Uryuu, Ichigo, Kisuke, and the rest of the Kankura gang get exquisitely cracked/repaired/renovated watches as gifts come the holidays. Ichigo's sisters particularly adore theirs (What? Erich likes them; they're sort-of family too, and just as much Quincies as is Ichigo - as a matter of fact, he should probably see if they take more after their father or their mother one of these days.)
(Muahahaha, last of your asks sitting in my inbox. I have conquered! =P)
Erich likes being able to gift people things that he’s fixed with his own hands. There’s a level of accomplishment there that feels... incredible; being able to fix instead of destroy... well, it’s something Erich finds he enjoys a lot. The fact that his gifts are loved in return only makes it better.
(Yuzu carries hers everywhere, and Karin clips hers to her bag. They are so happy to have an adult who cares and isn’t... well... Isshin.)
Erich doesn’t want to push the twins too hard, but he already knows that Karin, at least, has power. Whether she wants to admit to it or not, he can feel it coming from her. With that in mind, he gets them started on simple training exercises to help control their reiatsu. Whether or not they decide to train in combat when they become older is up to them. Erich isn’t going to force anything more on them than the ability to hide and stay alive.
Erich, much to everyone's surprise (and Urahara's not-so-secret glee) is a HUGE fan of Disney movies. (It's all the traditional stories he grew up with, rendered new and vivid in color and song and joy and happiness, the ugliness washed away leaving gold, gold, gold - )
The first time he sees one, it’s because Yuzu wants to watch a movie and she convinces him to sit and watch with her because she doesn’t want to watch a movie ALONE, who does that? (Karin is at practice, and Ichigo is spending a day with his friends, and Yuzu is lonely, okay? Besides, she really wants to spend some time with her new Uncle.)
Erich is initially unsure, but watching a movie seems harmless enough, even though he doesn’t really consider most tv or movies interesting. He can pretend interest well enough, and besides he feels a bit like he’s neglecting Yuzu -- Karin has obvious interests he can interact with her over (it didn’t take much to memorize the rules of the game she enjoys), and he’s training Ichigo, but Yuzu is harder.
He’s ensnared within the first half hour of the first one. It’s... an interesting take on a story he grew up with. Bright and cheerful and /happy/ in place of the dark and gruesome story he knows. He’s unsure which is better, but... well, he DOES enjoy these renditions even so.
(The stories he grew up with might more realistic, but these movies, so filled with hope and optimism... he might not be able to fully agree with them, but he still loves the message behind them. It’s a good message for a new generation.)
(Okay, and the songs are catchy, too. Though you won’t catch him singing along. Erich Doesn’t Sing.)
An Erich thought - Erich has lived his life by the maxim 'Hide In Plain Sight'. It's practically his family's motto. He continued doing so even after he died (and it's probably a contributory factor to his continued avoidance of Mayuri). So - can you think of just HOW MUCH courage, how much strength of will, it must have taken to DISCARD that habit and reveal himself as a Quincy? First to Urahara+the kids, and then to Soul Society in general when he picked up his gun to FIGHT.
‘Hide in Plain Sight’ is indeed a big contributing factor in his survival, coupled with the way Erich continues to move around, never staying in one district for very long. It’s one of the things that the revised opening of the story should make a bit more obvious that what I’d originally written: how very, very hard it is for Erich to admit to ANYONE that he’s capable of fighting Hollows, much less what sort of soul he actually is.
Initially... he doesn’t WANT to reveal himself to Urahara+the kids, but he’s concerned about what he’s sensing from Uryuu and thus the reason why he follows the teens back into the living world. He might not have acknowledged his Quincy heritage to anyone for decades, but he’s still a QUINCY, and he’s still an Echt and the (albeit dead) head of a branch of the lineage, on top of being a noble. That means he has a responsibility to Uryuu as the boy’s elder, even if they AREN’T related (which he considers to be likely).
Except that he quickly comes to realize that the other teens are concerned about Uryuu (their classmate got abducted by a Shinigami-dressed man who Urahara doesn’t believe is a Shinigami!) and that Uryuu felt somewhat similarly? The teen doesn’t outright say it, but Erich gets the feeling that Uryuu is edging towards considering them friends, especially when Uryuu realizes that the other teens are concerned for his well-being and are actively searching for him.
And then Erich realizes that Uryuu... needs him. At the very least as a mentor to teach the boy the Quincy Arts safely.
