Bleach Arrancar Arc Revised

Knyght

The Collector
Which of the anime filler arcs, OVAs or movies, if any, would any of you have liked to have actually been a part of canon? Not necessarily the exact events that took place (especially since none of them can fit with the canon timeline properly whilst keeping everything consistent), but you at least wouldn't mind the premise and/or ideas introduced being canonical in some way.

All the relevant events are shown in the Navigation section here.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
Tough to say. Looking purely at the movies for the moment, Hell is something that is in canon that I'd like covered, but frankly the movie botched it hard by both not utilizing Chad properly at all, but also making a lot of the hell stuff rather generic and not quite as horrifying as it should have been. Also the Yuzu healing randomly bullshit but that's something that could easily be fixed with a tuneup to the script. The first movies memories of the lost didn't really have all that interesting of a premise with their weird Nobody varients, and Sena wasn't particularly interesting either, and the less said about the third movie's bullshit the better, even if the mook villians were of Mayuri's design, the main ones were insufferable, mostly thanks to the girl.

Movie 2 is about the only one with a premise that somewhat intrigues me, and even that's purely because of one of the fan created explanations for why Kusaka also had Hyorinmaru. That explanation being tied WAY back to why captains and vice captains must seal themselves since high spiritual pressure disturbs the living world and also why there's somewhat of an age/power prerequisite in the academy. Those with an unnaturally powerful Zanpakuto and not enough control over that power spillover will adversely affect those with weaker souls around them sometimes to the point where the stronger spirit's reiatsu and abilities starts overriding the weaker ones.

Basically Hitsugaya's power was so strong and uncontrolled by the time he got to the academy that it overwhelmed Kusaka's own and thus granted them the same Zanpakuto. That's a concept I could get behind. The king's seal too, now that I think about it also is a rather intriguing artifact if used properly.

OVA wise, I believe Memories is already canon, but the Sealed Sword Frenzy also had a rather interesting concept going for it with the guy who had fused completely with his Zanpakuto so much so that his entire body was basically a blade by that point, that was sort of maybe part of the FGT bullshit but without a significant amount of the stupidity. I could get behind that idea too.

Bounts as spirit based Vampires isn't a bad idea, I do enjoy some alternate expansions for mythical creatures in a world based on our own that could tie with the premise of said world, but some of the events would probably need tuning. The Bakkoto as an alternate means of power to a Zanpakuto is also a concept I wouldn't mind seeing added, just with some minor details altered and the plot significantly tuned up. The Zanpakuto rebellion concept is also fairly interesting as well as the Beast Swords idea (Particularly as a sort of failure state for aspiring bankai users), though turning all the Zan's human, even the ones that we know weren't was rather dumb.

Reigai though? Eh, the general concept of clones vs. originals to bring about fights that really would have no reason to happen, while a somewhat interesting meta plot, isn't particularly inspired and the means they went about to attempt to achieve it were lacking to say the least. Modsouls though I could always use an expansion on, just without the mary sue esque bullshit of Nozomi...
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
I don't even pay attention to the movies, let alone the anime. The manga's confusing enough at times as it is, I don't have time to trudge through however many episodes of the anime there are!

(This is my typical strategy these days for anime based off manga these days, just ignore it completely. Only if the anime actually goes through chapter material fairly quickly and has short runs like Death Note or TWGOK recently and it's good quality will I bother)
 

Knyght

The Collector
I think I only stopped watching Bleach regularly when it hit the zanpakuto rebellion arc and then I just watched whenever it took my fancy. Most of details of what went on escape me. The movies I watch out of curiosity and for the fight scenes.

That's a interesting theory for the Hyourinmaru business and makes more sense than whatever the movie was trying to show. They made it look as if Hyourinmaru appeared in a cave and decided to grant them both its power. Is there a fan explanation for how and why the King's Seal saved Kusaka? 'Cause that was totally glossed over. Along with that those random Arrancar sidekicks. You could probably tie in Kusaka's storyline with the whole Arrancar War, especially since the King's Seal would be something relevant to Aizen's interests.

I thought the Bounts were interesting overall and wouldn't mind including them. Some things bugged me like Ichigo not being able to use bankai, Rukia never using her shikai and the way the Bounts never Ishida to open a way to SS. Those and problems like it one of the flaws of an anime filler though. It could be interesting if there was a "Werewolf" variation to go with these "Vampires" to carry on the mythological themes. They'd probably be a better fit for the Human/Hollow class than Fullbringers.

I'd get rid of those three Modsouls though. They were an annoying group. I'm sure Urahara could have come up with a better way of detecting Bounts. An idea involving a illegal modsouls saved by their creator would be interesting though. Improving their specs, fashioning them new bodies, creating a new body for himself and then go from there.

Kasumoiji Arc was alright overall. It's a good opportunity to explore the inner workings of SS such as the Noble Houses. Though I thought Amagai's zanpakuto was lame (do we really need more fire zanpakuto?) and that sidekick of his was annoying. The focus on Kira didn't help either; I would have preferred Hisagi and even Hinamori to see how she'd react.

I think Memories of Nobody and Fade to Black could be combined into one storyline since they're based on memories. The Valley of Screams encroaching upon both worlds, Blanks invading and stealing memories, Ichigo and the events around him being forgotten by SS (or everyone) etc. The Sealed Sword Frenzy could be brought into the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc too. Not sure how it would work but Baishin horrifically fusing himself with his zanpakuto could be a big deal in that context.

Hell Chapter should be a story arc in itself. The protags trapped in a realm of imprisonment and punishment and trying to escape. Using Hell seems perfect for the big finale and how I thought this Quincy arc would be going down depending on where the Vandenreich are hiding.

Anyway, you mind elaborating on any of your ideas, NGD OMEGA?

And anyone else? You might have just have ideas for revising a single arc or movie which is perfectly fine. Just including an arc within the chronology would have an impact on the story unlike how the anime is forced to make them (mostly) inconsequential.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
There are a couple of explanations for Kusaka's survival, but a lot of them are pretty arbitrary and none of them particularly interesting, at least not in comparison to the Dual Hyorinmaru explaination. Not a lot to roll with there sadly since BS survival is BS survival no matter how you spin it.

