#Quincy lore dump for you

[dykeza]

@dromaeo-sauridae I’m just gonna @ your main not side account anyway. This is a giant wall of text let me break it down.

For starters: I made a joke like 2-3 years ago that Quincy (at the time, Quinn) looked a lot like a mix between Sakanade (a humanized sword woman from a bleach AU I made with Fawn Fawnatrix and Squish LongLastName) and the Sniper from tf2. Well, I got into tf2 for real earlier this year, thanks to Squish, and it became, not a joke anymore. Now it’s for real. And since it’s For Real that those are her parents, we started making lore for them and their kids (which started out as just Quincy, but then became her, her younger brother Kit, and her even younger identical twin brothers Stephen and Joey).

So, Sniper is from tf2, the 2007 fps game. Sakanade is from Bleach, which could be the anime or the manga, it depends. And their genres clash! Their styles clash!! So their kids get stuck with both. The “Anchoring Style” they all share is the tf2 comics, because technically, the Sniper who is Quincy’s dad is a version of the Sniper from the comics (Mick Mundy, the Red Sniper). So when they’re all within a certain loosely defined area, they all just, appear in their minds as characters in the tf2 comic. They can interact with the world normally and stuff, they just perceive it in that artstyle (while still retaining some level of imagined realism and interacting with their environment organically, it’s weird idk how to explain it without sounding insane).

It’s when they get too far away from the Anchoring Style that things get weird. Quincy is an assassin, like her dad, and she took a contract to, well, kill Mr. Sands. Thanks to her nepotism of being related to The Sniper Guy from The Team Fortress Two, she got offered a lot of gigs and just happened to pick that one. But, she… didn’t account for or anticipate the genre and style shift to Star Stable Online. So she’s stuck in Jorvik, aware that she’s in the wrong genre but also not entirely aware (she doesn’t fully grasp the “in a video game” part bc, to her, video game is just, real life). And she really really wants to leave and go home but she’s stuck until she either Completes the Story (don’t tell her that sso is forever) or Kills Mr. Sands (virtually impossible bc of the genre of sso).

[xeilon]

I have updated my idiot Drifter for post 1999, and I think he looks cool? lol. Hot-take: the true Warframe endgame is not fashionframe it's drifter/operator fashion aka. making them look in a way that you don't want to close the newest cinematic quest the moment you see them unmasked. (Drifter lore & picture dump under the cut)

Drifter like. Doesn't really care about what he's wearing. And literally every outfit change of his is just, "Hey, my new friends gave me new clothes! :D:D"

So his first (default drifter) outfit came from the Acrithis, when he grew out his Zariman clothes, and he's just been wearing them since before the executions.

And then he got his second outfit after Loid saw him outside of his warframe and wrangled him into a Necra Suit.

He went to 1999 in his drifter outfit, because that is still better than going there in a glowing skull-mask, right? And then he got the goth outfit from Quincy after the "You know you look stupid, right?" talk.

[el-yon]

Hi old friend^^^

I just wanna dump some Ichihime hcs i have ^-^

So as we know Ichigo is canonically goth punk but i like to think he radicalizes Orihime so they're a super beautiful activists punk couple!!Orihime is kidcore punk and solarpunk🫶🏽

They're t4t autistic4autistic like we agreed and Orihime was overjoyed when she was able to actuallu get pregnant and Ichigo's flirting comes in the most weird yet wholesome ways possible /pos

They both love chocolate + strawberry combo foods.Also their favorite boba flavor is actually brown sugar

Cat cafe,arcade and skatepark dates

He was a time management games boy,she was a roguelike games girl,what more can i say?

hiii 🖤 you know, i love your punk-related insights! i mean, i love all of them in all fandoms by the way, but the punk ones really hit. So: yes to all. Yes to t4t autistic ichihime as always, to overjoyed Orihime (💕) and weird/wholesome Ichigo-trying-to-flirt. Yes to the food and the date places (flustered Ichigo with the cats in the cat cafe and super-excited Orihime at the arcade we love to see), and yes to the games profile, everyday we learn something new.

