#it just seemed funny for an actual god to talk like this

[tinkerbellknockoff]

chemistry // jinx x fem!reader

chemistry // college!jinx x fem!reader

you've never been the greatest at sciences- you were aware of that. being placed into general chemistry to fulfill a lab requirement for college forced you to face your fears: writing lab reports and talking to pretty teacher assistants.

- college au

warnings: cursing

-- a/n: gonna be slightly projecting when talking about how bad reader is at chemistry lol

you thought the cliche chemistry professor that made absolutely no sense was only for the movies. but sitting here on a stool, watching the professor measure and start mixing chemicals that you couldn't even catch the name of made you flabbergasted and honestly- a little bit annoyed.

at your university, you were required to take one semester of a laboratory class. that's only about what- four months? you thought that was going to be a breeze- just get it out of the way, and you'll never have to touch a science class again! hopefully.

it had been about two-ish weeks of your general chemistry class, and by whatever is holy... you were miserable. unfortunately for you, your lab partner seemed to be on the same wavelength as you: massively confused. which, in a way, could be comforting because hey- you're not alone! on the other hand... your grades are screwed. and, unfortunately, you actually cared about your gpa.

the second half of your misery came from the fact you loathed asking for help. throughout high school, it was a breeze being able to figure out solutions to all of your problems, but now... you basically had to find every single resource that could help you. and, unfortunately, none of them did. you've never felt more lost in your life, which is how you have led to your position now.

slipping your backpack over your right shoulder, you then lightly draped your lab coat over your arm as you walked up to your chemistry professor. you decided it was finally time for you to ask for help- and by god, did it take some encouragement. there were still a few stragglers in the room- there being the professor, you, a couple of your peers, and the gorgeous blue-haired teacher assistant.

her name was jinx. she was recommended by another chemistry professor- professor silco, if you remember his name right- which gave her the job opportunity to ta a few general chemistry classes. honestly, she had helped you out a couple of times- she was a saint.

on the other hand, she terrified the living hell out of you. jinx, in the simple two weeks that you have spent in this general chemistry lab (two times per week, so maybe four times in the lab total) showed how... chaotic she was. in the first class, she was idly lounging around in random spots of the classroom, sitting on tables with littered chemical substances, and playing with one of the bottles in her hands. you remember, in that class, she seemed bored since it was simply laboratory rules and basics- but ever since the class started doing experiments? she seemed like the happiest girl in the world.

the professor made pretty basic explanations to questions he was asked- he was a little sassy, though. he'd say your name repeatedly, chastising you, then go, "haha! i am joking. wasn't that funny?"

... no. it was never funny.

then jinx. she would quickly prance to you the second you had your hand raised, entering your personal space as she would begin rapidly explaining, and would sometimes even begin doing the experiment for you. you loved it when that happened. honestly, even throughout that chaotic nature, she would explain things decently well. she talked a lot, but she was still able to deliver her understanding pretty well. you admired her for that.

even though she was incredibly helpful, in all honesty- you hated when she would be the one to come after you raised your hand.

she was too pretty. you couldn't focus.

"well, toots," is how she would always begin the explanation for you. you couldn't quite catch if she called literally anyone else that, but it was almost humorous how she always started off with those two words. you almost felt special. then, it would be how she'd lightly grab your hips to move you out of her way so she'd be able to access the experiment better- and even with you on the side, her side would still be brushing yours.

when she spoke, she never spoke to both you and your lab partner. her pink eyes seemed to stare you down. you were too scared to break the eye contact, and the more you reciprocated the staring the more entertained she seemed to be, her violet eyes swirling. you couldn't take it.

that happened every. single. time.

and every single time you felt like you were going to burst.

so, talking to the professor, you hoped to god he would just offer his office hours.

"hello, professor," you spoke, eventually standing in front of his desk, and he turned to look at you. he gave a smile (a little bit chaotic, you thought this profession was great for him), and he said your name in greeting.

"how can i help you?"

"i was hoping there would be some sort of office hours i could go to..." you spoke, swallowing your pride, "i was looking for some help with the lab reports and saw that your office hours were for request only."

he hummed in acknowledgment, giving you an understanding look, "okay. have you checked the tutoring center?"

you nodded, "yeah. all of the open tutoring sessions for gen chem are all when i have other classes."