One means of survival in fact latches on to Metalisca's similarly bs survival after he was killed by Rukia, allowing Kaien to become a part of AA. Basic premise being that in part because Hitsugaya was inexperienced at purifying/passing on souls at the time, in part because Hyorinmaru was trying to purify something functionally the same as itself, and in part because Hyorinmaru is so potent a Zanpakuto fragments of Kusaka soul survived after he broke appartn in the air, lingering until they came in contact with the seal, allowing access into Hueco Mundo and his subsequent rebirth, which is also how he met and subjugated those two arrancar.

Obviously a few add stronger ties to the seal by latching onto the 'Heavenly Guardian' aspect of Hyorinmaru, so there are ties between the zan and the seal that allowed this to be possible in the first place, yada yada a bunch of handwavy bullshit, but thanks to Kaien's survival alone there's enough to roll with there that you can overlook a few of its inconsistencies. Not the first time that bullshit happened to say the least.

Ichigo not being able to use Bankai in the Human world actually made a lot of sense to me. As we've already covered, SS has a much higher spirit particle density than the human world, so someone whose literally only used bankai once might not as easy be able to compensate for the different spiritual difference right off the bat. That it also allows him some time to get more used to his shikai, something I'm rather annoyed about in general since he's STILL never used it like Shirosaki made for quite the improvement overall. So long as it's a temporary thing he just needed to get adjusted to was alright by me to say the least.

Werewolves is actually a concept in Bleach I had multiple variations for. One of them involved a VERY old variation of Zombies I had drafted up ages ago. Basic premise being werewolves were possessed corpses reanimated thanks in part due to the light of the moon. The Bleach variant I had was basically a very interesting twist on Hollow creation. Remember way back when they revealed a soul could be anchored to a particular location when they slowly become a hollow? This one involved them being tied quite literally to their own grave, or more specifically their corpse.

An extremely rare case that Shinigami aren't even generally aware that happens, when the soul of fate re-anchors to the dead spirit's corpse as they become a hollow. This naturally creates a sort of 'Living Hollow', though more acurrately it would probably be an 'Undead Hollow" which corrupts the human's corpse into a body much like a hollow, the most famous of which being that of a wolfman who came to slaughter his village in a time long past. I wasn't sure it could work since it still required the hollow hole to be on a human body, but luckily that was recently confirmed as an actual thing thanks to Masaki's particular case.

Also allows for an actual zombie variant as well as an I am Legion scenario where a Hollows specific ability is to create fragments of itself (Like Shrieker) which can reanimate corpses with abilities too. And like you said a sort of Full Bringer variation that makes much more sense as a human/hollow. One variant I even had as a rare case where human bonds with a particularly weak sort of mindless hollow (potentially created from a dead pet) which the human fuses their soul with, creating a beast like form significantly stronger than either of them on their own. Hell, the Guardian class Fullbring's final stage I mentioned ages ago is sort of a variant on this particular usage of the power. Chad himself though is probably the simplest execution of such an ability for a 'Living Hollow' though as you said, and the best execution of the Human/Hollow cross.

As for the Mod soul group in canon, I agree, two of the three I found particularly meh, though Nova was alright. It's in fact part of the reason why he's the only one I utilized in that mod soul concept idea I drafted up a while ago. Mostly though it was because his type of ability is absolutely VITAL to explain how any of the mod souls survived at all.

Hell itself is a beastly undertaking that quite honestly I've had a lot of consideration on already. One such concept I drafted involved a slain hollow managing to grab someone as it was pulled into hell, starting off a rescue arc to end all rescue arcs that would tie into a past war between the two realms and all kinds of fun stuff, but that would require a hell of a lot of OC demons. I even toyed with the idea of Rurouni Kenshin cameos since that was a thing that sort of happened.

Course reusing the Rescue arc idea where canon already reuses it didn't help and trying to draft up a reason to even begin to go there without it wasn't easy to say the least. I suppose one of the other ideas was utilizing a demon that had fought against 'Ichigo' in a past life (Utilizing the reincarnation concept obviously) and wanting to re-fight against 'Zangetsu' to relive that glorious battle by enticing him to fight by attacking friends and family constantly in what limited time he can exist in the real world till Ichigo finally says screw it and goes straight to hell to get him to stop that shit permanently, but yeah, then a lot of arbitrary factors started to kick in and made me realize that would make things more complex.

I suppose the idea of using demon summoning might help in that regard, playing to the contract angle and making that a potential human ability to utilize as a sort of starting arc to introduce this conflict and make the particular demon aware of Ichigo's existence to kick into the Hell invasion concept once that entry arc is resolved, maybe utilizing multiple variants of Human/Demonic abilities to build things up properly (Demon Summoners, Demon Possesed, and Cambions which is likely part of what Chad is if Right Arm of the Devil does indeed come to fruition). But like I said, quite the undertaking to get all that kind of stuff straight. :p

Then of course there was the sort of reveal akin to this that I wanted to play into if they did go to hell eventually:



Though that gets into a completely different kettle of worms.

I do agree though that the beast sword idea and Sealed Sword frenzy could easily be combined for quite the combination. Memories of a Nobody and the third movie being fused is something I hadn't considered but actually makes a huge amount of sense when I think about it now. Especially since you could remove all the elements that didn't work in either (Senna and the Villains from movie 3) and use the best elements of both instead.

That could be quite the brilliant mashup fix, utilizing the Nobodies to erase Rukia from existence, mayhaps because she's been touched by the orb and this factors into the villains plans or whatever. Maybe they need the orb to re-establish their own existence, and it turns out Urahara made the thing based on their particular state of being and it can easily act as a counter to that. Or what have you. There's something there at least, just needs to be hammered out.
 

Knyght

The Collector
I suppose in that context, it does make sense for Ichigo to be somewhat limited in his abilities in the Human World. Though I find being outright unable to use his bankai a bit too extreme when Shinigami rely on ambient spirit particles the least (if at all given the contradictory explanation). For me, it’d be more believable if it was hampered in most ways; harder/long to activate, less overall effectiveness and a shorter time span. Regardless, I can appreciate it better now than when I first watched it, where I was just annoyed that I couldn’t see Ichigo fighting all out.

The cloth extension thing is something I figure he can pull off in bankai anyway. He even throw his sword at Juha Bach recently which suggests it can extend. It’d be nice if we saw Ichigo experimenting with what he can do in any form really; he doesn’t test out the cloth/chain, only ever tried out one new variation and doesn’t do anything with his hollow side. Plus kido but I can understand not bothering with something as long-winded as that. Though he’s not the only one since Chad and Orihime never try anything beyond the absolute basics of their abilities (until the time skip at least).

