#I need more byaren fanfics

[byarenx]

[recurring-polynya]

What’s your opinion on pre-canon Renruki?

I think that they already had a romantic or almost romantic relationship back in the Academy, maybe even back in Rukongai, and the reason it wasn’t explicit is because firstly it would have spoiled the endgame couples, and secondly it’s a shonen, so it’s implied.

I think they fooled around when they were orphans in Inuzuri. They grew up together, they were always together in their “teenage” years (however adolescence works for souls😅), I think it’s not impossible that they had their first experience, if just their first kiss and make out session, with each other. When they joined the Academy, they spent less time together due to their different courses, and I think Rukia’s sad expression when Renji leaves for the mission in the real world depicts that (along with worry for him, and maybe even jealousy for his achievements compared to hers). By then I think they were quite intimate, they fooled around sometimes (with the little time they had) and knew the other’s and their own feelings, but never said anything like “I love you”, or talked seriously about the depth of their relationship. If they were “just friends”, as some antis like to claim, they wouldn’t have been so heartbroken, have so many regrets and felt so guilty during their separation. And why that separation in the first place? It’s not a matter of class difference, because Rukia did talk to people of inferior status, like her Squad mates. What’s actually forbidden to people from different classes is relationships. If Renruki was just a friendship, there would have been no problem, but their bond was beyond that. Rukia wanted Renji to tell her to stay with him, but his feelings of inferiority and belief that Rukia deserved better (maybe even better than him) prevented him to do it. Their separation doesn’t feel like an end to a friendship to me, it feels like a breakup. They avoided each other because it hurt so much, and they couldn’t bear to have any relationship other than a romantic one, which was impossible once she became a Kuchiki.

After the Soul Society arc, they got back together. They were physically too comfortable around each other to be just friends, like when he basically hugged her to encourage her to go back to Soul Society when Orihime is kidnapped (and maybe he was also comforting her), or when, during the fight with the Fullbringers, he casually placed her head resting on his thigh. By then they were secretly dating, in my opinion. In the last arc they were always together, it’s so easy imagining them as a couple.

What do you think? Is my interpretation far fetched? I’d like to hear your theories about their feelings, when they blossomed, when they confessed, if they had something going on during their Academy years…

Thank you if you decide to answer!🤍

Well, as you say, Bleach is a shounen, and also I don’t think Kubo was particularly interested in including romance in the story, so I don’t think there is a correct or incorrect interpretation. It’s left to the reader to imagine what they like. I don’t think “spoiling the endgame” has anything to do with anything.

I don’t think your interpretation is “too far-fetched,” although I don’t happen to agree with it. There’s very little to go on in canon, people can fill in the gaps in whatever way makes them happy/makes sense to them. I have exactly 0 interest in arguing with people on the internet about stuff like this. I enjoy reading fanfiction that has wildly different interpretations from my own, I generally love to hear a variety of ideas, although I generally prefer the format of a narrative over Tumblr posts (funny, since I do seem to write a lot of them).

Anyway, here are a bunch of opinions. This is way, way too long, so I'm gonna throw it under a cut.

That being said, you have some really amatonormative ideas in there that I do take issue with. Friendships absolutely can be as deep and important as romantic relationships. I categorically reject the idea that a romantic bond is stronger than a friendship one or that acts of physical affection necessarily imply a romantic relationship. I actually have no beef at all with people who want to read Rukia and Renji’s story as a very strong friendship. I do think it was still reasonable for Renji to avoid her during their separation, even if his goal wasn’t romance. He wanted to see her live a better life, and didn’t want to drag her down. Yeah, sure, if he just wanted to be a casual workplace friend, he probably could have joined Squad 13 and seen her once in a while. But, especially in the early days, it would have been a bad look for Rukia to continue socializing with people deeply below her station, and I feel in my heart that Byakuya would have forbidden her from seeing Renji if he found out she was hanging out with someone from her Inuzuri days, even if it was just casual. Yeah, there exist people who say Rukia and Renji are "just friends" for the sake of other preferred ships, but also, like, so what? Who cares? That’s a lot better than making Renji out to be a bad person or trashing his character. To be honest, I am generally happy to read a fanfic that had some other Renji or Rukia pairing if it actually contained some solid Renruki best friend content (I have found a few 369 fics that do this, and maybe also in the little bit of RenIchi content I have read, so, uh, good job, my gays. This is sometimes touched on in ByaRen fics, but usually not as much as I want, althought I also tend to hold these to a high bar, because if I have to deal with Byakuya in my fanfics, they should have to deal with the Rukia-Renji friendship 😂)

Anyway, you asked for my interpretation, so here it is . These are all just, like, my opinions, man:

Life in Inuzuri just really, really, really sucks, and Rukia and Renji both have a lot of trauma and emotional hang-ups from that time. I think they forged a deep emotional connection during this time that was probably a little too codependent to actually be healthy. They had no models of healthy families or relationships. I also think they were incredibly close to Fujimaru, Kosaburou, and Mameji, and that even if they wanted to have a romantic relationship, they wouldn’t have, at the risk of ruining the more important bonds of the larger group.

