#[ about: rukongai ]

[bleachbleachbleach]

Kenpachi's Place

On the subject of "what people call each other" more generally, my favorite Bleach topic, Aizen is also kind of weird about Zaraki. He refers to Renji leaving the 5th for the 11th as Renji being "taken away to Kenpachi's place." Was he. Was he kidnapped. Is Kenpachi's Place a trafficking front.

Referring to Zaraki by title is a Choice, for sure. I don't know if anyone else does that (besides Ichigo), but I can think of many who do not, would never.

Referring to the 11th as "Kenpachi's Place" also feels like a Choice. It makes me think about Renji's question to Ichigo when they first meet:

[Bleach 054]

His meaning of is speech bubble is, "Which [number] Division are you affiliated with?" but the pronunciation is just "Where are you affiliated?" So there's already a sense, I guess, that the geographic question of "where" implies your divisional affiliation, and that divisions are thought of as places. Makes sense, given that all the divisions are meaningful geographic spreads in the Seireitei.

Is it still weird that it's "Kenpachi's Place" and not just idk, "the 11th Division"? I mean, I think it is, but it does speak to the unique tradition of leadership succession the 11th's got going on, and how intense the cult of personality is in the 11th, as a division whose nature is extremely tied to the nature of whoever its leader happens to be.

Aizen also never actually refers to the 11th as the 11th, so in order to make that connection we'd have to remember Zaraki's name and number from when he showed up at Byakuya's Place. Why wouldn’t he? Idk but I enjoy it as character info. (NB: Byakuya is perfectly happy to refer to Tousen purely by number, as "9th Captain" and not by any name at all, so there's a lot of different conventions out and about across the various captains.)

[alexiethymia]

little things about hitsuhina and ginran I love (design-wise)

how kubo really designed them to be complementary

in the manga, rangiku’s hair is golden while gin’s hair is silver. even when they changed their hair color to strawberry blonde in the anime, they also changed her eyes from blue to silver-grey

even when gin defects, you have his white arrancar outfit with the aqua-blue sash, which complements rangiku’s black shihakusho and blush-pink scarf. it’s quite striking in the colored manga.  

the snake and virgin motif between the two of them, and even hades and persephone, I mean the both of them are also virgos (seriously the fact that they have the same birthday, and they count it on the day they met, they’re such soulmates)

the association of autumn and winter with the both of them (their favorite foods are dried persimmons, and rangiku most often remembers gin with snow)

you wouldn’t normally think that they have thematic links with their zanpakuto unlike say hitsugaya and hinamori with their ice and fire elements, but the fact that gin is also associated with foxes, and haineko’s hilt looks a bit like a fox is very cute to me (EDIT: Apparently, they do have a connection with their zanpakuto! Upon the reread, it seems that Shinsou’s bankai isn’t about how long or fast it contracts, rather it turns to dust for an instant, the moment it expands and contracts. Dust and Ash, wow. I don’t know if Kubo really planned all these out, but idc, I still love these bits and pieces.)

hitsugaya and hinamori are pretty obvious - smol to her tol, cold white snow to her earthy brown, ice and fire

despite hitsugaya’s element, I often associate them with spring and summer, especially since summer is when hinamori would visit home and they’d eat watermelon together

although both hitsugaya and rukia have ice as their element, their thematic connections with their respective childhood friends differ enough.

this is best reflected in hitsugaya’s and renji’s duet about their childhood friends. renji associates himself with dirt and being a stray, while he associates rukia with purity and the cleanness of snow. he’s a howling dog who longs for the moon, and one of rukia’s most famous attacks is tsukishiro or white moon. red and white are their colors.

hitsugaya meanwhile personifies the coldness of ice, while he considers hinamori’s smile and laughter to have been a “spring breeze” which warmed him

color-names and flower-names: there’s also slight symmetry as to their names. both gin’s and hitsugaya’s (or nick)names can refer to their hair colors (silver, white) while rangiku and momo’s names refer to flowers. rangiku or chrysanthemums are supposed to represent truth, and well we all know what gin is like. meanwhile, peach blossoms are spring flowers, while toshiro has the character for ‘winter’ in his first name. plum blossoms (or the ‘ume’ in tobiume), meanwhile, also bloom in late winter and early spring

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

[caramelpeppers]

Uraichi Week Day 1: Time Travel AU

[bothzangetsus]

kinda obsessed with the choices + justifications on that ichigo stays in human worlds vs. goes to soul society poll

[fenikkusunohisana]

Personality Test

 "According to TraitLab, I am modest, timid, bashful, caring, and sensitive." 

Tagged: Swiped from my other account

Tagging: anyone who wants to do it

[gallusrostromegalus]

How many people (and who) have accidently sent nudes to the group chat?

One guy tried to digitally flash the Gotei-13 by "accidentally" sending pictures of his genitals to the groupchat with every female member directly @'d, and then pretended to flail around in "OH NO! I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS HAPPENED! OH NO! DON'T LOOK I'M SO EMBARRASSED!!" instead of deleting them.

Unfortunately for him, his antics drew the attention of "Single Father Whose Young Child Was Just Exposed To Unwanted Penis" and "Former Best and Most Expensive Whore In The Rukongai Who WILL Tell You About It At Length and girth" Zaraki Kenpachi, who had recently discovered how to use Admin Privileges.

Zaraki promptly locked all Minors out of the main chat, Locked The Offender in, gave everyone an "Opt-out-until-all-clear" link, declared it "Hornyposting Hours" until further notice, and kicked off the Sausage party with images of his own "Sword of Heaven".

As one might imagine, the offender did not compare favorably.

Zaraki then Very Benevolently offered the offender "Constructive Criticism" about the shape, size and twenty-two other characteristics of the offender's genitals, along with suggestions about Best Possible Use and Alternative Techniques to develop, "because you're going to need to".

Chat immediately descended into a Bacchanalia of Dicks, Tits, Ass, and even some exceptionally bold Pussy, cheerfully looking to shame the offender and perhaps catch the attention of The Sword Of Heaven's Wielder. DMs were exchanged, Exceptionally Nuanced discussion of sexuality and consent was had, terrible jokes were jokes made, Memes were created (including the "GOT ANOTHER ONE LADS" Bisexual Zaraki flag), and a Jolly Good Time was had by all (save one) until about 9PM when Zaraki declared that it was a school night and he had to go to bed, go bother the Ninth if you want a hornychat.

Tousen, who works nights to get the papers out in the morning, waking up to the sound of his pager going off like a string of fireworks: "...I'm going back to bed."

[bleachbleachbleach]

prev tags ‘this is so long i’m sorry this is mostly nonsense’

WELP here’s an animated depiction of what my response to long nonsense ended up being (AKA continuing the cycle of long nonsense, LOL):

First of all, thank you for the tag! ToT I laughed about the question of what to call things in fanfic because I generally consider them headcanons that died in the woods somewhere, because they’re in the last place anyone is going to find them, LOL. XPP But this post is the exact opposite of that, and so very loving. <3333

It also feels a bit weird to say "I AM VERY INTERESTED IN AND EXCITED BY EVERYTHING IN THIS POST" because parts of it are about things I said but 1) I wouldn’t have written them if I weren’t interested in and excited by them and 2) I am EXTREMELY interested in and excited by all of the ideas and musings you’ve presented here, Weird Rukongai is the best; theories of noble evolution are the best; Rukongai/Seireitei (and their denizens) interfaces are the best aaaaaaaaa

Youthful Ghosts and Rukongai being “hard on children”

@afinepiece​ made a comment about how long (or how briefly) the Inuzuri gang might have been tooling around together before Rukia’s introduction, and Rukongai being "hard on children." There are plenty of practical reasons Rukongai would be hard on children, lol, but it made me wonder if there weren’t also immanent reasons—ones that stem from the disjuncture between their lack of having lived a life prior to coming to Soul Society, and the nature of what Soul Society is meant to be. Like, if relatively speaking there’s not a whole lot of life to be "cleansed" from you, or to kind of ebb away from you before you can go back, does Soul Society become a more hostile environment? Is the slow time of Rukongai too different from the quick time of a child’s experiences, so as to be incompatible?