Now, YES to activist ichihime. I have said this before and I will keep saying: Six Hearts is a major message on resisting different violences. Renruki and poverty and social inequalities, Orihime and gendered violence, Chad and racism, Uryu and genocide, and Ichigo going through all these while learning how to wield his power without becoming anything but himself. He wields his shinigami powers without becoming part of the hierarchical system of Soul Society, he will be a fullbringer and a quincy in his own terms (although lore can be kind of messy on this, but oh well, it's Kubo). And the way Ichihime struggles and overcome the hollow-violence together is so subversive in their authenticity! Arrankar Saga/Hueco Mundo was so explicit in framing Orihime (and all the """fragile""" aspects she would represent) as a weakness, as an embodiment of the qualities that Ichigo ought to abandon to actually perfom as a warrior (as a hollow), and then he relies on this person who shares all these "fragile" qualities I want to uphold so she can help me power-up while still being me: SUBVERSIVE.

and yeeees, the way Ichigo inspires Orihime to become more assertive IS radicalizing. Again, she does so by finding her own way to fight, being true to her values and finding her place: SUBVERSIVE. I know a lot of people think that the final message of Bleach actually denied the characters' agency, but I can't see it that way. For me, the way Ichigo and his friends find their agency within these broader, heavier structures is not only a solid message on the whole discussion of action, self, etc., but it is also a great window for the many possibilities of what being 'radical' means. No one is doing care and protection like they are!

and finaly, yes to kidcore/solarpunk! We see a lot of discussions on alternative and liberating futurisms and social imaginaries/speculative fiction, and these aspects deserve so much more appreciation. A lot of people will brush off Orihime's super active imagination as her being ditzy, but we can appreciate the neurodivergent window, and we can appreciate the fact that this kind of conscious optimism and commitment to fun is super powerful as a social choice to reject dystopia. Orihime sees the world as open-ended: "i just got powers and a talking cat is going to teach me how to use them, no biggie". Her 5 lifetimes speech really hits the place of her recognizing that there are many possibilities, lives to be lived, and all she wishes for is to keep caring. Caring for the person she loves, yes, but also to keep making care happen, choosing care over conflict; and if conflict is necessary, then she will find her own way to do it and she will make it flower-power and everyone gets to eat tasty treats. Pretty radical of you ask me.

again, your punk insights are always so so neat! loved that you send this, thank you 💕🖤

[michisunoshudan]

so. guess who's back. 🧍

anyways todays thoughts brought to you by the comments i've seen enough times about how kisuke keeping things from ichigo / others is proof of his ulterior motives because why didn't he just tell ichigo that in the first place, it could've solved so many problems, etc etc (i've also seen this said on like twt about isshin too) and it's like. that would change the story completely. like removed from the real world, bleach is, at the end of the day, just a story. speaking as someone who is notorious for picking apart lore and timelines and questioning things that don't ultimately make sense in the context of a media to me, it's something i constantly have to remind myself of! if i come to something that i'm like "now HOLD ON, this makes NO SENSE!" i force myself to take a second and ask myself if, in the context of it being a story, it does- and many times, it does indeed make sense that way!

within bleach as a universe, isshin and kisuke's conversation in front of kon regarding the visoreds, where isshin all but calls them a fringe terrorist group and kisuke is like "yeah sure that's correct", it doesn't make sense and for me raises a lot of questions- where did isshin get this information? is this a lie perpetuated by kisuke to protect the visoreds from outside interference, or is this a rumor perpetuated by soul society that isshin brought with him since he left soul society later than kisuke and the visoreds? but, if i consider bleach as a narrative, it absolutely makes sense in the scene; kubo loves using audience proxies, and in this moment kon is standing in as our audience proxy instead of usual proxy ichigo- this "hiding of the truth" isn't for ichigo's sake as a character because he never even learns about it, because kisuke threatened kon to the point of kon being terrified of speaking a word about what he saw/heard to him. this is a hiding of the truth for the sake of the audience, to keep the surprise reveal about the visoreds' past for just a bit longer.