In my fanfic, in their last days in Inuzuri, I do have them fool around for a brief period. It coincides with the deterioration of the bond with their last surviving friend, leading to his death. I did this for trauma reasons, because that’s how writers are.

“Communication” is probably the most important theme in my writing, and a thing I bring up all the time is that young Rukia and Renji had a thousand ways of communicating survival-based things between each other, and 0 ways of communicating how they felt about each other.

I did a post on this recently, but their whole gang was incredibly powerless in Inuzuri. They lived on the fringes of society and stole scraps to survive. I think that their number one duty to one another was to survive. In the anime, Rukia swears that she will never leave Inuzuri, that she will always stay with her friends. I think the reason she does an about-face is not just because their friends are gone, but because she realizes that she will lose Renji next, and the only way to prevent that is for both of them to get stronger. Neither of them actually wants to become a soul reaper. They do it for each other.

I think that Renji would have remained in Inuzuri and tried to make a life as best they could, but Rukia knew this was futile, and where Rukia goes, Renji follows.

I think they purposely maintained distance at the Academy. Just as in Inuzuri, their primary duty to one another is to survive and thrive. They were rejected and mocked for their low origins, and hanging out together would have made this worse. I think it hurt Rukia that Renji made new friends, but on the other hand, they were exactly the sort of people who would help him get a leg up in the Gotei. Rukia’s Academy days were very painful because she saw Renji succeeding, just as she wanted, but leaving her behind in the process. Conversely, Renji got super focused on doing well, with the idea that he could pull Rukia up behind him, except for the part where he never actually told her that.

I feel like I’m in the minority here, but so much fanfic focuses on Rukia and/or Renji being “wrong” in the scene where he tells her to go to the Kuchiki, but I disagree! Everything they have done is in order to get to a better life! It is Renji’s duty to encourage her to leave him behind. He doesn’t want to be an anchor holding her down. Likewise, Rukia knows that if she doesn’t go, she’s just gonna be a burden on him. Their relationship has always been about each of them surviving separately over having happiness together. Up to now, they’ve always managed to find each other again, although this kinda looks like it might be it for them. Do these kids need to go to therapy? Yes! Did they do anything wrong? No!

I think about this a lot, but even if Rukia had turned down the adoption (which… I’m not actually sure she could have), even the offer would have ruined their relationship. Imagine that Renji asks her to stay, and she does. Maybe they even get together at this point. Every rough patch, every time there’s money troubles, this spectre of “Rukia could have been a Kuchiki” is going to hang over them. In fiction, there is often an idea of sacrifice being a one-time romantic gesture, but in my real life experience, this sort of thing hangs around like an unwanted ghost. I can, in fact, envision a scenario where this is exactly how Aizen manages to get his hooks in Renji, by offering Rukia an unseated spot in Squad 5, even though she “isn’t really good enough to deserve it” and “taking care of them.”

I am really fascinated with Rukia’s crush on Kaien/Miyako. Bold proclamation here, but I think there is something developmentally healthy about young people having crushes on the older people in their lives, provided that said older people treat them with respect and dignity and don’t take advantage of it in any way. Crushes are, by their nature of being unreciprocated, a safe way for young folks to imagine the sort of people and relationships they want to have in their lives. I headcanon Rukia as bisexual, and maybe also a little bit genderfluid, and she had these two extremely cool people in her life, whom she maybe wanted to be and maybe wanted to kiss and maybe to have a marriage like that some day. I… like to think that their role in her life healed some of her trauma before their death caused even more.