I generally assume that a soul is an elemental quality (i.e. you can’t have more or less soul than any other soul; a soul is irreducible and is always 1 soul, not 0.75 soul or 1.25 soul, even as expressions vary), so I don’t meant to say that ghost children have less soul. But I wonder if Soul Society is a place where processes/time/whatever are meant to work through you as you wait to be returned to the cycle (or, well, the waiting is part of the cycle) but if you’re a ghost child you’re not the entity the system/place is expecting. And either that compatibility destroys you, or it pressure-cooks you into something else—something with its own spiritual pressure, pushing back against implosion and crafting/MacGuyvering an equilibrium. (A word that shinigami LOVE! They balance plates in its name!)

Qualities Exclusive to Nobles Except When They’re Not

I love your point about what measurements Soul Society might cite in terms of who is noble and who is not; who is of Rukongai and who is still of Rukongai but also possesses qualities that define nobility, whoops. I also feel like children can only be born in Soul Society if high degrees of spiritual pressure are involved; like, that makes sense to me, especially given the seeming rarity of childbirth. And if it helps shore about the nobility’s ideologies of what makes them so special and different from the riff raff, reifying their notions of blood quantum (or rather, heritable reiryoku potential), well… I mean, from a humanistic POV that’s not ideal but from a worldbuilding one it is stellar, haha. And we’ve already established that the way nobility narrates that distinction is actively troubled by the fact of, say, Ichika, specifically! But less directly by the fact that A LOT of the current high-ranking Gotei leadership is from Rukongai and presumably could also have children if they wanted to.

But it’s not *exactly* the same because the pathways were different (or appear to be different, re: whatever distant processes produced the first beings that would become Sul Society nobility, would become shinigami, would become the foundations of Soul Society and then the Seireitei. Maybe they are not so different at that timescale), and these noble-equivalent, Rukongai-originating shinigami will always have rhythms and affinities that are inherently apart from how those of the Seireitei meet the world. (I LOVE THE IDEA OF THIS BEING INDEXED VIS A VIS THE OCEANNNNNNN our beloved, the ocean and Byakuya and Renji and Rukia, no part of this sentence is surprising.)

The Seireitei’s/the Gotei’s relationship to the Living World vs. Rukongai

One of the things I really love thinking about is the Gotei’s relationship to the Living World vs. their relationship to the outlying portions of their own realm. On one hand, they’ve got the Living World sorta on lock, in that there’s formal shinigami zoning and rules and protocols for interaction and gentei reiin and a dangai, senkaimon, etc. etc. etc. On the other, all of these things remain deeply mysterious and the Living World still comes across as some kind of frontier-like hinterland and/or exotic vacation destination. I’d say "the colonial project is incomplete" but that assumes colonial incorporation is the goal and for all the things Soul Society is and does, that really doesn’t seem like one of them. Gold star… for them I guess? XDD Anyway.

Then we have Rukongai, and whatever exists beyond that and/or sinks into the white mist of a 90s computer game that didn’t build the map out that far. They’ve mapped and numbered the districts, they have some sense of how many souls exist where and some means of distributing new souls places. But weird undocumented shit happens all the time and they don’t have the practical capability to actively patrol the whole thing.

So why do the shinigami neglect Rukongai?

1) Because the cultural narrative says the things that live there are so important but also not important shrug emoji.

2) Because there’s literally like 23 shinigami in the entire world and they are all very tired.

3) The magnets told them KEEP OUT (fucking magnets how do they work)

Which lol what I mean by that is what you were exploring about there being cautionary tales about not going or staying too deep in Rukongai, and maybe also some kind of immanent, repellant incompatibility with the place. An inversion of the incompatibility of a child ghost, maybe.

Rukongai+ is that “God when creating Australia” comic

Like in "Away, Away," where the forests are full of magic other than shinigami magic/shinigami being, and as you come more into your potential for shinigami being, your connection to (or just baseline ability to perceive) the other stuff closes off. And the forests being places shinigami aren’t really supposed to *go*. Going off of that, in the fic I’m writing right now, Team Muguruma (as Kensei calls it) spends a lot of time hiking through exactly that forest, and everyone is just kind of like, man, this place feels super weird, tf. The way I’ve drawn the map, you can travel through Junrinan longitudinally and drill down through all the districts in West Rukongai—places the Gotei have mapped and ostensibly could patrol but practically generally can’t. OR you can travel latitudinally and end up in the forests, and mountains, and eventually the ocean—places the Gotei has not mapped and only kind of vaguely knows is there (maybe). It’s uncharted because 1) there are like 23 shinigami in the world an they are all very tired, and simply haven’t gotten around to it, and 2) for Some Reason there don’t tend to be Hollows there so it’s not a regional priority as far as the Gotei’s Strategic Plan.

Some Reason.

(Aside from Kaien being an adventuresome rogue, it makes me wonder if Kaien taking Rukia out to Mt. Koifushi to train wasn’t him trying to tap into some of Rukia’s Rukongai-ness. Like, he takes her out to a place he has some familiarity with and knows some of the weirdness of, just in District 3 but in the mountain boonies—a place he knows enough to know it’s strange and weird, but is famliar enough to him to not get out of hand, because he’s hypothesized that there are rhythms out there that might be enriching for her, in ways she could never find at Kuchiki Kumon.)

This has gotten Very Long, but I feel like the broad strokes analogy I keep coming back to to anchor myself in Living World-Rukongai-Seireitei thoughts is like, space vs. ocean exploration. There’s been so much research in both directions, and there remain so many mysteries. But proportional to its size, we know a bit more about space (the Living World) than we do the deep sea (Rukongai and beyond), even though the deep sea is technically, in terms of physical distance, a lot closer. This was not conscious on my part, but I feel like some of the basic analogies might actually kind of work here, too?

Like, we know that the atmosphere in the Living World is less reishi-dense than in Soul Society. Even apart from soul-fixer being bad for you (yes, still thinking about 2nd Division Rando in your Renji prison-Rukia-era fic), or being in some devious reiryoku-stealing gigai, my headcanon is that being in the Living World long-term has physical effects on shinigami, similar to being in space impacting human bone density, etc. These usually aren’t too big a deal because you just go back to Soul Society and even out and it’s whatever. But it makes me wonder like, if you’re in the Living World for A HUNDRED YEARS does that still hold true? (Me, searching for reasons Kensei, Rose, and Shinji got to be helpful to the war effort for maybe 0.2 collective seconds and Byakuya killed like 15 Sternritter by himself.) But anyway, I was using pressure metaphors earlier with the ghost children and it makes me wonder if the Rukongai+ might not exert similar levels of influence on shinigami (whether deleterious or diamond/mutation-inducing. HOUGYOKU WHOMST). I’ve imagined the Wilds in your fanfics as having a miasmic or sporal quality, but maybe that’s because its orchids make me think in botanic metaphors instead of pressure ones and really all the metaphors are describing the same world from different POVs!

