The "What If" Challenge

Subject: The "What If" Challenge Mon Jul 12, 2010 9:48 pm

The What If challenge is basically what it sounds like. Write a fanfic based on a "what if..." scenario.

The scenarios I'd like you to use for the challenge are located here.

Rules:

1. This is a very unique challenge in that, due to the nature of the prompts, there might not be YoruSoi in a shipping sense. A fic might have Yoruichi and Soifon in it, but not in a romantic relationship. In short, it does not have to be a YoruSoi shipping fic (although that would be nice).
2. Can be a one-shot or multi-chapter.

I think that's really about it. If you have any questions, post them on this thread.

Hollow Posts : 9 Join date : 2010-07-12 Location : Earth

I've been thinking of writing a multi-chapter fanfic about my epicly awesome pairing, YoruSoi... But the thing is... I lost interest in my stuff so easily.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Mon May 02, 2011 12:06 am

So...

I've been keeping this in my laptop for 3 or 4 months, and I reread it today and decided to share it with you (who knows if I'll ever have the opportunity again... and maybe it'll encourage me to finish it). I'll put it under a spoiler; it's just the beginning of my attempt at this challenge.

Spoiler:

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Mon May 02, 2011 1:23 am

Oh, what a tease! I do hope you continue with that. ^_^ It's intriguing so far.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Tue May 24, 2011 5:34 am

Wow, that's a great start, I really hope you get around to working on it!

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:27 am

Boredom and the fact that i should totally be studying for my Japanese Culture midterm that's only 3.5 hours away leads me to necro this thread with a "what if" between Yoruichi and Soi Fon that has been on my mind for a while:

What if Soi Fon had killed Kiyone Kotetsu on Sokyouku Hill?

Essentially, what if Soi Fon had crossed the moral event horizon, branding herself as irredeemably legalistic in Yoruichi's eyes. Really, the what if hinges on "what if Yoruichi had arrived about 20 seconds after she did?" And witnessed Soi Fon murdering Kiyone

Of course, it leads straight into depressing darkfic territory (and while i am enamoured with angst, i only like angst as something to explore, and not to wallow in, as i'm equally enamoured of the happy ending), so i haven't felt the urge to act on it yet.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:36 am

Mr Khan wrote:: Essentially, what if Soi Fon had crossed the moral event horizon, branding herself as irredeemably legalistic in Yoruichi's eyes. Really, the what if hinges on "what if Yoruichi had arrived about 20 seconds after she did?" And witnessed Soi Fon murdering Kiyone

I think you're forgetting the fact that Yoruichi was in the exact same position that Sui-Feng has now. I honestly don't think that Yoruichi would think of Sui-Feng as "irredeemable" if she killed Kiyone. She used to be in charge of spying on Shinigami, rounding up potential criminals and imprisoning them indefinitely without trial, to say nothing of the legal and political assassinations she's likely carried. She's beyond the "Moral Event Horizon" herself.

What's more, I don't think Yoruichi cared about Kiyone's well being at all in that situation. She might not have even known she was there. She makes no mention of her. She likely just saw Sui-Feng and went for her. Her saving Kiyone was incidental.

Also, it's not like she would be appalled by the idea of Sui-Feng killing someone in cold blood. Sui-Feng comes from a family of assassins and executioners who work under Yoruichi's family. Sui-Feng has blood on her hands that the direct and indirect result of Yoruichi, from her last name to her direct orders.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:22 am

SoldierG65434-2 wrote:: I think you're forgetting the fact that Yoruichi was in the exact same position that Sui-Feng has now. I honestly don't think that Yoruichi would think of Sui-Feng as "irredeemable" if she killed Kiyone. She used to be in charge of spying on Shinigami, rounding up potential criminals and imprisoning them indefinitely without trial, to say nothing of the legal and political assassinations she's likely carried. She's beyond the "Moral Event Horizon" herself.

What's more, I don't think Yoruichi cared about Kiyone's well being at all in that situation. She might not have even known she was there. She makes no mention of her. She likely just saw Sui-Feng and went for her.

Also, it's not like she would be appalled by the idea of Sui-Feng killing someone in cold blood. Sui-Feng comes from a family of assassins and executioners who work under Yoruichi's family. Sui-Feng has blood on her hands that the direct and indirect result of Yoruichi, from her last name to her direct orders.

