#pretty accurate for a lot of things in life rn

[dollfacefantasy]

Can't Help It

pairing: dbf!leon kennedy x fem!reader

summary: your dad's coworker needs a housesitter, but the house isn't the only thing you'll be sitting on (haha pls laugh)

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, p in v, masturbation, oral (m receiving), age gap (i imagine early 20s/late 30s), both reader and leon are kinda pervy but not in a skeevy way <3

word count: 5.3k

a/n: hi hi i am back! this was such a pain to write for no reason, but as always, i hope people enjoy. i'm not sure what trope this really falls under, it's probably more accurate to say dcw (dad's coworker), but we'll go with dbf for convenience. i might make a part 2 of this idk. also, i know the header images are really giving graphic design is my passion but... it is what is lol. as before, thank you for all the support on my last fics. if you reblogged or commented, i'm giving you a smooch rn. and just wanna say that i do take requests. if anyone is interested, don't be shy ;) any who, feedback, reblogs, and comments are appreciated! <3

When your dad’s new coworker asked if you’d be interested in housesitting for some easy money, you couldn’t find a reason to say no. Agent Kennedy, like your father, traveled for work a lot. Often gone for weeks at a time, he needed someone to watch the place and take care of menial tasks like getting the mail and watering the plants. It paid well and all you had to do was basically live in his house.

You had met him several times in passing before he offered you this job, and he was always nice to you. He would say hi when you’d come down for a snack while he talked to your dad in the living room. He’d ask how college was and about the different classes you were taking. One time he even told you about some old band he liked that he thought you would too. And that was all great.

But what was even better was that he was fine as fuck.

You had a fat crush on him from the moment you were introduced. The way his eyes pierced right through you but in the softest way. How his lips curled into a knowing smile while his hand gripped yours in a firm shake. The way he said “pretty name for a pretty girl” when you told him your name. From any other middle-aged man, that would have been so corny and had you internally shriveling up. But from him… you had to fight the urge to get on your knees then and there.

He’d approached you about watching his house, saying something about how there had been some nearby break-ins in empty houses and it would be a good way for you to get some spending money and blah blah blah. You were on board as soon as the opportunity to have more of him in your life presented itself.

Unfortunately, it was the nature of housesitting that you rarely saw your employer. You would see him when you showed up and when he came home and that was it. But those moments were enough to sustain your delusion.

The first time you came over, you walked into the house, glancing around the den of the man who enraptured you. It was pretty basic, but you figured that not being home a lot would be the reason for that. When you were done trying to psychoanalyze him from looking around his house, he gave you your own set of keys with a wink that had you blushing an embarrassing amount.

“Thank you, Mr. Kennedy,” you said softly.

“Call me Leon, Sweetheart,” he replied.

You had to look away to conceal your giddy smile. You didn’t think he noticed the effect he had on you. Or if he did, he didn’t care about your pitiful infatuation. But other times, you could have sworn he did this kind of thing on purpose.

Your first stint in the house went smoothly. You made sure to do everything he asked and even cleaned up the place a little bit. When he returned from wherever his work had taken him that time, he seemed impressed to your delight. He looked around, making small talk with you before writing your check.

“You get up to anything crazy while I was gone?” he said, smirking as he scribbled his signature on the small rectangle.

“Yeah, I was real wild - I brought out your vacuum for probably the first time.”

He laughed, handed you the check, and teasingly purred “good girl.” 

Now, he may have been joking, but your panties nearly soaked through with arousal regardless. You yet again hid your revealing expression as you said a timid goodbye and headed out to your car. You were shifting your thighs together the whole ride home, fantasizing about being a good girl for Agent Kennedy so he would relieve that ache between your legs that clouded your thoughts.

Honestly, all of this made you feel pretty pathetic. Lusting after your father’s coworker, now technically your boss, who was a good fifteen years older than you. Blushing and squirming every time he said something more than ‘hi.’ Weren’t you better than this? But then you’d see those thick biceps and mysterious eyes, and the answer in your mind would be a resounding no.

Because honestly, you weren’t better than this, you were so much worse. After the good girl incident, you decided that if he didn’t want you yet, he would. You would make sure of it. From then on, every time you were housesitting, you wore your most revealing outfits, did your hair all pretty, and even tried special perfume so you’d smell extra nice.

But none of it seemed to work. He kept up his regular teasing and charm, but to your dismay, he hadn’t railed you on that sad leather couch in the living room. You tried to convince yourself that his gazes lingered longer and that his touches were more strategic, but that felt like reach even for you. 

It was so frustrating. What more could you do? You touched his arm while he spoke. You laughed harder at his corny jokes. You even hugged him once or twice when you could justify it. You tried to drop hints every way you could without literally just trying to seduce him, and he did not seem to care. You nearly gave up. You decided that maybe you should just cut your losses and spare yourself the humiliation. Leave yourself with some dignity and resign to just being his housesitter.