"that sucks a ton, toots."

her voice came out of what seemed like nowhere. the hairs on the back of your neck stood up, but you kept your seemingly relaxed demeanor as you turned your head into her direction, her eyes automatically locking onto yours. she already had a chaotic grin on her face, her pink eyes swirling with entertainment, "i could help ya out."

the professor seemed to not care for jinx's bubbly behavior, "could you, jinx? your times would possibly be more flexible than mine."

.... fuck.

jinx eagerly nodded, "don't worry about it. would be an honor to give a pretty girl some help!"

was that appropriate to say?

the professor didn't have a care in the world as he thanked jinx, and then waved you two off, telling them to go schedule times to be able to meet, and giving the reassurance that he would be able to for extra support if you needed it.

you walked out of the lab, jinx seeming hot on your tail. she loosely grabbed her bag along the way, it hanging off her shoulder in a similar fashion to yours. eventually, in the hallway, you turned to face her properly. all you had to do was schedule some times, leave, eventually actually do the meetings, then bam! you're done! don't have to be threatened by a pretty girl no longer!

"so, toots. wanna talk about times over dinner?" jinx winked at you.

you had to take a sharp inhale after that. oh my gosh? was this professional? was this allowed? you don't think she cared. at all, actually.

"cat got your tongue?" jinx looked amused at your silence, her violet eyes staring at your expression, looking like a deer in headlights. "you're very expressive."

you cleared your throat, deciding to ignore that comment. takes one to know one. eventually, you found your words, "... fine. right now?"

you got it! look, you can talk to her. nice and easy!

her entertained expression and grin never left her face as she nodded her head, her bright blue hair bouncing in the movement. "i mean, when else could i possibly catch ya?"

"i dunno, email exists." you retort, you don't see her the reason for her to insist on going out to dinner to make plans.

"boring!" jinx continued grinning at you. doesn't her face ever start to hurt, "we can just go to the dining hall! c'mon, toots, don't be a snoozefest."

and to that, you finally caved in. her excitement seemed to elevate even more than it originally was as she started to basically bounce off the walls (not really, you're being dramatic), grabbing your hand. you were practically yanked, having to hold the lab coat in your arm tighter to make sure it didn't get dropped on the way. she energetically spoke to you the entire way, effortlessly guiding you, not caring if you were stumbling at any moment. you were surprised her relatively small statue had this much muscle. she was acting like she took 5 shots of expresso and did a line of coke.

hopefully, she didn't actually do that.

she kept rambling your head off as you both waited in line for your food. your dining hall offered an assortment of shops, which led you to get pasta, and right now you were waiting in line for the burger shop next to jinx. she eventually let your hand go, but you noticed over time that she always was touching you in some fashion. right now, her bicep was brushing against yours, her head tilted in your direction as she rambled on about some sort of engineering project she had taken up. you learned through her talking that she was a biochemical engineering major. so, basically, she was super smart. you're a psychology major, which caused her to erupt in a small fit of laughter when you told her,

"so what are you doing in chemistry, toots?! why not take like... i dunno, meteorology!"

that elicited a pout from you, scoffing, causing jinx to look at you with amusement in her eyes as she laughed harder, "you're so funny, toots! i couldn't get enough of you."

she was proving her statement.

you and jinx ate dinner together, and after some coaxing of the conversation, you got her to agree to a few study sessions over the next couple of months. every other sunday you two would meet up at the library, and have about a two-hour session covering the content from the prior two weeks. that sounded fair enough. you didn't know if two hours was necessary, but jinx insisted, believing that was the "sure way to shove everything into your noggin". you were humored by her wording of it.

even after you both had long finished your food, she insisted on sitting with you for a little bit longer, claiming that she was having the time of her life getting to know you. her behavior made you so flushed- but you tried your damned hardest to refrain from it showing. you tried desperately to act nonchalant, which jinx continuously called your bluff on, leading you to be super defensive, to which she would continue to tease you more.

"c'mon, toots!" jinx giggled. she was sitting across from you at a table, her elbow resting on top and her hand holding her head as she kept her other hand on the table, tapping her nails rhythmically, "tell me more about ya."

you were reclined back, slightly hunched in the seat as you hummed thoughtfully. your arms were crossed in front of you, which jinx found humorous. she could tell you were still a little bit shy.

"what do you want to know?" you humored jinx.

"anything. anything at all, as long as it's about you," jinx winked in your direction, her eyes never once leaving your direction, "... any... boyfriend?"

that question startled you. your eyes met hers once more. she was lightly chewing on the bottom of her lip, her eyes basically devouring you as she waited for your answer in anticipation. jinx's breath basically hitched in her throat with excitement as you shook your head,

"no. broke up with my girlfriend before college."

jinx clearly seemed giddy after your statement, only a blind man wouldn't be able to tell. you examined her behavior after, blinking, your thoughts finally catching up to you.

holy shit. you basically felt yourself erupt into flames, could she like me?