Fully into headcanons now, but I like to think that Renji had a parallel experience, with, of all people, Ikkaku and Yumichika. Like him, they came from the ass-end of Rukongai, but they stuck together instead of bowing to the social mores of the Seireitei. It is critical to note that they were able to do this through strength. This is literally not a thing that Renji and Rukia could have done, but at the same time, Renji sees this as the kind of relationship he wants to have with a partner. He doesn’t want to look after Rukia and protect her, he wants to fight back-to-back with her and then make out afterwards. He’s still convinced that he needs to go through the proper class channels to see Rukia again, but without their influence, I don’t think he ever would have been able to say “fuck it” and turn on his captain during the Soul Society Arc.

Meeting Ichigo and dealing with his unreasonable need to protect everyone he cares about, personally, was also a huge blow to Rukia and Renji’s “I cannot allow the other person to take any risks for my sake” hang-up. Ichigo has his own traumas, which are entirely different from Renruki’s, but the one thing he had was growing up in a loving family. (Isshin has his problems, but I feel strongly that he always made his kids feel like his love was unconditional). I’m not saying that making friends with a shounen protagonist is a good replacement for therapy, but it does have healing properties.

Entirely off-topic, but I feel like Ichigo is incredibly selfish in the way of Terry Pratchett’s witches: “All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

Where were we? Oh, yeah. I honestly think that it is unknowable when in canon Rukia and Renji confessed. I already covered this pretty thoroughly in this post. I hate the idea that they were secretly dating. Renji worked incredibly hard to get his post and I think that both his job and Byakuya’s respect are very important to him. I do not think he would put either of those things at risk like that, nor would Rukia want him to. I tend to prefer a slow-burn approached, and I honestly think they got together during the 17-mo timeskip at the earliest, and more likely post-canon entirely, although I think them confessing in the Royal Realm is the spiciest possible outcome, so that’s what most of my fanfic cleaves to.

[renjinobankai]

I’d like to share one of my most beloved #byaren fanfics on archiveofourown.org from lucymonster

Walls We Build Around Us

lucymonster

Summary:

Renji copes with Byakuya’s reticence in the only way he knows how.

Notes:

For matchynishi, who planted this whole scene in my head and put up with my endless flailing. :)

Beta’d by w3djyt.

Work Text:

There are lines that Renji wouldn’t dream of crossing.

Some of them are obvious. Neither in public nor in private, under the dark shelter of nighttime nor in the very throes of passion, does Renji call his captain by his given name. Thinks of him by it, in the safe haven of his innermost thoughts, where he lets it echo through his mind like a divine hymn - Byakuya - and the contraband intimacy of it makes his heart race and his skin prickle. But spoken aloud it’s always ‘Kuchiki-Taichou’, and that’s fine too. It’s reassuring to know that, whatever else passes between them, the fixed relationship of commander and subordinate will be waiting unchanged beneath it all.

Other lines aren’t quite so clear. The value Kuchiki-Taichou places on propriety pervades even the most intimate moments of his life. It’s not that he lacks passion. It’s just that passion is so much more subdued with him, and Renji - who’s used to going through life at full volume, shouting his passions to the heavens - spends a lot of time biting his tongue before he learns to keep his noise to an acceptable level. To speak, not to shout. To whimper, not to sob. To sigh, not to scream and swear and beg - and try not to bring the whole security detail rushing in to defend them at an inopportune moment.

They speak a lot more than they used to, these days, but their conversations are always stilted and relentlessly shallow. They don’t talk about the past, or the future; they don’t talk about themselves. Kuchiki-Taichou shies away from too much softness or affection, and so Renji doesn’t try to catch his hand or hold him or even kiss him. Only sometimes, in his sleep, the captain rolls over and presses close against him as though drawn to the warmth of his body, and when that happens Renji wraps his arms around him tightly and kisses his hair and savours every precious moment before the even breathing by his ear lulls him back to sleep. It’s these little moments of unchecked vulnerability that remind Renji why respecting the boundary lines is so important. Because what he has now is more than enough - and the rest, he knows, will come in time.

Even if that time is not today.

Kuchiki-Taichou’s hands are deft and businesslike as he works at the ties of Renji’s uniform, faltering only when he leans in to run possessive teeth and tongue over the network of tattoos he is exposing. There’s no kindness or tenderness in the captain’s touches - he doesn’t even make eye contact, and Renji has to bite his tongue to hold back an impatient whimper as he submits to the one-sided ministrations. That warm mouth leaves his skin crawling with goosebumps in its wake.

Tentative, he brings a hand up between them, strokes his fingers over the growing hardness he can feel pressed against him, and hisses when Kuchiki-Taichou’s teeth sink into his shoulder. An insistent shift of his hips tells Renji the attention is permissible, and so he keeps palming gently as the last knot comes undone and the shirts of his uniform slither down his shoulders to bunch around his waist.

