#kuchiki choei

[recurring-polynya]

ok so i really like choei and i’ve been wondering what he looks like...i mean he’s a pretty prominent oc in a big chunk of your fics so maybe... a doodle? xD

(2/2) ok maybe prominent is not the right word but memorable would definitely be it 

So, a while ago, I had the idea to try and draw a bunch of my Squad 6 OCs and do, like, little profiles for them? Like they used to have at the end of the Bleach volumes? Mostly, I just wanted to practice drawing faces. Anyway, this turned out to be way more work than I expected, so this may be the only one I end up doing, but it was fun.

Ahhh, Choei. It was 2019. I was writing my second fanfic. I needed two Squad 6 OCs, whom I hoped to reuse, because I hate making OCs. Two upper seats, one of them who laughs at Renji’s jokes and one of them who would never laugh at Renji’s jokes. The former became Fourth Seat Kuchiki Choei, the OC that dared to ask the question: what if a Kuchiki, but also a bro?

Birthday: November 26 (Sagittarius)

Height: 183cm (6′0″)

Weight: 80kg (176lb)

Zanpakutou: Namazu

Release command: Furuwasero, Namazu!/Shake it up, Namazu! (furuwaseru means to cause something else to shake as opposed to furueru / to shake)

Special skill: Plays pivot on the Squad 6 futsal team

Hobby: Collecting stuff from the World of the Living.

Food: Likes: Yakult (yogurt drink)  Dislikes: Mushrooms

How he spends his day off: Can often be found wearing a backwards baseball cap and Sidewalk Surfers and hanging out in one of the trendy Living World-style karaoke bars and coffee houses that sprang up in the years following the ryouka invasion.

Theme Song: “Good Time” by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen

Choei facts!

Namazu, Choei’s zanpakutou is an otsuchi, a war hammer traditionally used for breaking down doors. Choei has two special attacks: (1) he can slam Namazu into something with tremendous concussive force, shaking it to pieces and (2) he can strike the ground to cause small earthquakes.

Namazu is named for the legendary catfish that causes earthquakes in Japanese folklore. He is normally trapped by the thunder god Kashima under a stone or gourd, but sometimes he gets rowdy and thrashes around, causing tremors. He was a popular subject of ukiyo-e prints in the 19th century and is also regarded as a deity of social justice and wealth redistribution. (Choei likes to redistribute his wealth at the bar on Saturday nights). The trailing ribbons on Choei’s zanpakutou are meant to be evocative of catfish whiskers.

In Squad 6, all shihakushou accessories must be approved, in writing, by the captain. Choei holds the record for the most rejected applications, including, but not limited to: Doc Martens, ski goggles, a puffy vest, a trucker hat, and a fanny pack. To date, the only thing he has gotten past Byakuya is a pair of bro-ass grippy weightlighting gloves which he claims are “functional.” (It is a great mystery among Squad 6ers whether Byakuya makes Renji submit accessory applications and actually approves them or if Vice Captain just does what he wants and Byakuya lets him. Also why?? how?? Is it because he has bankai??)

Choei is Byakuya’s second cousin (his paternal grandfather is Ginrei’s brother). He has four older brothers and one older sister, Naoko, who is the Lady of the Gotou branch family.  

Choei is a bit of a black sheep. He is a not a man of culture and he isn’t interested in settling down and making a nice marriage alliance. He joined the Gotei because it’s about the only thing he’s able to do to the satisfaction of his family. Although he has very high reiatsu and is a strong fighter (his zanpakutou is especially well suited for smashing Hollow masks), he has rarely been motivated to work hard, and was often dismissed by his relatives for his fun-loving lifestyle and fighting with a “vulgar”, non-bladed weapon, not befitting a Kuchiki. Since Renji came on as Vice Captain, he has made Choei do approximately 900,000 pushups and lets Choei hit Hihiou Zabimaru in the face with his hammer. Renji doesn’t know this, but Choei admires him deeply and has improved a lot under his abuse tutelage.

Choei managed to distinguish himself in my sadtimes Byakuya Dies AU, Portions for Foxes by passing the Lieutenant’s Exam and becoming Renji’s Vice-Captain (and also by hooking up with Sentarou.)

Special thanks to @kaicko for help with Choei’s zanpakutou and release command and also just listening to me ramble about my bro son.

Also, credit to AdorkaStock for the pose reference!

[recurring-polynya]

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I am In Love with Hitori Sasori and she is probably my favourite OC side character of all time. You only spent a few paragraphs fleshing out her character (speaking of, I LOVE your writing: it takes you less words than most professional authors to write a female that actually passes the Bechtel test lol) but that little bit was enough to get me evil laughing (have I mentioned I love you’re writing?!). I’m definitely not asking for more content or something, I just wanted you to know I love and appreciate her badassery!