"aww, damn, toots!" jinx said, but the sympathy rolling off her tongue was feigned, "that sucks. any reason why?"

you shrugged, sitting up and fixing your posture, folding your elbows onto the table and leaning forward. "wasn't a good fit. you live and you learn, i guess. what can you do?"

jinx understood, her thoughts racing with pure excitement. jinx realized she had a chance- and she wasn't the one to let chances slip up.

so, for the next couple of months, she used the tutoring sessions as an excuse to get to know you. she would claim every half hour that you two had to take a break, and then ask you questions about your day, your week, and everything that could come to mind. you warmed up to her behavior, which made her feel so elated- you began to reciprocate all of her talking. she loved talking to you.

so, when your last session came, jinx was bummed. jinx stared at you longingly, which you didn't seem to notice as you flipped through the data you had gathered during your most recent lab, scanning between it and the lab report, making sure that you didn't miss anything important. you, with the help of jinx, were doing stellar in chemistry. you couldn't have thanked jinx more.

you brought your bag up onto your lap to grab a few folders, slipping the papers inside, packing up. jinx continued to stare at you longingly, her pink eyes unusually soft as she stared you down. eventually, you glanced up, meeting her eyes. she quickly changed her expression, looking more neutral.

"jinx, i really thank you enough," you spoke up, her heart soaring at the praise. but that elation dropped as she saw you stand up, causing her to quickly follow behind, moving to walk beside you as you two began to leave the library.

"it was really nothing, toots. what was i meant to do, let a pretty girl like you fail?"

those words sounded like something she said at the very beginning of all this. that caused a laugh to slip out of your lips as you bumped your shoulder gently with hers. she pushed the door open for the two of you, the cold winter air hitting the two of you in a gust.

walking a little further away from the door, you two stopped and stared at each other for a moment. jinx for once felt the words catch in her throat as her eyes met yours. you looked so cute, your nose slightly turning red from the winter air hitting your face.

you noticed her gaze. her pupils were blown as she was dead silent, something very uncharacteristic for jinx, causing you to examine her eyes with yours. when she noticed this, she met your gaze, both of you seeming to devour each other with your eyes, before you cleared your throat.

"so, this is it, huh?" you sheepishly giggle, holding onto the straps of your side satchel. your words, as corny as it is to say, almost broke jinx's heart on the spot then. it was just tutoring- why did she feel like it was the end of the world?

"... i hope it's not." jinx spoke, her voice abnormally quiet. your eyebrows rose at her unusual demeanor, your head tilting and causing your hair to flow to the side. jinx's eyes looked over every single one of your movements, absolutely infatuated with the way you moved- the way you were you.

no one had ever been any more perfect in her eyes.

"how do you mean?"

jinx cleared her throat, "would it be bad if i did something right now? that... you may or you may not like?"

your eyebrows furrowed at the question. what the hell did that mean? but, as your lips parted, you weren't given the option to question her as she grabbed the sides of your face with her clammy and cold hands, smashing her lightly chapped lips against your soft ones.

the kiss was startling for you, your eyes open wide in shock, being able to see the way that jinx so harshly had her eyes closed, her hands keeping you right against her. as if you would slip through her fingers. so, after finding your bearings, you finally closed your eyes, relaxing as you began to reciprocate the kiss.

jinx felt like she was on cloud nine, holding you as tightly as possible against her. your lips tasted like heaven to her, her being able to taste the chapstick that she saw you always use, one that she always watched glaze over your lips. she was doing what she fantasized about doing for so fucking long.

and to her excitement, you were kissing her back.

after a few moments, she parted the kiss panting. both of your eyes fluttered open as you both lightly panted, small puffs of white smoke leaving your mouths. you locked eyes with hers, both of your pupils blown wide. you were both impossibly close to each other, allowing you to hear jinx's faint whisper,

"i like you," her eyes scanned over your face, "a lot."

a laugh left your mouth. she loved hearing your laugh- but in this context, it almost made her petrified until she saw the bright smile that was on your lips.

"i like you, too."

[thefandomenchantress]

We’re all familiar with the Xander-Ace arm wrestling scene. A lot of people cite it as one of their favorite funny moments from the series. And yeah, it is pretty funny when you don’t think about it too much.