Kuchiki-taichou looks at him now, but it’s only to frown at his hakama as though they’ve personally insulted him. “Take the rest off,” he says. It’s a command, not a request, and it sparks a strange, jittery feeling in Renji’s stomach. A restless, reckless feeling - like he’s about to jump from a great height.

Renji doesn’t buy that the distance Kuchiki-Taichou holds himself at is a matter of desire or preference. He doesn’t buy it because he’s seen every wistful glance, every faint glimmer of emotion behind that indifferent facade. He steps back, and the captain continues to watch him, eyes dark and glassy with desire, though the rest of his face remains impassive. There’s not a lot of show Renji can put on for him tonight; it’s just an inelegant hop-step out of his hakama, a clumsy flourish of fabric as he removes his fundoshi, and then he’s standing stark naked in the cold evening air before a man who hasn’t even seen fit to shrug off his captain’s haori yet. Renji’s stomach gives another strange lurch. He’s always wondered if Kuchiki-Taichou knows just how much he gives away in these moments - because Renji can see the faint tremble of his hands now. Can feel the impatience of those hands as they reach out to him again with just a little more haste than is strictly necessary.

Renji sees more than anyone’s ever really given him credit for. He knows that Kuchiki-Taichou is a man who has spent his whole life systematically fortifying his soul: concealing every vulnerability behind towering walls of impenetrable rock. And Renji adores his captain - respects him with an intensity that borders on reverence - but he isn’t bewitched and he isn’t deluded. He bites back a small moan as Taichou’s hand runs down his chest and across his stomach, still possessive, still in control - still not meeting his eyes. He doesn’t know. Doesn’t know that Renji can see every crack in his walls, every crumbling stone, every point of weakness.

That hand dips down further between his thighs, and Renji hisses as the captain cups his balls in a warm palm and rolls them gently back and forth, teasing. This is how it always is between them: Kuchiki-Taichou tests and teases, stretching Renji’s limits, stretching his control while staying always just a little out of reach. It’s as though he’s afraid to surrender his pleasure to another’s hands, and Renji finds the irony too heavy for words; that a man as proud and privileged as Kuchiki Byakuya doesn’t know how to sit back and just take what Renji would offer him, if he had the chance. He wishes he could reach out and pull Byakuya in, thread his fingers through his hair, press their bodies together and show him just how much he craves this closeness. Instead he brings his hand back between them, fisting the captain’s erection through the cloth of his hakama and starting a slow stroke that elicits a quiet sigh and a subtle shift of hips to ask for more.

I’d give you everything, if you asked for it.

It’s moments like these that the Renji risks losing sight of the boundaries between them, caught up in the swirling tide of passion that says: no. It’s not right, for a man like Byakuya to think he has to hold back in front of a man like Renji. And so he lets himself be guided forward on pure impulse; he needs to show this gorgeous, infuriating man before him that there is so much more than the stunted, cautious contact he’s been allowing between them. The idea swells in his mind, blotting out everything else, and then all of a sudden his knees are folding and he’s moving down, pulling away from the torturous caress, to kneel at his captain’s feet.

For a moment, there is nothing but silence.

Byakuya’s eyes are wide, uncertain: looking on in surprise as Renji dips his head low, pressing his lips against the tip of one pale toe and skimming slowly upwards. Kuchiki-Taichou has narrow, elegant feet and slender ankles - and a voice that sounds irresistible when he’s surprised or confused.

“Renji, what are you-”

“May I?” The soft, plaintive request cuts through the captain’s astonishment, and in the ensuing silence Renji’s mouth simply moves along his foot, sprinkling every inch with kisses and listening for the quiet hitch of breath that means permission.

Maybe tonight isn’t the night that the walls are going to come down, but Renji wants his captain to know that they can, if ever he decides to let them.

And Byakuya lets it happen - relinquishes the reins more readily than Renji had expected, staring down at him with wide eyes that seem to tremble as warm lips move higher to graze over the firm muscle of his calf. “Yes,” he murmurs, so belatedly that Renji’s already half-forgotten what question he’s answering; he’s distracted by the low, husky murmur of that voice, so different from the captain’s usual clipped tone. A million things go unsaid between them, but it doesn’t matter - all Renji can think is that somehow, kneeling naked at Byakuya’s feet feels closer and more intimate than any face-to-face interaction they’ve ever had.