You would have done this if not for the fact that he lets you sleep in his bed while he’s gone.

His house was meant for one person. It didn’t have a guest room. He told you on your first gig that you were obviously allowed to sleep in his bed since the alternative was the aforementioned sad leather couch in the living room. He told you to bring whatever you needed to be comfortable - sheets, blankets, pillows - since you’d be there for weeks at a time.

At first, it was too weird. It made you feel dirty, sleeping in his bed while harboring your secret carnal desires. But goddamn, that couch in the living room was uncomfortable. You stuck it out for the first time, but the second time you housesat, you relented and dragged your belongings back to the room you’d forbidden yourself from knowing. 

His bedroom, like the rest of the house, is pretty blank, but there’s a little more personality here. It made you feel like such a stalker, but you couldn’t help making observations, right? You got to see the type of cologne he wore, the few dusty books he kept next to his bed, what kind of stuff he crammed in the nightstand drawers. It sounded creepy, but you just had curiosity, right?

You set yourself up in his queen size bed, draping the plush blanket you brought with you across the mattress. The bed was comfy enough, but the absolute best part, the part that kept your fantasies alive and well, was the way the sheets smelled like him.

You nearly moaned when you took a deep breath, filling your nose with that familiar scent. It gave you such a rush pushing your face into those smooth gray linens. It was so wrong, but you couldn’t help shamefully slipping your fingers beneath the waistband of your shorts to play with your swollen clit. You clutch the sheets in your fists as you writhe on the bed, whining as you fantasize about your special agent.

Leon had gone years leaving his house desolate without an issue. All that nonsense about potential burglaries and spending money for you had been total bullshit. It’s not like there was anything of value in his house anyway. Those excuses served only as a way to get more of you in his life. He thought housesitting was a happy middleground, a tether to you without being obvious about his motivations.

Ever since he saw you for the first time, heading out your front door, offering a timid ‘nice to meet you,’ he had been hooked. You bewitched him with your sweet temperament, that soft laugh when he told you bad jokes, those gorgeous eyes projecting all the emotions in that pretty head of yours. God, you were so fucking cute.

You made him feel like a dirty old man, sick and perverted for coveting his colleague’s daughter. The embarrassment he felt within himself when he’d notice he was staring at your tits or imagining how your soft lips would look wrapped around his cock was immeasurable. Even though the guilt boiled inside him, he couldn’t stop himself. He craved you. He started finding more opportunities to visit your house, hoping he could steal a few moments of your time. That’s when he knew enough was enough.

Having you as his house sitter worked perfectly. He could have his moments with you without feeling too disgusted with himself. Even though he liked to tease every so often, he kept it friendly. He noticed that you, on the other hand, seemed to be doing everything to change that.

He wasn’t a fool. He could see the changes in your appearance. Those skimpy outfits you’d flaunt yourself in drove him crazy. The way you’d playfully roll your eyes and brush his arm had his cock twitching in his pants. It was becoming all the more tempting to spread you out on the dining table and take what he wanted. But he still wrestled with that part of himself that said to not take it too far. That you deserved better.

That was until you started sleeping in his bed.

He had come home after your second gig, given you your check, and sent you on your way quickly because he was exhausted from his mission. He went straight to his room and collapsed on the bed. He could tell the sheets had been freshly washed by the soft feel, but also because you were always going above and beyond to please him. Despite the recent cleaning, he swore to himself he could smell some of your perfume on them.

He looked like a madman, smelling his bed sheets for the faintest hit of that scent. He groaned, picturing you lying here, your beautiful body sprawled out on his bed. He inhaled deeper while conjuring images of your unkempt hair and sleepy eyes. It wasn’t long until his dick sprung to life as he saw images of you with one of his pillows between your legs, whimpering as you drag your dripping cunt back and forth along the fabric. He couldn’t help the need to desperately pump his cock to sinful visions of his precious girl.

This morning it’s about six when Leon unlocks the front door and quietly walks inside. He completed his mission hours before. He was tired, but it had been short, only about a week, and relatively easy. He told you he would be home in the evening, but he’d finished earlier than expected.

He trudges through the house and down the hall to his bedroom, collapsing in bed at the forefront of his mind. It’s not until he reaches the door and hears your deep breathing that it occurs to him that his bed is currently occupied. He gently pushes the door open and walks in, planning on rousing you so you could get your money and be on your way. When he sees you though, that plan vanishes from his mind.

The sight of you nearly melts him into a puddle. He pads closer to the bed, careful not to disturb you. Your shiny hair is draped across the pillow as you lie on your stomach with one leg hiked up. Your arms rest close to your face, their raised position causing your t-shirt to ride up and allowing him to see your waist. The blanket was tangled between your legs, and his eyes are immediately drawn to the junction of your thighs covered only by those thin panties you wore.