But staying to act as Uryuu’s mentor means revealing his hand at least to the other teens, and probably to the Reaper that confronted him at the beginning.
(Do his duty, or hold true to the maxim that has kept him alive for so long?)
Erich squares his shoulders, holds himself like the proud Imperial Officer he once was, and bites back his fear. He has always been a man of duty, and he will not shirk this one, even if the very act of revealing himself leaves him needing time alone, shaking and terrified and absolutely, ABSOLUTELY convinced that he’s made the worst decision in his life.
(He doesn’t sleep for long stretches of time, during those first few weeks once he’s revealed himself, and never in the same place twice.)
(Later, revealing himself to the Shinigami as a whole isn’t much better. Except this time he has Kisuke supporting him. It doesn’t make everything perfect, but... at least he can sleep well, knowing that Kisuke will guard him.)
She also calls him ‘her acquientance.’ in the first book and I mentally started screaming, ‘since when!?!?!?’
She then goes on to say ‘He’s a sensible and good soldier who is against sending children to the front lines.’ .....BSOD, I think...I think she likes him? Can Tanya like someone...? (This is when he comes her to tell her she’s been promoted after she trains her people and that they are being sent out pronto whether she says they’re ready or not.)
Okay, so it’s really important to remember that English doesn’t have THAT many ways to politely categorize people you associate with.
An acquaintance is simply “ a person known to one, but usually not a close friend.” My coworkers who work remotely are my acquaintances -- I have met and interacted with them once or twice, and mostly talk about work-related information. I am acquainted with them, they are my acquaintances.
By dint of Tanya interacting with Erich more than once, and him giving her “absent” advice -- such as the hint to study the Dacian language -- they’re a step above simple coworkers but not actually friends. And Tanya, who is mostly incapable of emotional attachments, relies VERY HEAVILY on categorizing people and constantly consciously readjusting those categories so that she always knows how to appropriately react to them in a manner that’s socially approved.
You see this most drastically within the second book, when she’s constantly reevaluating Weiss and changing how she interacts with him. That’s the sort of evaluation that most people do on a subconscious level, if at all, but is VERY important for someone like Tanya, and, by dint of her past life as a salaryman, she KNOWS it is.
(Also, please note how she CONSCIOUSLY considers and evaluates different actions in order to “build team spirit”. In the terminology of humans-are-space-orcs, she is making conscious, considered decisions to promote pack-bonding. Not because SHE needs it, but because she knows that her unit will be useless without it.
Some of that is a result of her business training (my husband has gotten some lessons in ways to pull a team together, and he isn’t in nearly as high a position as the salaryman was) and part of that is knowing that she needs to fit within a certain social mold even though it doesn’t ENTIRELY make sense to her. She sees the purpose of it ie the results it fetches, but she considers it silly or extravagant.)
“Liking” someone for Tanya means something VERY different than it does for us, but yes! She is very capable of liking someone within HER definition of “like”. She’s even capable of a variant of friendship! A lack of emotional attachment doesn’t mean you’re incapable of forming attachments or relationships, it just means that they’re based on a different set of criteria.
(Also, let’s be clear! Tanya lacks the ability to connect emotionally with people, not the ability to FEEL emotion. She's not emotionless in the slightest!)
You see this a lot in the second book, and even a few times in the first book, where Tanya meets a higher ranked officer for the first time and decides within the first ten or fifteen minutes of conversation whether or not she likes them. Her criteria are very cut and dry: she wants them to be sensible, rational folk who don’t beat around the bush, operate within the rules that SHE understands (in this instance, business ‘law’ mixed with military law), and who are useful. Erich’s dismay at her age, on top of his willingness to set that aside and let her WORK, is an extra bonus for her.
Towards the end of the anime, I would even go so far as to say that they’re tentative “friends” by Tanya’s definition of the term. Erich calls her out on her actions, and then LISTENS to her when she explains. They’re taking tea together, are acting semi-informally (albeit because Erich gave her permission), and Tanya speaks her mind more frankly with Erich in that scene than she really does anywhere else in the anime that I can recall.