I suppose you're correct, just that we rarely see Yoruichi's ruthless side doesn't mean it isn't there. Though i do think it would have impacted their reunion significantly if she had just witnessed Kiyone get killed in cold blood. The framing of the reunion fight was always about Yoruichi feeling sorry for what she had done to Soi Fon, but also about trying to recruit Soi Fon to their side of the Shinigami's internecine conflict during that arc. If she felt Soi Fon was beyond recruitment, someone who had to be incapacitated, that whole affair would have run fundamentally differently.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:45 pm

Mr Khan wrote:: The framing of the reunion fight was always about Yoruichi feeling sorry for what she had done to Soi Fon, but also about trying to recruit Soi Fon to their side of the Shinigami's internecine conflict during that arc.

I didn't get that sense at all. Yoruichi seemed neither repentant nor interested in persuading Sui-Feng. There reunion seemed more like Yoruichi going "Hey buddy! What's going on?" The situation at that point had pretty much been resolved; Rukia was rescued, Ichigo was fighting Byakuya, and Kyoraku and Ukitake were distracting Yamamoto. There was nothing left to do really, and no reason to "recruit" Sui-Feng. Yoruichi just seemed to want to interact with Sui-Feng. That's why she's smiling and joking at the beginning and seems genuinely shocked when Sui-Feng gets serious and bust out Suzumebachi.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:45 pm

SoldierG65434-2 wrote:

Mr Khan wrote:: The framing of the reunion fight was always about Yoruichi feeling sorry for what she had done to Soi Fon, but also about trying to recruit Soi Fon to their side of the Shinigami's internecine conflict during that arc.

I didn't get that sense at all. Yoruichi seemed neither repentant nor interested in persuading Sui-Feng. There reunion seemed more like Yoruichi going "Hey buddy! What's going on?" The situation at that point had pretty much been resolved; Rukia was rescued, Ichigo was fighting Byakuya, and Kyoraku and Ukitake were distracting Yamamoto. There was nothing left to do really, and no reason to "recruit" Sui-Feng. Yoruichi just seemed to want to interact with Sui-Feng. That's why she's smiling and joking at the beginning and seems genuinely shocked when Sui-Feng gets serious and bust out Suzumebachi.

How then, in your opinion, might she have reacted if Kiyone's death had occurred? It would at least have soured any attempt on Yoruichi's part to be buddy-buddy with her, so under your interpretation would Yoruichi have simply ignored her?

Also i can't quite wrap my head around the idea that all she wanted to do was talk, or even if she did, that she didn't go into that scenario assuming that it was going to end peacefully. Makes for a painfully naive Yoruichi. The cavalier attitude is as much a part of Yoruichi's character as anything else that is actually a defined trait and not more fanon. Shooting the breeze in the run-in to that fight was just her way of dealing with things

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:11 am

Mr Khan wrote:: How then, in your opinion, might she have reacted if Kiyone's death had occurred? It would at least have soured any attempt on Yoruichi's part to be buddy-buddy with her, so under your interpretation would Yoruichi have simply ignored her?

It certainly would have colored their encounter, assuming that Yoruichi even knew she was there. With Yamaoto's and other Captain's reitsu going off and her moving at such high speeds, poor little Kiyone would have been easy enough to miss. Not to mention the fact that Yoruichi makes no mention of her once she engages Sui-Feng. I don't, however, think that it would have caused this great angst in Yoruichi for the reasons I've already stated.

Mr Khan wrote:: Also i can't quite wrap my head around the idea that all she wanted to do was talk, or even if she did, that she didn't go into that scenario assuming that it was going to end peacefully. Makes for a painfully naive Yoruichi. The cavalier attitude is as much a part of Yoruichi's character as anything else that is actually a defined trait and not more fanon. Shooting the breeze in the run-in to that fight was just her way of dealing with things

Yoruichi makes no mention of any of the going's on through the entire fight, and continues to small talk and tease up until Suzumebachi is released. If she had ulterior motives in engaging Sui-Feng, she was really bad at broadcasting them. Assuming that she was trying to persuade Sui-Feng is just too big a leap for me with the provided text. All of their dialogue is concerned with them and their history, and never goes beyond.

It's not that she's naive, though. Her demeanor to me suggests that she assumed that Sui-Feng would be happy to see her. She didn't except her absence to have such a profound impact.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:12 am

SoldierG65434-2 wrote:: It's not that she's naive, though. Her demeanor to me suggests that she assumed that Sui-Feng would be happy to see her. She didn't except her absence to have such a profound impact.

Which at least suggests some sort of naivete or denial. That or that Yoruichi really didn't know Soi Fon that well at all before she left...