The joke is pretty much, “Haha, Ace is such a wimp! He’s totally freaking out about a minor injury like it’s a really big deal!”

I don’t know if it was just me, but I sort of had this internal notion that Ace must’ve mentioned that his hand really hurt or something, and the joke was that he was wimp because it was such a minor injury, and it probably didn’t hurt at all.

But, uh. He never says anything about his hand hurting. Here are the lines he says (not all of which are featured in a text box, since Teruko and Xander are talking over him):

“AAAAAHHHHHH MY HAANNNDDDD!!!!”

*falls on the ground, gets up, screams again*

“OH GOD! You’re gonna put me down like a horse with a broken leg!!!”

“I’d rather die than not be able to eat cereal with my hand!!!”

“I’M NEVER GONNA BE ABLE TO RACE AGAIN!!!!”

Listening to all of the voice lines again, it seems less like Ace is panicking because his hand is hurting, and more like he's panicking because of what may happen to him if his hand is indeed badly injured. So it's less so about the injury itself, and more about what may happen because of it.

He first, of course, panics over Xander being a threat. That's completely expected, since making Xander angry just broke a table and assumedly hurt him in some way or another.

The cereal line is a bit confusing, especially considering his secret. A while back I came up with an out-there theory that he said that in order to try and deflect any suspicion about his secret, since an eating disorder can weaken your bones and if he got hurt too easily, people might begin to suspect something. So he rather clumsily brought up the subject of how he did in fact eat food. If we consider the fact that he's lying here, then him saying he'd rather die than do something makes a lot more sense, since we know he doesn't mean that at all. But in hindsight I may have been overthinking it...Still, I can't think of a better explanation, other than dismissing it altogether as a throwaway joke that didn't have much thought put into it.

The last line is what really makes this interesting. Ace hates his talent and anything to do with it. And yet one of the things he's panicking about the most is how he may not be able to race after sustaining an injury. And I think that this moment probably gives us our earliest insight into just how far Ace will go in order to race. In his first FTE with Teruko, he claims he doesn't do much work at all for his talent, until his performance anxiety forces him to. By saying that, it makes it sound like his talent doesn't completely dominate his life.

But this scene, in the same exact episode of his FTE, quickly proves to the viewer just how desperate Ace is to continue his talent, to the point where his own well-being becomes less important than it. Ace's extreme reaction to being injured isn't because he's a wimp that can't deal with pain, it's because he's spiraling about what this could mean for his career and, therefore, his status as a failure. "What if this injury prevents me from racing?" is the question that comes first, causing him to panic instead of being able to focus on how bad the injury actually is.

...I guess the thing that made me want to write about this scene is just how...Smart it is. It does so much at once. On a first viewing, it's really funny, and it still is on other viewings. Yet in hindsight, it's easier to notice just how distressed Ace is, and that no one is taking that seriously. No one ever takes his fears seriously, and in the end his fears drove him to murder, proving how important they really were. Even if his worries seem silly from an outsider's perspective, they're very real to him. And that's something that no one in-universe could realize until it was too late. This scene does an amazing job summarizing just how the cast's attitude towards Ace helped push him to becoming a culprit.

...Or maybe I'm taking the silly arm-wrestling scene too seriously, haha.

[chaoswarfare]

do x dc prompt #44

The JL are all out of options. this summoning is their last chance to get rid of the creature destroying the country and easily fending off their strongest allies.

The eldritch horror melts out of the chalk lines and looms over the heroes in charge of summoning it. The Ghost King, Ruler of the dead. Their last chance.

They ask for assistance, waiting on baited breath the creature’s demands.

“Wacky, poggers my dude. That’s pretty unfun, i gotchu tho. I’ll skedaddle and knock the ghoulie on his ass for ya.“

“no deals or repayment? he must be lying, you all know you can’t trust fae without specific contracts-“

“no cap, true that. i’m just cooler than that.”

And just like that, he disappeared from the circle with a quiet pop to take care of the problem.

Apparently the king of the dead talks like the worst combination of all american slang ever.

[gallusrostromegalus]

I think there's two things going on in canon about Aizen:

Aizen doesn't kill captains in the first big battle of his betrayal because he can't.