kisuke and isshin both have secrets to reveal to ichigo over the course of the story, and while maybe things could've gone differently, better, had they just prepared him from the beginning- but considering everything they knew, trying to dump information about not just shinigami and soul society and the betrayal of aizen and the visoreds and arrancar and masaki being a quincy and the eradication of the quincy 200 years ago but also everything to do with yhwach 1000 years ago, or even the auswhalen that ultimately took masaki- trying to dump all that on ichigo when he hasn't even gone to soul society yet is both a) an insane amount information to drop on him at once and expect him to be able to process it much less have the proper context or critical thinking skills as a 15-year old and b) just makes for a bad narrative story. there are so many things that don't get said or don't get done that can seem frustrating as readers because it can feel like things would be better/easier if they'd just said or done those things in the first place! but that would also remove all the narrative wind out of the sails of the story and just make it feel dull and lacking any stakes.

[ihasnopen]

This is the anon about that oc ask meme! I know the post says fallout but I wanted to make sure and specify that I meant Maxi :3 I recently started up a fallout specific blog and I know I love when people ask about my OC's (the one time it happened lmao) so please take this as an invitation to also lore dump about her!!! I love hearing about other people's characters <3 It's a sideblog so I can't ask from it haha

Eek I’m happy to loredump about Maxi for you🥹🤧 I’ll be reblogging this and the OC asks over to my Fallout sideblog later fill it up with more posts about Maxi there.

Maxi used to live in the Capital Wasteland with a caravan until they were attacked by raiders one day. Being the only survivor of the caravan, she leaves the place after thinking that there was nothing worth there to stay anymore, and feeling guilt that she couldn’t help anyone during the attack.

She hitches a ride with another caravan that was travelling to the Commonwealth, figuring that she could probably start a new life there. She meets Seth Anderson ( @anxietymuffin ‘s Sole Survivor) during her first few days in Boston and they both stick together to help each other out, initially. Later on Seth adopts Maxi as his daughter and they both travel around the Commonwealth as traders on the streets. They both settle down in Quincy ten years before the events of Fallout 4.

I will be adding more to this post over at my sideblog at another time, tysm for asking about Maxi! ❤️

[taruth3mighty]

Doodle World: Starfall mention before any lore dumps from me my god 💀💀 /j Rose is the Avatar from ATLAS With water, air, fire and earth, only she can master all the elements and save the universe "(Still-living) Rebecca" Nah you didn't have to disrespect her name like that 💀 Quincy gives me Hunter from Owl House vibes, wouldn't surprise me if we find out he's like idk some creation from Charles using Magitech hence his lack of magic I mean Charles is the big bad it seems, so it makes sense Love some Doodle World: Starfall content always, quartxio <33

DOODLE WORLD: STARFALL WORLDBUILDING POST!!!!!

i haven't been able to focus on making DW Starfall art due to uni, so here's some worldbuilding about the AU and info about its main cast under the cut in the meantime

to recap: Doodle World: Starfall is a fantasy-futuristic AU where humanity discovers magic in the cosmos, after their technological advent into space. so far, all of humanity can only use basic magics, and each individual is limited to only one type. however, across the planets are 'Artifacts' (which replace the Keys) which are said to be able to break the mold and ascend someone into mastery of magics. the protagonist is replaced with an OC - Rose Aurelius, a sorcerer and archivist who came from another world to learn about this one, but gets herself wrapped up in the mystery of the Artifacts.

DoodleCo owns several planets which are in close proximity with each other - each planet houses a different district of cities, and transportation to each planet is done by public spaceships.