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:20 am

Mr Khan wrote:

SoldierG65434-2 wrote:: It's not that she's naive, though. Her demeanor to me suggests that she assumed that Sui-Feng would be happy to see her. She didn't except her absence to have such a profound impact.

Which at least suggests some sort of naivete or denial. That or that Yoruichi really didn't know Soi Fon that well at all before she left...

Which is entirely possible. The flashback that we get is told entirely from Sui-Feng's perspective, and in it she basically admits out of the gate that she's going to be somewhat of an unreliable narrator. In TBtP what we see is a rather typical, mundane relationship that you would except out of a Commander/Subordinate, with the notable exception that Sui-Feng felt comfortable enough to openly and directly question on of Yoruichi's decisions (even though Sui-Feng was in the right).

Not to mention the fact that Sui-Feng wasn't the first person she ran into after her absence. There was at least Byakuya, and presumably Ukitake and Kyoraku. If they weren't moved to tears by her reappearance that I don't see why she would assume Sui-Feng would be.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Sat Feb 25, 2012 2:41 am

SoldierG65434-2 wrote:: Which is entirely possible. The flashback that we get is told entirely from Sui-Feng's perspective, and in it she basically admits out of the gate that she's going to be somewhat of an unreliable narrator. In TBtP what we see is a rather typical, mundane relationship that you would except out of a Commander/Subordinate, with the notable exception that Sui-Feng felt comfortable enough to openly and directly question on of Yoruichi's decisions (even though Sui-Feng was in the right).

Not to mention the fact that Sui-Feng wasn't the first person she ran into after her absence. There was at least Byakuya, and presumably Ukitake and Kyoraku. If they weren't moved to tears by her reappearance that I don't see why she would assume Sui-Feng would be.

This route of thinking rather undermines the basis of the ship, or would at least presume that any reciprocity started only after that fight when Yoruichi realized how much she meant to Soi Fon

Then of course we have to run into "how unreliable is unreliable," and that delves dangerously into fan-wank territory. If we can safely assume that Soi Fon remembered things exactly as they happened, but just happened to remember the special moments more than the mundane ones, then we return to the idea that Yoruichi had to see something special in her, which then routes back around to the "blame" lying on Yoruichi for having not thought things through

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:36 pm

Mr Khan wrote:: This route of thinking rather undermines the basis of the ship, or would at least presume that any reciprocity started only after that fight when Yoruichi realized how much she meant to Soi Fon

I've always been of the opinion that a romantic relationship between them didn't start until after their fight. They obviously had a closer relationship than the norm for Yoruichi to seek out a presumably unseated officer after a century apart, but I'm not convinced of anything beyond that at this point.

Mr Khan wrote:: Then of course we have to run into "how unreliable is unreliable," and that delves dangerously into fan-wank territory. If we can safely assume that Soi Fon remembered things exactly as they happened, but just happened to remember the special moments more than the mundane ones, then we return to the idea that Yoruichi had to see something special in her, which then routes back around to the "blame" lying on Yoruichi for having not thought things through

She's unreliable in the sense that she picked and chose the most saccharine moments to emphasize. Keep in mind that I'm arguing from the perspective of the manga only. If we're talking about the anime, this is an entirely different conversation.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:18 pm

Wow. You guys take this kinda thing pretty damn serious. All I know is that Ukitake would probably have been very upset.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:46 am

Crimson Warrior wrote:: Wow. You guys take this kinda thing pretty damn serious. All I know is that Ukitake would probably have been very upset.

The cost of high-quality fan-fiction is severe attention to detail, sadly. Although that places a subjective value on "quality," but if you want to write the characters with sufficient depth, you have to understand their motivations and their interactions with one another, which then comes down to severe scrutiny of little things that happened in canon, especially with YoruSoi because there are all of 2 instances of canon in the whole thing: their fight and Turn Back the Pendulum, the latter of which isn't even about them, just serves as an honest assessment of where their relationship was before Yoruichi left, and their fight, which as we have discussed highlights where both sides *thought* their relationship was, and more importantly provides precious, precious insight into what makes Yoruichi tick. Soi Fon is easy to figure out, but Yoruichi remains an enigma as far as character is concerned.

Anyway, it does bear some consideration as to how Ukitake would've reacted, though my mind was more on how Isane would have reacted. Angry, potentially revenge-crazy Isane would be an interesting thing to see.

SoldierG65434-2 wrote:

Mr Khan wrote:: This route of thinking rather undermines the basis of the ship, or would at least presume that any reciprocity started only after that fight when Yoruichi realized how much she meant to Soi Fon

I've always been of the opinion that a romantic relationship between them didn't start until after their fight. They obviously had a closer relationship than the norm for Yoruichi to seek out a presumably unseated officer after a century apart, but I'm not convinced of anything beyond that at this point.