That living corpse/werewolf idea’s good though it suffers the same problem as the modsoul concept thanks to the Japanese culture’s use of cremation (not that you’re actually limited to Japan for the bodies). Maybe thanks to the absence of their real body they latch onto other human beings and tried to steal their bodies from them. Like how Shibata’s soul was able to occupy the same space as the parakeet.

I’m tempted to create an idea thread for Hell-based stories. Haven’t got a specific story idea in mind but it’d at least be a place to pool together everything related to the concept. And this may be stretching it but I figured it’d be possible to introduce elements of Diamond Dust Rebellion to the Memories of Nobody/Fade to Black fusion. Kusaka ends up in the Valley of Screams instead of Hueco Mundo and is reborn thanks to the King’s Seal and the Blanks who were able to rebuild his body like they did with the Dark Ones in the movie. With the Valley of Screams being a dimension of lost souls, Kusaka’s knowledge of the King’s seal could lead to him and the Dark Ones trying to use it to bring their dimension into the HW/SS.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
I was fine with it for specifically Ichigo since he's shit at control and only managed to use his bankai once after a very intensive use of a shortcut honestly. Were it someone who has worked extensively with his bankai for years that would have made no sense, but those two factors alone made a lot of sense to me. As for the weapon flinging in bankai, while the jury's still out on whether or not his current Full bring enhanced bankai can do it, it rather goes without saying that his previous one couldn't. Even when Shirosaki took the training wheels off that one what he could do was only a pale imitation of the shikai.

Do like that idea expansion to my werewolf idea though, odd I didn't figure it out for myself since I had an RP character who had a ghost companion latched to him in a similar way while she was slowly turning into a hollow. Plus I was already on a possession kick anyway so that was quite a kick to the pants there.

That last bit though surprisingly makes a hell of a lot of sense, adding Kusaka's story to the valley of screams plot. One could even say the valley of screams could be made up of multiple people who shared similar fates at some point in the past as well. So, for example, we could get quite a few cloned zanpakuto from that exchange. Though on the flip side that may be a bit contrived to just have a bunch of them at once all from a cast we knew. If we knew more about the storied past of SS's captain roster we could possibly pick and choose from that list but sadly not much to go on there I'm afraid so best to keep it to just one or two dudes at best, including Kusaka.

Maybe one of them also happens to have another Ryuujinjakka for example. D:

Christ it may be further possible to tie this to the beast swords idea and/or the sealed sword frenzy if executed correctly, simply by having it such that the cloned Zanpakuto end up being much stronger than the false users, so much so that they end up taking complete control of them and corrupting them in the process. Certainly a bunch of seemingly unrelated concepts to throw in at once, so much so we may be making the idea rather convoluted, but by saying the valley of screams is made up of people who aren't meant to exist it's very easy to tag cloned Zan users and further still to assume that because of the immense power of such Zans they can't control it, among other potential absurdities.

Absurdities such as: Where do Mod Souls go when they are destroyed and their will is strong enough, what happens to an arrancar's soul when it is an abomination made up of many souls that should be split on purification, what happens when a quincy arrow does not fully obliterate a hollow, etc...
 

Knyght

The Collector
How To Properly Foreshadow Ichigo's Heritage

Or something like that. I felt that one of the biggest issues of the Quincy reveal was poor foreshadowing, so I've just been pondering over the last few days how hints of it could have been sprinkled in from the start and in a way that makes it feel connected. Primarily, I just wanted to see if I could tie in this Quincy reveal better rather ignoring it completely.

1) When Grand Fisher reads Ichigo’s memories to find the person he wouldn’t cut, he remembers killing his mothers. She remarks how good her soul tasted, something along the lines of it being a rare delicacy or that you can’t often find souls like that anymore. Mostly provocative but it was clear that spiritually aware humans have better tasting souls.

2) A some point during Quincy Archer Hates You, like when Ichigo's spirit power runs wilds, Uryuu thinks about the unusual state of Ichigo's reiatsu both in the past and presently. That it seems to fluctuate and resemble other powers and whilst it was now predominantly Shinigami, there was still differences under the surfaces. Maybe he ties it into why Ichigo has so much power since that was the main thing on his mind.

3) I've no idea where it is but I believe Isshin and Ryuuken have a conversation somewhere that hints at a history with one another. Somewhere in there, it's made clear that Masaki is the link between them though it's not clear what that means yet.

4) Isshin keeps Masaki's pentacle on his person. It wouldn't look the same as Uryuu or Ryuuken (you could eventually say that each family had their own styles) and he'd treat it as an ordinary necklace. It'd first be shown during Memories in the Rain during Isshin and Ichigo's graveyard scene, and then Isshin could give it to him in place of that charm to protect him.

5) Not really to do with his Quincy side, but I think it would have been better to mention Ichigo's ties to the Shiba Clan sometime during the SS arc. Maybe straight out reveal who Isshin was (to the audience, if not Ichigo) which would actually make Ganju and Kuukaku more relevant to the story.

6) Kenpachi goes a little further in how he's confused by what Ichigo pulled off in their fight. He's shocked by Ichigo's blood stopping and wonders if that's his zanpakuto's power because he's never heard of that before. He's also aware that other shinigami harmonize with their swords but the "borrowing one another's power" is another thing he's never heard of, so he decides that Ichigo definitely isn't like other Shinigami.

7) Tying into the blood thing, Uryuu uses an incomplete Blut against Mayuri to stop himself from bleeding out whilst getting stabbed or to protect himself. Or maybe Mayuri mentions the ability and mocks Uryuu for not learning it to defend himself.

8) During the Visored training, Hichigo goes a back further than just saying "I am Zangetsu" implies that Old Man Zangetsu isn't all he's said to be. That maybe Ichigo shouldn't be so trusting of him and maybe his Inner Hollow isn't the only one with an agenda. Also during the training, it could be said that the Visored's Inner Hollows actually look like their hollow forms so Hichigo's looking like Ichigo is a big shock to them, highlighting the unusual nature of Ichigo's Hollow power.

9) During Aizen's demoralizing speech, he says something similar to Yhwach like Ichigo not knowing anything about his parents. Then Isshin interrupts in Shinigami form whilst draws Ichigo's focus, but the fact that Aizen says parents stays in the back of his mind. Or just go back to the "Son of a Shinigami and a-" quote.

