#this is complete nonsense

[aniisol]

hey imagine if we were rats dude. and there was like a world where everybody was a rat. well, not really, because there would still be people, but they'd be, like, npcs, and some of the rats would be npcs too, but that's okay, and then we could go on like cool rat adventures. what if you got to be like a pirate rat. and you could be on a rat ship. that's made out of a plastic cup

ren at the end of wild life: what

martyn, looking directly into the camera and breaking the fourth wall: don't worry about it though man that lore doesn't come into this story yet

[kingyo-konbini]

one piece modern/social media au thoughts (straw hat pirates edition)

Monkey D. Luffy: technical owner of a channel dedicated to recording his and his friends adventures, but he never films anything or actually acknowledges the camera or the existence of the channel

Roronoa Zoro: has the potential to be a fitness influencer but he never records or posts anything. as such he has one account on one form of social media that is entirely un-customized and he only follows mihawk and luffy

Nami: fashion, makeup, and jewelry hauls. follows the weather channel. posts risque photos and scams men out of their money

Usopp: storytime channel but every storytime is so outlandish that he’s developed a reputation of being a liar. has an avid fanbase of children who are entirely convinced that usopp is the coolest person in the world. posts like every three days. sometimes posts diy tutorials. he’s also the one that runs luffy’s channel

Vinsmoke Sanji: accounts focus on food; recipes, tips, and asmr cooking videos and mouth watering final product photos. only follows women and comments on every single thing they post like a total simp

Chopper: doesn’t have a dedicated format or genre of content, just posts whatever he thinks is funny or cool or interesting

Nico Robin: didn’t have any social media presence until nami made an account for her. it remains un-customized, like zoro’s, but she follows all the straw hat’s accounts and some libraries and museums. everything is kept on private. posts about what book she’s reading sometimes and writes absolutely scathing reviews that no one other than nami and chopper read

Franky: large following, posts crafting, woodwork, maintenance, diy, etc etc. builds a lot of gundams on camera and a lot of people like that? he basically just builds stuff (legos, robots, cars) and talks about cola and everyone loves him

Brook: music, of course. covers, original songs, tutorials; has a MASSIVE following and likes to collaborate with his friends for the occasional daily vlog

Jinbe: chopper and nami made him an account. he follows all of the other straw hats and always comments something supporting (“Very cool!”) like a nice grandpa. doesn’t 100% understand why everyone is always sharing everything but he vibes with it and posts photos of him and his friends. really likes dog videos

[blueberry-bubbles130]

I’ve finally figured out how my frequently changing obsessions work. It’s like being on a really really long road trip, so someone has to drive (I’m never in the driver seat by the way) Therefore the person I’m most obsessed with is the driver while I’m in the front passenger seat. Then whenever the car stops, the person driving changes. Everyone else is in the back, because the obsession never stops, they just loom over me and become a driver again at some point.

So as of now, Thomas Cromwell’s the driver and Thomas More is backseat driving.

[spamtennavil]

[elodieunderglass]

And one amang, an Iyrysch man,

Uppone his hoby swyftly ran…

WAIT HANG ON - slamming the brakes on drawing this stupid picture - do you nerds even KNOW the etymology of the word “hobby”? The thing you do for pleasure? The thing you have too many of? The thing you spend too much money on and share with your friends? The thing tumblr probably is to you? Those hobbies?

It comes from a now-kind-of-extinct breed of Irish pony-horse. It was called the Irish Hobby. Supposedly the hobby got its name from the Gaelic word obann, or swift. They definitely were. They’d obann your pants clean off.

Fast tough little bastards, built for rough terrain and renowned for their speed and stamina, hobby horses belonged to the Celts, and their highly annoying style of mounted warfare. but their conquerors liked hobby horses a lot, kept them, used them for themselves, and found them useful enough, despite the fact that they also had famously useful things like mounted knights or horse archers. A lightweight Irish warrior, mounted on a hobby horse, was called a hobelar.

Reportedly and in depictions, hobelars rode without stirrups. Or saddles. Or bridles. Or - well - this is all sounding very improbable, because the hobelars COULDNT have just been charging around basically bare-assed on naked ponies, screaming, and somehow in the process undoing the composure of actual mounted armoured knights. Knights who, I remind you, had stirrups. Stirrups are useful! It’s quite likely the hobelars had some gear. And clothes. and weapons. And the ponies probably had some tack - I am picturing a bellyband that you could at least hang a saddlebag on, and a neck rope for catching the bloody thing, even if not a saddle. But the overall impression, somehow created by people on darling little ponies, was apparently quite striking and fearful.