How the anime version of Erich actually feels about her is a bit unclear, since we don’t get much from his POV, but he does respect her and her views. He considers her a useful -- if terrifying -- asset and a very intelligent person that he’s willing to listen to. Whether or not he considers her more than an underling I have no idea.
idk if you know this but like
youre allowed to make up words. there isnt some linguistic overlord that bestows new words on us with ever edition of the dictionary. you can just make em up yourself.
here watch i’ll do it right now
omniscification - the act or process of becoming omniscient.
that word didnt exist but now it does. and i probably didnt have to define it because with the suffix you could tell what it meant. here i’ll do it again.
oligarchical - of, or relating to, an oligarchy.
malficient - (not to be confused with malificent) to involuntarily go against ones original intent; counterintuitive
firmaism - a philosophy which applies to things on earth
so the next time you speak and someone says “that isnt a word” ask them if they understood what you meant and if they say yes then what they said is invalid.
Words’re built on consensus. If you can’t get anybody to agree to use your new word, then it. Ain’t.
Basically you have to be a memelord to properly create a word
through years of consensus words have grown to hold meaning and power in their own right due to the fact that they’ve existed longer than most people alive today. for this reason if you take apart other words and reconstruct the pieces in comprehensible and consistent ways then nobody can dispute that the word you’ve just created has distinct meaning. refusal to acknowledge it is purely stubbornness to change.
Oh my dog, tumblr mobile, WHY ARE YOU FORMATTING BLOCK QUOTES LIKE THAT.
BAD TUMBLR. STOP THAT. EW.
I don't do April fool's day.
Since I keep seeing posts cycling around about April Fools, I'd like to make something clear: I don't participate.
In the past, when I had websites I cared about, the most I did was create a "horrific" color scheme and make it look like a piece of 90s never died, complete with marquee text and "under construction" signs and so on. Once, with @eccentricbirdie we did an absolutely ridiculous pet adoptable on an rp-bonding site we ran. It was called the Beass. They were brightly colored (except for the emo version), ridiculous, and 100% unserious.
That's it. That's all I've ever done.
No jump scares. No mean posts. Nothing like that. And I WON'T be doing anything this year, either.
akaluan reblogged brynprocrastinates rhysiana Follow A Crack Shot: On writing characters who shootOr: How to Write Your Gun-Toting Badass In a Way That Doesn’t Strain Your Reader’s Suspension of DisbeliefToday I read a fic in which a character visited 1) a 2000-yard shooting range 2) with a handgun, and I had to just stop and stare into the distance while considering whether I could ignore it enough to continue. Being me, I decided to make this writing guide instead. I have attempted to write this so zero familiarity with guns beyond what you may have seen on TV/in movies is required.So you’ve taken your character to the shooting range to establish their credibility…Keep reading#writing reference#writing ref#for later#guns#bc apparently i need to write a gun wielder now#hi Erich#let's bring pistols and rifle to a sword fight#bc this is a wonderful idea#(actually it literally is)
akaluan Follow hamelin-born asked:Urahara probably really, really loves being able to /truly/ fly via magecraft - not simply walking on air, genuine FLIGHT. Hell yes he does. Also, GODDAMNIT HAMELIN. AGAIN? (Kisuke ran the spar through his head again, fingers drumming against the table. He /thought/ he had been prepared for anything, but Rerugen’s movements during combat had been… unpredictable.The man hadn’t moved the way Kisuke anticipated, from the very first moment when Rerugen had /purposely/ dropped from the sky to that very last maneuver he made that ended it. It was like the man didn’t /think/ the same way everyone else did. The predictable tactics of Shinigami mid-air combat hadn’t served Kisuke at all; every time he thought he had predicted Rerugen’s movements, the man had done something /else/.Let himself fall. Gave chase while nearly blind. Ran straight at the—Ran?Kisuke frowned, thinking back on that moment. A nearly straight vertical ascent wasn’t /impossible/, but… it was difficult. Rerugen had done it without a sign of trouble. He hadn’t made a jumping motion like a Shinigami would for shunpo, or called up a Quincy hirenkyaku platform that Kisuke could sense.And then the return. Fast and precise and /nearly untraceable/. Like a bird, darting down and around to strike from behind.Flight.Rerugen had been /flying/ at the end. True flight, not the facsimiles that Shinigami and Quincy kept to.(Oh, he /wanted/ that.)#replies#bleach#bleach/tanya#tanya the evil#hamelin-born#drabbles#my fic#unedited