He keeps it slow. Cherishes every second. Pours into each touch all the devotion and yearning he’s never given voice to. By the time he rises up on his knees, hands grappling blindly with hakama ties as he mouths at a still-clothed inner thigh, Byakuya has given up trying to keep his breathing even - there’s a tremor running through his muscles with each worshipful touch, and when Renji chances a glance up, grey eyes latch onto his and burn with a light that’s hungry and bewildered and scorching.

“What are - what are you doing?” Byakuya demands again, breathless.

“I’m showing you.” Renji’s own voice is beginning to grow hoarse; the knot comes loose in his hands, and he tugs away loosened fabric to reveal flawless pale skin and a bobbing, needy erection. He licks his lips, hungrily. “How much I want this. How much I want to please you...how much I...” Words fail him, and so he does the only thing that makes sense: he leans forward and, in one swift movement, swallows his captain’s cock deep down his throat.

Once, a long time ago, Renji had dropped to his knees in the office and begged for permission to do what he is doing now; what he had longed to do since he first took up his position in the Sixth Division. Back then Kuchiki-taichou had guided the movements of his mouth with gentle hands and quiet murmurs of encouragement, carding his fingers through Renji’s hair, tightening only briefly in warning as he neared his peak. Afterwards, he’d lowered them both to the ground and reciprocated, too proud to go down on his knees, but too thorough to leave Renji with any breath left in his lungs by the time they were done. Tonight is nothing like that time. The hands that grip Renji’s hair now are fisted so tight that his scalp burns, and the only sound Byakuya makes is a choked groan: strange and urgent and pleading, somehow. Renji works his mouth up and down the hardened length, tongue rubbing firmly along the underside the way he knows Byakuya likes, and he’s so focused on his task that he’s almost forgotten the persistent aching throb of his own cock in sympathy.

All too soon Byakuya pulls him back, breath hissing through gritted teeth as he pulls himself back from the very edge of his control. “This is...you aren’t...this wasn’t the plan,” he whispers brokenly.

“Do you need a plan, for something like this?” asks Renji, even though he already knows the answer. He doesn’t rise. He can’t keep his hands from rubbing up and down Byakuya’s legs, caressing, soothing, relishing the feeling of skin beneath his hands. He licks a bead of precome from the tip of Byakuya’s arousal and feels a harsh jolt run through him, like an electric shock. “Will you let me... just let me give you this...” The words are little more than a soft rush of air from his lips, and he resists the urge to dig his fingers into the captain’s thigh and refuse to let go. Keep him there.

Their eyes meet. Byakuya looks... scared, Renji realises. Confused and alarmed by the strange, unwieldy intimacy that has turned the air to treacle between them since Renji dropped unprompted to his knees. This isn’t the subdued, impersonal passion they’ve both grown accustomed to. This is something fiercer, more primal, and it threatens to sweep away the cracked stones of Byakuya’s protective outer walls in its eddying tides. He can see the battle in Byakuya’s eyes, desire and hesitancy, and Renji lowers his head a little further, and holds his body very still, and hopes.

Byakuya. I’m only asking you to let me serve you. Nothing more.

At long last, Byakuya’s eyes flicker shut. He gives a short, almost imperceptible nod.

Renji’s mouth when it descends again is frantic, ravenous. Something snaps inside him and the lines, the rules - they all fade into the background. The only thing that matters is touching and tasting and feeling as much of Byakuya as he can; the need consumes him until he’s plunging forward wildly, eyes watering, unsteady enough to topple sideways if not for the hand anchored in his hair, swallowing as fast as he can around the solid length in a desperate attempt to hold back his gag reflex. He has to have this. He has to. He can feel Byakuya beginning to tremble in earnest, hips bucking forward clumsily, messily, and when his climax hits it tears a sharp, sobbing cry from his throat.

It ends on the slow rattle of a breathless sigh, and Renji falls back on his heels to gulp down air and fight against the vertigo that’s taken hold of him. And all at once he’s so overcome that he barely notices Byakuya sinking down to kneel beside him until a warm, gentle hand comes to rest against his bare shoulder. The other one flutters down almost shyly to his groin, and Renji’s nerves are so overwrought that the first soft touch brings him undone. A blissful tremor tears through his body and he spills himself out on the floor with a shuddering groan.

“Renji.” Byakuya’s voice is slightly hoarse, like he’s never heard it before. “Why?” He sounds shaken, urgent - lost.