I'm on vacation, so here is a random grab-bag of Soul Society thoughts I had while staring into the sea today (this is mostly for @bleachbleachbleach but you can read it too)

One of my favorite conceits of B3's writing (I feel like things that appear in fanfiction are sort promoted from headcanons but I don't have a good word for it) is the notion that Rukongai has its own magic that is fundamentally different and, in fact, somewhat opposed to shinigami magic. This first shows up in Afar, Afar, where Momo loses her ability to see spirits in Junrinan (and perhaps even her memory that such a thing exists). There was also a notion of it in REVERSE THE BONE (the best Weird Rukongai fic ever written) about the train, which already exists in a sort of quantum state where it sometimes exists both forward and backward in time, but also that the journey depends on the passengers. There's a quote at the beginning, but nonetheless, has completely rewired my brain (it has been over a month, and I am still thinking about it):

Hisagi does not find this mollifying. “Yeah, but I don’t even think Captain Kuchiki gets the same train as the rest of us. Have you ever tried to use his restaurant reviews? Because I always print these things, and they sound great, then I go. And then they’ll look at me like—Well. It’s like I’m not even at the same restaurant. But hey, at least you’ll get to see a lot, right? I’ve heard East Rukongai these days is… fine!”

Within the context of the story, this is just hyperbole. Of course Byakuya experiences things differently, he's incredibly rich and powerful, etc, etc, but the thing that sticks in my head about this is that Byakuya is fundamentally different from Hisagi, and also Hitsugaya and Hinamori, who are the protagonists of this piece, because he is a creature of Soul Society and they are not.

The Rukon is a place for ghosts. For beings that lived a life on Earth and died. It is an afterlife. A thing I find incredibly interesting is that nearly all the Rukon-hailing shinigami we know of died as children. Additionally, they are all Really Good at being shinigami--captains and vice-captains, although this is a function of Bleach being a story about the more powerful members of Soul Society. Anyway, I think this is not a coincidence.

Two things that are true about Bleach are that: a) liminal things, hybrid things, things that exist at the boundaries of two other things, tend to be more powerful b) power is also achieved through transformation

It makes 100% sense to me that a child ghost has more potential to become in Soul Society. We also know that aging is non-linear, and that age changes tend to come in concert with increases in power. All of this feels very consistent and right to me.

In particular, consider Rukia, who died as a baby (and we don't know this for sure, but her sister, who died as an older child or teen did not seem to have the same potential). She was human, but only got to live a small fraction of the life she could have, and instead, went to Soul Society, and became such a creature of Soul Society, that she not only achieved bankai, but trained in the Royal Realm, a thing that few other shinigami get to do.

This reminded me of a line from my own fanfic, Hold On, Hold On, where I was trying to make sense of the "lieutenant is equivalent of nobility" thing (through the convenient mouthpieces of Kira and Hinamori):

“High ranking shinigami are basically considered to be nobility,” Izuru explains. “Or close enough for most purposes.” “The argument goes,” Momo elaborates, in a way that she knows will resonate with Renji, “that the reason nobles are noble is because their souls are so pure and strong, right? So how else can you explain the captains that come from Rukongai? You can’t, so you have to act like they’re noble, too, right? Noble logic.”

And while I don't think I'm wrong, what if there's more to it? What if there is something that is fundamental to one's nature that nobles and powerful shinigami have in common, something that also corresponds to the nature of the Seireitei.

There's one other thing that I think they may have in common, and that's the ability to reproduce. Fanon is split on this topic, but I've always been of the mind that having babies in Soul Society is something only people with strong spiritual energy are able to do. So, in that sense, if noble people see themselves as defined by having been born in the Soul Society, of being creatures who have never lived, it's not exactly the same, but a Rukongai wandering soul who gains the ability to reproduce is certainly a step closer, no?

(Is this the part where I talk about Soul Society nobility and their parallels to faeries, with their low birthrate and stealing babies and people of talent to join their underground magical kingdom?)

An interesting ramification of all of this, is that you've got Rukia and Renji, who represent one of the most successful cases of dead souls acclimating to Soul Society and reaching the highest echelons of power, but I strongly suspect that there are still some fundamentally Rukon things about them-- things they see, things they feel, things they remember. What makes this extra cool to me is the fact that they hang out with Byakuya, the product of dozens of generations of Soul Society lineage. In fact, the catalyst for all of this thinking was me thinking about Byakuya having an instinctive distrust of the sea, whereas Rukia and Renji and Hisana all love it. Now, I am generally not very interested in Ichika, but I am interested in the fact that she is something different than her parents. That on some level she has more in common with Byakuya. I mean, is this the origin stories for Soul Society's noble clans in the first place? Some souls made themselves powerful enough to make more of themselves?? That is a pretty interesting thought to me, not that I've come up with anything interesting to do with it. It's like, what if you were a changeling, and you got adopted by the king of the faeries and you had a baby with another human changeling, but your baby was a faery? (Polynya, this was the plot of Books of Magic. Kinda sorta. You have somehow achieved your life goal of six degrees of John Constantine-ing Tim Hunter and Kuchiki Rukia and it was entirely by accident.)

Anyway, that was my complete quota of interesting Ichika thoughts for today (I still think it would have been cooler if they got to conceive a baby in the Royal Realm but no one asked me).

The more interesting direction that these thoughts took goes back to B3's fic, in the sense of: do the nobles avoid the Rukon? What is it that they don't like about it? The implication is always just basically that it's poor and not as nice as the Seireitei, but what if there are things that are in opposition to the law and order that people like Yamamoto have imposed on the controlled area inside the city walls. Even the Shiba, the infamous rebel outcasts only live in District 1.

Consider Ukitake's backstory--his noble family were so desperate to save their sick child that they went out to District 76 and made a deal with a god/a piece of the Soul King (is there a difference? does it matter?), a thing which gave Ukitake the capability to become a vessel for a god. I feel like Mimihagi wouldn't/couldn't have made that deal with an ordinary soul. This happened a super long time ago and I bet there have been all kinds of cautionary tales, etc, to discourage this kind of behavior today. (Which also ties a little into Yhwach's "the Gotei used to be better, you suck now" comment)

I'm not really converging on any sort of conclusion, here, it's just sort of interesting to me. The Rukongai sort of represents wild lawlessness, I think, the loss of rules and sense. The TYBW is all about how the order of Soul Society (and Hueco Mundo and the Living World) is a thing that was invented for and by the shinigami for their own benefit, and I think they don't even really have control of their entire realm, just the central bit.

There's a constant fanon outcry of "why do the shinigami neglect Rukongai?" and it's always because "Soul Society sucks" and "Central 46 is dicks" etc, but I think it's interesting to think about the shinigami as a social order that truly has limited power, and that there is a lot of shit in the Rukon that is more than is dreamt of in their philosophy, if you get my drift, whether it's werewolf clans or trains that don't obey the laws of time and space. It's like the way in a horror movie, the cop or the army dude gets taken down by the monster in the woods who is eventually defeated by a teen or something. Shinigami are very powerful when it comes to dealing with the interface between the World of the Living and their personal World of the Dead, but they are less well equipped to deal with the things in their own backyard.

Regretfully, none of this cohered in my head into anything that I could spin into a good story (I'm not sure they even cohered into this essay), but maybe it will roll around in my head long enough to grow a pearl, who knows?

[muzansfangs]

Hiii! I hope ur still accepting requests. Recently, an idea has stuck in my head. What about taking bath with Aizen and his s/o? I hope you will accept it!

Cleanse my soul.