Thank you! I’m so glad you like her! 

I’m always torn, because I hate making OCs, but I want my world to seem very rich and full, so I generally try to make ones that I can re-use. Most of the time when I see people writing Soul Society noble characters, they are very sinister and backstabby and often hate Rukia. a) I am honestly crap at writing intrigues and b) I always feel like most people are far to wrapped up in their own selves to bother being evil, the banality of everyday selfishness is far more interesting to me. I also love the way the upper class are portrayed in Jane Austen’s novels-- people are good and bad, but they are also weird and annoying and obsessed with their hobbies or their fad diets, but they are very much *people.*

Rukia’s been around noble circles for 40 years. People may find her distastefully common, but on the other hand, she’s the sister of the Kuchiki clan head, and so I think they are going to be nice to her, whether they feel it or not. On the other hand, Rukia is quite good at reading people and is not particularly interested in noble hobnobbing, and so I thought it would be in-character for her to have acquired a stable of Weird Lesbians that she hangs out with at parties. All of them are way too into their hobbies, because they’re smart, but under-stimulated. Sasori was actually the first of these delightful ladies that I came up with. It’s extremely funny to me to name-drop characters from the anime filler arcs, so I definitely wanted someone attached to the Kasumiohji clan, the weaponsmakers from the Captain Amagai arc. Sasori is based a little bit on Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, both in the sense that she’s very embedded in her family business, and because of that sick fight where she keeps breaking weapons on Green Destiny and swaps through about ten extremely different weapons like this is just a regular Tuesday. That just seemed like a really fun person who Rukia would enjoy being friends with, and who would, in turn, admire the freedom and usefulness Rukia enjoys by being a member of the Gotei. The fact that their friend group also includes a horse girl and a woman who writes romance novels is just icing on the cake.

This wasn’t really a deliberate attempt to get my Bechdel check boxes. It’s just that on average, I care about a female characters roughly 10 times as much as male characters, and if there aren’t enough of them around, I will just make some.

You know, while writing this, it occurred to me that Sasori probably knows my other weirdly popular OC, Kuchiki Choei. I cannot decide if they would be failed-to-achieve-expected-family-roles solidarity besties or if Choei is just terrified of Sasori, doubly so, now that she is in Squad 11.

Anyway, thank you for the kind words! I worry constantly about overusing my OCs, so these kinds of reassurances are good for easing that anxiety. She’s a very useful character, especially now that she dual-classes as both a Fancypants Socialite and a Squad 11 Dirtbag, so I am sure you will see her again in the future.

[recurring-polynya]

Hi Polynya! I’m curious and in the spirit of Ginrei’s birthday, what do you think are his opinions of Rukia and Renji separately and together?

Ha ha, this is such a simple and straightforward question and my answer is going to be so long and so complicated and have almost nothing to do with Rukia and Renji because Ginrei's feelings toward Rukia and Renji have almost nothing to do with Rukia and Renji.

So, I want to start out by saying that Ginrei is a lot like Hisana in the sense that he's a canon character, we get the idea of him and what he's there for, but there's no actual characterization of him, which gives fanfic writers a tremendous amount of leeway to do whatever they want with him. I'm not going to try to justify anything I say here, it's just my ideas and how it goes in my fanfiction. I love it whenever a writer tries to take on the Kuchiki clan and I'm always interested to see what other people's takes are, even when they vary wildly from my own.

I love the fact that "Kuchiki" means "dead tree." We meet Rukia first, and it's sort of a delightfully spoopy name, very appropriate for this salty, overdramatic, grim reaper girl, but it takes on additional meaning when we meet Byakuya, the noble and powerful scion of a dying house.

The thing that makes Ginrei interesting as a character to me is that he is the one who ruled over his house as it fell. I tend to regard filler episodes as semi-canon, so I like the idea of Kouga, even if I don't want to acknowledge the rest of the Zanpakutou Rebellion shenanigans. I think that the main line of the Kuchiki was already running a little thin, Soujun's health was a big concern, and so they marry in this guy who is a scholar and a powerful shinigami. They never say what Kouga's previous social status was, but given that they emphasize what an accomplished dude he is, I think he was chosen for his skills, not his lineage, to strengthen the Kuchiki bloodline, except it backfires. Then Soujun dies, too, a few years later.