There’s so much that Renji could say. His breath is returning to him in shallow gasps, and as he comes back down to earth, he realises Byakuya’s hand hasn’t left his shoulder. He leans into the touch and lets a quiet laugh rumble low in his throat, a placeholder for the words he knows he can’t say - yet. “What?” he says instead. “Sucked you off, is all. Felt like it. Do I need a reason?” Because you’re everything. Because you need to know that I’m here. Because I worship you, and I’ll spend the rest of my life on my knees for you if that’s what it takes for you to look at me like you did just now.

“I suppose not,” says Byakuya. And that’s all he says, but there’s something there in his voice, something shattered and painfully open, that tells Renji everything he needs to know.

They understand each other.

@bulma775

[serene-faerie]

Sorry if I seen like a stalker, but I read your ask to salzrand and I gotta say I fucking relate so much 😭 I used to LOVE Ishihime (IH was my 2nd choice for Hime), but then nasties came along & RUINED everyfuckingthing I'll never forgive those IRs, don't believe them when they say they don't spiteship IsH, fucking liars they tarnished our tiny fandom's name 👹 Their hate towards Hime (even when they swear to love her, BS I saw them LIKING & ENDORSING hate against her) & her ABSOLUTLY VALID LOVE

(1/3)

towards Ichigo is hideous AF, I loved ish cuz of their team up in Soul Society, she had good dynamics with Ichi too, but I liked Ishida more. Them? They want me to believe they give a FUCK about her when they wrote huge ASS essays about how her love is weak & other shit & how Ishida deserves her like she’s a toy. The worst part is they claim to be ish since “day 1” yet they ship Hime with everyone BUT Ichigo, they’re so fake. Not only are they ruining MORE ships nowadays, they act as if the IH.. (2/3)

R the ones spitehshipping, BS!! They HATED RukiHime but now they like it? Same goes for TatsuHime, both are my OTPs. I fking loathe them, they ruined the ish tag not they’re ruining RH/TH, im done seeing anti Hime ppl write anti essays THEN post stuff about my OTPs claiming to love them, fuck them. Same goes for RR, now they claim it’s cute but like to diss Kubo for it. RR & TH are my OTPs but I know they’ll force me to otp IH with their shitty ass behaviour, they want it to die? HOLD MY BEER (3/3)

No need to worry, anon~! You’re not stalking me :)

And I’m so sorry to hear that! I completely agree, it’s so baffling to see people who hate Orihime so violently, yet spite-ship her with either Ishida or Ulquiorra. It’s so bewildering to go through an anti’s blog search bar and see the Ishi/hime tag followed by an Anti-Orihime tag, because why would anyone ship something if they hated one of the shipped characters so much?

I have seen a couple shippers who do ship Ishi/hime because they like the dynamics and they genuinely love Orihime as well, which is cool and should be encouraged more. But I completely agree with you that the spite-shippers’ perspectives on Ishi/hime is absolutely disgusting: I do not like seeing Ishida turned into a Nice Guy who deserves Orihime’s bread buns because she was nice to him in the Soul Society arc. Neither Ishida nor Orihime deserve to be reduced to such a state.

And those spiteful, rabid I/R’s really have a huge problem with projection, to be honest. They claim Ichihime fans spite-ship Renruki, yet literally almost every IH shipper I’ve seen likes RR just as much as their OTP. They claim IH’s loathe Rukia, when pretty much all IH’s actually love Rukia and enjoy her character. Like, seriously. I’ve never seen a fandom project themselves onto others so much before, it’s stunning. They claim Orihime’s a villain and a selfish, weak crybaby, but let’s be honest. If they were in Orihime’s shoes during the Hueco Mundo arc, the Arrancars would’ve torn them to pieces for being so whiny and screeching so much. Orihime is so much stronger than they ever hope to be, and her breakdown during the Lust chapters was completely understandable because she’s only human. They’re truly awful people; they take complicated situations and turn them black-and-white so they can vilify Orihime and Renji, and it is disgusting to see them ignore their subsequent growth because they can’t get over the fact that Orihime and Renji are so much better than they ever hope to be.

Like you said, it’s really telling when spite-shippers focus more on Ishida than Orihime when discussing why Ishi/hime is apparently superior to Ichihime. Also, Orihime loving Ichigo never made her weak at all??? Ichigo helped Orihime become stronger, and her love for him is very sincere and genuine as well. The whole Five Lifetimes, One Love speech was one of the most beautiful love confessions in manga, and it saddens me when haters can’t see the beauty of that love. Orihime is not some vapid, shallow harlot like haters make her out to be.