Earth remains as the main planet, where the main DoodleCo headquarters has been built. however, the story begins on the smallest planet of the 5 that are owned by DoodleCo - Eria.

the Adventurer Unit becomes the Explorers Unit, who are tasked with discovering new planets across the galaxy.

DoodleCo is still ran by the same canon characters

as for the main cast, most of them maintain their canon personalities, with some tweaks.

TJ is a tamer who joins the Explorers Unit in hopes of making a great discovery. he wants to find the Artifacts, since he's well practiced in magic, and wants to expand his skills in it. however, he isn't the best at Doodle battling, though he aims to improve. he's got a knack for finding his way through places, even if he hasn't been there before

Quincy, son of DoodleCo's CEO, Charles, is one of the few humans who lack the ability to conjure magic, and it haunts him. he makes up for it with his excellent Doodle battling strategies, and one thick wall of ego (tinged with shame) to seal his only insecurity away.

Portia is the daughter of the (still-living) Rebecca, second founder of DoodleCo. she's confident and ready to jump into any action anytime, but occasionally fears she will not live up to her mother's feats. she is obsessed with aliens

Suzie is a bit of a loner who drowns herself in biology studies to distract herself from the fact that she cannot taste (and by extent, smell) anything. she fears it has cost her a lot of what would've been cheerful childhood memories. hence, she works herself to the bone for a cure

fun fact: Portia and Suzie are together

Mr. Riffraff was the third founder of DoodleCo, and the one that was constantly pushing towards technological advancements through ethical means. when he found out that DoodleCo was using Somniere and Verdrok's power to fuel their magitech (magic + technology), he left in anger, and vowed to free the both of them.

Teneson is the right hand of Charles, and seeks order. he despises Riffraff for abandoning DoodleCo for the reason he did. Teneson believes that sacrifices must be made for the greater good, and aims to stop Riffraff from freeing the two.

bonus:

Junjie, the subway guy, is hired by DoodleCo and becomes the head of all public spaceships. he's an open and outgoing guy that occasionally goes behind DoodleCo's back for the sake of the people. people over power is his belief and he is loyal to that

finally, the main protagonist... Rose Aurelius. a cosmic sorcerer, and the Avatar of the Constellation, Lynx, who archives the flora and fauna of different worlds. she takes on a humanoid guise during her time on DoodleCo's planets, and originally only aimed to be an observer to the events of the Artifact Hunt. however, she met Riffraff, who constantly got in her way of archiving, and was intrigued by his goal of freeing Somniere and Verdrok, and decided to help him a little... only to end up becoming more than involved in the whole ordeal.

she's an old cranky and sassy woman who minds her own business most of the time. she does display care, albeit in a tougher way. she becomes the guardian of the main cast after constant encounters with this group of rambunctious kids, and the amount of times she's protected them from fantastical dangers and lectured them has led her to feel responsible for them. Rose cares a lot for them, but her tough exterior makes it difficult for them to see that

Rose and Riffraff are also a couple because i LOVE enemies to lovers and i love old people romance but that's a post for another time

[valhallic-aa]

headcanon dump bc brain is jumpy

shouhei tends to burn his tongue on tea at least once a week. you'd think he would be more careful about it, but he's indignant enough that he refuses to adapt his habits.

kaoru doesn't hold her chopsticks properly. she never learned from anyone, so her grip is a bit obtuse. it causes her chopsticks to cross when she goes to grab something.

if quincy's mother was in good health, he probably would have joined the french army and stayed in ajaccio after his time in service.

quincy really laments that his relationship with his father became so volatile, especially since he grew to be similar to adam in all the wrong ways.

he knows that he really shouldn't and that he's just being petty, but shouhei has a grudge against the maceo syndicate for returning his sister in such a miserable state. he would have preferred if she came back either perfectly fine or not at all.

the wyche family was actually a part of the human legions that destroyed the dragonborn empires, as they were convinced that dragonkind was bound to bring harm to humanity. it's been so long, though, that nicola has accepted the circumstances and probably wouldn't be upset if she met penny.

kaoru's canon ending involves the universe warping her into space by blending multiple timelines in a fixed place to prevent the end of the world. (if you know the lore, you can ask me about this)

[akaluan]

*snicker* in the werewolf!verse, can you just imagine Kisuke enthusiastically asking werewolf!Erich about All The Werewolf lore? (Erich might even find Kisuke questioning him about the validity of ancient European folklore - rather cute.)