Mr Khan wrote:: Then of course we have to run into "how unreliable is unreliable," and that delves dangerously into fan-wank territory. If we can safely assume that Soi Fon remembered things exactly as they happened, but just happened to remember the special moments more than the mundane ones, then we return to the idea that Yoruichi had to see something special in her, which then routes back around to the "blame" lying on Yoruichi for having not thought things through

She's unreliable in the sense that she picked and chose the most saccharine moments to emphasize. Keep in mind that I'm arguing from the perspective of the manga only. If we're talking about the anime, this is an entirely different conversation.

Sadly this is where my knowledge runs short. I watched the reunion fight all of once, in the dub, and this was back in probably 2007, maybe early 2008, forget when it aired, and never read that part of the manga (nor read the manga period until i came to Japan and started picking it up in Weekly Jump). It would, perhaps, behoove me to at least read the manga part, since that takes no time at all and would refresh me on what actually happened rather than what my poor memory of a Viz Media dub can provide...

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:05 am

Mr Khan wrote:: Sadly this is where my knowledge runs short. I watched the reunion fight all of once, in the dub, and this was back in probably 2007, maybe early 2008, forget when it aired, and never read that part of the manga (nor read the manga period until i came to Japan and started picking it up in Weekly Jump). It would, perhaps, behoove me to at least read the manga part, since that takes no time at all and would refresh me on what actually happened rather than what my poor memory of a Viz Media dub can provide...

Yes, go do that right now. Here are the chapters even. The flashback is significantly different in the manga because it's comopletly in Sui-Feng's presepctive, not the omnicsicent 3rd like the manga. Paints everything in a different light.

Also, fuck the sakura grove scene, seriously.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:36 am

SoldierG65434-2 wrote:

Mr Khan wrote:: Sadly this is where my knowledge runs short. I watched the reunion fight all of once, in the dub, and this was back in probably 2007, maybe early 2008, forget when it aired, and never read that part of the manga (nor read the manga period until i came to Japan and started picking it up in Weekly Jump). It would, perhaps, behoove me to at least read the manga part, since that takes no time at all and would refresh me on what actually happened rather than what my poor memory of a Viz Media dub can provide...

Yes, go do that right now. Here are the chapters even. The flashback is significantly different in the manga because it's comopletly in Sui-Feng's presepctive, not the omnicsicent 3rd like the manga. Paints everything in a different light.

Also, fuck the sakura grove scene, seriously.

Indeed. Some scenes i vaguely remember from the anime not being there at all. Leaves the whole affair much more open to interpretation. Studio Pierrot does show shipping preferences at times, and in other shows (they seem to favor Naruto x Hinata, for instance, having injected more material for that ship than originally existed into that anime), so they did twist something that was fairly subtle and ambiguous (especially Yoruichi's take on the matter) into something a good deal more blatant. It seems like Kubo has accepted the idea of the ship since then, but perhaps he had intended something completely innocuous (though we've had this discussion as well. Yoruichi being a human-soul woman at all could have been a spur-of-the-moment decision to grab a nice reaction shot from Ichigo)

Though upon reading it, it reinforces my idea that Yoruichi did come there knowing she had a fight on her hands.

Subject: Re: The "What If" Challenge Mon Feb 27, 2012 8:23 pm

Mr Khan wrote:: Studio Pierrot does show shipping preferences at times, and in other shows (they seem to favor Naruto x Hinata, for instance, having injected more material for that ship than originally existed into that anime), so they did twist something that was fairly subtle and ambiguous (especially Yoruichi's take on the matter) into something a good deal more blatant. It seems like Kubo has accepted the idea of the ship since then, but perhaps he had intended something completely innocuous (though we've had this discussion as well. Yoruichi being a human-soul woman at all could have been a spur-of-the-moment decision to grab a nice reaction shot from Ichigo)

Yeah, Kubo's gone on record as saying there's stuff in the anime that he wanted to put in the manga, but until he produces a detailed list of what those are we can't assume anything (or we can assume everything).

Mr Khan wrote:: Though upon reading it, it reinforces my idea that Yoruichi did come there knowing she had a fight on her hands.

She knew there would be blows, but to me it reads like she expected something akin to a sparing match (the prodding and teasing, comparing Sui-Feng's current and former power levels), not Sui-Feng trying to kill her (her shock had Suzumebachi's release).

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