8/19/2016

So... Been a while since I've been on here... We'll, to summarize how these past few years have been for me to save on a detailed explanation.

These last few years have kinda-sorta been hell for me. I've spent them moving back and forth across Canada, never quite sure if wherever I was living was a place I would actually be staying at long.

My current place of residence however; is one that I'm fairly certain that I will be staying at for a while.

But, I've got some bad news for my stories and some good news about my hopeful return to this site.

Bad news first, my old stories are all cancelled. But I have new one's in the works to try and make a comeback.

*SPOILER AND RANT WARNINGS*

Now no doubt some of you saw this coming considering the last time I updated any of them. (Predators of Predators- Last updated on December 13, 2012. Ninja Gears and Homunculi- October 21, 2010. Ninja of nothingness October 17, 2010. and finally Arachnid blood December 22, 2009.)

But if you're thinking that they are being cancelled because I lost interest in the stories themselves, that is both sadly true but NOT the main reason why.

No, the real reason... is far more emotional, and born from nostalgia

You see, the Bleach series has finally come to an end. Now, I've been a devoted fan of this series for years. Many Years.

But... I don't like the ending... I just don't... to me, it felt like Kubo pulled a Kishimoto: Just slap a time skip on everything and wrap loose ends up and then put in some canon pairings that people either don't like or understand or both.

In my case... It's both. Specifically, the Renji and Rukia pairing made canon.

I reaaaally don't like this outcome. I can accept Ichigo x Orihime because a pairing like that is just something mainstream anime and manga does with characters like them and therefore I can understand the reason for why. But Renji and Rukia? I just cant comprehend what Kubo was thinking.

I can remember plenty of iconic moments in bleach even though its been a LONG time since I last saw the anime, and only this month did I catch up on the manga, But whenever I try to remember Renji... I just cant remember anything other than "he's that guy who Ichigo fought during the go-save-Rukia arc" and that only leads to thinking stuff like "Rukia married the guy who was going to let people execute her."

Now I do remember he became a good guy later of course. But to me, Renji is a really BORING character that leaves no impression on me. Although I will acknowledge that for others he can be someones favorite character, but he's just not one of mine.

A similar feeling I've had like this was many years ago during the ancient anime known as "Digimon Adventure 02" where during the epilogue Sora got married to Matt instead of Tai. But the difference is that I have since learned that during the original japanese version of that show they kept hinting of that pairing from the start whereas the english dubbing tried to steer it to Sora x Tai while japan went with Sora x Matt. But it still hurts because the show conditioned me to think it would end with Sora x Tai and that ended up being the pairing I rooted for.

This is what has happened again in a similar manner. Bleach conditioned my mind to expect an ending with Ichigo and Rukia becoming a couple. But when it didn't happen even though Kubo himself has spoken his support of the pairing in the past, I just cant handle it. Perhaps I may recover from the shock in the future like I did with digimon, but that wont be happening soon.

(For all my fellow fans of digimon adventure who were there when it originally aired back in 1999, I apologize for reminding you of the epilogue.)

The ending of bleach reminds me once again of Kishimoto when he ended Naruto. There was a time skip, and suddenly Sakura is a single mom still into Sasuke even though he's a deadbeat dad who didn't even recognize his own daughter until he was about to stab her in the face.

But unlike Naruto's ending which liked to throw hate-fuel at us for a variety of different reasons for everyone. Bleach gave us a pairing that's... boring... and I should never have to associate Tite Kubo with boring.

Part of me wonders if this is what he was planning all along, in the past he has made no secret of his support for the IchiRuki pairing, perhaps this was all to crush our hopes with some japanese "lol nope!" gag.

Another part of me wonders if maybe he just gave up after all these years and rushed an ending without putting thoughts into it, and because apparently all great anime/manga need to end with characters having a happily-ever-after showing everyone with a new family, this means Rukia needs to get hastily hitched with someone else if Ichigo isn't on the market. Because *insert deity here* forbid that a main female character just stays SINGLE at the end of a series!

And finally a small part of me wonders if this is the publisher's fault and they just wanted certain pairings to be canon and this is all just a big conspiracy about mangaka's being controlled by editors/producers.