10) I've no idea what but there should have been something in the Jinzen training that links to Quincy Zangetsu. All we have is the "what you want to protect isn't what you want to protect" but we've no idea if that's normal for a zanpakuto or not. And since Engetsu fought Isshin about FGT (for god knows what reason) it doesn't seem to be unusual.

11) Ignoring the fact that I'd probably axe the Fullbring Arc and combine the "Ichigo gets his power back" with the start of the Quincy Arc, I'd use Karin to provide the most blatant hint to their Quincy heritage. For example, after she visits Urahara's shop she's shown Hollow hunting and we witness her slipping her mother's 'necklace' out of her sleeve and seeing it glow before the scene cuts out.


Of course, there's a more to it than just the foreshadowing. Like Ichigo having too many powers that he doesn't really master, especially the Fullbring which is a definite eyesore from that angle. Perhaps it could have worked by making it so that Ichigo doesn't develop a Fullbring at all and instead he trains with the Fullbringers to force his power to come back through exposure to life-threatening danger and different kinds of reiatsu. So it'd be like when his friends got their powers and train, only more deliberate. Or you could replace the Fullbring arc with one focused on Ichigo's heritage. So that's when we learn about his parents and the nature of Ichigo's powers, which links to the upcoming Quincy War but it's more like a prologue or interlude.

It'd probably be fitting if learning to use his dormant Quincy powers to pave his way back to full power but I'm not sure how you'd pull it off. It felt pretty lazily handled in the manga, imo

Then the Hollow Zangetsu and Old Man Zangetsu business...Not sure what to do with that. I like the concept of Ichigo having a Hollow zanpkauto and being a hybrid from birth but it's confusing. The foreshadowing should make it far less out of the left field though since most of the 'evidence' in the manga seemed weak. A big issue for me was that Ichigo's Hollows powers functioned almost exactly like the Visored's despite how different they should have been. Before he stopped using it entirely, anyway. Maybe it's explained somewhere that because of Old Man Zangetsu's subjugation, Hollow Zangetsu was forced to manifest like that since it was the only way it could 'express' itself.

Or you could completely rewrite it so instead of the mask, his bankai itself becomes more hollowfied (like we've seen recently) so it's explicitly tied to his zanpakuto. It could still use the Visored to train it but it'd be clear that they aren't the same type of hybrids. :hmm:

Well, that's all I've got. Hope it was interesting at least.
 

Knyght

The Collector
Not gonna lie, I've got too much spare time. ;)

Fullbring Arc Revised Because I Don't See Why Not: Part 2 (or 1?)

Ginjo visits Ichigo at the shop to scope him out but instead of showing a photograph of Isshin, he shows him his Substitute Shinigami Badge. Removes the unresolved question of whether Isshin had anything to do with Ginjo in the past (i.e. the one who gave him his Shinigami powers and got depowered) and speeds things along between them.

When Ichigo’s accepts Xcution’s offer to help regain his power, Ginjo uses his Cross of Scaffold to pass on his reiatsu to Ichigo so that he can awaken a Fullbring. It was intended to restore Ichigo’s Shinigami powers by kick-starting his own reiatsu upon mastering his Fullbring. Instead of it being said that Ichigo has a bit of reiatsu left inside him that no-one except these guys noticed, that so happened to manifest as a Fullbringer’s powers and finally implying that Ginjo gave that power to him.

This time it’s clear that it’s an ‘artificial’ Fullbring. But you get some clear parallels in Ichigo using a borrowed power to start of his journey but with a darker undertone since, instead of doing it to protect his family from immediate danger, he’s just incredibly desperate to get his power back. So much so that he’s doing the chest stabbing with a shady guy who hasn’t actually given him much reason to trust him.

I’d make some changes to the Fullbrings themselves such as Ichigo’s which would skip that stage where he’s throwing cross-shaped projectiles and instead manifests itself as the reiatsu shroud from the get-go. His training from there is controlling, maintaining and solidifying it whilst he fights. Also, I’d remove the aspect of Fullbring which requires another person to be around when it reaches completion since that seems uncharacteristic for a Hollow-type power and is just quite random.

(And when the Shinigami arrive, it really should be made clear whether or not they’re wearing limiters.)

Now the biggest changes are based around Chad who was meant to be the focus of this arc.

First up, to settle the differences between how Chad’s power works and how a Fullbringer’s power works, it’s made clear that he is unique among their kind. The how and why aren’t important but you could probably tie it in to being exposed to someone like Ichigo and/or Chad’s innate qualities. This uniqueness is displayed by how it manifests in two distinct forms, the power came with a name instead of being something he choose, it more closely resembles a Hollow’s power and using his own body and soul as the ‘object’.

It seems that the fact that his Fullbring is based on himself means that it doesn’t suffer from the same evolutionary limits as other Fullbring which are static objects and can take on multiple forms (e.g. Chad’s two Right Arms of the Giant). You could throw in that his Chain of Fate doesn’t corrode if you go with NGD’s alterations to the Fullbringers. This and his connection to Ichigo is why Chad was approached by Xcution long before going after their true target, planning to use him to convince Ichigo and later to steal this power for themselves.

In the meantime, Chad started dating Jackie. Because, at the end of the day, he’s a teenage guy and there should be someone with an interest in women. And I could totally imagine Chad doing that thing where Ichigo asks how they got together, Chad explains it all in his head before just saying “and that’s how it is”. I swear he’d do something like that back in the day. But mainly, it just makes the eventual betrayal more impactful. [Edit: Though this does make the second-most sympathetic of the group very...well, unsympathetic.]

When Chad meets Ichigo with Xcution and they start discussing Fullbrings, he actually explains why his coin wasn’t his Fullbring. Partly because he subconsciously reject the idea of the coin being a tool or weapon and because he was more inclined to his more unique Fullbring.

Ichigo training seemed like an excuse to show off some of the Fullbringers’ powers but I’d probably jump straight to a Yukio-provided battlefield with Jackie as his opponent from the start. Giriko and Riruka can demonstrate their pre-betrayal powers when fighting Tsukishima/Ginjo or something. Once his Fullbring’s active, that’s when Chad jumps in for the main training and they fight in a digitally-enhanced environment (like where Chad training by himself), maybe even throw in some game monsters.