Starring: Aizen Sosuke x f!reader; mention to Shinji Hirako, Kisuke Urahara, Kensei Muguruma, Rojuro Otoribashi, Lisa Yadomaru, Hiyori Sarugaki;

Format: one-shot;

Warnings: nsfw, vaginal fingering, cock-warming, vaginal sex, creampie, fear play, smoking, clit-edging, jealousy, nudity, Lieutenant Aizen, morally grey reader, mention to attempted murder, violence, gore, blood, talks about the future, betrayal, trust issues, turn back the pendolum arc, established relationship;

Plot: He was back, knocking on your door in the dead of the night. His Lieutenant badge had been damaged, the gleam in his chestnut eyes telling you he had succeeded in accomplishing his plan. He always seeked your company, after long days of work and unspeakable crimes committed to chase his dream of becoming a God. You were the only thing he would have never given up to on his climb to the Heaven.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Reading by the window to distract yourself, you had watched in agitation the way your Captain had left the barracks to investigate on the sudden disappearence of Kensei Muguruma and and some members of his squad. Your stomach churned, apprehension leaving space to the mournful feeling of being forced to accept a brutal reality no one else in your Division was prepared for: at the end of the night, you were either going to say goodbye to Hirako Shinji, your Captain, or to Sosuke Aizen, his Lieutenant, your boyfriend.

No one else knew what was really happening, besides you, Kaname Tosen and Gin Ichimaru, the young prodigy Sosuke seemed to be so enthusiastic about. The secrets you harbored behind your soft smile, when you conversed with your friends, as if you had not just witnessed to some poor inhabitants of the Rukongai vanishing before you wary eyes, when you lied for him, when you cradled his face in your hands and reassured him everything was going to be okay, when he silently pleaded you to cleanse his soul by fucking you up against a wall and telling you the world was soon going to acclaim you their queen, were slowly consuming you up from the inside like acid sizzling the delicate walls of your stomach.

Despite that, you had chosen him above anything and anyone else. You were the priest absolving him from the sins he kept on staining his soul with for the sake of his ideals. The real question was: who cleansed your soul?

You often queried whether his efforts to keep your hands clean were actually successful. You were not innocent. You were guilty as well. You had just betrayed the Soul Society and your friends. Your idle tongue was as sharp as Sosuke’s blade. You wondered how many of your friends had already fallen by your boyfriend’s hand. A massacre was taking place outside and there you were, safe in your dorm and hoping Kisuke Urahara was not going to disrupt your lover’s plans.

Someone knocking on your door made you flinch, back straightening as a ramrod as you settled your book down on the ebony desk, careful not to make a sound. What if Sosuke had failed? Maybe he had sold you off too, after being arrested. The mere thought of your beloved boyfriend throwing you to the wolves made chills run down your spine and your mouth turn to chalk. Would Sosuke really do such a thing to you? You wondered, once again, if he loved you as much as you did.

You mentally rebuked yourself for assuming the worst. Sosuke loved you. Why were you doubting his feelings for you? Probably, you were just projecting onto your relationship the ominous feelings, swallowing you in a whirlwind of fear and anxiety, that you experienced when you watched him work cold-heartedly, sacrificing souls, to the chilling phenomen known as Hollowfication.

Your hand reached for your zanpakuto, your bare feet sliding onto the wooden floor without making a sound, just like he had taught you throughout the years you had spent together. You took a sharp intake of breath, tightening your grip on the hilt of your katana until your knuckles turned white. The visitor was masterly suppressing their reiatsu, making it impossible to detect their presence and identify who they were. You knew what you had to do, in case Sosuke’s failed and the guards went after you. Killing comrades, however, was entirely different from massacring Hollows. You were a shinigami, not an assassin. If the person knocking on your door was not your boyfriend, your blade was going to drip viscous, crimson blood of a shinigami.

Hiding your katana behind your back, you slided the door open, ready to become a full-fledged traitress. The lean frame occupying the threshold made you discard the blade onto the floor instinctively, the sound of the weapon clattering against the parquet echoing in the silent night, as your hands clutched the fabric of Sosuke’s shihakushō and pulled him inside. He had come back safe and sound.

It only meant one thing: the Fifth Division had lost its Captain.

You relished the bittersweet taste of happiness achieved through betrayal, when you smashed your lips onto his, hand scrambling to your side to slide the door shut. Yet, you had learnt to be selfish, you had grown familiar with the sensation of enjoying moments of peace and unbridled excitement, when other people were in pain. Sosuke held you close to his chest, his hands cupping your cheeks as he kissed you back with equal fervor. His hair were disheveled, the badge indicating his status of Lieutenant was gone, the black fabric of his uniform torn in some parts, dirt dusted his clothes and visage.

“Are you hurt?” you dared murmuring against his lips, ignoring the way he was already trying to disrobe you.

“Unscathed. — he shortly informed you — But I could use a bath” he added, mouth voraciously assaulting the crook of your neck, whilst you were attempting to make a small conversation to know details about his victory.

However, right now, when you were in his arms and his teeth were nipping at your tender flesh, Sosuke did not seem to give a iota about further explanations. He had won. He had promised to come back to you and there he was, pushing you towards the bathroom, heedless of the corners biting onto your sides as he forced you to stumble backwards to reach the destination he had chosen for you two to spend the rest of the night at.

You winced pathetically against his lips, the chilly, wintry air blowing through the small, wide-open window of your bathroom leaving goosebumps on your now naked shoulderblades. The rustle of your clothes landing onto the floorboard accompanied you to the edge of the bath, as he finally let go of you and began to undress himself before your glossy, dreamy eyes.

No matter how many times you had traced the outlines of his abs with your lips, or fingertips, every single time his body was bared for you to contemplate you lost any cognitive capacity of thinking straight. Sosuke had always got you in a chokehold from the day you first met at the Academy.

He was that kind of man who outfoxed everyone around him, the sweet-natured guy with glasses no one would have ever accused of committing bloodcurdling felonies. Sosuke Aizen was far from being an ordinary man, some stranger easy to forget about. He had captivated you effortlessly in the palms of his hands, like a clueless butterfly delicately landing on the fruity, multicolored petals of a carnivorous plant only to be devoured to the bone. You had become one with him.

You realized you had been fantasizing about him again only when his hand reached for you chin, forcing you to crane up your neck and meet his gaze. His glasses were gone, his beautiful chestnut brown eyes boring into yours in anticipation as he brushed his thumb over your cheek “Focus on me” he commanded, his words no longer sugar-coated, the typical honeyed tone slipping out of his mouth when he talked to you absent.

His ravenous side strived to take over, evidently. He desired you like a helpless shipwrecked person hoped to find water in a deserted island, adrift amidst the salty water of the Ocean.

Seldomly you had recognized the diabolic gleam in his eyes outside the safe walls of your dorms. His lust, his thirst for power, his greed and ambitions were never showcased in his ever so kind eyes, the same pretty eyes bewitching you right now. Sosuke was the incarnation of the infamous wolf in sheep’s clothing. He had people bamboozled, unable to see him as nothing less than a noble, proficient and polite man minding his business and even reprimanding his Captain for the sake of his Division.

A man with leardship, but uncapable of doing any harm.

Perhaps, it was because you knew him so intimately that his demons had grown familiar with yours that you often asked yourself if you were a mere pawn in his hands, a pretty diamond pin to wear in order to fool people about his real intentions. You hesitated, a small frown creasing your forehead as you watched Sosuke impassibly stare at you in confusion.

“Tell me something, Sosuke. — you started, miraculously modulating your voice in a firm but soft tone — Are you going to abandon me, once the world will be in your hands?”.

His eyes clouded over for a moment, your stomach churning in apprehension. What if you had ruined it all? You impudent mouth, your lips quivering in fright, your heart pumping fast in your chest had revealed you were scared of losing him, or to be fair, of him.