Ginrei strikes me as the type of leader who thinks he can control everything. He manages his clan with an iron fist. He is pragmatic, not sentimental. He’s not bad or mean, but he can see that he does not have a lot of room for missteps, and he takes his role very, very seriously. Despite this, he’s lost the generation under him, and all that he has left is Byakuya. There are cousins and branch families, but to the pride of the Kuchiki is its main line, descended from great generals and heroes and the very founders of Soul Society. Byakuya, in a lot of ways, hearkens back to the great Kuchiki of old, and Ginrei sees that he has the potential to reclaim the power and glory of his house. He’s hard on Byakuya and has high expectations for him. Ginrei loved his son and he loves his grandson, but after Soujun’s death, he often wonders if he was too soft on him because of his health, if Soujun would have lived if Ginrei had just expected more of him. Byakuya is the last hope of the Kuchiki and Ginrei knows he can achieve great things, and Ginrei is determined to do everything in his power to make sure Byakuya achieves his full potential.

And some ways, Byakuya is the perfect Kuchiki. He’s strong and he’s hard-working. He’s principled. He’s working on his self-control, and he’s very good at when it comes, to say, sword practice, he’s just not so good at in when it comes to interpersonal relations, but he’s coming along. Then he meets Hisana.

Hisana is absolutely unacceptable to Ginrei. Byakuya needs a marriage with a woman with strong spiritual pressure and a noble lineage so that he can gain some alliances from the marriage and then she can pop out some strapping young heirs while also managing his social life for him, just like Ginrei’s wife did for him. Hisana obviously isn’t going to check any of these boxes.

I headcanon Byakuya as demisexual, in the sense that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction very often, and if he does, it’s only to someone he’s already got strong feelings for. He was sort of okay with the vague idea of marrying someone for the purposes of procreating until he met Hisana and realized how much that would pale in comparison to actually being married to the love of his life.

Up until this point, Byakuya has had some minor rebellions against Ginrei, but they’ve never really gone at it, but this is one time that Byakuya stands firm. Ginrei is super-pissed. He lets Byakuya marry her because he figures she’s going to die soon anyway, but he’s mad about it. He never comes around to Hisana and he’s mean to her and this is really the nadir of Byakuya and Ginrei’s relationship.

Finally, we are getting around to what you asked. Hisana dies and Ginrei softens a little toward Byakuya in his grief. He retires and turns the clan and Squad 6 over to B, hoping it will be a distraction and that Byakuya will finally turn his focus over to what matters. This seems to be going well for about one year and then BAM! Byakuya acquires an orphan.

I am guessing that Ginrei didn’t know about Byakuya’s promise to Hisana to take care of Rukia, but even so, I think if you asked him, he would have regarded Byakuya’s duty to his clan and promise to his parents as more important. It’s not that Ginrei isn’t an honorable man, it’s that his concept of honor doesn’t necessarily extend to a dead peasant in comparison the Noble and Ancient House of Kuchiki. So Byakuya adopts Rukia and Ginrei’s immediate reaction is panic. What is Byakuya doing? Is he going to marry this girl? Is he going to name her his Heir? Has he cracked? And it turns out to be none of those things, he’s just going to keep her around as this sad ghost that haunts his house, but Ginrei’s initial reaction toward Rukia is that of interloper. He thought this Hisana nonsense was overwith, but no, we’re still doing this.

When Ginrei first meets Rukia, she is in her overwhelmed, lonely stage of first becoming a Kuchiki. Ginrei also criticizes her for being small and meek and basically useless. She’s a mediocre shinigami. She’s not beautiful or talented, so Byakuya can’t even marry her off for political gain. The real issue, though is that Rukia is just emblematic of the fact that Byakuya doesn’t intend to move past his grief and remarry. He works his ass off as Captain and Clan Head, but other than that, he’s just gonna be a sad widower and sit in his big house and write letters to his dead wife and the Kuchiki are going to die off. There is really nothing Rukia could do, no way she could be different that Ginrei would approve of, because it was never really about her in the first place.

Fast forward a few years, and now we come to Renji. I also headcanon that in his retirement, Ginrei has moved out to a scenic portion of Rukongai, so he doesn’t interact with Byakuya much on a day-to-day basis, but he hears stuff through other family members that come out to visit him. He’s never actually met Renji, all he knows is that Shirogane retired, and Byakuya hired some tattooed goon from Squad 11 instead of one of the dozens of Kuchiki cousins that are lying around. In my fanfic Call Me Back When the War is Over, Byakuya explains to one of his aunts that the reason he did this was because he didn’t have a relative who was capable of passing the Lieutenant’s Exam. She replies that he just should have pulled some strings so that someone (preferably her own son) could pass, assuming it’s a mere formality. Now this is exactly what Ginrei would have done. This is a problem, though: it involves choosing sides. I’ve got the top seats of Squad 6 set up as follows:

- 3rd Seat Ohno is the Heir to the most powerful Kuchiki branch family. His father is arguably the next in line for Clan Head, based on power terms - 4th Seat Kuchiki Choei is an actual Kuchiki, but he’s a younger son and he’s a clown, meaning that he got bored standing in line for Clan Head and wandered around the corner to vape - 5th Seat Kuchiki Takehiko is the actual closest of Byakuya’s relatives to him, and is arguably the next in line for Clan Head, strictly on family line terms

Pulling strings to help any of these three become the next lieutenant would be a very political move on B’s part, tantamount to anointing his successor. Ginrei assumes that B picked an outsider for the purposes of recusing, of saying “I shall simply refuse to die and remain Clan Head myself, forever’, with the addition fuck you of picking the Actual Worst Person Byakuya Could Find for the job, instead.

This really isn’t the case at all, it is literally that Byakuya feels that you shouldn’t be a lieutenant if you can’t pass the exam. He’s basically a rule-follower, and also it’s a good rule, and also his dad died as a lieutenant and I think he thinks a lot about how that could have been avoided through actions, whereas Ginrei tends to think of it more of a thing that could have been avoided if Soujun was better.

So, that gets us up to the beginning of canon. I am (in theory) working on a fanfic that takes place in the 17-mo timeskip where Ginrei comes to visit and actually gets to know Rukia and Renji and (spoiler alert, but is anyone really surprised) he ends up liking both of them a lot. Part of it is just Ginrei has chilled out somewhat in his retirement and realized that it’s okay to have parts of your life that are not completely devoted to the Good of the Clan. Part of it is that Ginrei loves Competence and Rukia and Renji are so, so competent. Part of it is that Byakuya is obviously doing a lot better than he was, and it’s just really obvious why. Like I said, Ginrei does and always has loved Byakuya, he just wants what’s best for him. It’s just that if there is one thing Kuchiki are terrible at, it’s expressing their love for one another in a positive and healthy way.

As to Ginrei’s feelings about Renruki as a ship, he’s for it, actually. Conniving family members have been trying to marry Rukia for years in hopes of getting an in with Byakuya, and I’m sure they’re setting their sights on Renji, now, too. Ginrei likes them well enough, but he can imagine what a shitshow this could turn out to be, and he finds it very convenient if they were to just marry each other.

I’m rather fond of the idea of Byakuya appointing them as a branch family to the Kuchiki, because I’m not super keen on them going full-Kuchiki if Renji married in, but I think Byakuya would be upset if Rukia married out and he wasn’t able to provide her with the lavish lifestyle he thinks she needs (she does not). It’s a nice compromise that lets them be a part of the family, but out of the limelight. In any case, I think that was Ginrei’s idea, thanks Granddad!

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 12/3/2021

I did not finish the fanfic. I have one and a half scenes left.

What happened was this: I had a pretty rough, emotional week generally (I had a family funeral to go to and it was just a lot of feelings floating around on many fronts). I was working pretty diligently, if inefficiently on the fic, up until the point that I had one scene left to do. I went to pick up my kid from school, and on the way home, in the car, it occurred to me that I really needed one more scene, not because I wanted it, but just for... closure...purposes. I have described this dumb things as Xeno’s fanfic multiple times, because no matter how much I work on it, the end it still out of reach. In any case, I was one scene from done, and now I was two, and my brain just said “go to Hell, polynya” and all of the motivation just dropped straight out of my body. So, I worked on my Christmas lights today instead of writing anything.

SIGH. Hopefully, I will finish it up this weekend, and surely next week if not. It still has to go to my beta after that before I can post it (she’s read everything except the last chapter, but I need her reassurance that I haven’t accidentally left some dangling plot thread that I need to go back and finish in Ch 3 or something).

So, anyway. SOON. In the meantime, if you need to catch up on/re-read your favorite bits of Heart is Muscle, now might be a good time? It’s not required reading, but...why not?

Also, did you see the bee-yoo-ti-ful coloring job @iz-star did on my sketch? It’s actually secretly part of a spoilery illustration for the fic (unfortunately, it’s for near the very end, so it will be a while)

I will stop doing excerpts once I’m posting the fic in earnest (I am planning to do one chapter per week unless someone convinces me otherwise), so hopefully this bit from Chapter 7, in which Ginrei invites Renji to a Kuchiki family dinner party and everyone has to deal with it, will be the last one. 

“I just wish you had given me a little notice, it’s common courtesy,” Fifth Seat Kuchiki Takehiko griped for the fourth time as he, Renji and Choei made their way up the winding front walk of Kuchiki Manor.