I mean. God Forbid People Have Hobbies.

Anyway after a while, whatever people became the British had eventually conquered all of the rough terrain that hobbies were best at, and horse archers just got sexier, and mounted knights became aristos, and all the bog and forest people had been subdued, so it was time to sunset the hobelars. but WAIT! Hobby horses are still tremendously fun and appealing! They’re so fast! and you can ride them without a saddle! Sure, they’re not up to the weight of a mounted knight, or indeed a lot of guys… but surely we can still find a use for a hobby or two? In the back garden? Somewhere?

At which point an English king decided to keep hobby horses just for fun. No military application. No further development of the technology. Not for fun. Just as expensive, pleasurable, pets. Just for the joy of the thing.

And that is how hobby (activity done purely for pleasure) comes from hobby horse (small horse) possibly from obann (swift.) they’re very interesting and you should look all this up for yourself! because it sure sounds like Elodie doing a bit, doesn’t it?

Today, Irish Hobbies are functionally nonexistent. References for drawing include the Kerry Bog Pony, the Connemara, and (I personally think) Dartmoors and Exmoors. They’re said to have lent their speed to the Irish Hunter/Sport Horse and from there to the Thoroughbred, but every damn horse in the world claims relation to the Thoroughbred, and they can’t be THAT thoroughly bred.

At any rate - you can never have enough hobbies. Just be glad that yours aren’t expensive beasts with minds of their own, eating their heads off in the pasture! …Unless they are. In which case, you’re part of a proud tradition.

[critter-of-habit]

In the end, all roads lead to me.

[motherfucker-unlimited]

Yankee reactions to those leaked cut pokemon mythology stories is that it really shows that they don't have any folklore or culture

[vaxxildamn]

finally…… the legendary Level 20 Scissor Gal-adin

[deikshen]

Hear me out: a sort of spiritual communication array that works like a group chat of some Binghe's wives where they gossip and live together more carefree behind their husband's back... where the transmigrated and current rogue cultivator Shen Yuan is accidentally added.

Shen Yuan probably ignores all the messages at first as, well, fuck. A group of gossipy women. He's been in worse group chats, and the company is entertaining when he's been through more two weeks without a trace of another human being hunting a beast. However, you could send some useful answers, some knowledge about plants or medicines that they appreciate!! And they call him "Meimei", so Shen Yuan assumes that they have surely made a mistake with his communication array password... Which is weird, he suppose, because who uses "blessed heavenly pillar" as their password? Anyway. Shen Yuan appreciates the gossipy friends he's making.

Apparently they all live in the same place, are they like, a community? Given certain comments and insinuations between them, perhaps a community of lesbians living under someone's protection? Cool! He was sure that the heavenly pillar definitely wasn't something that could treat lesbianism like a sick and "cure" it (even if he knows that the bastard Airplane would have considered it, nor would he have been capable of that disrespect), so good for them! He liked them too much to end up like part of that harem!! Although being Binghe's wife is a privilege, of course, but one in three hundred...

Shen Yuan doesn't talk much in the group, but he has his favorite "Jiejies"! They're all sweet and nice to him, and even the most unfriendly ones become fond of it after a good recipe for scented soaps or moisturizing creams. Sometimes they even ask him privately with any questions. Shen Yuan feels bad when he has to decline invitations to eat or go listen to music, because he's not even there!! In fact, at this point he's already embarrassed to admit that he was added by mistake and he remained silent about it!!

And, in the midst of one of his travels, Shen Yuan encounters the core of the world. Binghe! Emperor Luo Binghe! They share a small adventure hunting the beast — Luo Binghe looks quite haughty and arrogant, yet vulnerable when he's cooking, illuminated by the fire and with that tiny disheveled braid in his hair. Shen Yuan enjoys his meal and read in the chat, commenting that he remembered some flowers that can be used to dye fabrics, sending the specifications and receiving tens of happy comments about it.

Ah, actually, he doesn't have a bad life. He thinks so. He keeps randomly running into Luo Binghe on his travels, and his friends in the group chat are as gossipy and fun as ever.