1. The doylist explanation of his actions is so blatantly transparent (shonen jump scheduling hell) that it overwhelms the subtle watsonian clues that kubo gives us which are:

2. Aizen is a lying bitch. To absolutely everyone around him, but most of all, to himself.

He takes great pains to disguise it. He talks a big game and definitely tries his best to kill, but he doesn't. it makes tactical sense for him to kill at least SOMEONE before fucking off to hueco Mundo but even the fucking off belies the problem. He's a tough customer, but if he really were capable of killing another captain in a fight, he wouldn't have bothered with the whole fake corpse theater- he would have just picked them off one by one while quietly completing the hogyoku until Yamamoto had straight-up run out of strong enough shinigami to promote and Aizen had made himself a god while nobody was looking.

Instead, Aizen's plan relies on (and fails at) having the captains kill each other, and building an army of warm bodies to put between himself and the rest of the Court Guard until the Hogyoku is complete, which pretty much screams "I cannot win, even in a pitched fight".

EVEN WHEN THE HOGYOKU IS COMPLETE, Aizen doesn't stick around to actually finish off the captains- he bolts to the living world AGAIN and shuts the portal doors behind him.

-

Now that we know that Aizen is mostly smoke and mirrors who is desperately trying to stay alive until his godhood hax kick in, his pattern of avoidance of real threats reveals something interesting:

It's funny that you mention him being afraid of Yamamoto because I think he is afraid, but not of Yamamoto. Aizen doesn't want anyone to think he's scared of anything, but it's better you think it's Yamamoto than The Actual Problem. If you ignore everything Aizen says and just look at how close he's willing to even let other captains get to his person, there is one captain he's TERRIFIED of above all others.

He spends exactly one scene in the same room with them, and only when he knows the meeting is ending early.

He absolutely refuses to taunt them- in fact, they're the person he spends the most time trying to convince that he is actually dead.

When confronted by the various captains, he glaots a bit and then tries to kill them- except one, whole monologues at exactly long enough for Gin to cause a distraction, and then DIPS. He even cuts his big monologue at the execution grounds short because this Captain is incoming.

When the finale of the winter war begins, Aizen makes a point of not being in the same dimension as this captain, and when they're approaching, he leaves for the living world.

Again and again and again, there is one captain, one person, that Aizen stays far, far away from:

Unohana.

I don't think this is intentional on Kubo's part, (unless it's severely underplayed foreshadowing which is a shame) but given how kubo treats his female characters and how he doesn't really seem to understand what a doctor does, I think Aizen's pattern of staying the hell away from Unohana is accidental, but it's my fic and I can have it be on purpose because it reveals some truly delicious motivation and interaction.

1. AEIWAM!Aizen (and to a similar extent, canon!Aizen) regularly squanders perfectly good resources or chances to fix the inequities of soul society because he's too far up his own ass to see the forest for the trees. One of the cheif blindspots he has is his rampant misogyny. Aizen regards the relationship between Gin and Rangiku as that of child and toy. He treats Momo as a disposable tool instead of recognizing she was the one who got closest to actual killing any of the other captains. He seems to think the royal guard themselves will be easy to deal with- possibly because the only one he ever knew in person was Hikifune, and it is so, so easy for a man like him to wildly low all the power and competence of someone like her. He rambles about the hollows having no inner life, but notably it's Hallibel that triggers this rant. It NEVER occurs to him that Orihime herself could be a problem - she's just a toy to take from Ichigo.

Aizen, simply put, does not think of women as people. He disregards the interiority of everyone around him, really, but ESPECIALLY the women around him.

...but this kind of objectification cuts both ways. Like most bigots, his inability to think of certain humans as people means he is also prone to greatly inflate the damage they can do in his mind until they become supernatural entities. "The Enemy is both pathetic and omnipotent" is an important basis of victim complexes, and Aizen Loooooves being the victim, so it makes PERFECT SENSE that his personal Boogeyman is none other than the woman he knows entirely as the quiet and dutiful doctor who has never set foot in battle but that all the older shinigami seem strangely eager to placate. Unohana is pathetically weak, so far as Aizen can tell, yet seems to effortlessly command the respect he so desperately craves. No wonder she lives rent-free in his head.

2. ... Ironically, Aizen is right about her. In canon, Unohana's past as the first kenpachi is not a secret, just largely forgotten. In AEIWAM, it's an actual secret because the Gotei-13 is playing a much more fraught game with the C46. Aizen genuinely has no idea she used to be captain of the 11th, so the weird bloodthirsty edges that he sometimes sees to her reiatsu, and the respect she commands with the other (smarter) captains is baffling.

In truth, Unohana is every inch the monster she was as a kenpachi as she is a medic. Flesh is hers to command and her willingness to cut and sculpt it to her desires hasn't changed- she is just now also capable of healing and reviving it into shape as well, which is much, much worse.