“I’m telling you, I only got invited an hour ago!” Renji protested.

“And if you had told me then, I probably would have had time to send a message to my Honored Mother. She’s going to be furious.”

“Captain says she’s a big fan of mine.”

Takehiko made a long-suffering eyeroll. Renji wasn’t sure if it was directed at him, or Lady Azami, or possibly even Byakuya. “Whether my mother likes someone or dislikes them is immaterial. She simply wishes the events of the world to proceed in a manner that she believes to be correct. There is no room in her philosophy for surprise dinner guests.”

“I just want to know why we had to be so early,” Choei grumbled.

“Captain said to be here by six!” Renji protested. “It’s five of, we’re perfectly on time!”

“Surely, he said come at six,” Takehiko correctly, “which usually means to arrive in the vicinity of and certainly no earlier than six. If you are Choei, it means ‘roll in at eight, just in time for dessert.’”

“You don’t like getting lectured by your mom, I don’t like getting lectured by my mom. We are on the same page here, we just have different methods,” Choei sniffed.

Renji wondered what it would be like to have cousins. It seemed kinda fun.

“At least you look respectable for once. Was that your doing, Vice Captain? Well done, if so.” Takehiko gave Renji a brief once-over. “You don’t look half-bad yourself. Might go a little lighter on the eye make-up next time, but that’s a handsome kimono.”

“Thank you, Kuchiki,” Renji puffed out his chest, and made a mental note to thank Rukia for insisting that he buy two nice kimono. This one was a dark bluish-grey, dyed in some clever way to leave a pattern of lighter vertical wavy lines. Rukia said they were steam clouds, meant to symbolize rising above one’s circumstances. Renji was just glad it didn’t have carp on it, like three others she tried to put him in. 

“Wait a second!” Choei exclaimed. “Is that why you showed up at my place and asked me a bunch of questions about obi knots? That was a distraction?! I was gonna gel up a pompadour and you made me forget!”

“I am just a simple man who goes to very few dinner parties,” Renji replied innocently. “Speaking of obi, I kicked that hideous orange one you were gonna wear under your couch, in case you’re looking for it later.”

“Betrayal!” Choei wailed. “Treachery!” 

“I hope you now see the problem with arriving early,” Takehiko gave Renji a steely look. “We’re forced to admit that we brought him.”

[recurring-polynya]

This is very random but I love the cast of random side characters that you made up (like Seike and Ohno) -- so much so that i am sometimes surprised when they dont actually appear in Bleach?? Anyway love that kind of consistency...would love to see it in my own writing someday skjfjsjsj

Ah, thank you so much! You are a great writer, and this is a very achievable goal!

Ha ha, believe it or not, Seike is actually canon?? I am pretty sure his name only appears in We Do (Knot) Always Love You, but I have always assumed it’s this guy:

Anyway, here are some tips for creating side characters! It’s way easier than you think!

I hate making up characters. I hate it. Much the way all great programmers are very lazy and therefore work to minimize the work they have to do over their entire lifetime, I work very hard to never have to make up anything about my characters.

Here’s a tip for names: I am not Japanese and coming up with Japanese names is hard for me and makes me nervous. If I am naming an important character, I will go to the trouble of giving them a meaningful name and working out the kanji, etc etc (by which I mean I go drop hours of my time into https://japanese-names.info/). If they are a side character, I will look up the Wikipedia article on “Japanese entomologists” or “Japanese Olympic figureskaters” and pick one surname and one given name that have the right “ring” to them. I will usually do a quick Google to make sure that name isn’t the name of an important character in some other anime/video game I wasn’t aware of. Bam. Done.

You can also cheat by naming everyone in Squad 6 Kuchiki, Ohno, or Gotou because they are all Byakuya’s relatives, or having there be six guys named Maki in Squad 11 (there are already semi-canonically 2). If you make a joke about it, everything thinks you’re a very funny person instead of just incredibly lazy.