And then, one day, Shen Yuan wakes up with an exaggerated amount of messages:

» "I think we'll have to add another one soon"

» "Another one? Damn. How many of us are there?"

» "Three hundred and twelve?"

» "Not everyone is here, in this group there are less than a hundred. The main wives have their own group, too."

» "I thought lady Mingyan was at the beginning?"

» "She was, but she got bored. Mingyan never wants to be in our groups since we criticized thata bad novel about the ice king and his spy"

» "Hualing neither, but she caused the first group to collapse with her rudeness"

» "But why add another one? You're getting off topic, ladies. Husband's been away again?"

» "Phew, honey. If only you knew. He goes off and comes back like a puppy. I've never seen that look on his face"

» "He looks young and adorable. Hualing was complaining about that the other day"

» "I mean, husband always looks handsome, but he has this glow. The glow when he's falling in love, again. I haven't seen him like that in a long time"

» "Me neither! I thought I'd never see him shine like that again after the third week of our wedding"

» "Same sis. Since the second one. It's nice to see him shine happily even if he's not looking at me"

» "Do we know who she is? From which realm? A demon? A cultivator? Details, details!!"

» "We need more demons, badass girls"

» "Husband says he's going hunting. He comes back with beasts and flowers. But also with that smile. So I'm guessing a cultivator"

» "Hell, more? They'll beat us by a landslide"

» "Girl, don't complain. More to bite on"

» "When you stop being being super close and eating together, we can talk about how we can't let husband ruin it with this?"

» "Why would a husband ruin it?"

» "He is our husband"

» "You're absolutely right. Fuck he's going to ruin it"

» "What should we do?"

» "First, find out about her! Warn her! Tell her that our husband is a fool but has a good heart deep down!! Who has permission to leave the palace? Has anyone spoken to Yingying lately?!"

» "We have to warn her about the size of his dick"

» "That too. I would have appreciated being prepared"

» "I married him after reading the yellow books about him, AND I WASN'T PREPARED"

» "No one is. My poor flower"

» "Too much information"

» "I'm not sorry"

» "Girls GIRLS GIRLS. For heaven's sake. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I JUST FOUND OUT."

» "If it doesn't have to do with our husband's new conquest, it's irrelevant gossip."

» "It has to do with"

» "SPIT IT OUT"

» "His new conquest is not a woman"

» "what"

» "WHAT?"

» "?????"

» "Listen, but it makes sense, right? Husband could be a cut sleeve that didn't notice until now. So that's why there are so many of us. None of us can be enough because we're missing something, you know, important."

» "A dick"

» "I was going to say a pillar, but you get the point."

» "Where did you hear that from?"

» "Our husband was telling General Mobei. That he should prepare a trunk of fine men's robes, that he would soon bring his new traveling companion to see the palace. That he plans to move him into his private chambers."

» "NO FUCKING WAYYY"

» "Hualing will explode"

» "I haven't seen a good attempt in years, do you want to bet?"

» "Do we know anything else?"

» "I don't know his name, sorry, that's all I have. He is a small rogue cultivator"

» "How small?"

» "By the measurements that husband requested for his robes, 5'6"

» "Damn it"

» "Short"

» "Oh damn, his poor chrysanthemum"

» "OH FUCK"

» "NO WAY"

» "HOW THE HELL DOES OUR HUSBAND'S COCK FIT IN SOMETHING SO SMALL? FUCK"

» "I will put incense in the name of his hole"

» "Oh girl, me too"

Shen Yuan stops reading with a mixture of horror, shame, and panic. What. The. Fuck. HOW THE FUCK DID HE END UP IN THAT GROUP? In the DAMNED BINGHE WIFE GROUP. Fuck. Oh fuck.

And yes, HE HAD agreed to visit Luo Binghe's palace, BUT only because he had mentioned that it had been a long time since he had slept in a bed and had a nice hot bath!! And Luo Binghe had been an exceptional gentleman and good friend offering to visit the palace and receive some care! Nothing perverted like those wives talked about!!

Oh, those wives. Damn. How come he'd been infiltrating that chat for MONTHS without realizing it!? Yes, it was true that when there were MANY messages he would ignore them and just skip them... But he would have stopped immediately if someone had mentioned Binghe directly!! But FUCK. They only mentioned him as "husband" and Shen Yuan's radar on anything where Binghe was mentioned didn't go off. Fuck.