Moving on to the status of my fanfics.

If anyone who still remembers I exist on this site is wondering about the state of my stories that remain here... Well, I dont think I'll be returning to them. I wont take them down, but don't hope any more for new chapters.

My reasons are as follows, for Bleach fanfics: I just cant get into the spirit of making anything about it. This ending has left me pretty crushed whenever I just think about the very NAME "Bleach" and no matter how much I try to just ignore this, I just cant type a single word without any heart put into it.

For Naruto fanfics: its a similar reason. Now, as anyone who is familiar with Kishimoto's progression of Naruto's story would know, He just sort of let the whole thing... flop around a bit by the end. Some things in his story had holes, others seemed like rushed filler, and by the ending you can just tell he was just drawing it out so he could just say he was done.

I mean, parings aside, he actually said he FORGOT to give Boruto the byakugan. That's giving me some Toriyama vibes. A man who forgot entire characters such as Launch from the original dragon ball, and even some minor but still important details like trunks not having a monkey tail when he was first introduced or android 18 not having blonde hair anymore when he made dragon ball super.

When a writer of a long lasting series say that they forgot to do something regarding an important character, that's a bad sign. But expanding from there, If you've seen Kishimoto's new manga about Boruto, then you would know that the first chapter has a future Boruto with one byakugan eye over a scarred face. Basically the Kakashi style.

This means that Boruto somehow loses an eye and aquire's one from someone who had one. But just to avoid filling irrelevant theories on this page, I'll say that it invokes thoughts of theories about predictable Kishimoto-style outcomes of the losing-family variety. Because in the naruto world being a protagonist with a family is almost as heretical as chaos in warhammer.

The point of this is, the plot set itself up as predictable, and if predictions prove true then I lose the joy of wondering what could possibly happen next. Unique anime draws me in when I get excited wondering what it could surprise me with, but once it loses that feeling it suddenly becomes something I hate to look at because there used to be something special about it that won my love but now I can see where it's going and that just depresses me. This feeling only gets worse when I go back to the start to see how it once was but then feel the crushing emotions upon remembering what it becomes.

Now, my reason's for losing interest in writing naruto fanfics is simple compared to my reasons for bleach. I have simply lost interest. Not in reading fanfics about naruto, those can still be creative, but the canon naruto series. However, when I first joined this site there were stories about bleach and naruto that numbered in the hundreds, but these days those hundreds have become thousands. For all I know someone made stories not too different from my oldest story Arachnid Blood (which for some reason is still getting faved and followed occasionally, yet nobody ever spoke up and said they wanted to adopt it so it wouldn't just collect dust) and I wouldn't even know about it. Because there are A LOT of Naruto fanfics on this site compared to how it used to back in 2009. The numbers just overwhelm me and I couldn't spot anything special unless I do some serious digging or just watch the updated fanfic page like a hawke for any summary that catches my eye.

BUT! I do have some good news. While I have lost my touch with Naruto and Bleach, I have gained some interest In other stuff and have some one-shots in the works to try and get myself back into a typing-groove.

These in-the-works fic's will be a crossover between mass effect and star wars, a dragon age story where I'll be taking my first shot at the "guy gets reincarnated into video game world" trope starring a darkspawn ogre oc, and finally a story that might become a two-shot taking place in the light novel-turned-manga-turned-anime known as Overlord. Not to be confused with the video game about Sauron in a pikman setting Overlord... which I'm very surprised I haven't thought of making a fic about before as I own all of those games except the diablo one...

So yes. I wont be predicting about any date on when those will be happening, as my own daily schedule is almost always uncertain now much to my tiresome dismay.

If anyone feels like picking up the old stories I've left behind for yourselves, go ahead.

But I just want people who remember me and perhaps hoped for my return to know that I'm working on getting back into a groove. and also rant about Bleach for any who would listen.

With hope at my side (for this month at least) perhaps I wont simply disappear for a few years once again, and I can enjoy a pastime that used to bring me simple joys.

This has been Villan O'Doom... Hopefully not quite dead as a monty python side character.