Sosuke’s jaw clenched, his other hand gripping your hip to push you back towards the cool edge of the tub, the still warm water sparkling under the moonlight dimly enlightening the room “When the world will be nothing but a possession of mine, I will give it to you” he stated, making your stomach somersault.

Regrets for having even asked him such a silly question gnawed at your stomach, guilty conscience weighing on your shoulders like a heavy read. You blinked a few times in a row, watching as your boyfriend sidestepped you to climb into the tub. The sound of the water splashing onto the floor, overflowing from the edge, filled the air. Sosuke leaned his back against the bath, arms comfortably positioned on each side of it, penetrative gaze commanding you to join him.

Resisting was impossible. Entering the water, you snuggled into his chest, your back adhering to his firm abs as your neck reclined. Your hair tickled his chin, his jawline, his eyes closing to finally relax. He would have never admitted it, but you could tell he was exhausted. Even Kings needed to slack off, to ignore their duties and enjoy the small moments of bliss their life granted them.

“I need you to believe in me” he spoke out then, velvet voice playing the chords of your heart, as you swallowed thickly.

“I believe in you”.

“Then don’t doubt my love for you. Never” he asked of you tiredly, his arms now leisurely encircling your waist to bring your body closer to his, skin to skin, his mouth gliding down the curve of your neck.

You hummed, thighs parting, when his hand slipped further down your body, disappearing underneath the translucent water “I’m sorry. But this is all so scary, Sosuke. I was afraid—”.

“Afraid of what? That you mattered less than glory and honorifics?”.

You squeezed your eyes shut, his deft fingers parting your dewy folds as if they were a syrupy fig for him to feast on, the scene reminding you of a depraved bucolic lyric about a Greek, Attic shepherd corrupting a modest nymph by a river. A blasphemy you were condoning sheepishly.

The moans you let out were not the answers he was trying to coax you to pronounce “Answer me” he pressed.

“N-No!” you stammered, hips rocking as he plunged a finger into your tight hole, causing him to pull it out and gently pinching on your clit. While the action obviously did not hurt you, it sent waves of electricity running through your body. You jolted onto your seat, toes curling as you lolled your head back onto his shoulder.

Sosuke’s teeth nibbled onto your earlobe, before he hushed you “Hush, love. Can you just recall what I have taught you? Provide me a good argumentation and I won’t prolong this torture further” he whispered, his brown eyes shifting to a small cabinet at his right, making his blood boil in his veins.

Why did you still keep such an object in your house?

Were you maybe going behind his back? Were you actually siding with that frowsy scientist he had taken care of nearly an hour ago? Kisuke Urahara would have not been a problem anymore, whatever was the reason behind your injudicious decision of discarding that water-pipe in such a place for his eyes to see. A small test of your loyalty would have sufficed to prove how deeply you cared for him, to understand whether your devotion was pure and solely on him, or not.

Hazy, you clasped your hand over your mouth to muffle out another whimper threatening to erupt from your throat. Rationality left your body, when he touched you. How were you supposed to force your brain to properly function, when Sosuke was flicking your throbbing clitoris torturously between his thumb and index? Despite that, you knew damn well the only solution to your problem was doing exactly what he had said.

Tears prickling in your expressive eyes, you pushed your knees together, only for Sosuke to chide you and run his fingers through your drenched hair. His nails scraped your scalp ever so lightly, but it was enough to stop your futile struggle.

“You have such a pretty mouth, darling. Let me hear your voice, hm?” he mumbled, one of his arms sliding around your abdomen and pulling you flush against him while the other pinched your clitoris again.

You squealed out in overstimulation, your body too sensitive to endure more of this edging. It was his usual wicked game of power and self-control. Sosuke was in command, yet he made sure you always had your chance to make his ministrations cease. All you had to do was playing your part, like a pretty ballerina moving under his instructions. A false step and you sprained your ankle.

You huffed, cheeks heating up in embarrassment and shame for your total lack of backbone, when it came done to him “A Goddess shall never be afraid” you blurted out, sinking further into the water as a satisfied hum resonated from behind you.

True to his words, he stopped playing with your pearl, fingers merely delving into your pussy instead. Scissoring them gently into your warm cavern, Sosuke pressed his lips against your nape, eyes darkening in lust and a something shady you had failed to see due to your position.

“That’s right. You’re the future wife of a God. No matter how powerful and cruel a divinity is… — he started, one of his hand reaching out to grasp that water-pipe irking him to no end — A man is nothing without his woman” he finished, inspecting the smoking device between his fingers.

His words had left you breathless, your inner walls squeezing his fingers as you writhed in his arms. Your moans echoed in your small dorm, probably the shinigamis in the backyard had heard you too, but you did not care, nor did him. They knew better than coming after the Lieutenant’s girlfriend.

The respect he had gained through the years surpassed even the one your comrades had for the late Shinji Hirako.

Your eyelids had shut, relishing into the way he fingered you so deliciously, and your mouth was hanging open to release those shamelessly high-pitched cries of pleasure he loved so much. The hard wood of the pipe resting against your bottom lip, though, made your eyes snap open again.

Dread washed over you, as Sosuke’s fingers tangled your hair, yanking them back harshly “You still keep his gifts. Smoke for me then. Smoke to celebrate his incoming downfall, darling” he crooned, your blood running cold in your veins as he gripped your wrist and directed your hand up to make you grab the object yourself.

Yout shaky hands did wrap around it, teary eyes meeting his cold ones “S-Sosuke, I am sorry! I just forgot to throw it away, I promise” you apologized profusely, watching how he softly smiled at you and prompted you to raise your hips enough for him to impale you onto his cock.

“I know you did. — he cooed, the bulbous head of his shaft stretching your aching hole, as you languidly looked at him and whimpered as he buried himself deep into your welcoming core — I suggest you to smoke in his honor one last time, darling. Cry for his departure” he whispered, mouth leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses down the curve of your neck.

And you mourned Kisuke’s fate. Oh, you did it so convincingly, for after cock-warming your beloved boyfriend for a while he then began to thrust into you in hard, punishing thrusts making you sob tears of pleasure. You hiccuped, blurry vision, smoke filling your lungs, as you exaled through your nostrils.

Body sore, heat overflowing with Sosuke’s hot seed, you collapsed against chest. His arms held you close to him, as he watched the device sink into the now murky water, forgotten forever like the destiny of all those Captains and Lieutenants who had been unlucky to cross his path.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hello there! Uhm, I feel too ashamed to say anything about this. If it is not toxic, it’s not Sosuke to me. Ah, my first red flag crush… Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I adored writing it!

Likes, comments and re-posts are greatly appreciated!

Until next,

X O X O

TAGS: @onyxino @velaenaa @villainsrtasty @stygianoir @noirfan12 @bucciaratizippers @linkwho1 @0wh1te0 @bakugosgirl01 @persuasivus because I think you might enjoy it💫

[my-my-my]

Hiiiii! I hope you’re doing well! I’ve a very interesting idea with Aizen. What about body swapping? Can you write about the body swap between s/o and Aizen for one day? I wanna see Aizen's reaction 😂

Oh what a fun idea!! I received a similar ask to this one, so I'll be answering both. I wasn't sure anon(s) if you wanted me to do this in Soul Society or as an AU, so this is gonna be set during his Lieutenant days!

TW: body swapping, some mentions of female genetalia/body parts, references to some NSFW activities

Sosuke awoke to the sounds of birds singing and cicadas chirping. He felt unusually sticky, sweaty and sore, especially his lower body. He rubbed his face awake, and peered over to your side of the bed… which was the wall? Odd, you two never changed sleeping positions.