And lastly, anon, don’t let the haters ruin those ships for you! In fact, just do what I do: if I see Renji hate, I create more Renji-centric fanfic so I can focus on him being awesome and amazing, because I know that he’ll always be better than those worthless anti’s~ I won’t let spite-shippers ruin Byaren or Renji for me, so it’s important to remember that for every hater there is, there’ll always be good fanworks on the hated characters~! （●´∀｀）ノ♡

Thanks for passing by, anon! It was nice to talk to you!

[sequencefairy]

Fanfic Writer Wednesday - The Back Catalogue Edition (January ‘17)

So, @chocolatequeennk and I chatted briefly the other week about my attempts to roll my fic rec tag into manageable rec posts once a month - and I want to go back to doing that, because it means I get to re-share super excellent fic with you all, all over again. 

So. We’ll go back to January for this week, and go weekly ‘til I catch up and then we’ll do this monthly. Hopefully, it will have the added bonus of meaning I reblog more fic in order to fill the post. Win/win, I think! 

(Long-ass rec post under the cut)

Doctor Who

The Lighthouse Keeper - @perfectlyrose (Nine/Rose, au, Very Angst) This fic. It kills me dead. Every time. And I know like, three people who are going to yell at me for bringing this back. But it’s happening. 

Potatoes - @jeeno2 (Tentoo/Rose) This is silly and cute and exactly what I needed that day when I prompted this. 

Coffeeshop - @wordsintimeandspace (Ten/Rose) This was such a perfect little glimmer of joy that day, and exactly what I needed. 

Warmer Hands - @lvslie (Ten/Rose, Angst) There’s something about a fic that pulls you in with a sense of creeping dread, and this one has it in spades. 

Wrap the Night Around Me - @timelordinvictus (Ten/Rose, Tentoo/Rose, Very Angst) Lisa killed the entire Angst Squad with this one. 

Movie - @jeeno2 (Tentoo/Rose, fluff) This was so good and utterly adorable.

The Light at the End of Time - @chocolatequeennk (Ten/Rose, Tentoo/Rose) This fixes the mess Lisa left us all in, and does it beautifully. 

Waiting for the Sun - @perfectlyrose (Eight/Rose, fluff) This is certainly the sweetest thing, and I loved it a whole bunch. 

Allonswolf Ficlet - @rose-tylers (Ten/Rose/Clara, Angst) Goddamn, I love this ot3, and Mary does them so well. 

Perfect Match [Part 1/22] - @lastbluetardis (Ten/Rose, Soulmates AU) Oh this fic. I don’t read a lot of long fic, but I devoured this one over the course of a day, and man. It’s got everything. 

Bleach

Reasonable Expectations [Part 58 of Scatter and Howl] - @junko222 (Byaren) I love this fic. I hope more of it arrives. I get so excited when I get an email to say there’s a new piece of it for me to read. It’s hot and sweet and the kind of soap opera I can sink my teeth into for hours. 

The Fall: The Rise - @swingsdown (Ichiruki, angst) Everything Annie writes is beautiful, and this is no exception. 

Daylilies - @ciebei (Ichiruki, au, post-TYBW) Zoë makes word magic and her fic is gorgeous. 

Up All Night to the Sun - @gunnerpalace (YoruIchiRuki, Grounded!Verse, Fluff) This ‘verse man, it gives me the warm fuzzies all over the place and this fic is no exception. 

Card Games - @woodrokiro (Ichiruki, Angst - but the good kind) I loved this fic because of how much the end punches you straight in the solar plexus. 

Next to Every Great Man Is... - @gunnerpalace (Kuukuya, Fluff) The other rarepair in the cult of rarepairs, and this is the one that caught me first. 

Differences Breed Revelations - @ciebei (Ichiruki, Fluff) More excellent Zoë fic here! And not sad this time!

17 Months of Summer - @ciebei (Ichiruki, Angst) You win some, you lose some, Ichigo loses a lot them, and man, Zoë can break him like nobody else. 

Together Lyric Prompt - @woodrokiro (Ichiruki, reincarnation au) AH. My favourite kind of AU tbh, and this was such a delight. 

Morning, Sunshine - @ciebei (Ichiruki, Angst) And here I lie, dead from fic. 

Other

‘Noir’ - @perfectlyrose (Hardy/Hannah) I love prompting fics from Kelsey, they are always a good idea. 