I keep a spreadsheet. Every time I make up a detail about a character, I try to log it so I don’t have to look it up later. Here’s what the Squad 6 tab looks like:

Be minimalist. The less you make up, the less you have to remember later. Every time you bring in a character, say to yourself, what are they here for? You really don’t need to go much further than that. Ohno and Choei got introduced in one of my first fanfics, because a) I needed some exposition, and b) I wanted to show how Renji interacted with his squad. What I wanted to convey was that most of Squad 6 is lazy snobs who enjoy the benefits of nepotism and Renji’s presence is really cramping their deal: hence, Ohno. However, Renji is very likable, and I also wanted a contradicting voice that thought Renji was cool and fun and livened things up: hence Choei. I made them the 3rd and 4th seats because he would work with them a lot, and I would be able to reuse them. Ohno should be kinda important, so I made him the heir to the largest Kuchiki branch family, which explains why he’s snooty, but also always angling for Byakuya’s approval. Choei’s basic characteristic is his chill bro-ness and lack of ambition, so I made him an extraneous fifth son. He’s on the futsal team, because that gave him additional reason to like Renji. He’s openly gay because gay people are cool and I felt like it. That’s it. Two characters that I have gotten incredible mileage out of. Every story or so, I add another detail if it makes sense to. Ohno is, surprisingly, fond of dogs. Choei’s zanpakutou is a warhammer. Ohno’s dad is a huge bitch, which explains a lot about him without me having to explain anything.

My OC’s are primarily there for my protagonists to bounce off of! Like Plato’s shadows in the cave, they really, really, do not need to have a richer inner life than what our protags see of them.

One of my characterizations of Renji is that he’s very personable and knows everyone. When I’m doing his POVs, I name almost any character he comes across, and often include a fact about them. Conversely, when I’m writing Byakuya, who doesn’t notice people who are beneath him, I will frequently not use names, even on people whose names he should really know, like referring to Kira as “that dour fellow from 3.″ It’s also really interesting, particularly in the case of Squad 6, to examine the way Byakuya interacts with his underlings vs. the way Renji does.

One of the things having bit characters does is to make your world feel bigger. A related thing you can do is to casually namedrop places-- invent a name for the restaurant your characters like to go to, or refer to different parts of your setting like you are describing them to someone who lives there (”up near the art musuem” or “that noodle place north of the Eleventh”). When I write about the Seireitei, I am always thinking about my Local Large City, and how I would describe where things are.

Reuse bit-part canon characters interchangeably with your own! This works very well in confusing your audience as to who you made up and who is canon! As I mentioned, Seike is actually canon, although we don’t know much about him. Ichigo’s lesser-known classmates, like Ryo and Michiru are similar. I tend to think of characters in tiers: in my stories, the protagonists are Renji, Rukia, and to a slightly lesser degree, Byakuya, so that’s my A-tier. The B-tier are the other Bleach characters they interact with the most-- Izuru, Momo, Shuuhei, Ikkaku, Yumichika, Hitsugaya, Ukitake, etc. The C-tier are characters that are of lesser importance in the canon story, but I like them, or they are relevant to the story, so I use them, like Hanataro, Akon, Rikichi, Kiyone and Sentaro, etc. There are also the characters that are important canonically, but just aren’t as important to my stories-- Soi Fon, Kyouraku, etc. Then, there’s the D-tier, which should contain both throwaway canon characters, like, Seike, and your made up cast. If you can keep them at the same level, you’re doing the right thing! If you use any character enough, they can move up a tier! There’s also an E-tier for characters that are just a name and some minor details. It’s good and okay to have these, too! You can think about this in terms of tags, as well: your primary audience is clicking on your story for your A-tier characters, and many people may be clicking on it because they are thirsty for content of your B-tier characters, so try to scale their roles according. You’re trying to make the C-tier characters happen, and your audience is just gonna have to deal with it, so it’s your job to convince people that they are Good, Actually. D-characters are there for flavoring, and I guess if you can make people like them, that says something about you (me, I guess?) as a writer.

When I wrote Between Tides, I cut my protagonists off from their main cast so I *had* to introduce some OCs at the B/C-tier and I hated it and rolled around on the floor wailing about it for 3 months. I have gotten so many compliments on Rukia’s intense, overbearing boss, Sunadori, and Renji’s no-nonsense cooking mentor/witch friend, Mrs. Kuwashima. I have no explanation, except maybe all the anguishing did something. I think I invented them more by feel than anything else-- Sunadori’s role was to get Rukia used to the idea of being a vice-captain, and Mrs. Kuwashima’s role was to let Renji be someone’s soft son for a bit. This is more important than any particular bit of backstory. Mrs. Kuwashima didn’t even have much of a backstory, now that I think about it, and the only reason Sunadori had one is because it tied into the plot.

Also, I am a dialogue-ist, and I let my characters establish themselves through their own voices, rather than trying to enforce personalities from above.

Ha ha, I think that’s long enough. Thank you for this opportunity to bloviate about my own writing. The upshot is, worldbuilding is not just magic systems and fantasy governments, it’s also deciding that the lady who goalkeeps the Squad 6 futsal team is also Byakuya’s cousin who once pushed him in the mud as a child.