Sosuke got himself up to turn around, feeling a bit weaker than normal, and the soreness increasing 10-fold. He winced in pain, then his eyes widened in shock.

What was he doing on the other side of the bed!?!

He looked in horror as his eye traveled down your body, your breasts were covered from his bite marks from last night, the stickiness was from the mix of his and your cum from last night. Sosuke was wide awake now.

He grabbed his shoulder, hoping that it was you in his body and not someone else.

“Sosuke – give me five more minutes” you mumbled in his voice, which startled you awake. “Why does my voice –“

“Listen to me.” Sosuke spoke through your body. You jolted up in his.

“Sosuke – I – how did this happen?”

“I’m not sure, but we don’t have time to spare. I need to investigate this to make sure it isn’t permanent.” You couldn’t help but laugh at how much he sounded like himself in your voice. “What are you laughing about?” Sosuke asked, curiously.

“Oh nothing, it’s just weird to hear myself speak like you do.”

“What is that supposed to mean? No matter, you need to visit Hirako’s office immediately. He’ll become suspicious if I’m not early.”

You sighed, “ok, ok. But promise me you won’t do anything weird to my body!” as you got yourself ready for the day. It was strange to see Sosuke help you with his uniform, even still, his uniform looked a bit odd on you. It wasn’t as put-together as it usually was on him.

Sosuke sighed as he looked at the time, “you need to leave now.” He drawled, pushing you out the door, he winced as his body’s soreness reappeared. “Are you always this sore?”

“Sosuke, you were… how should I say, especially skillful last night”, blushing, avoiding his eye contact. “Sometimes my body takes a day or two to recover from our fun.”

Sosuke, well you, were giving a confused, yet serious look on your (his?) face. It was weird to see your face look so serious, but no matter. You sprinted to Captain Hirako’s office.

“Oi Sosuke, you’re late!”

“I’m sorry captain, for once in my life, I thought I could sleep in.” You sheepishly admitted. Captain Hirako narrowed his eyes, then relaxed, pushing the paperwork that needed to be completed today.

Outside of Rukongai, Sosuke entered his lab. He entrusted no one with its location, not even you. But if he is successful in finding a solution today, that may change.

Sosuke disrobed the clothes you chose to wear and inspected your body through the mirror. He was impressed with his “work” on you last night, admiring the bite and teeth marks covering your body.

He watched in amazement as your nipples hardened as he gently brushed your hands over your chest. He could feel your core tighten, from what he suspected was from arousal.

Sosuke knew what you enjoyed, and brushed your clit, forcing a moan out your body. It startled Sosuke how aroused he was to hear your voice so loud and clear. He pushed one of your fingers inside you, admiring how small your hand was. Did you pleasure yourself like this when he wasn’t around?

One finger was followed by another, before he had three of your fingers inside you. Your body couldn’t take it anymore and Sosuke felt sensitive and sore. He stared at your body in the mirror again, admiring how beautiful you were post-orgasm.

But he had no time – he hurriedly put back your clothes on and pulled out old textbooks and scrolls.

Elsewhere, Captain Hirako stared at you intently. You could feel his beady eyes watch your every move. Out of nervousness, you gulped, “Captain Hirako, is everything alright?”

“Ya seem a bit different today, Sosuke. Maybe sleepin’ in does wonders for your stick-in-the-mud personality.” You couldn’t help but laugh at that comment, you knew Sosuke was a bit strict with his captain. Shinji raised an eyebrow to your reaction.

“Well” you laughed, then coughed, trying to be more “Lieutenant Aizen”-like, “if you were as serious, maybe I could relax a bit. One of us must be stern with the squad.” You explained to him.

Shinji narrowed his eyes in suspicion but said nothing of it… if Shinji were completely honest, this “Sosuke” was different, but in a good way.

“Ya know Sosuke, why don’t we have a drink tonight. It’s not often we have drinks together.”

You scratched the back of Sosuke’s head out of nervousness, a tick you carried through from your own body. “Maybe not tonight Captain, I’m a bit sore today from training with the other squad members. Lets have a drink tomorrow. It’ll be my treat.”

“Ya promise, Sosuke?”

You shook Shinji’s hand, which shocked him – something was definitely different.

“Get outta here you weirdo!” Shinji admonished, “go home and rest up, we’re gonna ransack the pubs tomorrow.” You gave a sheepish smile and excused yourself.

Running back to Sosuke’s quarters, you were met with Sosuke in your body. A large, sly grin appeared on your face. Sosuke dragged you, in his body, to the bedroom and pushed you to the futon below. He began to recite the spell and you began to close your eyes at the intensity, you felt your soul being dragged out of Sosuke’s body. The two of you let out a scream, then complete silence.

As you awoke, you saw Sosuke’s face – wide awake and smirking at you.

“You fixed it Sosuke!"

Sosuke pulled you closer – “yes, but it was nice to have you for a day...” his eyes roaming over you body.

You huffed at him, poking him hard in the chest. “I told you no funny business in my body!” You tried your best to give him a stern glare.

“No funny business, not to my favourite test subject.” He murmured into your hair. “Your voice made such beautiful sounds yesterday… sounds I want to hear again.”

But you were so sore, whatever Sosuke did with your body yesterday, you were sure you needed rest form. “Sosuke, how about.. tomorrow… - oh wait, I promised Captain Hirako drinks.”

“You’re spending time with my captain?” Aizen lowered his voice, his eyes narrowing in jealousy.

“Oh… not me… you.”

“What?”

“… um… tomorrow, have fun with Captain Hirako! I agreed to go drinking with him in your body…” You nervously laughed.

Sosuke grabbed your wrists and pinned you down, “Really? Is that so?” Aizen stared at you with slight anger, then mischief flashed in his eyes. “I think you need to be punished tonight then.”

Oh boy you thought to yourself, “just go easy on me” you pleaded.

“Easy? On you?” Aizen chuckled, leaning down to kiss your forehead, “never.”

This was fun haha! Thank you for such a fun idea. It's been so long since I wrote anything Aizen, so thanks again!

[rayshippouuchiha]

For the Oyabun!Ichigo AU:

After Kisuke manages to unseal Ichigo, the first thing he does is tuck his body away in Kisuke’s lab for safe keeping, and return to Seireitei because two of his men have passed since he took over his little but ever growing band of yakuza - one from a car accident, one from a wasting illness that didn’t react to any treatment - and Ichigo will be damned if he doesn’t take care of his people in death as he does in life. 

It takes a few days to track them both down in the outer districts of Rukongai, but enough of his senses had remained after the sealing that he knows what each and every one of his people feels like. And while they haven’t always done good things, they are good men, and every one of them has done their best to protect Karakura to their dying. 

And he knows what he needs to do.

Ichigo, showing up to Seireitei: hey

Seireitei, unaware that Ichigo had been unsealed or unalived: AAHAHAhaahahhahaHHHAHAH

Ichigo: stop screaming it’s just me

Seireitei, immediately shutting up because they’re still programmed to listen to his orders: ….

Ichigo, holding up both of his ben by their collars like misbehaving kittens: these two are mine but you can borrow them

Ichigo, to his men: listen, they kind of suck but they said they’re trying. if you see anything hinky, come get me immediately

Ichigo’s Men: we’re….dead?

Ichigo: does that look like it’s stopped me?”

