "Ishida is being dramatic" moments. It's easy to blow it off as characterization -- Ishida being self-important -- but sometimes I wonder if the Quincy quotient (meaning both Uryuu and Ryuuken) might be something that Mr. I-Am-Always-A-Zillion-Steps-Ahead-of-You-Noobs Aizen hasn't taken into account.

I'll admit right off I've got no evidence to support the Quincy being some sort of anti-Arrancar secret weapon or anything -- if Cirucci and Szayel are any indication -- but still... I can't help thinking that might not have been just a throwaway line.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

I fangirl my Quincy all the way, baby. He will have SOMETHING to do with the downfall of Aizen. SOMETHING. Everyone will do a little something but the Quincy are going to redeem themselves to SS somehow, aren't they?

Oh Ryuuuuuuken?

[nehalenia.livejournal.com]

Haha, yeah for a minute there when Yama-ji said he had 4 elite fighters guarding the pillars I thought we were gonna get to see Urahara, Yoruichi, Isshin and Ryuuken. That wouldn't make any sense, of course, esp with Karakura moved to Soul Society, but it would have been cool.

Out of curiosity, I took a stroll over at Animesuki but nobody seems to have even noticed those 5 pillars of light, much less be debating their significance. *shrug* Odd what people see and don't see.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

The more I look at the pic, now, though, the more I'm convinced that the five towers are a geographical reference to HM and not Ishida showing up in five streams of light.

But I still think he's there and he's gonna show.... it's just a matter of time...

I still have to do penance for not noticing though--those five towers just totally SPOKE ISHIDA. Like the poem, like all of it.

*hurry up, boy*

[nehalenia.livejournal.com]

Hard to say. I actually went back to look at the chapter where he used 'Sprenger' on Szayel to see if it looked anything like that. It was just a big flash, tho. So I don't know. I just know Ishida was the first thing I thought of when I saw that.

On one hand, we only have to wait a week to find out.

On the other hand, we have to wait a WHOLE week to find out! Argh!