A Lapse in Fate - @lostinfic (Mercier/Betty, WW2 AU) Okay, but like, this fic, it’s like the best kind of novel and I’ve been saving up the latest few chapters so I can have more of it to read in one sitting.  

[recurring-polynya]

Can you imagine the look on Rukia’s face when Renji decided to wear his shihakuso(?) slightly open, revealing *slightly* more of his tattooed chest? Like, how did Captain Kuchiki not throw a fit over his sneaky outfit update??

I’m not got lie, a significant portion of Chapter 12 of my latest fanfic (Call Me Back When the War is Over) deals with this exact scenario. Spoiler alert: Rukia is super-horny for Renji’s pecs, Byakuya is so, so tired.

It’s a great question, though, why does Byakuya put up with this? There are many possibilities. Maybe he didn’t notice. (This is a real possibility. Byakuya is not a person who pays attention to things and in particular, he tries to pay as little attention to Renji as possible.) Maybe he noticed but can’t bring himself to have a conversation with Renji about Renji’s tits. Maybe it’s causing the rest of Squad 6 to have a collective coronary and they’re all losing their shit and writing B strongly worded memos and he’s just reveling in it. Shout out to the ByaRen’s in the house, maybe he’s just straight-up into it?

But here is the Official Polynya Take: Byakuya knows a Good Aesthetic when he sees it.

Blecccghh, screw it, here, have a fanfic excerpt, it’s gonna be like two months before I get around to posting this part (uhhh language warning, but no significant spoilers):

         Slowly, Rukia shut her phone. “Fuck that guy,” she muttered. “Like he has any kind of aesthetic.”

    Yumichika cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you kidding me? The man has forehead tattoos.”

    “Yeah, but that’s just… what he looks like,” Rukia grumbled. “He didn’t do anything special when he became a vice-captain.”

    “That’s because Six is a bunch of boring stuffed shirts and he didn’t want to unleash this on them right away.” Yumichika turned his sketchbook around.

    “Holy shit,” Rukia murmured.

            The Renji who had accepted the position of Vice-Captain of the Sixth– the Renji who had come to retrieve her from the World of the Living– wore the standard uniform, give or take an expensive pair of sunglasses, and yet somehow managed to subvert it. Most shinigami looked sharp and disciplined in their shihakushou, but Renji looked wild. Angry. Dangerous. By her brother’s side, he looked like a feral dog being kept on a short leash. 

          The Renji in Yumichika’s drawing still looked dangerous, but also powerful and confident, a wolf attending his captain of his own volition, loyal, but not tame. His long hair cascaded down over his shoulders, held back from his face by a wide, raw-edged black bandana that covered most of the tattoos on his forehead. Conversely, the ones on his chest were now visible through the deep V of his shihakushou top. Renji habitually wore a little eyeliner to work, but it was thicker now, sharp enough to cut yourself on. He looked strong. He looked vaguely Kenpachi-like. Moreover, he looked insanely hot.

    “I don’t suppose you’ve even noticed that he’s been growing his hair out or that he’s been letting his kosode hang a little loose,” Yumichika’s voice broke through her reverie.

    “Not that loose!” Rukia yelped. 

    “There are two aspects to designing your look,” Yumichika explained. “First, how it reflects you personally. Secondly, how it complements the people you most frequently will be seen around. Abarai is big and he’s loud and he has pec tattoos. He likes to give off the impression that he doesn’t care what people think of him, whether or not it’s true. This is a very in-your-face look and it’s great for him. He wanted the forearm wraps. I’m not sure why, but when his shirt inevitably falls off in battle, at least he’s got them, so I let him have it.”

    “He has a bad wrist,” Rukia mentioned. She hadn’t even noticed the wraps.

    “Oh, right,” Yumichika agreed. “I think I knew that. Anyway, this entire thing is a great contrast to your brother. Kuchiki’s covered up in an a haori and a scarf, Renji’s letting his chest hang out. Kuchiki’s got white accents on his wrists and head, Renji’s got black. The two of them have the best hair game in the Gotei– your brother lets his hang loose and it does whatever he wants it to and it’s dark and silky and I’m honestly getting overheated just thinking about it. Renji gives off the impression that he doesn’t know the business end of a hairbrush, but that shit is soft as fuck and you will not find a split end in there.”

    “Why are you telling me this?” Rukia managed. 

    “They are an illustrative example, for one thing, and for another, you hang out with both of them, and you are going to need to hook into their aesthetic.”

    “Oh, of course,” Rukia replied blankly.