And over the years the Gotei Thirteen get used to Ichigo popping up with newly deceased souls and directing them to what he feels is the appropriate Divisions. Most of them go to Kenpachi in the 11th - “He’s strong as shit, but they’re all kind of idiots and they’re bored. See if you can do something about that. Stand your ground and you’ll be fine.” - a surprising amount are directed to Unohana and the 4th - “She’s a great teacher, but the key is respect. She’ll pull out your spine to prove a point and then put it back in to make a point. You’re just a soul now; you’ll survive it and it will suck.”

Several key people are given to the 7th. Komamura is in charge of diplomacy between Seireitei and Rukongai. Ichigo has seen what the outer districts are like and he has plans. It won’t hurt to have some of the men he trusts ready and waiting for the changes he’s going to make. 

Every Captain, Lieutenant, and all of their underlings hold their collective breath the one and only time Ichigo drags - literally - one of his men to the 6th Division.

Ichigo: what’s up byakuya, rukia says we’re still on for dinner next week also i brought you this

Ichigo: *holds up his man like he’s a white boy showing off a fish he caught*

Ichigo: this is akio he is the best fucking accountant i have ever met in my life my accounts have never been cleaner he’s fucking bomb at taxes you should let him do your paperwork

Byakuya, knowing full well that Ichigo is just Like That: Rukia has mentioned the plum sake Urahara keeps on hand. Bring a bottle or two. You can leave that there. I’ll take care of it. 

Ichigo, dropping his man: cool thanks see you next week

Yes god. Once you're one of Ichigo's people you're HIS and not even death changes that. Plus, being so close to Ichigo for so long, even before Kisuke fixes him up, is absolutely going to activate and build up spiritual power in his minions.

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach e312]

Snake Wines and Beer Steins*: An Anthropology of West Rukongai

* I learned this morning that is not a stein, but I’m keeping it for the assonance!

Really down the rabbithole with this episode and cannot put it down, but this cap is such a completely fascinating glimpse at potential Rukongai cultures and trade routes! 

The first thing that caught my eye, naturally, was the snake, which when this scene first came up I thought was just a completely undressed snake on a plate. But when I went to take the cap, no! It’s a snake in liquid! Which led me to believe it was a pickled snake. 

But then my co-blogger brought up snake wine, which it definitely is. According to Wikipedia, the liquid part of habushu, snake sake from the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa), is mixed with herbs and honey, which is why it has a yellow tint. The Habu snake is a pit viper viewed as both a menace (it can launch itself and bite you from pretty far away) and as a god, bestowing health and virility. (Contemporary Ryukyuan/Okinawan literature sometimes includes habu snakes as an anti-colonial metaphor, such as Medoruma Shun’s 1999 short story, “Hope.”)

1. Increased Importance of Medicinal Food vs. Sustenance Food in Rukongai

Makes all the sense in the world to me that Rukongai would have virility wine. If you don’t need to eat to survive, I imagine the value of virility wine is quite high. ...I mean, what else is there to do out there?

2. Climate Profiles Suggest Far-Reaching Trade Networks

Because the Gate Guardian who shows up in this episode is Jidanbou, this means the village Oomaeda encounters is in West Rukongai somewhere—probably close to the gates, since Soi Fon expected him back after a day trip. (But per the Bount arc, Renji can apparently run to the ass-end of Rukongai to the Seireitei and back in a few hours, so there’s some wiggle room here.) 

Nothing we’ve seen from West Rukongai suggests it’s climatologically similar to the Ryukyu Islands (or to southeast Asia, where similar pit vipers live), which are subtropical. Soul Society always gives the impression of being fairly temperate. At least, it snows in the Seireitei without mountain elevations being involved (Winter Fireworks chapter). West Rukongai is where Hokutan is, the mountains where Kaien and Rukia trained, which gave the impression of being pretty temperate. West Rukongai is also where Junrinan is—where Hitsugaya and Hinamori are from. Judging by Hitsugaya’s behavior in the Beach Episode, if Junrinan was anything like the Ryukyu Islands, he’d have perished long ago.

So… DID THEY TRADE FOR IT. DID THEY GET THE SNAKE WINE FROM ELSEWHERE. How far away is that elsewhere? How many different owners’ hands did it pass through to make it to this village, to this feast? Snake wine is intended to age fairly substantially, which in Rukongai could mean quite a bit of time. How old is this snake wine? What is its provenance?? Potential evidence of complex and far-reaching patterns of trade and shared ascriptions of value, is what I’m saying. snake wine snake wine snake wine

In my mind, I’ve mostly transposed Japan over Soul Society and imagine  North Rukongai as northern Japan, West Rukongai as western Japan, etc. Except in my mind sometimes south is southern Japan and sometimes it’s northern New Mexico lol. East Rukongai in my mind is "idk, New Jersey?" Maybe the snake wine is from the version of southern Rukongai where Pirate AU Soi Fon lives, dominating the high seas…

3. Evidence of Glassworking and Alcohol Production Characteristic of the late 19th/early 20th Centuries

[For reference, Soul Society is typically described as being similar to the Edo Period of Japanese history, which spanned the 17th-19th centuries.]

The second standout beverage here is the beer stein, which I called a stein and then learned that the original beer steins came from the Bubonic Plague era and had tops, for plague reasons, and were made out of wood and leather and then pewter. What do I know, I don’t drink, LOL.

That is more technically a ten-sided handled glass pint, which became popular in the early half of the 20th century in England, though some sources place it in Austria a few decades earlier. Drinking beer out of various forms of glass predates that, and there was a whole period of ceramic drinkware and trade with China and Japan thrown in the centuries between, blah blah. But two things are probably true if there’s a glass beer mug: 

 1. Glassworking has developed enough to make this workable/not a holy pain, production-wise. But again, this is Rukongai—maybe this is the one mug in all existence in West Rukongai and not something intended for mass production. They’re toasting the once-in-a-lifetime event of a Gotei captain slumming it with them, after all. Heck, maybe they got it from the Seireitei, which definitely has more than one of these, though after a cursory look at two places I thought they’d appear, neither does. LOL. Welp. 

2. Beer production has developed enough that it’s filtered and there’s not unseemly gunk floating around in it (made obvious by the fact that you’re drinking it out of a clear glass mug). This could mean Rukongai is pretty with the times with is alcohol production.

Not that that begins to touch why ten-sided handled glass pints from late 19th/early 20th century England and/or Austria are in West Rukongai, a place less likely to have them than the Seireitei, where weird anachronistic stuff seems like it would come into circulation with more regularity.

I love the idea that even if souls don’t remember their previous lives, there’s still imprints and rogue dreams and strange images floating around in their heads, their muscle memories. But like, specifically the version where sometimes the rogue dream is just a gigantic, bomb-ass cup that Some Guy then proceeds to spend his entire afterlife re-developing. He is a VISIONARY. A GENIUS. A rare mind inventing something the likes of which have never been seen is this world but that exist in his mind so clearly it is as though he has seen it in his hands before!!

[thewritetofreespeech]

i had an idea for a request so basically how the bleach men (grimmjow, kensei and myb shunsui?, add another character if you want to!) would react when a kid innocently tells they want to marry reader when they grow up? Reader can be fem or gender neutral!

i found this troupe cute! i hope you can write it!💙

Don’t touch his woman!

Grimmjow knows that they are a kid, sort of. There are no children in Huecho Mundo. Not really. Nor innocence.

He sees it as an immediate threat to someone trying to take his person from him. And he has to be reminded that human children just say things like that. And don’t punch children.

Won’t say anything on it, but he thinks it’s pretty cute.

Kensei has a pretty big soft spot for kids. He actually still helps a lot of the orphaned children in Rukongai, which is how this situation took place.

He knows that they are a kind, genuinely good person with a big heart. So of course other people are going to fall in love with them. Just don’t let it go further than that.

