Thread:Silver-Haired Seireitou/@comment-24384232-20141211031805/@comment-2089817-20141212223757

Whoa Void, relax. You're sounding like a clingy girl that thinks her boyfriend is about to break up with her. ._. This isn't stuff you need to sell to me. If anything, I'm trying to make it clear that I accept your train of thought and I myself am trying to think in the same way.

I'm not dismissing your thoughts, but you seem to be misunderstanding what I was trying to say. What I am trying to say is that, in terms of the canon, Shinigami have demonstrated a Hakuda style that pales in comparison to what they are truly capable of. Out of story, it's clear that Kubo perhaps doesn't know where he is going with this, but rather than just ignore Kubo outright, I try to dance around Kudo's stuff with my own. My in-story reasoning as to why this is? Two words. Shinou Academy. It's been made clear that Shinou has slowly been downgrading the curriculum for quite some time now. And I believe the same is true for Hakuda, Zanjutsu, perhaps even Kidou and Hohou as well. I believe that they have been slowly standardizing the curriculum to such a degree that what we see in canon right now is... basically the extent to what Shinigami of the modern era are capable. And the clues all point to that. I mean, come on, Menos can only be handled by the Royal Guard? This was clearly done in order to limit what Shinigami can reach so that they can't rebel against Soul Society and mount a powerful offensive. My guess is that in the era of the Warring Souls Period, children and even adults as unusually powerful as Zaraki were not uncommon. But little by little, as Yamamoto seized control and forced other schools and organizations and even villages to submit to him, the atmosphere has abruptly changed. In fact, I can even see a very juicy potential story arc for the FC out of this, a ruthless battle-loving conqueror trying to restore Soul Society to those days. But that's an entirely different matter to be discussed later.

Now, with that out of the way, here is what I believe is the problem with why most people cannot accept your train of thought; such as in the case of that Zanjutsu thread. It's because of presentation. There's very little presentation that shows that our outlook on Hakuda and Zanjutsu is still... well, Hakuda and Zanjutsu. The way we word things, people tend to not be able to understand things at such a level, and they view our explanations as "Magic Kung Fu" with Mind Punches and Meditation Battles, when in reality, they don't truly understand what we're trying to explain. Before we do anything, we need a method of conveying our outlook on the evolution and expansion of Hakuda and Zanjutsu in a way that we still try to keep the impression that this is still good ol' fashion martial arts and swordsmanship, but taken several steps further.

With Hakuda, I believe the conceptualization of martial arts, just as the physical aspects, all begin from a single foundation: the control of the self. Even the Empty Fist originates from this. I personally believe that even the reishi of spiritual beings are not "all theirs". After all, reishi recycles throughout the spiritual realm and the reishi composing one person might have been reishi that composed several hundreds in the past. Just like reishi in the atmosphere, the reishi of the spiritual being are all fragmented wills; of course, not with the same degree of freedom, some reishi of their bodies belong to us but some do not heed our command. In the same way that Kido must be trained by Shinigami, Hakuda must also be trained; little by little, self-control is further enhanced, but never perfected because Shinou Academy's teachings have severely downgraded. In order for one to use a concept of martial art as a true thing, they must achieve a total control over their own reishi. They have to be able to have absolute sovereignty over the reishi that composes them, down to their very last particle, to such a point that they could use control their own hair to act as a makeshift limb in battle.

And luckily, I've already started on something like this, called Jiseiryū. I mean, think about it. How is it that Yamamoto could resist his own Bankai's heat and not burst into ashes, when Rukia could only have four seconds of mobility in her frozen state? Experience? Sure. Zanjutsu Mastery to a degree that Yamamoto cannot be harmed by his Zanpakuto's flames? Sure. But I smell suspicion there. Furthermore, I believe Yamamoto could use Ikkotsu because Ikkotsu is only possible when one has achieved total control of themselves and are capable of transmitting force throughout their entire body without disruption or distension. I'm sorta going off on a tangent here... but you catch my drift.