[recurring-polynya]

can you please do a Renji birthday Drabble where Ichika learns to say “daddy” (or whatever, I’m not so knowledgeable about babies lol) in front of him

“I am not sure,” Byakuya said firmly, “about the use of kidou to create artificial barriers during the combat simulation.”

“It’s the same as the cones Vice-Captain always uses, except people won’t jump over them! Sir!”

“Abarai, tell Yuki to use the cones.”

Renji, who had been edging toward the door, sighed. “The kidou are a great idea, sir. And 3rd Seat Yuki did a great job designing the whole course. You’ll have a great time. Ow.”

A stuffed anthropomorphic seaweed had smacked him in the face.

“Waaaaah!”

“Shh, Daddy is talking to Uncle Byakuya,” Renji murmured, jogging his one-year old daughter in his arms, hoping the bouncing would pacify her.

It was Rukia’s first day back at work. It was Rukia’s first half-day back at work. She had been practically gleeful when she arrived at the Squad Six offices to pass off Ichika. Her hair, which was down to her shoulders now, was wrapped up in a tidy little bun, and her eyes were edged with sharp, black liner. Renji did not remember his wife bothering with eyeliner before she had a baby, but he refused to rib her about being excited to be back. Rukia loved her baby, but staying at home didn’t suit her. Renji was honestly looking forward to her getting back to what she loved almost as much as she was.

Renji had a suspicion, which he had voiced to exactly no one, that he was going to enjoy going to part time, which was supposed to have started fifteen minutes ago. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his job. He loved his job. He also loved his daughter and he was really looking forward to spending more time with her. That is, if he could ever manage to get out of his division office.

The office door slid open, and 4th Seat Kuchiki Choei’s head popped in. “Hey Captain-- oh, is Vice-Captain still here? Hey, Vice-Captain! Do we still have that Hollow dummy? The one that looks like a giant spider?”

“It’s in the attic storage of Barracks #2,” Rikichi announced.

“Oh, great, thanks!”

“Wait, what do you want it for?” Renji yelped, as Ichika tugged his bandana down over his eyes.

“Hey, Yuki, am I leading the Red Team or the Blue Team in the combat sim this afternoon?” Choei asked conversationally.

“You’ve got the Blue Team.”

“I thought I was leading the Blue Team,” Byakuya frowned.

“Aah! Aah! Aaaaaaaah!” Ichika sang.

“Which one of us gets the mess hall in our initial territory?”

“The mess hall is neutral, after what happened last time!”

“I think you guys have this under control, I’m just gonna--” Renji attempted to extricate himself.

“Abarai, which team is Yuki usually on?” Byakuya stopped him in his tracks. “I feel like I should get an additional officer to make up for his absence.”

“He’s sitting right there, you could ask him,” Renji pointed out. “Look, it’s one-fifteen, and Ich--”

“I rearranged all the teams,” Rikichi announced. “It’ll be fun.”

“Oooh, who did I get?” Choei asked, striding into the office. “Hey, Ichika!”

Ichika stopped trying to wrench herself out of Renji’s arms for a brief moment in order to wave one chubby hand at Choei, who cheesed back at her.

“How could you rearrange the teams?” Byakuya protested. “Abarai, did you look at his teams? Are they fairly balanced?”

“I didn’t,” Renji admitted. “But what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Da,” Ichika said, patting his face. “Da.”

Eighth Seat Shirogane’s head suddenly popped into the office. “There’s an inspector here from the First? Does anyone know where Vice-Captain left the blueprints for the new barracks? Oh, Vice-Captain, you’re still here!”

“I have them!” Rikichi called. “The inspector was supposed to come at two!”

“The First always calls early,” Byakuya noted, his eyes narrowed. “They hope to catch us unawares.”

“Hey, Captain, I’ll trade you Extra Large Gotou for Taniguchi!”

Renji cringed. He regretted ever telling Choei about Squad 11 nicknames.

“I’m not unawares! I have those blueprints right here!”

“DA-DEE!”

The entire office went dead silent, and five pairs of eyes swiveled over to where Ichika sat tall in her father’s arms, looking very proud of herself. “Daddy!” she announced again, and then jabbed one tiny finger at the doorway, scowling for punctuation.

“Awwww!” Mihane gasped.

“That was so cute,” Choei added.

“Was that…” Byakuya started slowly. “Has she…”

“That was the first time,” Renji managed, his voice going a bit wobbly.

“Good job, Ichika!” Rikichi cheered.

Ichika beamed.

“What are you doing, Lieutenant?” Byakuya barked, suddenly. “You were supposed to be off at one! Begone! Do you think we cannot handle ourselves without your benighted presence?”