akaluan reblogged akaluan Follow selenedreamwalker asked:If you wrote Actual Porn of Shinigami Dad and Quincy Dad, you'd likely get a lot of incoherent shrieking in the comments. And probably the usual 'how dare you''s and some 'GET OUT GO TO THE CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID's, suchlike so on and so forth. I personally would be in the incoherent shrieking section. And I barely know anything about the fandom Erich is from, how's that for a kicker?akaluan answered:*laughter* Honestly I have no idea if I will. I’ll probably need to be at least a liiiiiittle bit tipsy the first couple of times I attempt to write porn, just because, uh… yeah. It’s porn. I don’t… write porn. I feel so weird writing porn. XD(Not like… bad-weird, just… weird. Like trying a really odd looking type of food that your best friend tells you is GREAT and means that seriously, not the “No, no, it’s great, trust me!” followed by laughter when you make that FACE bc they’re a lying asshole but you still love them.)selenedreamwalker Follow The only things I can recommend is study how it all happens physically, and read some quality stuff to figure out the rhythm of how it goes. Not like there’s a shortage on AO3. akaluan Oh, trust me, I know XD I’ve read my fair share. It’s still WEIRD to think about writing it, tho. That was teen me all the way, writing Dumb Gay Lemons or rping it out with friends. I haven’t tried to write sex for almost a decade, and it takes a certain mindset to do it right. And me being me, it takes effort to get into that mindset these days. XD
akaluan Follow Omg, Tanya no. That’s an entirely understandable sentiment but no, you can’t do that. XDStill, it should be fine if I murder the senior officers who refuse to stop obnoxiously huffing their smoke in my face, right?XD XD XD#tanya the evil
akaluan Follow selenedreamwalker asked:If you wrote Actual Porn of Shinigami Dad and Quincy Dad, you'd likely get a lot of incoherent shrieking in the comments. And probably the usual 'how dare you''s and some 'GET OUT GO TO THE CORNER AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID's, suchlike so on and so forth. I personally would be in the incoherent shrieking section. And I barely know anything about the fandom Erich is from, how's that for a kicker?*laughter* Honestly I have no idea if I will. I’ll probably need to be at least a liiiiiittle bit tipsy the first couple of times I attempt to write porn, just because, uh... yeah. It’s porn. I don’t... write porn. I feel so weird writing porn. XD(Not like... bad-weird, just... weird. Like trying a really odd looking type of food that your best friend tells you is GREAT and means that seriously, not the “No, no, it’s great, trust me!” followed by laughter when you make that FACE bc they’re a lying asshole but you still love them.)#replies#selenedreamwalker
akaluan Follow oceanshimmerspirit-blog replied to your post “Hmm, issue the greatest with the current ch1 of Lilacs. The sekkiseki...”I never even thought of that. @ptsdven ROFL well Aka either thought of that or she is kicking herself hard right now. XD Still a Quincy on the fringes of the city probably wouldn’t raise quite as many alarm bells are a Quincy actually /in/ the city although I image Erich will still want a few choice words with who ever is being that careless in revealing themself. Plus Erich would probably have to have been pretty close to sense Uryu once the cannon went of it would have been a different story1
I imagine Uryu is generally has basic shielding to hide himself from hollows so unless Erich is close or looking for him he likely wouldn’t notice Uryu. (Realises she just figured out why Aka can’t just slap ‘he finds Uryu before the cannon goes off’ reason down and be done with it. Well okay then. XD) Also if Erich dragged Uryu off to scold him for being reckless /before/ they even invade that would change everything...2/2 Yeah, basically I need to get Erich into a position where I don’t need that massive flare of reiatsu in order for Erich to sense Uryuu. On the other hand, I feel like this is going to result in a stronger early-game characterization of who and what Erich Really Is at his core, and also address some of the worldbuliding I’ve done with Hamelin-born that doesn’t immediately fit into the structure of the story.So... in the end, probably better off for the story. In the short term, super fucking annoynig bc I have to completely strip apart everything I’ve written and rework it.#oceanshimmerspirit-blog#replies
akaluan Follow hamelin-born replied to your post “Hmm, issue the greatest with the current ch1 of Lilacs. The sekkiseki...”Erich very much does not sound like the kind of person to keep idle - even after death. He really isn’t, it’s definitely one of the feelings I’m getting off of his actual characterization in the light novel. That he enjoys keeping busy and having something complex to turn his mind to.Whether or not Tanya’s mental remark about Erich being a genius is true (and afaik there’s no confirmation on that other than Tanya’s opinion on the matter), he’s definitely a man that thrives when he has “puzzles” to solve.#hamelin-born#replies
akaluan Follow Tanya, I might have bought your dislike of war in the beginning, but reminding me several times a chapter that you Don't Like It, You're Doing It Because Of Orders...I'm starting to not buy it.XD
