2021 in the rearview!
It's hard to believe we've barely had this blog for almost 7 months, which means that's how long it's been since we re-entered Bleach fandom. How is it that it's only been a matter of months and not even a year? (what is time anymore don't ask me it feels like an eternity and also no time at all)
Out of all the cursed things to come out of this pandemic, I am genuinely happy that it spurred a renewed interest in Bleach. This fandom, that we assumed was going to be very small and somewhat inactive, is actually the complete opposite. So many people are so vibrant and creative and constantly churning out new things to the extent that it's hard to keep up. Case in point: our drafts is currently at ~300 posts, and the queue is >200 (before we queue things we throw them into the drafts for tagging). And probably <30 of the posts in the drafts are actually our content that we need to finish up to post. That means the rest is from the general fandom at large, which is absolutely mind-boggling. And to think! The fandom was like this before the new Hell arc was released or the TYBW anime was announced. And now, more people are coming back to Bleach which just ahhhhhhh gives me even more feels. (which reminds me, all the way back in August, we started writing a post with reactions to the new Hell chapter and lmao would it be too late to find them and post them now)
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My co-blogger said it best ^^^ up there ^^^ but I wanted to thank her for getting me back into Bleach. She read/re-read the whole series in spring 2020 and we opted to watch up through the Soul Society arc, during which I realized I was simply in too deep and also needed to read everything. This led to a whole summer of Bleach brain, a fanfic (âthis is the only Bleach fic Iâll ever write,â I said, before posting another one 5 months later, and another 5 months after that, and another, some time after that...), and over a year later, it also led to this blog, which has been my most stable and accessible source of joy for 2021. RL is miserable and bad rn, and even though I wrote 52 reflections for every week of 2021, I remember very little of it (I think every recap is just âI am so exhaustedâ over and over again; I refuse to look). But I remember the Bleach stuff, and it is not an understatement to say that this is the thing keeping me going. <3 I love Bleach, I love you all, I can no longer imagine an existence without any piece of this.Â
My 2022 fandom resolutions:Â
be more shameless on Tumblr, particularly when it comes to talking about my faves (and not just dragging Byakuya relentlessly--the dragging is very impersonal and not at all hard to share)
stop damning reblogs to Draft Purgatory and just post/queue them like an adult, good grief!!
prioritize accessible joy because abandoning this blog for entire months for what, for work? is broke and now I have no memory of those months anyway, so lose/lose
finish reading at least the Soul Society arc before TYBW starts airing
write my fanfic. Iâm not gonna say âfinishâ because by god, I am not on deadline, but I wouldnât say no to âfinish.â
(ippoddity) ^^ I also want to add my fandom resolutions! I bolded the ones that I also wanna jump onto. Because LOL, even though I (re)read Bleach in Spring 2020 and did selective re-reads in the months following, Iâve come to realize I remember almost nothing about the series. Iâm mostly just existing off headcanons and hand-wavey understandings of plot points.Â
I also would like to add a resolution of: create more content.Â
In general I am very much a lurker an appreciator of other peopleâs creations. And while Iâm perfectly happy enjoying what other people have made, I feel like I want to give back sometimes! So Iâll be trying to dip my toe into more content creation, whether that be metas, gifs, crack posts, art, etc.
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Tumblr Top 5
I know Tumblr already gave us their version of a year end review with the Top Posts, but looking back on the year I think some of our favorite content we produced did not gain all that many notes. Which is fine, because I can look back on them and still get plenty of enjoyment. XD Some of these made it into that Top Posts thing, but in case you're curious, things we are particularly proud of this year include:
1) Seireitei Communications Special Birthday Edition
2) Pikachu Face 10th Division
3) Soul (Society) Train
4) Law and Order: Sixth Division, Law and Order: Kuchiki and Kuchiki, Law and Order: The One Where Akon is Ice T, and Law and Order: Soul Society (like the OG Law and Order, it is a hyperfixation of many spinoffs)
5) Blobby Hisagi
Thank you to our mutuals and followers who continue to react, engage, and support us!!! We are thirsty and look at every single blip on Activity. If given a choice, we would breathe, sleep, and eat Bleach all the time, the Bleach brain rot goes so deep. So thank you for continuing to follow us in this indulgence!