Erich, to the pups+Kisuke: “Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”          

((Okay so… you kinda attempted to prompt cute and silly and Urahara being his typical self, aaaaand then this went… sideways.

SO UH. HAVE A LORE DUMP.

And a bit of cute fluff, but ANYWAY. LORE.

Yes, most of this actually applies to Misfits-verse as well. Also, I’ve decided that most every shapeshifter legend is true in these ‘Verses, albeit some of them have died off and some of them are dying off (like the were-Quincy). It’s a thing.

Also I might continue this at some point, but this felt like a good stopping point.

Also-also, please note that werewolf!Erich is like 200% more tactile and openly affectionate than Lilacs!Erich because wolf-instincts and finally having a pack again after so very, very long. And he pretty quickly sways Uryuu to being more tactile and openly affectionate in general. This is also the timeline where Uryuu doesn’t become a werewolf because Erich gives him back his powers before that happens.))

“Do you have a wolf-skin?” Urahara asked curiously, following Erich out of the training ground after their latest spar. “Or an enchanted belt?”

Erich shook his head, eyeing Urahara with wry amusement and pointedly tapping two of claws together to draw attention to his current wolf-traits. “No and no.”

Urahara made a considering noise, fiddling with his fan and staring at Erich thoughtfully. “Silver bullets? Silver in general?”

“Bullets hurt,” Erich agreed, pausing to dart up in several bursts of hirenkyaku to reach the trapdoor out. He waited in the shop for Urahara to follow him up, then continued, “but there’s nothing inherent in silver that harms us.”

“Ji-san?” Uryuu asked from the doorway, looking between Erich and Urahara warily. “Is he bothering you again?”

Erich chuckled and held out a hand towards Uryuu, unable to resist a fond smile when the boy willingly came to him and allowed Erich to settle his arm over his shoulders in a loose hug. It was such a joy to be able to show /affection/ to someone again, and have them accept it. It was such a joy to have /pack/ again. “No, Urahara is simply being his normal nosy self.”

“Mou, you wound me, Rerugen-san!” Urahara protested, shoulders slumped in theatrical dejection and hat pulled down to hide his eyes. “You don’t /have/ to answer!”

“Of course not.” Erich pulled Uryuu back into the private areas of the shoten, honing in on the room the other teens were. He let go of Uryuu and gratefully dropped onto the couch, stretching out his legs and relaxing in the presence of his pack.

Uryuu almost immediately dropped to sit on the floor next to him, leaning against Erich’s leg and resting his head on his thigh.

“You know you could sit up here with me,” Erich murmured, reaching out to run his claws gently through Uryuu’s hair.

“I’m comfortable,” Uryuu said. He tilted his head enough to give Erich a narrow-eyed look, then let his head drop back and pointedly leaned into the touch. “So what what he bothering you about this time?”

Erich shot Urahara a stern look as the man paused, took in the scene, then mimed being struck by the sight in front of him. “He’s being nosy about werewolf lore, of course,” he explained, catching the attention of the other three.

“Oh, I’ve been wondering about that too!” Orihime perked up and moved to sprawl across the couch near him, chin propped up on her hands and legs swinging through the air. “There’s so many conflicting stories, and none of it really makes sense.”

“Most of it’s fake, isn’t it?” Ichigo asked, marking his place in his book and setting it aside. “I haven’t found any stories that have the werewolves showing traits outside of the transformation, except maybe eye color. Well… except the full moon thing is apparently true?”