In this fight, Chad’s showing off his Fullbring-tech-that-isn’t-his-Fullbring more than his arm powers to avoid splattering Ichigo and demonstrating his broadened skill. It’s pretty much meant to be a friendly spar. Chad’s enjoying himself because Ichigo had been one of the only people he thought could stand against him but they couldn’t fight because of personal beliefs. He also wants to show Ichigo how much he’s progressed in the meantime, and this is the first time in a while that they’ve actually been able to hang out like friends. The bromance is strong.

Then Ichigo completes his training with Ginjo and blah blah blah. Some mention of Orihime training her powers with Hachigen would be nice around this point. Kekkaishi!Orihime would please me greatly.

Next, Chad and Inoue fight Ichigo after being mindraped by Tsukishima. Neither go all out but they are pretty serious. The main thing about this fight is that through Tsukishima’s meddling, he’s brought out the buried feelings of resentment that they both have. How Orihime always felt helpless whenever Ichigo (and others) protected her or kept her out of fights. How Chad felt abandoned by Ichigo when he charged off to fight without looking back instead of helping him grow stronger. Maybe even on the side-lines you have Ichigo’s friends and family bitching about how he left them all out of the loop.

Then Tsukishima puts the icing on the cake by letting those two doing all the fighting since he could never hurt his own ‘family’. At some point, Ichigo realises he has to go through them instead of around, and puts them both down hard before confronting Tsukishima. So yeah, plenty of emotional trauma there.

Then onwards to the next part.

Edit: One last one then I'm done. Probably...

Substitute Shinigami Arc Revised Just 'Cause

Ichigo receives a standard soul pill which is designed to mimic the personality of their owner to act in their place. Instead of that storyline, Ururu has a malfunction whilst making deliveries which causes her to run wild and forces Ichigo’s intervention. Jinta, who’s helping Ichigo because Ururu’s a total beast, is one who explains their origins as mod souls who escaped being decommissioned and ended up in Urahra’s stock. He built them a gigai that functions a lot like a human’s body and allowed them to work in his shop. When the incident’s done, Rukia promises not to reveal them to her superior when she returns.

So we learn about SS being bastards with an explanation for who the hell Ururu and Jinta are meant to be and some foreshadowing for Urahara’s gigai-related antics. No Kon because the only thing remotely interesting about him is his backstory, imo.

Originally, Kubo was intended to write some story arcs for Tatsuki, Keigo and Mizuiro but his editors hurried him into introducing Shinigami. Not entirely bad since the monster-of-the-week could have gotten old at the time but much wasted potential, definitely.

So instead of the Kanonji arc, Keigo and Mizuiro get confronted by Yokochin and his crew someday afterschool. Looking for revenge on Ichigo, they drag the two to a condemned hospital to play a ‘game’ with them which mainly involves scaring and beating them (or maybe the pair run away but end up in the hospital). The Demi-Hollow gets incredibly pissed at all these delinquents running around in his hospital. When Ichigo and Tatsuki, who had seen them outside and followed, charges in to be a hero, it’s the last straw which yanks out the Plus’ Chain of Fate and causes a transformation.

Whilst they stat fighting the gang, that new-born Hollow reveals its ability to possess people and sneaks into Yokochini who has some kind of freaky transformation. Suddenly, Tatsuki getting her ass kicked and Ichigo pops out of his body to save the day. The battle brings down the hospital and the next day the group is dragged into the principal’s office.

Someone other than me would try to make Kon and Kanonji relevant to the story but I just don’t consider them worth the effort.

Next, there is the Hollow challenge between Ichigo and Uryuu. This time Keigo and Mizuiro get into their own confrontation with a Hollow which drags out their powers. And at the same time, Orihime, Tatsuki and Chizuru are attacked by a pair of Hollows instead. Tatsuki drags out her power first and kills one Hollow before collapsing, then Orihime brings hers out and kills another. Or you could do it the other way but I wanted to avoid Orihime being the damsel as much as possible.

Finally, at the end of the Hollow challenge between Ichigo and Uryuu, what appears isn’t a Menos Grande. Instead it’s the Grand Fisher who we were shown being turned into an Arrancar after losing to Ichigo. Ichigo ‘opens the tap’ when they fight and blows the Arrancar’s face off. Whoop whoop.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
But mainly, it just makes the eventual betrayal more impactful. [Edit: Though this does make the second-most sympathetic of the group very...well, unsympathetic.]
Actually this depends on how you play things. For example, when did Ginjo and Tsukishima switch their personalities, and in turn how much of what happened actually was an act once they were reverted.

This would pretty much have to culminate in a fight between the two where they work this out and we see whether or not she still loves him after Tsukishima's personality rewrite was reversed. To dag the knife in deeper, this fight should in turn take place just before Tsukishima's power takes full hold over Chad, making the confrontation that much more horrifying, and her reaction to him suddenly turning into their alley after such an emotionally draining fight will really decide the person she is.

Helped ALL THE MORE if we go with your back story for how she got the engine upgrade to her fullbring. She might see a lot of her former boyfriend in Chad.

Basic gist is likely that Chad track's down Tsukishima and is probably dominating since he doesn't have much to fall back on without the personality rewrite taking hold just yet (Potentially stalled because of Chad's nature or he's actively using his power to fight it for the moment now that he's aware of what it is). To avoid defeat here, he calls in Jackie and has her fight in his stead, because he's a dick like that.

Naturally this results in him wondering if she was taken too, to which we get the same thing as what we got from Ginjou, this was the true her all along. Naturally as the fight goes on, Chad basically manages to pull a win but doesn't deal the final blow because he still cares about her, and he can tell she does too.

As the emotional weight of that sinks in Tsukishima says something, either an order to finish him, a reminder of something in the past that was the reason she joined, or maybe a trigger for some sort of failsafe rewrite he put in her on top of the personality deception. End result of whatever you go with is that she does exactly what she did against Renji, tries to self detonate and take both of them out at once before he can take down Tsukishima.

Chad tries to stop her, to break his hold over her out of a natural concern for her own well being, and potentially because he tries to break his power in her or just outright stop the detonation, Tsukishima's power is given the opening it needs to take hold. And as a result of this, before her eyes Chad is turned while trying to save her, as Tsukishima tells her to stop. No need to waste a perfectly good ally after all.

