#she just hadn't figured out what she could do yet but rukia was confident they could have found that out together

[zabiume]

i could talk all day about orihime's relationship with violence and still never tire of it. what do you do when you're 12 and your brother dies and he turns into a monster because you didn't grieve him right. he's not the best example for how to use violence correctly, so you look to your crush, who is kind and honorable and as touched by grief as you are, except guess what! he turns into a monster too! so the natural conclusion is that you give up on trying to fight at all because you're a pacifist and it's chill, people in real life are pacifists and it's an okay thing to be EXCEPT. you're a virgo and a perfectionist and being a perfectionist in a shonen means you've got to be Strong and you don't know how to do that because you've always been weak, your best friend and first protector is literally the strongest girl in japan, you've always been in the shadow of people who can just do things effortlessly while you've got to try and fail before you get anything right. also a part of you doesn't WANT to be strong because most displays of strength you've seen have cost the user their Heart, and you don't want to lose yours – you've been on the receiving end of that display way too much, but a part of you dies every time someone you love gets hurt, so you know your place is on the battlefield, you just don't know where. you don't know how. and you try your best to do what you can with it and you succeed because you're good, orihime, you. are. good.

#and then your friends help you get there :) #orihime inoue #i think what rukia says to orihime when she's comforting her after the whole urahara thing captures orihime's arc very neatly #she just hadn't figured out what she could do yet but rukia was confident they could have found that out together #and i'm a little sad they didn't get to do that but HM needed other things to happen for plot reasons #and i'd like to think that rukia's words did strike a chord somewhere since orihime looks up to her a lot& she HAS gotten over this struggle #as evidenced by the general...everything of fb/tybw arcs i guess #quoting rangiku in that last sentence btw.