“Which is new,” Chad added. When the other teens glanced at him curiously he shrugged. “Mid nineteenth century gothic horror was the start.”

“Ah…” Erich gave a lopsided side and shrugged. “An ancestor was careless. It… happens more often than you might expect. Many of my men during the war knew, but when magecraft was such a prominent, obvious thing, it was easy to spin a tale of an ancestral curse by an angered mage.”

“Is that true?” Uryuu asked softly. “/Were/ we cursed?”

“No,” he said firmly. “It may make things difficult in this day and age, but this was /never/ intended as a curse.”

Urahara settled in a nearby chair and made a thoughtful noise. “Then what /was/ it intended as?”

He watched Urahara for a long moment in silence, then swept his gaze over the teens, noting their attention and interest in the answer. Uryuu and Ichigo, at the very least, deserved to know, since the change was in /their/ blood as well. Even Chad and Orihime arguably had a right to that knowledge, being part of the pack as they were.

(Urahara, too; though when his traitorous mind had begun to tentatively label the man /pack/ was unknown.)

“A blessing,” Erich said, then held up a hand to forestall the questions he knew were coming. “This has been in our blood since before the genesis of the Quincy. Arguably, we are lycanthropes /first/ and Quincy second, despite the way the abilities usually manifest. We’ve been so since the time when we were simply Humans with ritual magic and the Sight, dedicated to hunting the monsters that hunted /us/.”

“/Oh/,” Orihime breathed, eyes bright. “An extra edge in battle! And…” she hesitated, glancing from Erich and down to Uryuu, then over to Ichigo and back to Erich. “Bonds. A hunting pack.”

Erich nodded in agreement, running his claws through Uryuu’s hair again. “Wolves are powerful and dangerous by themselves, but the pack instincts… /those/ make them /deadly/, especially against foes as large and dangerous as Hollows.”

“But why the /moon/,” Ichigo asked, scowling deeper at the words. “That seems less useful than a pelt or a belt or… or just transforming at will.”

“Pelts and belts can be lost,” Erich pointed out. “Look at all the legends about /selkies/ losing their pelts and being bound to whoever finds it. Ritual magic requires an anchor, a stable point to emanate from so that the magic continues to affect those it should.” He lifted his hand from Uryuu’s hair and spread his arms, glancing between his pack-members in question. “What would they have tied it to for free transformation, if not a distinctive item like a pelt or belt? And where would we have /found/ these items, generation after generation? Would we be born as wolves and shed our pelts to become Human? But what if we marry outside those like us? How would /that/ work?”

Kisuke made a face, flicking his fan open and covering his mouth with it. “No, I can’t imagine that would work out well for anyone. I doubt you’d even be /able/ to crossbreed like that.”

“No, probably not.” Erich shrugged and tipped his head towards Kisuke in agreement, inwardly amused at the face Ichigo was making. “So instead, thirty families gathered to anchor the ritual in the moon itself; or, more precisely, in the /concept/ of the moon. A stable, known constant in our lives, from the moment we are born to the moment we die. A constant shared by the entire world. Whether they knew that the change in the moonlight would change the strength of the ritual, I’m unsure, but it is what it is.”

Ichigo gave him a puzzled frown and glanced over at Chad, the two of them holding a silent conversation that Erich let play out. He was curious to see what question the pair had for him.

“How’s it work with calling your name, then?” Ichigo finally asked, looking to Erich again. “The concept of the moon seems… too big to be overridden by a single person.”

“Yes and no. How often do you think about the moon?”

“Not often,” Chad said.

“When I see it,” Ichigo agreed.

Orihime nodded. “Yeah.”

“It’s just… there.” Uryuu tilted his head to look at Erich thoughtfully, chewing on his lower lip in thought. “So… you’re implying that the immediacy of our emotions is enough to override the moon?”