I haven't decided exactly how much Aizen knows about her by the time of his betrayal, but at least on a subconscious level, I think Aizen knows that Unohana is punching in a league well above most of the captains, if not above the old man himself at this point, and his inability to think of her as human means he is unable to assign human motives to her like most of his victims, so she appears terrifyingly unpredictable.

3. Even if it's a secret, some of the captains know, or have guessed. She was still Kenpachi when Shunsui and Ukitake started at the academy. Soi Fon is responsible for handling some of soul society's most sensitive information. Zaraki got his ass handed to him by her and has been in love ever since. Rangiku looked into giving blood once and realized that the most of donors to transplants didn't add up and the meat had to be coming from SOMEWHERE and oh wait that would explain everything huh.

There's a fun bit of play, I think, between the captains who knows Unohana is more than she at first appears, and the ones who haven't gotten a clue yet.

I may have wandered off topic.

MY POINT IS: Aizen doesn't kill captains when it makes tactical sense for him to do so because he is not capable of doing so. His whole strategy relies on not getting killed before he gets his godhood and up until he does, he's running like a rat.

Poor bastard.

If only he knew what was in store for him when he got there.

I did not care at all for Aizen Sosuke when I first read bleach. I found him boring, and worst, unthreatening.

So it's pretty jarring for me that I have been OBSESSED with him in your AU. I'm rotating him at great speed

Walt Disney was a jackass who was flat-out wrong about a lot of very important things, but he employed a great many geniuses of storytelling, and there's a piece in Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson that discusses a key feature of Disney Studios Character Design:

"Of all characters, villains are the most fun to develop because they make everything else happen. They are the instigators, and always more colorful than the Hero. They may be dramatic, awesome, insidious or semi-comic, but they MUST be appealing. Almost any story becomes innocuous if all the evil is eliminated, but we do not necessarily gain strength by being frightening. we want a character that will hold the audience and entertain them, even if it's a Chilling Type of Entertainment."

And I've found that to be an important principle of character design, especially the kind of canon restructuring I do.

Aizen had a LOT going for him in canon- for all of Bleach's other faults, Aizen's conspiracy and THE REVEAL are spectacularly constructed and executed. I legit screamed and threw my mug across my dorm room when I read it in the manga the first time. He's also conventionally attractive and the translations I was reading gave him the speech patterns of Every Douchebag In Your 101 Political Theory Who Thinks He's The Smartest Man In The Room, which made him a terrific combination of Unfortunately Charming, Menacingly Competent and Engagingly Obnoxious.

...But he falls flat in a few key places.

Aizen's reasoning could be MUCH more sympathetic- After all, he is RIGHT. Soul Sciety does suck ass and all the options kind of suck. Who designs a universe like that? An asshole who needs killing, that's who. The best kind of Unhinged Madmen are the kind who spell out their reasoning and you realize that there but for the grace of Not Having Super Powers Go I. Canon!Aizen makes a few Good Rhetorical Points, but seems to lack any personal connection to his all-consuming plan.

Another issue is that nearly every villain with A Plan has a clear end goal AND a lot of the menace is drawn from the fact that the plan *could* work. Aizen's plan for betraying the court guard and then killing them off before proceeding into the Royal Realm to Kill God sorta falls apart when it's clear he planned to use pretty much all his accumulated forces dealing with the court guard and doesn't seem to have a plan for the Even More Powerful Royal Guard, let alone God. For how meticulously planned the rest of the plot is, the last two VERY IMPORTANT steps are just handwaved.

So I sat down and started with the plot beats Aizen MUST hit, and tried to imagine what kind of guy would he have to be to get there? And I came up with this:

Sosuke Aizen is a fundamentally good man with genuinely good intentions who is really trying his best for the whole world.

Think about it- what lengths would you NOT go to if you think you found a genuine shot at Fixing Everything Wrong With The World Forever? We all talk about killing Hitler if we found an actual Time Machine- would you do it if your only chance was when he was a baby? Would you kill an infant if it meant you could stop World War II before it starts? Of course you would! One small life for over 75 million? You'd be insane not to! What if you found out that you could prevent the future extinction of Humanity by killing your best friend today? Ten Billion lives? For theirs? It's simple, really- Hell, it's your Moral Obligation to do that if you were SURE!

-And Aizen IS sure. He is absolutely, totally, completely sure that He Can Save Everyone if he just gets rid of that idiot sitting on the throne of heaven. He's seen the plans! He knows where the gate of heaven is! It's So SIMPLE he just has to get inside, and he knows EXACTLY how to do it, yes it'll be hard and there will be... unpleasant parts but. IT. WILL. WORK.