The anime actually did something similar to this with a fight between Chad and Orihime against Tsukishima, where the two were pretty much dominating until his power took hold. However because of the way we set this up, this confrontation becomes all the more horrifying and meaningful as a result. Lots of ways to spin it naturally, maybe she 'really cared all along' maybe it was just the final act of his that brought back the emotions of her alternate personality, maybe in the end he reminded her of her former boyfriend, either way there's plenty to say she isn't all bad from that.

Not like the others at least. Bar Moe none of them had jack shit to work with. :p



Also this could potentially culminate in a rematch at the end, where Jackie starts to fight against Chad to stall him so Ichigo can get to Tsukishima (Which is far better than him just taking out both of them frankly, Fullbring Ichigo frankly was NO WHERE NEAR the level where that's possible. Again fall from 20 feet destroyed him, Base Chad without powers dominates that with the steel beam feat alone). This will also depend on how we play things naturally, would make more sense if Tsukishima used a failsafe in Jackie for one thing, one which Chad actually managed to destroy at the cost of his own personality at the end of that first confrontation perhaps. Hell play it right and Jackie could probably help Ichigo and handle both Chad and Orihime as a distraction for the time being so he can handle that stuff. Also would really bring an emotional end to that entire thing once Tsukshima's power fades, and prove definitively that she did care about him.

Also if we go back and tie the particular curse I gave her ability, causing misfortune to others that could also tie nicely into all this, potentially culminating in a reveal in the first confrontation that Chad had been aware of it, known that whatever her power had been doing to others was the reason she initially stayed away from the others in the group and that was why he'd first started trying to get to know and eventually start dating her. And maybe he had actually been developing a technique to resist and nullify it the entire time which once he'd refined it enough he was going to attempt to teach her to reduce the effect entirely. The same technique which he discovered to also work to stall Tsukishima's power in himself to tie all of that together nicely in a little bow.

Christ there's a shitton to work with here. So many interesting connections to draw from such a simple scenario... :huh:



Edit: Oh oh wait, even better. GINJOU is the one with the Fail Safe instead, tying into the whole Substitute Shinigami can make Pacts with Fullbringers stuff. Granted this makes the timing of this a little odd. Tsukishima would have had to have reverted him prior to meeting with Ichigo for this to make sense, and then he'd have to go back to his previous state once again once Chad is dealt with. What purpose this could serve for his plan would be questionable, but it certainly would make sense for Tsukishima to get all of them at once rather than everyone but him prior to that without his knowledge whatsoever. Maybe he needs to set up something or what have you in order for the final pieces to fall into place properly.

Regardless he shows up and forces her to do the self detonation, meaning Chad's now aware of who the real villain is directly rather than only potentially knowing from guessing after what Jackie states. He's now presented with the choice of fighting the both of them and letting Jackie die, or potentially dieing with her and almost assuredly allowing their victory. Naturally he tries to save her, and in the process breaks the pact between the two as Ginjou takes him and the now VERY emotionally conflicted Jackie to truly set the stage for Ichigo to reach the height of his power only for him to take it in his well constructed deception.

Giving Ginjou a bit of an artistic flair also helps make more of this make sense, as really he could potentially have just done all this earlier and have been done with it. Granted though by clarifying that Tsukishima's power would interfere with the Full Bring development as well as the fact that we can't be sure when a Full Bring is fully developed since you removed the explosion, attempting to force it via anger and heightened emotions certainly makes a lot of sense. If Ichigo reaches a new tier of power thanks to being so pissed off in the following confrontation they just need to extend the act longer to get more juice out of him. Could work needless to say. :snigger:
 

Knyght

The Collector
(Which is far better than him just taking out both of them frankly, Fullbring Ichigo frankly was NO WHERE NEAR the level where that's possible. Again fall from 20 feet destroyed him, Base Chad without powers dominates that with the steel beam feat alone).
I was pretty much handwaving whatever limitations Kubo had given them. I thought the whole things where Fullbringers and other humans with active powers aren't as tough as Shinigami (excluding the differences from training) was dumb so I ignored/forgot most of that. I'd think that a former Substitute Shinigami/Visored would end up with a Fullbring (which I would probably call Hunting Moon) that's head-and-shoulders over the rest, though admittedly not enough to top Chad after the timeskip.

Granted, I probably should have re-read the arc instead of checking bits and pieces before posting this in the first place. :hmm:

Besides, I was thinking more along the lines of Ichigo taking some cheap shots rather than a clean victory. As an imaginary scenario, he spends the fight on the defensive and when he finds the resolve, he switches to the offensive to catch them off-guard. He feints an attack on Orihime's shield but then blitzes behind her for a heavy blow to the neck. Chad's caught out by concern and Ichigo blitzes over to him and instead of bothering with any rather pointless body blows, he punches him in the throat and/or bashes his head in a few times to bring him down. Perhaps throw around a few tricks for his Fullbring too.

Bonus point if Ichigo actually capitalizes on the bitching the two of them are doing. You could take the nice route where he tries to explain his actions to them, or he could use them as weak points to attack. The bad guys have done it to him enough times. The brutal attacks (physically and emotionally) would be out-of-character under normal circumstances but it's pretty clear at this point that he's having a really bad day.

Or he could do what Ginjo did and go Bankai with his Fullbring, presumably by pulling on more of the reiatsu stored in his badge. That could at least believably put him on the same level. Though I think you'd have to have Ginjo intervene almost immediately if you don't want Ichigo to cut Tsukushima down since he couldn't handle his speed in the first place.

And being in Bankai just makes him the perfect victim for the next part of the plan.

Granted though by clarifying that Tsukishima's power would interfere with the Full Bring development as well as the fact that we can't be sure when a Full Bring is fully developed since you removed the explosion, attempting to force it via anger and heightened emotions certainly makes a lot of sense.
That wasn't actually my intention. I just meant that the explosion wouldn't damage them which I thought was really strange. It'd be more like when various characters go Bankai or Resurrection and there's an increase in reiatsu and "spirit particle shockwave". Though you could perhaps tie that in with your corroding Chain of Fate concept, but even then I'd probably just make it painful rather than damaging.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
See one of the major fixes I'd go with is arc that Chad, and by extension Orihime that arc would get a damn fight come hell or high water. At least one, preferably two or more if possible. And in turn neither would get taken down like punks, baring getting caught completely offguard by Tsukishima's ability.