“To an extent.” Erich smiled down at Uryuu and ruffled the teen’s hair, laughing at the disgruntled noise Uryuu made in response. “Emotion has a wild magic of its own, and when you look at my wolf form, and call my name, you’re usually instinctively /wanting/ my familiar form back. And, after a while, you /expect/ a certain action to get a certain result: call my name, pull me from the wolf. Which has a power all its own, separate from that of your emotions.”

“Does it… hurt?” Uryuu asked warily, staring up at him uncertainly. “When… when we do that? Should we not?”

“It’s fine, pup,” Erich reassured, leaning forward to give Uryuu a hug. “It feels /strange/, and there’s always the urge to revert, but it never hurts. Not even in the very beginning, when I first awoke as a wolf in my late twenties.”

Uryuu pressed into the hug, arms slipping up to wrap around Erich’s chest and clinging tight. “Thank you,” he murmured, barely loud enough for Erich to hear.

“You’re welcome, pup.”

[akaluan]

Yeah the panic attack really messes with BOTH of them in this story - Erich didn't mean to trigger it and Kisuke didn't even know he HAD a trigger like that - and it really drives a wedge between them on accident. Erich thinks that Kisuke needs space from him/doesn't want him around (it's probably not 100% clear in the last bit of that but Erich was trying to comfort Kisuke through it before Kisuke yanked himself away and ran) so he ends up trying to give Kisuke space. He figures if the man wants to talk with him, he'll actively start hunting him down like Erich was trying to hunt Kisuke down earlier. Basically, if Kisuke had made a single effort to follow Erich (even just heading towards him when Erich starts to move away) Erich would have held still and let Kisuke find him.

Kisuke meanwhile is busy trying to convince himself that avoidance is totally what he wants, and so doesn't.

And yep! It's never made clear in this fic bc it's all from Kisuke's pov and he never bothers looking into Erich more than a little bit (plus he doesn't really Know much about Quincy in this AU) but Erich's easily late thirties early forties and has been fighting for at least two decades at this point. During one of those fights in his mid twenties he took a fair amount of damage, including to his left shoulder, which limited his ability to use a bow pretty heavily. Benihime here is an Otherworld Being that's formed a contract with Kisuke, and so her canon bankai ability of "tear things apart and remake them Better" can be used as a painful but permanent method of healing, albeit one that leaves the person who undergoes it a bit.. more than human? Sort of? She doesn't exactly stick to Human Standard. It's also very draining on Kisuke, and Benihime doesn't take an Interest in people very often so it's not common knowledge that she can do it to anyone other than Kisuke, nor do people tend to like how invasive it is.

Erich on the other hand is just "hell yeah, I feel good again, fuck yes. Unexpected outcome but I will absolutely roll with this" after he gets over the shock of it and of Kisuke apologizing and running away.

It IS a great trope and I love it, and as soon as I had Erich using a bow again I HAD to use it. Absolutely supreme trope, I need to use it more often.

Okay. Okay so lore dump time! Sorry but u asked and I was Thinking About This AU again earlier today XD

So in this world, you basically have the "safe regions" which are heavily protected by spells, barriers, and troops (the Shinigami) that are trained to fight any beasts or monsters that manage to make their way Into those safe regions. And then you have what Kisuke refers to as "the wild lands" which have exactly Zero of that protection, kind of like the Rukongai but in a way much worse bc it's not the afterlife so everyone has to eat, it's just that ppl with powers have to eat More.

Quincy and Shinigami used to both live in the safe regions, albeit as different "kingdoms" of a sort with a very different view on the Otherworld where the monsters were coming from. At some point in their past history, the Shinigami conquered the Quincy and drove the few remaining out into the wild lands without any of their resources and with many of their skilled Leaders and elders dead, and thus with a huge amount of skills and abilities lost, including the method of making large safe zones. From there, the Quincy sort of dispersed themselves and became more nomadic/more loners than previously, not helped at all by the fact that the "chasing them out" was basically literal in this case.