Laughs. He thinks it’s adorable.

Kids do say the darndest things. And Shusui knows how perfectly amazing his partner is. It’s why he keeps them around.

Actually encourages the kid to keep asking them, or bring them flowers, as he thinks their embarrassed/flustered face in return of the kid’s affection is too cute. Jokes about having to ‘fight for their hand’ some day in return.

[littleeyesofpallas]

I haven't bothered to go dig up all the surrounding bits of lore to clip out and post right now, but it did strike me a weird that Ukitakes flashback took place in such a nice looking area? The Rukongai are supposed to get worse as the numbers go up and the districts get further from the seiteitei at the center, but we saw the district immediately outside the gates of the seireitei and they were way slummier than where Ukitake was walking around.

It's implicit too that as a folk god Mimihagi should be rooted in a fairly rural or otherwise removed from central society kind of area. Sakahone is district 76, it's pretty far out there. Zaraki and Yachiru's origins were out in 79 and 80 and all we saw of those were piles of bodies and empty grass fields.

But also his original profile says his family is lesser nobility, so even though they could very well still be poor it seems weird that they live that far from the seiteitei at all. If anything it would almost sound more like they took him out into the remote slums just to see Mimihagi, but if they aren't locals then why would they even know about it? I guess Shunsui had heard of it and he's noble family too, but that's the anime giving a mix of Mayuri and Urahara's exposition to Shunsui, so I don't know how much that should really count.

Is there some implicit link to the withered old mummy man that was the original 13th division captain?

[greyskyflowers]

I continue to look for an AU fic where Ichigo dies and no one can find him anywhere in soul society for years. To the point that they start to think maybe he just went into the reincarnation cycle already.

Eventually the Rukongai has some type of issue and a few of the shinigami are sent out to follow up on it. While responding to it they happen upon a small, nervous child.

One of the younger and newer shinigami tries to get some information out of her or what she may have seen, they wouldn't have hurt her, but they move too quick and she jerks back. They don't even have time to apologize before a boy is standing in front of her and scowling.

He's so small. All protective fury and barely contained fear tucked into too thin limbs and dusty, bruised skin. His hair is bright, even under all the dirt.

His little chin wobbles but he still holds it up to look them in the eyes, and there are tears welling up but he blinks them away. His legs don't shake the whole time though.

There's no memory or recognition in his eyes when he looks at those who knew him.

Because everyone would spoil the hell out of him, I need the Visored and Kisuke spoiling the hell out of him.

This time he can grow up slower and with more love and support than he knows what to do with.

This time when he learns to raise a blade it won't be because he has too. Maybe this time he decides to use his hands for healing or focus on strategy.

And any blood shed will be under their watchful eyes, in training or the small accidents children always get into, instead of life or death battles.

Ichigo is always going to be a protector at his core and he'll always be the first one in and the last one out.

They can make sure he's not alone though, that the burden isn't solely on him and that he's not just a power piece in everyone's plans.

This time the protector gets to be protected.

And maybe some day they'll tell him that the hero in the stories they tell him are actually him.

*******

Ichigo asking to hold hands with Kensei and okay, how is Kensei suppose to say no to those big eyes? He can't. Ichigo holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers until Kensei takes it. Shūhei letting Ichigo cling to his leg and sit with him while doing paperwork, and Mashiro carriing him on her back and zooming around.

The 11th division making off with him and everyone's low key concerned at first because it's the 11th but they shouldn't have worried. They all spar with Ichigo and it's easy to see how happy he is when they carefully knock him over and then help him up before going over how to better his stance or block a hit. They howl and yell in support when he gets a hit in and he proudly shows off the hard earned scrapes and bruises.

Renji carrying him around on his shoulder and grinning at small fingers that tangle in his hair and pull a little too hard when excited. Rukia spending hours drawing with him and they stick their art up everywhere they can get away with it. They put up multiple in Byakuya's office and he doesn't acknowledge anyone who dares asks about taking them down.

Yoruichi napping with Ichigo and purring when he uses her a pillow or even letting him wrap his arms around her like a stuffed animal. She's known to smack out a paw at anyone who tries waking him up or moving him.

Kisuke and Ichigo staring at each other for 10 minutes when they first meet again, before Ichigo seems to find whatever he was looking for and gives a shy smile. Kisuke is absolutely gone, surprisedrelievedhappysohappy and protectprotectprotect burning in his chest.

Shunsui and Ichigo sitting together and enjoying nice afternoons. Both have little ceramic cups, Ichigo's has little berries painted on it that he had proudly done himself. No one mentions it was because of Lisa's wrath when she saw Shunsui giving Ichigo a sake cup of water. Now it's clearly marked and usually contains a bright, clearly not sake, colored juice.

Hiyori teasing him like a big sister and smacking him with her sandal when he does something reckless. They play pranks on Kisuke and Shinji frequently.

Kūkaku and Ganju occasionally stealing Ichigo and smothering him with the affection they were never able to give him before. They tell him about their clan without mentioning or hinting at the relation. Ichigo listening in excitement and saying he wished he had a family like that, not knowing why that makes them both look so happy but also so sad.

Shinji being one of Ichigo's favorites because he speaks to Ichigo like an adult. He tells him the truth when he asks questions and always helps him get back on his feet when he's been knocked off them. He lets Ichigo play with his hair and he always scares away any monsters that might be hiding behind shady corners and under dark steps. Sometimes he watches Ichigo with a weird look on his face, something between the way Kūkaku looks at him and Kisuke looks at him. Almost guilty... sorrowful. Grief is so heavy. When Ichigo asks about it, Shinji doesn't give an answer. It's one of the only times he feels like Shinji is hiding something from him.

[chthontoya]

Urahara-taicho interrogates<time-traveler> Ichigo.

Ichigo's reason for time-travel is to kill Yhwach and only then Aizen.

In the battle with Yhwach, Ichigo kills Jugram Haschwalth with Tensa (Ossan) which allows him to gain ability-exchanging connection with Yhwach. Ichigo's ability is inverted and instead of altering future, Ichigo travels to the past. Ichigo kills Yhwach and discovers his new ability. He travels back in time to reverse deaths of many, including Kisuke. Unluckily, Ichigo's not so good at navigating at such distances (he was going to kill Yhwach right before the quinci king would kill his mother). Ichigo ends up in times of Urahara's captaincy.

Ichigo knows he alerted everyone just by landing in Soul Society (he hoped to appear in the Transient world or Soul King palace). The only place that would properly hide Ichigo's reiatsu after he accepted his hollow side was the 12f labs wards, specifically Kisuke's. (Ichigo hadn't got more reiryoku by absorbing other quinci with Tensa because a quincy have barely more reiryoku than spiritually aware human). Kisuke have shown Ichigo how to enter his wards even without invitation not long after Xcution events, practically giving Ichigo key to his soul, not that Ichigo have known about it.

Urahara returns to the restricted area/his personal lab after strange reiatsu flash somewhere in Rukongai made many high-ranked shinigami go to the place. There's intruder in his lab with the same signature he had felt not so long ago. Despite dare situation Urahara puts his jovial act on. The intruder, Ichigo, seems more embarrassed of entering without invitation than consequences of invading Seireitei, especially restricted zones of Gotei 13. Urahara quickly understands why, when Ichigo explains how he entered the lab. Now Kisuke is really ready to listen rather than buying time. His face quickly grows from careless to serious (why wouldn't he act more naturally with a person who already has a key to his soul). Ichigo reacts the way Kisuke would hope from his, possibly, lover, blushing and obviously liking his other side and the way he switches between them. Lovely.