Were I to allow the asininely stupid Shinigami captain squad to arrive as they did canon, Chad and Orihime would each fight and put up a damn good effort against one of them. Hell, I was Hankering for Chad Vs. Kenpachi myself. Maybe Orihime vs. Toshiro or something to play off how they lived together for a bit or something. Bonus points if half the fight is him trying not to hurt her as much because Matsumoto would be unbearable if she found out, and he starts getting destroyed as a result. Mayhaps she pushes him to the point where he point blank needs Bankai to keep up to really show how much she grew. :snigger:

Or hell, how about Isshin and Urahara, or more interestingly if you don't want to reveal their shit yet, their crew actually have to do something and rather than take them down like chumps they and their crew attempt to hold them back. Maybe get some Tessai vs. Orihime action for great justice as Chad goes mano a womano with Yoruichi or something. Maybe Chad's shield arm has let him master a variant of Hierro and this goes stunningly south for her stunningly fast as none of Tessai's barriers can hold, much less stop Orihime. :sisi:

Or maybe it's as simple as Orihime vs. Rukia and Ishida vs. Chad. Group has to now turn on each other. Suppose you could throw in Renji vs. Chad to play off the bankai training if you want, he's sort of a group member but it's pretty variable a lot of the time.

Granted though both of them getting a good fight doesn't need to happen at the conclusion certainly. Having them get a good showing earlier on and then having Ichigo play to their resolve to take them down in such a way that doesn't diminish their skill could work too... But it'd be very, very easy for such a development to end up in such a way that it makes it seem like Ichigo's head and shoulders above all of them for no discernible reason after going from zero to getting powers despite all their developments since. That's not a good path to be going down. Slippery slope is all I'm saying.
 

Knyght

The Collector
Orihime and Chad fighting Rukia and Ishida would be awesome. It's a shame that it would probably take away their chance to fight any Fullbringers in my version where only Rukia and maybe Renji shows up since the timing of their appearance would coincidence with when the climax fights would start. You'd just have a bunch of them on the sidelines with nothing to do, or have Urahara, Isshin and the rest get involved which I think gets rid of a lot of the tension.

Maybe Ichigo gets stuck fighting everyone but Orihime and Chad whilst Urahara and Isshin get the civilians out of danger and probably knock them unconscious. The quartet fight, Orihime and Chad comes to their senses and get healed up then they all back up Ichigo where things split into individual battles.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
The real key is pacing and staggering the fights out honestly. The manga scenario where Ichigo and the Unturned Ginjou have to fight literally everyone at full strength? Should never happen. At all.

The fights should have been staggered up to that point in such a way that at least a number of them had already been taken out or at the very least significantly weakened by the time the final confrontation came to pass. My scenario of Chad vs. Jackie prior to him turning, provided she doesn't recover enough to stall Chad so Ichigo can take out Tsukishima? Would make her way easier to take down. Maybe Orihime has a similar confrontation prior to turning, possibly leading to a significantly debilitating wound on say Giriko.

Mayhaps Riruka and Yukio had been sent to fully take down Ishida before he recovers, leading to a dual confrontation with father and son that they only barely escape from, leading Ishida after them to the final fight rather than just taking forever to get there (Granted this was done for Ambiguity, but if you shape it like both the Orihime and Chad bouts you can argue it on that front as them trying to get things to progress along faster).

Key point would be restructuring that arc so that rather than one big climax things are more shaped in such a way that most of the conflicts had already been resolved before the final handful come to pass. The Final Big Bosses of that arc? They shouldn't be the entirety of execution, not even slightly. They should be Tsukishima, Ginjou, Chad and Orihime. Whoever remains of Xcution should be significantly drained to the point where they can't do much more than slow the much more well rested fighters down. :snigger:
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
How many chapters shorter do you guys feel the whole thing should have been, too? I mean, the Namek jokes were pretty big at one point, but I mean, 30 chapters easily could have been trimmed off or so I guess?
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
Something like that really can't be determined with 'chapter count' honestly. It's really all about progression, pacing, and just generally making sure things don't drag out and actual developments are happening at a reasonable rate. Some arcs can work perfectly fine at 100 chapters or more, some can feel incredibly short at the same length, and others could be hilariously dragged out too long even then. It tends to vary really, not helped that reading a chapter once a week at a time doesn't exactly help keep the flow together properly.

Make no mistake, no matter how you spin it, the freaking HM->FKT->Deicide shit went on entirely too long, even factoring out the whole week long wait issue. The reasoning for this is multifold, Kubo spent way too much damn time with random sporadic fights that didn't even have the decency to work concurrently to each other, everyone just stood around as the fraccion battles happened, and even then heavy hitters like Yamamoto were standing around while the espada were being taken down and just generally not much was happening even with all of these characters in play at once.

And that's even INCLUDING the people still stuck on HM, who took a hilariously long time to even find Yammi, much less deal with the matter. And don't get me started on Deicide's bullshit with taking down Aizen taking so damn long punctuated by a random ass training Session Kubo pulled out of his ass at the last minute that still makes no damn sense.

Let's compare this to one of the best arc's I've personally read, Enies Lobby in One Piece. There, shit was actually happening concurrently to each other and progression was made not just with the crew's individual one on one fights, but also with the actions of the characters they brought with them. Franky's crew lowered the bridge allowing the crew to get across to the CP9, they were actually dealing with the mass of the navy guy's so that the Straw Hats had a clear path, freaking Ussop converted their Giants based on a plot point from hundreds of chapters ago.

And then fights against the CP9 were going off all while Luffy was trying to track down and then Stall Rob Lucci to keep the guy from slaughtering everyone, people were running into each other in the middle of fights, opponents switched for better synergy, Chopper went on a rampage and had to be dealt with as he crashed into other battles, Zoro and Usopp were morons and got locked up together until they managed to find that key, the freaking Buster Call was activated meaning now they were about to get goddamn bombed, and all this while they just needed to get to Robin before they took her through the gates where she'd be taken out of their reach completely.

The thing happened in stages, and progression was steadily made throughout. Why? Because there was more of a goal in mind than just 'Defeat everyone on the enemy side' that was playing an active factor through and even within the fights. As a result each victory was steadily taking them closer to their overall goal, even if it was as simple as getting those keys, or just making sure Rob Lucci couldn't devastate the entire crew.