Shinigami contract with higher level Otherworld Beings in order to gain access to powers beyond the norm, whereas Quincy use purely human skills and human originated powersets - so Shinigami tend to be very individual in their skills, and Quincy are very Similar to each other, just like in canon.

Quincy (usually) believe that Shinigami are the reason that the Otherworld Tears exist at all, and that it's because of the Shinigami contracting with Otherworld Beings that things have been slowly getting worse over the centuries.

Shinigami believe(d) that Quincy are out to entirely destroy/cut off the Otherworld from their world and refuse to allow that to happen bc it'll take away their powers.

In this verse, Kisuke was investigating the Otherworld and why it exists/the creatures within in/etc, in an effort to make contracting with an Otherworld Being safer and less likely to destabilize the boundary between the two worlds. He also was trying to figure out the difference between beings that could be Contracted With, like Benihime and such, vs the monsters that would come through, and why SOMETIMES the beings that would answer the Contract call were uh. Inimical to the caller.

(basically the Otherworld has three main 'types' of beings that are often spotted, albeit there ARE totally normal, nonmonstrous creatures that do often slip through Tears that no one really Notices immediately until the invasive species has established itself. You have your basic Monsters like you'd find in games like Final Fantasy or similar, then you have beings like Benihime that can normally be safely contracted with, sort of like contracting with a summon except the contracted being takes up residence in the contractor's soul, and THEN you have beings that CAN'T be contracted with normally, which are basically Hollows. It's not a good vs evil thing, the can contract vs can't contract thing, it's more like.. water and fire. Contract beings like Benihime can absolutely drown their summoners if they both aren't careful, but trying to contract with, say, Grimmjow is a much trickier proposition to keep from being burned. If you're expecting to tread water, but find that you've been thrown headfirst into a bonfire instead, none of your preparations will be of any use and you'll probably get badly burned or just die of it.)

So Kisuke was doing research into this stuff, which thereby included research into How To Open Otherworld Tears On Command Without Massive Draining Rituals, bc the more power you have to turn onto the thing you summon, the more chance you can survive it.

Aizen, recognizing that this research could absolutely be used to generate an army that he could use to Take Over Everything, went about getting himself on the research team in order to steal it and try to twist it to his use, and then, when Kisuke found Aizen in the middle of trying something out, Aizen did his usual Twist The Facts thing to "capture Kisuke in the middle of setting off a catastrophe and planning a coup" and brought Kisuke in front of this world's equivalent of C46 for judgment, relying on the fact that he was both well loved and had used his contracted beings powers to, just like in canon, twist perceptions. So the interrupted experiment that AIZEN was doing became KISUKE'S interrupted experiment, etc. this got Kisuke sentenced to death and tessai and yoruichi freed him like in canon and they escaped to the wild lands.

Once out there, Kisuke discovered that things were A Lot Worse Than He Knew, because Aizen's been playing fast and loose with Kisuke's research, opening many small Tears in quick succession in an effort to figure out how to impose pseudo contracts on any Monsters that come through (instead of the usual contract beings) to generate an army on demand that he can control, which has destabilized the boundaries even more than usual and vastly increased the size, number, and frequency of incursions, especially outside of the safe regions which don't have the extra barriers etc to reinforce the boundary between worlds.

Basically, everyone's suffering, Aizen's slowly punching too many holes in the boundary between worlds, and Kisuke's out here trying to atone and figure out how to NOT have their entire world turn into a Monster Den.

The Stolen Heart Part 3

Kisuke decides avoidance is the better part of valor. It goes about as well as expected.

Kisuke is more vigilant about remaining out of Erich’s sight from then on. He doesn’t want to risk the man’s fury, doesn’t want to have to see what Benihime has done— (Even if he should, at least to make sure she hasn’t done something terrible to Erich, no matter how much she insists otherwise.) (Still, he can’t bring himself to check.) (Coward…) Avoiding Erich is made easier by the strange,…