Well, that's fine. He's not... a conquest. Nothing like that. Shen Yuan is sure of that! The protagonist is 100% heterosexual, no matter what those wives say!!! They're his wives damn, they should know how straight he is!!

He'll go to that palace, prove that he's just a good friend of Binghe, and that's it!

(In the future, when he is already married with Luo Binghe and one of Binghe's many wives asks for his communication array password to add him to a group chat to, he know, chat and share, Shen Yuan runs away with a red face. That same night, everyone is saddened because the kind and sweet Meimei who knew a lot about beast, flowers and remedies left the group.)

[salemoleander]

I am BARELY resisting going full red-strings-corkboard on this season. And by barely resisting I mean not resisting at all here is an extremely long list of the events those pins would be marking out.

BigB getting a Task that was a different color than everyone else's. It's not just a randomly assigned Hard Task, bc Scar rerolled for a Hard Task and his was also just a white envelope. It's fundamentally different.

That task taking BigB away from socialization, and seemingly being an incredibly time-consuming and dull request. Of profound disinterest to any watchers.

The phrasing of his Task!!

Dig a big hole. All the way down. At least 3x3. Make it your base if you want.

Everyone else's are direct and formal - the only one with more than one sentence was Skizz's, with the rule clarification of "One attempt only." Bigb's Task is four short abrupt sentences. It is also the only Task to contain extraneous information, 'Make it your base if you want.' The requirements (at least 3x3) feel like an afterthought to mimic the numerical/specific demands of the other tasks.

Evo symbol on the face of the Secret Keeper statue.

The fact that there's a statue at all; the fact that there is a physical representation of what is assigning tasks that everyone must complete, when previously everything was always handled via commands and unseen RNG.

Grian talking to the statue, and (bc of his Actual Role as game organizer) acting as a mediator for the impartial decisions handed down, speaking for it.

Grian making one last bad joke and saying he doesn't know if it counted or not- depends on whether we the audience laughed.

Grian asking for task recommendations from the audience. The watchers are making the tasks. The Watchers are making the tasks.

Again I could be off-base, and I'm not usually even that smitten with bringing in Evo lore. I don't want a Big Bad really...but. It feels like something very unusual and intentional and cool is happening in this series. And I'd guess we'll know if theres something going on once we have more than one data point.

My largely unfounded suspicion is that there is another being (maybe Listeners, maybe something else) trying to reach out to the Players via decoy Tasks, and BigB was the first recipient. Get them alone, make them of disinterest to the watchers, and tell them something we don't get to know.

Because that's the really, really fucking cool part (if my wacky theory is remotely right): We're the bad guys. We're the ones giving out tasks - hell, we're the ones actively brainstorming harder and crueller tasks in Grian's comments!

If they actually made a story where the Players have to keep secrets from us I will be delighted. Bc that is the same genius bullshit that made Evo Watcher lore so fun

[peachitykeen]

A hyperrealistic cockroach would scare me too, if I were Frank. It scared me as me! I wasn’t expecting to see that little guy scurrying around on the website.

[sublimerences]

In light of Eitaku/Aotsumi somewhat like kinda sorta really getting confirmed to some degree, I kind of want to yap about how crazy they both are

(Warning for Spoilers + discussion surrounding the Prologue, True, Multiple Eitos, and Goodbye Eito Routes Below)

Like, where do you begin here? They’re practically made for each other, Takumi killing him [and absorbing his hemoanima] in route 0 was /the/ damning act that bound them together for every reset thereafter. They bring out the absolute best and worst in each other, and prove that they both, deep down, lack the strength to carry out their convictions despite the gravity that they’re treated with. They both possess qualities that, at a surface level, seem completely at odds with their respective goals.

Takumi is, as we know, majorly invested in saving everyone — he takes on this savior/martyr role where he shoulders basically every act that requires judgement some way or another, including everyone’s burdens and the continued war effort. He is so deeply entrenched in the belief that if no one else does it, he has to, to the point of actually being pretty brutal about it; in these positions where he has to make increasingly difficult decisions, he’s the one who has to choose the most pragmatic options — even if it directly leads to others, and often himself, getting hurt — for the sake of survival, to make it to the end of the 100 days.