“Just gettin’ outta here!” Renji agreed, slinging Ichika’s diaper bag over his shoulder, to a chorus of “See you tomorrow, Vice-Captain!” and “Bye-bye, Ichika!”

“Good job, kid,” Renji congratulated as they stepped out into the mid-day sunshine. “So, what are we gonna do today?”

Ichika regarded him for a moment and declared “Daddy!”

Renji nodded firmly. “You’re in luck. A whole afternoon with Daddy it is.”

[recurring-polynya]

I have a great love for your feelings about RenRuki, ✨🌻

✨ have each partner describe their favourite thing about the other ! is it a physical feature or a mannerism , or something else ?

Rukia: The most obvious Good Part of Renji is his delts. There were voted Best Delts in the Gotei by the Shinigami Women’s Association. He’s naturally very broad shouldered, but he’s put in a lot of work and they’re like big, beautiful boulders. And with that ink...? (does actual chef’s kiss) He has very good biceps as well, but a lot of people overwork their biceps. Renji’s biceps are actually very well-proportioned to his overall arm situation, and he puts in a lot of tricep work, too. And man, his forearms... I am getting off-topic. What I meant to say is that despite his truly phenomenal delts, the real answer is his glutes. You can’t really tell, because of the hakama, but that man has an ass you could bounce a coin off of. It is exceptional. And yes, he has butt stripes. The butt stripes were for bankai.

Renji: The thing I like best about Rukia is that when you’re around her, there’s just this feeling of... possibility. Like literally anything could happen. I feel like I am a better version of myself when I’m around her. It’s mildly terrifying, to be honest, because Rukia will ask you to do a thing, and you’re like, there is no way I can do that, that is insane, but then you just go do it because you can’t tell Rukia she’s wrong, you just have to tell the universe it’s wrong, instead, Rukia said so.

Rukia: I think I misunderstood this question, I would like to change my answer.

🌻 what does each of their families think about their partner ? 

I answered this one earlier, but I will give you a bonus variant: What do their squads think about their partner?

Squad 13 loves Renji. Squad 13 is crazy-go-nuts for Renji. Let’s start with the Captain. I am pretty sure that everyone who ships Rukia with anyone believes that Ukitake ships it too, and I am not going to argue with that. I think Ukitake had known Rukia for roughly two hours before he was ready to kill himself and everyone in the room if something happened to her (unless, like, he was busy coughing at the time, you know how it is), so anyone who stans Rukia is okay in his book. Relatedly, I think Ukitake has a big soft spot for Byakuya and Worries About Him ever since Hisana died, but it’s not like you can just... go have a feeling at Byakuya, he hates that. So Ukitake also appreciates the effect Renji has had on Byakuya. Also, Renji is just a friendly, chill dude and I can just see him and Ukitake making a lot of pleasant small talk and vibing, generally.

Kiyone and Sentarou are both kinda hot for Renji, I said it.

Rukia had a rough time in her early days at 13, but by the time she makes lieutenant, I think she’s well known, regarded as a fixture, and she’s all-of-a-sudden become a total badass who is giving their squad a certain cachet, in addition to the fact that things are just running better now. Having a hot, ripped, badass boyfriend is just part of her image, and also he’s super nice and gives zanjutsu tips.

Squad 6 is split between Rukia stans and Rukia simps. Surprisingly enough, most of the non-Kuchiki Squad 6′ers fall in the stan category. She’s elegant and beautiful, like their captain, but so much more approachable. Renji’s entire presence in Squad 6 has already put a big crack in its deep trenched nepotism, and his romance with Rukia is both sweet, and a sign of her support of increased egalitarianism. The other half of Squad 6 are simps, whose hearts are broken, broken that Rukia would go for their meathead lieutenant, when there are so many handsome, rich Kuchiki to choose from. Outwardly, these fancy boys adore her, and publicly laud her every move, but they are also the sort of people who can’t imagine a woman having any sort of inner personality. The last kind of person in Squad 6 are the Kuchiki relatives who had no grand dreams of marrying into Kuchiki heirship and find the idea of Renji dating Rukia to be like a shaken bottle of Pepsi and Mentos being thrown into the middle of an art gallery reception and they are sitting back, wearing sunglasses and stuffing chips in their mouth. They love this show. Readers of my fanfic will know I am obviously talking about Choei. Choei loves Rukia, and the more he gets to know her, the more he loves her.

Obviously, Byakuya thinks Rukia is perfect.

Within their own squads, I think both Renji and Rukia have a big tough but fair vibe and also high expectations, except that when their partner rolls onto the grounds, they go a little soft, which is both extremely adorable, and may get you out of doing extra push-ups.