He is of course, insane.

Aizen didn't have One Bad Day that set him irrevocably on the path of madness. It was a succession of catastrophic disappointments and realizations that he was living in a fundamentally irrational world that made irrational thinking look sane. The Catastrophe that befell his family, working for the central 46 and later the court guard and seeing how the organizations were inept to the point of abuse or corrupt to the core, learning that The Actual House Of God is a place he can just? Go to? Anyone would start thinking you were just a handful of white lies and homicides away from Fixing Everything, Forever.

Not only is Aizen insane, he is nowhere near as smart as he thinks. He is smart- He does have a knack for being able to guess just what will spur someone to action or make them recoil in fear. But mostly he gets extremely lucky Many, Many, MANY times. On some level I think it gives him Confirmation Bias that this is what he's supposed to be doing. Aizen is also nowhere near as smart as (nearly) everyone else thinks he is. His bizarrely good luck makes him look like a hyper-competent genius when really it was really the catastrophic failure of Soul Society as a Society that let a merely mediocre conspirator to evade detection for so long.

Being that he is at most, mediocre, he had to have Outside Help, specifically Gin's emotional support and Tousen's Competence- and if there's a part of the fic that stays true to canon, it's this.

Gin is Aizen's emotional rock in Canon. He's the ONE guy that Aizen genuinely trusts, and considers his 'my only real partner' in his scheme. There's more than one occasion in the manga where Aizen more or less asks Gin "Is this actually a good idea?" and Gin backs him up every time.

...Which is more than a bit at odds with Gin's later stated goal of "I did all this to kill you at your most vulnerable to protect rangiku" . It never rang true to me. So I started thinking why on EARTH Gin would be backing Aizen up like that, and realized there was a hole in my world building that he slotted into nicely :)

On the other hand, the entire fic was started because I didn't like how Tousen's character arc ended, so you can imagine how much he's changed.

But in canon, TOUSEN DOES ALL THE FUCKING WORK.

Lab work? Tousen.

Supervising the arrancar directly? Tousen

Actually getting victims for the Hogyoku experiments? Tousen.

Altering all the archives to keep Aizen's plot hidden? Tousen.

Sending all the Orders allegedly from the central 46? Tousen.

Making sure Unohana believes Aizen's fake body is real? Tousen.

Managing all the day-to-day operations at Las Noches? Tousen.

There's even this little exchange, which is Tousen's first appearance in the Manga:

Aizen establishes this entire meeting is a little fake-out a few pages later with "now isn't that a convenieint time for the alarm to go off?"

which makes him look like he's investigating, but he's also going "Good job on disrupting everyone with the alarm Gin!" It's ballsy of Aizen to do a check-in on his plan with his main nemesis in the room, but also his style.

I think the same thing is happening here with Tousen. To make sure Ukitake wouldn't raise a huge fit about the proposed execution of his beloved lieutenant, which might fuck everything up for Aizen because Ukitake is one of like, three people Yamamoto will listen to (sort of).

...So he had Tousen poison Ukitake to keep him out of the way.

ALL. THE. FUCKING. WORK. It's even in his name! The characters for "Tousen" Refer to a legendary scholar the emperor of China sent out to discover the secret of immortality- only to kill the scholar when he returned with that secret. The character for "Kaname" means "Necessary/Vital/keystone" or "to organize/take account of". His name LITERALLY means "Scholar who is essential for the plan (that we're going to kill later)"

Another thing Kubo did well in Bleach: his name game is Off The Fucking Charts.

-but I digress.

In AEIWAM, it's much the same only this time Aizen sees this very dangerous witness who is immune to his illusions but also extremely snart and capable young man and instead of risking being caught out by the one damn guy who can see right through him, opts to Curse Kaname into doing as Aizen says, and doing all the fucking work of this conspiracy against his will.

It's Not Nice, but Aizen genuinely thinks he's doing Kaname a favor by subjecting him to this degrading and incredibly painful servitude- I mean, Aizen's only other option was to Kill him to keep his silence, and isn't it wonderful that you get to help fix the universe? You're the one always going on about Justice, I don't understand why you didn't jump at the chance to mete out some Divine Justice.

An Excerpt from the captain's meeting in between the Massacre that made the visored and Zaraki's arrival, when Kaname realizes Yamamoto is 100% serious about his promotion to captain of the 9th and goes to throw up in the garden. Aizen offers to go check on him while Unohana very politely reads the general the riot act:

---

"You broke your toy Aizen." Kaname coughs.