Really, there’s a sort of resignation to Takumi’s character where he actually ends up being pretty complicit to [often needless] violence when the situation “calls for it” (ie. Eva getting repeatedly tortured). He’s not usually in a position where he protests wrongs (even if he internally disagrees with them), instead seeing the war (and by extension the violence associated with it) as an inevitability — an immutable factor. He’s more on the reactive side than proactive. If given the mullen, he will bite it, often unquestioningly. Takumi is a character that changes drastically depending on the choices that are made, but I’d argue on an overarching level that it’s the possibilities that he considers that really define him as a character. Everyone knows that Eito’s skill names (judge, jury, and executioner) reflect him on a personal level, but Takumi is put in the same position time and time again, as well. (Notably, Takumi’s foreknowledge and past experiences do have the tendency to inhibit his ability to make sound judgement — there’s a reason that court of law deems evidence of other unrelated crimes inadmissible because it interferes in judging the here-and-now).

* One of my favorite aspects of the Multiple Eitos route is Takumi’s tangible shift in thought process — from “Why didn’t I choose to spare him?” to “Why did I let him live in the first place?” I like how the true route sort of pushes that further, in the way it encourages you to take certain options (choose Kyoshika, to help Nozomi and Kurara reconcile, and because she has additional dialogue that makes her death seem less cruel and more willing; choose Gaku because he is vital to learning more information; let Shouma kill Eva because it is vital to learning more information and because Eva is an ‘uncontrollable and unstable variable’ not worth investing in any longer). He’s so viciously pragmatic at times — a true “Whatever it takes” mindset (and showcase of his circular reasoning).

On the other hand, there’s Eito, who lands on the opposite side of the spectrum with this “Hell is other people”-oriented worldview (a fallacy of mind projection). He hates humanity with a passion, he believes himself fully righteous having been given the ability to see humanity for what it really is, and thus he feels justified in carrying out the extermination of all of humanity. There is an emotional core to his ideals despite him initially presenting cold, harsh logic and cunning — the fact that he grew up isolated from the world around him, in reality wanting companionship but being unable to trust in it both due to his affliction, being alone in his affliction, and the evidence he bases his logical argument around (the books that he read). Even then, the books themselves end up being a supplement to his lack of human connection, a grasp for some sort of understanding — for something to reaffirm the world he views on an outward level so as to justify it(s) (and his) existence. With Eito, there’s a repeated motif surrounding him about what it means to be defective, a glitch, an aberration, an uncontrollable variable that’s (as stated later on by Sirei) not meant to be there — something that Eito protests long before the nature of his exact existence is revealed. It’s clearly a doctrine that he is intimately familiar with having grown up more or less confined to a hospital after his own parents — who are supposed to be the very epitome of unconditional love (which extends to forgiveness) — gave up on him, leading to his inability to comprehend it.

I should say, the intriguing part about Takumi to Eito is that by the first reset, Takumi has effectively made himself an outlier just as Eito has been; it’s the fact that Takumi has the option (and is narratively compelled) to give Eito not just a second chance, but a third chance, at living and proving himself despite having multiple timelines (as a testament to his ability to be irredeemably reprehensible) stacked against him. Would I call it unconditional love, per se? Not really. But it is this idea that, in spite of all of Eito’s faults and his standing as a variable that is technically illogical to keep around during a war that begs vicious and inhumane pragmatism, Eito has a right to exist. It’s this that has him opening up his world just enough to let the Special Defense Unit exist beyond a generalization — or to at least entertain the idea of it.

* On a semi-unrelated tangent, the choice to have Eito literally rip out his eyes and replace his previously clear-viewed lenses with tinted frames is absolutely interesting thematically; although there is the aforementioned emotional point in his worldview, he tends to operate on a sort of unrelenting vicious logic when it comes to humanity that leaves little to no room for stragglers. He places a lot of value in his judgement and where he stands so as to make [what he perceives to be] the correct choices both strategically and when it comes to justice and comeuppance. He puts an insane amount of pride in his ability to ‘see clearly’, so both the fact that he willingly discards that and sees it as absolutely necessary to trust the others as his comrades goes to show that he believes himself to be impeding on his judgement to take that leap.