Similarly plot details that cropped up in one battle also were playing factor to other events. 'Stuff' was actually happening at all times. It wasn't just One on One fight after One on One fight add nasueum till all the baddies were down and then the big bad just slaughters everyone 'because he can'. The powerups weren't nearly as bullshit either, but Deicide is another kettle of worms entirely to say the goddamn least.

This isn't to say stuff also wasn't happening durring the arrancar arc, Aizen's ploy to trap the chunk of captains in HM only to find himself in a Fake Karakura is certainly something happening, and then the attempts to destroy the towers to restore Karakura introduced a key defensive point that had to be maintained at all times... Which they then promptly ignored immediately after they brought it up even as the big guys came into play. Hell the Vizard's showed up too and then Fura was dealt with... Which wasn't much but was certainly something happening.

The problem with that arc though is largely that those few key points where stuff was actually happening got bogged down with generic fight after generic fight over and over to the point of madness, and then as a result all the goodies basically won by the end and Aizen had to face all of them at once and had to win because bullshit. There wasn't anywhere near as much interplay between the fights, people were largely standing around while others fought for the vast majority of it, and there also wasn't any real cohesive goals other than defeat the opponent in front of them.

Ultimately Enies Lobby ended up being a far better war arc than friggin Bleach's actual war arc was, because of better pacing, generally actually having active progression and interplay between each confrontation, and an actual clear cut win condition that they could actively work towards, and just generally roles everyone could fill.
 

Knyght

The Collector
Basically, it's not "how many chapters would you take out" but "which events would cut/change to streamline the story". The number of chapters involved aren't really something you can work out unless you can guess how much content you can fit into each chapter. And I don't think anyone wants to do these revisions chapter-by-chapter. :snigger:

A few random changes/additions:

The final blow that Kenpachi took from Unohana damaged his memory of his battle. He remembered that his first 'real' battle was against a woman named Yachiru but he doesn't actually remember. Hence why he never confronted Unohana after joining the Gotei 13.

No shikai release incantation. I mean, you have Shunsui and Ukitake recite a poem the first time they release theirs and then the next time they only bother with the name. Rukia did it too the first time. It seems pretty pointless when you can just skip it.

Shorter kido incantations. They seem unnecessarily long considering most are used in combat. And if they had shorter incantation (or none) then you'd probably get a lot more of it shown it in the manga.

Instead of getting trounced by Nnoitra in a recycle version of his fight with Shunsui, Chad gets in a fight with Yammy. Yammy who is just the #10 Espada but has the greatest physical might out of the group. Gives him a chance to get some payback for his arm and actually deliver on it.

As I mentioned in the ability thread, there are about 55 arrancars who should exist based on the numbering scheme but never see the light of the day. Having them appear during HM arc to broke up the one-on-one fights or to form the bulk of the FKT invasion force would be nice.

And a speculative question: What would people make Aizen's back-story and motivation? We don't have much to go on other than a dislike for the Spirit King (I think), Ichigo's belief that he was lonely and his spoken claim that he wants to rule. He seems rather undeveloped for such a major villain.
 

~NGD OMEGA~

Well-Known Member
Dude's so underdeveloped as a villain that it was a literal plot point in Hammered Down that he actually had no motivation to freaking do what he was doing. Until the memory wipe Kido broke anyway. And that was after actually giving him some reason to want to rewrite the system due to how ungodly shitty SS is as a general afterlife.

Which is really about as good of a motivation as you can make really. Presuming that the current SS is literally it, it's an absolutely garbage afterlife, the system really needs a fairly major overhaul. Literally the best district in the afterlife amounts to little more than people bumming around in poor hovels with an occasional few riding around on boars. While people down in the living world at least have media entertainment to go see occasionally.
 

Knyght

The Collector
The Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

We're a good way into it with twists and reveals and retcons abound... so what would people change?

Different arc opening? Alternate Epitaphs? Modified backstories? More character death? Even changes to past arcs based on this one?

You know the drill.
 

Knyght

The Collector


*rolls up sleeves*

Ryuunosuke/Shino: Only exist in the background as cannon fodder for the war. The arc opens with Mayuri realising the Quincy had returned and the Humans saving a Plus from the Huge Hollows that had recently plagued the Human World as they ran away from Hueco Mundo.

Soldat: Whilst the Sternritter are understandably diverse with their weapons and technique, the rank-and-file of the Wandenreich are more conventional. For close-range, they use spirit swords and for mid-to-long range, they use spirit bows. Their tactics would involve switching between the two or separate into different groups; one group to fight at melee, another to fight at range.

Blut: Ishida uses Blut against Mayuri or Szayel.

Epitaph: The unique abilities of the Sternritter are more oriented around reishi manipulation so that they are something perfect, advanced Quincy techniques. The Power is an amplified Blut Arterie, The Iron is an amplified Blut Vene, The Glutton is maximised reishi absorption, The Visionary is flawless spirit weapon construction etc.

Broken Bankai: Just like shikai, bankai can be repaired with the owner’s reiatsu. Only it takes a lot longer than repairing a shikai which temporarily puts it out of commission.

Asauchi: This is a term used for a zanpakuto that has not given its true name to its wielder, thereby not yet possessing a shikai. Every shinigami can create an asauchi. Ouetsu did not create the zanpakuto but his knowledge and understanding of them is unsurpassed. He created the Sokyoku.

Everything But The Rain: Isshin and Masaki’s history is an interlude that occurs before the Thousand Year Blood War Arc as a story Isshin’s telling Ichigo. Only he doesn’t yet learn about Yhwach or the real reason his mother died.

Zabimaru: When Renji decided to train to achieve bankai after he was defeated, Zabimaru warned him that he wasn’t ready in spite of achieving manifestation. Renji learns anyway but is only able to access half of Zabimaru’s true power, resulting in Hihiou Zabimaru. Only by improving himself as a Shinigami and mastering that bankai would he attain its true power. Between the battle the Arrancar Arc and the Quincy Arc, Renji had awakened its true form but didn’t have the opportunity to use it because of the Wandenreich’s bankai stealing medallions.

Sode no Shirayuki: Instead of the three dances, Shirayuki’s ability had always been to lower her body temperature. Her sole technique was Shirafune, the ability to extend and/or repair her sword with ice, which she learned during her month training with Orihime. Ixnay on the "I'm already dead" business.
 
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