"…I really am sorry for running you ragged like this. I really shouldn't have gotten so mad about you hiding the the hogyoku- it was very petty of me." The bastard sighs, taking off his glasses and rubbing his face, entirely genuine.

Kaname stayed on his hands and knees, weaving slightly as another wave of nausea flowed through him, powered by disgust and rage.

"How about this- I've got a lot coming up with the new job, training Gin and disposing of Kiganjo- So how about I promise to not give you any orders for a while? You will have to keep our arrangement a secret and not interfere, of course, but other than that, you're free to do as you please for- a year and a day is traditional isn't it? No, that's not going to heal by then- Oh, would you look at that!"

Kaname didn't have the strength to offer his usual rebuttal that he won't look at anything, ever. The sides of his head tingle like his skul was being pressed between two enormous hands made of static electricity.

"It's 11:11! Alright, I won't give you any Orders until 11:11 am on November 11th, 1911. That's easy to remember! What do you think?" Aizen continued cheerfully, patting his back and the Curse nails.

"…I can't." Kaname groaned. He could scream if he had the energy, but due to Aizen's Illusions, nobody would hear him. "I actually physically can't think. Please…"

"Of course! You really are such a help to me, it would be a shame to lose you. I'll even amend our contract, so you don't get paranoid-" There was a sizzling sound and a new stroke of hot pain up Kaname's spine as Aizen did something to the wretched Bakudo. "There. No compulsions for eleven years and a day. What do you say?"

Kaname grimaced, but dropped his head. Save the energy to fight another day. "…thank you, Aizen-sama."

"Good man! Let's get you on your feet." Aizen beamed, putting his glasses back on and offering him an arm.

---

He genuinely thinks that he's doing everyone a huge favor and if they don't get it it's because they're just not smart enough, but it's alright, He's a Benevolent God and they'll appreciate all his hard work the next time around :)

Aizen is a man who is FULL of joy. He loves what he does! He actively takes pleasure in it! And I think that's something that REALLY delivers in terms of sympathy AND horror for him. Who *Wouldn't* have a great time actually fixing the universe? He's a good man who enjoys doing good works, and this is the greatest work of all!

It also Delivers on the Horror when I get to write the deliciously fun scenes where Aizen is Elbows-deep in a novel War Crime and waxing poetic about how GREAT this is, or being confused why the people around him are reacting with fear. Don't you want to make everything better too?

[ryllen]

alex who is good at heart & said  “good luck” when he rejected you after  “nah... I'm gonna ask someone else” on flower dance festival

and actually care about having friends,

that he has been acting friendly to u even at 0 hearts, in seek of new friend opportunity.

[eikichi-supremacy]

okay maybe an unpopular opinion but i think shiori shouldn't actually like hiei that much

[donut-entendre]

why are you starving your farmer's son to death. feed him

[theskymahtin]

I can't stop thinking about the Watcher thing it's just so fascinatingly bizarre . like so many components of that decision and how they handled it were so bad and so completely out of left field for how they've operated in the past I am baffled . Someone put these guys under a microscope Stat

[takeyourdailydoseofcyanide]

asking for help always makes things worse

[itsalwaysdark]

i like overthink everything now it makes me feel so dumb. i used 2 be able to just talk 2 ppl but nowadays every single thing im like Is that actually going to make them hate me. Yes probably. and then i just dont respond which makes ppl hate me. this is how it is

[technicolorxsn]

THERES A GAMERGATE SVU EPISODE??????

[camellcat]

sometimes I see edits of eleven with rose and wonder who else is going to be absolutely FOOLED by them thinking that maybe MAYBEEE there's a sliver of truth. just. maybe not that, what I'm looking at, is a shot from the show, but maybe—

[scarycranegame]

people who think mouthwashing is about rape clearly haven't played how fish is made/the last one and then another

[seaofreverie]

The Me who bought tickets to see TMBG in february 2023 and the Me who's going to actually go to the show next month are two completely different people

[andromedasummer]

i ended up having a like. 30 minute conversation with some of those "freedom convoy" people. was at the bus stop. they were wearing trump hats. i ended up roped into the conversation because i was so taken aback at seeing one in public i was just. staring at it. ive never felt more depressed about someone elses life and beliefs than when i talked to them.

[melissa-titanium]

group oroject im on with two people i wanna befriend really bad is almost over. sits down pat;ethically