That said, Eito’s perspective, while very extremist, is absolutely a necessary counterbalance to the war effort and the predatory nationalism of the Last Defense Academy. Takumi states time and time again that he dreads learning new truths, often wishing he never learnt them at all. Eito, on the other hand, actively searches for the harsh reality of the aforementioned war effort even if it comes from a place of bad faith. Just the introduction of skepticism goes a long way, and it’s that that allows the others to humanize the Futurans instead of giving in to the rampant propaganda presented by the Academy. At the end of the day, it’s about reaching this middleground: “humanity can be terrible, we have been made to do something terrible for the sake of survival, but that doesn’t define our future — we can take the initiative to right the wrongs of our predecessors.”

Anyways, when it comes to Eitaku, there’s a definite push-and-pull dynamic here. They have the mutual ability to bring out the best in each other just as they have the ability to bring out the absolute worst. As stated, a defining part of Eito’s character is his need for autonomy and control when the circumstances of his birth were outside of it (control is a facet of Takumi’s character, albeit in a different way — ‘Its your future!’). By killing Eito, Takumi is both corroborating Eito’s cynicism regarding humanity and completely removing his agency — his opportunity to redeem himself.

In ways of the former, it’s about bringing each other to the very brink of hate-filled insanity as a twisted form of companionship (Eito absolutely sees Takumi as his nemesis, but up until then was seen more like a roadblock to work around for Takumi. Multiple Eitos revolves around actualizing the former until it’s mutual. This, in itself, is a form of understanding. For Takumi, dropping down to Eito’s level; for Eito, radicalizing Takumi up to his). As for the latter, the Multiple Eitos Route is exactly about repaying that in kind (literally taking over Takumi’s body, denying him the ability to save his friends, making his time-traveling escapades effectively moot).

What’s neat about Multiple Eitos is that it is technically a foil to Goodbye Eito and the True Route. While Multiple Eitos showcases Takumi’s capacity to be rationally cruel to the point of irrationality, the latter routes are case studies in Eito’s ability to display genuine kindness (it’s so important to Goodbye Eito that it’s children that Eito encounters in the perimeters, especially when there’s both a certain sort of childishness to his ideals, and the fact that he killed whomever tried to befriend him as a child; he is given the opportunity to perpetuate the cycle of hatred and isolation he suffered as a child but chooses not to, encouraging them to find community. In a way, the true route encompasses ideas of breaking such cycles, Takumi doing a similar thing when he and the group voluntarily accepts death to stop the massacre of the Futurans — when Nozomi chooses kindness by reaching out to them in spite of the tragedy of her situation).

Tldr; I guess what it really boils down to; I can fix him… or I can make him worse.

[stormsthatrage]

Have yet another Bleach time travel AU! I dub this one the Uno Reverse AU. Here's the initial prompt I received from a lovely anon: “Consider time travel but Ichigo sends Urahara back in time”

_______________________________

The thing is. The thing is, if someone acts in the way they always have, in the way you knew they always would, in the way you fell in love with them for, can you be mad at them for it?

Ichigo. First protector. So selfless. So kind. So good. So determined to keep everyone else safe.

Kisuke’s body tells him he has been betrayed. It is in the shock stiffening his limbs, making him clumsy. It is in the way his ears refuse to process the sounds around him, rejecting reality. It is in the way he is shivering despite the heat of midsummer, the way his feet have pressed him into the darkest corner of Yoruichi’s private rooms, the one place where he has never been hurt -

But his brain, oh, his brain, damn himself, tells him that an Ichigo who did not attempt to do what Ichigo just did would not be an Ichigo at all. It is not a betrayal when a positive and negative ion attract each other, nor is it a betrayal when a star circles a black hole. It is just - it is just natural, just the universe going on being the universe.

Betrayal might feel right, but the truth is, it is not that Ichigo committed an offense. No, it is Kisuke’s own fault for hiding away his heart in someone so reckless.

…No.

No, not that.

That makes it sound as if he regrets it, as if to do so were wrong, and nothing could be further from the truth. Kisuke could never regret it, not now, not ever.

It is better, perhaps, to say that it is Kisuke’s fault for not preparing well.

Yes, that is more accurate.

If you do not want a positive and negative ion to attract each other, you keep them separated. If you do not want an Ichigo to lay on a wire to protect someone else, you must keep Ichigo away from any and all wires.

And Kisuke had known only one of them was getting out. There were three of them, at the end - Yhwach and Kisuke’s precious heart and Kisuke himself. Three of them, locked in a guerrilla war that no one could win and no one could give up. Three of them, trapped in a necropolis of a universe where the very fabric of spacetime itself was unstable.

Three of them, and, practically, only room for one to break free. Oh, mathematically, theoretically, two was possible. If you do it at the exact same instant, you can send multiple souls back in time together. But practically speaking, the precision necessary to do so is impossible. And once one soul has been sent back, the universe unravels, resets to where that one soul lands, the rest of it is all a hard-drive wiped blank, and so Ichigo is -

Ichigo is -

- It is best not to go there.

Kisuke knew Ichigo’s learning curve. He should have known Ichigo would have figured out a way.

In the end, Ichigo had used his bankai to send Kisuke’s consciousness back, beating out Kisuke’s own development of a temporal kido array by a matter of entire months.

And so the student surpassed the master, and Kisuke is left alive, and it is not a betrayal, no matter how much it feels like one.

It is just an ion being an ion, and a Kisuke being too slow.

____________________________________

Things that happen in this AU:

- With the leisure of time and the advantage of a lab not created by scraps in the apocalypse, Kisuke finds a way to snatch Ichigo’s soul from the exact instant he himself was sent back.

- Before Kisuke realizes he can do this, he goes through three arcs:

       1) He goes a little emotionless from the thought that he will never see his Ichigo - the one that knows everything they’ve been through together - ever again. (He’s not actually a psychopath, but, uh, it’s not exactly ideal for his enemies when he voluntarily shuts off his own empathy because being a feeling person hurts too much.)

       2) He goes a little mad trying to convince himself that this new timeline’s Ichigo will be, in essence, the same as the one he lost. He also goes a little mad knowing that he has to wait 100+ years for Ichigo to even be born. (He’s onmitsukido-trained, he can totally wait...)

       3) He goes a little evil-scientist-with-no-boundaries trying to figure out ways to make it so Ichigo is born earlier.

- Fortunately, Tessai intervenes before anything irreversible is done and gives Kisuke a pep talk. He also gives Kisuke about 200 pages worth of notes on temporal kido arrays that provide the foundation for getting Kisuke’s Ichigo back.

- In every universe, Tessai and Yoruichi will be in the set of Kisuke’s Most Important People. In every universe, they fully deserve to be in that set.

- Before Kisuke retrieves Ichigo, he deals with Aizen, Yhwach, and a handful of other threats that Ichigo doesn’t deserve to have to think about. This may or may not happen during Arc 1, when Kisuke is an absolute monster to people he has reason to turn Benihime against.

- Ichigo arrives in Soul Society in an explosion in the outer Rukongai. (Kisuke didn’t quite get the physical location correct, but considering the difficulty of getting the temporal location correct, he can be excused for it.)

- The 13th division is sent to investigate the explosion. Kaien finds Ichigo and press-gangs him into joining the Shiba clan. Ichigo is so obviously related he doesn’t get the chance to protest.

- Ichigo pleads amnesia about his past. Absolutely no one believes him, but no one presses, either - yet.

- Ichigo joins the Court Guard Squads under Shinji.

- Some of the Captains and Lieutenants of the Court Guard start to act a little strange…

- (The Visored share a mental connection, and Ichigo’s presence snaps that bond back into place. Literally no one realizes this until the Visored start to slowly become, uh, visored. At which point, Kisuke is like, oops, too late to fix that, oh well!)

- Yoruichi, through some insane and brilliant political maneuvering that can’t be traced back to her, forces the Shihouin and Shiba clan into arranging a marriage between Kisuke and Ichigo.

- Kaien only goes along with the arranged marriage because he thinks Ichigo and Kisuke were the ones who orchestrated it all in the first place. He’s not sure how he feels about Ichigo and Kisuke being together, but they’re so obviously gone on each other he couldn’t dream of becoming an obstacle between them.

- There is a weekend, right after Ichigo first arrives, in which Kisuke, ahem, takes Ichigo to an isolated location and demonstrates his displeasure at being separated. Ichigo enjoys the demonstration very much, but he also comes out of it very bruised.

[beedokart]

The fairy definitely did not expect the walrus.

(And Artemis is just in a mood.)

[syluses]

Currently unwell

[banditblvd]

William and the will o’ wisps make me incredibly happy

He’s like a tired cat owner