Despite your beauty, he controls himself. He pulls the blanket over your lower body and sits beside you to contemplate his next move. He came up with a few different things he could do, but all he wanted right now was to watch you sleep. He felt like such a creep, but you looked heavenly in this state. His ears strained to hear those delicate exhales coming from your parted lips.

He could just go sleep on the couch until you woke up. He could just wake you up and offer to let you stay until you had your bearings. Or he could just let himself enjoy this a little more.

He wanted to wake you though. He wasn’t fully sure of what he was doing, but if there was any part of you that had reservations he wanted to know. It would rip his heart to shreds if he frightened you somehow. He begins rubbing your back in long soothing strokes. He makes small circles with his fingers every so often. You stir a little, but don’t wake.

He continues his ministrations, smiling at your sleeping form. He uses his other hand to brush your hair from your face. He strokes the locks away from your closed eyes before leaning closer to you. He can smell that familiar scent that had driven him to humping the sheets for the last few months.

“Hey Angel, need you to wake up for me,” he coos in your ear, his hot breath fanning across the side of your head.

It slowly registers inside your unconscious mind that you aren’t dreaming. Actual fingers are coasting along your back. An actual voice is coaxing you back to reality.

A low hum emits from your throat as you shift to face the source of your disturbance. Your eyes open, still heavy from sleep, and Leon enters your field of vision. For a second, you wonder if you’re still dreaming.

“There she is,” he whispers, giving you that charming smile. He runs his fingers along your jaw and tilts your chin to turn your face completely in his direction.

You feel your brain malfunctioning as he floods your senses. The morning light coming through the window illuminating him as he looks down at you. The deep timbre of his voice speaking to you. His rough fingertips dragging across the smooth expanse of your cheek.

Soon as your eyes come into focus and your mind clears the fog of sleep a little, you grasp enough of the situation to feel a jolt of panic. It felt like you woke up late for school. You shoot up in bed and look at him with wide, apologetic eyes.

“Oh my God, Leon, I’m so sorry. I thought you wouldn’t be back until tonight. I’ll be ready in a minute. Just-” you ramble. You go to fling the blanket off of you, but remember you didn’t wear shorts to bed. You have to sit there, looking at him as you feel heat creeping to your cheeks.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he cuts you off with a quiet chuckle, gently catching your arm when you sit up, “I finished a little early. You don’t need to rush out the door. I figured you’d still be asleep.”

The look in his eyes soothes you. He has that rugged, worn out look that he gets when he comes back from missions. Your heart rate falls back down to normal levels, but your eyes still cast downwards, a little embarrassed he’d caught you unprepared. His fingers trail up and down your arm, and you shift a little to try and hide the fact that your nipples are hardening beneath the flimsy fabric of your shirt.

“Thank you. I’ll be up in a few though. I know you’re probably tired,” you say, giving him a sheepish smile.

He moves so that he’s further on the bed with you. He lays back on the pillows and looks up at you, rubbing your back how he was before you woke up. 

“Mmmm, I am, but you still don’t need to rush. I’m not gonna complain about a sweet thing like you warming my bed,” he says, that teasing smile spreading across his face and his fingers starting to trace patterns exclusively on the small of your back.

Your eyes flit away as your own smile grows on your face. How were you supposed to be normal about this? You look down at your hands in your lap and mutter a thank you.

“Honey, you really don’t need to be so shy all of the sudden,” he says softly, but there’s a smug lilt to his voice as well. You bite your lip as his hand begins fidgeting with the hem of your shirt.

He can’t help the smirk and predator-like glint in his eyes that form at your reaction. This was it. That little smile and refusal to meet his eyes was all he could stand. He was closing in now. The flirtation between you two had gone on long enough. He wanted this, and if you wanted it too, his mind couldn’t find a reason to deny the two of you any longer.

“Sweetheart, if you have something to tell me, you can come out and say it. I don’t bite. Unless you want me to,” he says as he reaches up to pull your hair behind your shoulder and out of your face, “And, lately I’m starting to think that’s what you want.”

You look over to him now, your eyes staring into his. Your limbs feel weak, disbelief coursing through your veins. Your thoughts stampede through your mind, but you eventually force the words from your throat.

“I think I want that too,” you breathe. Your heart seizes at his brows playfully rising. You lay down on the bed, resting on your side so that you and Leon are face to face. Your pulse thunders in your ears while you try to conceal how shaky your breathing is.

He scooches over to you, pushing you on to your back and propping himself on his elbow so he’s positioned above you. He leans down and presses two faint kisses to your cheeks. Pulling back, he looks into your eyes and strokes your cheek again with the same soft and slow movements.

“Think, babydoll? I think you know what you want,” he whispers, dragging his thumb over your bottom lip, “I think you’ve known for a while. Wearing all those cute little outfits, prancing through my house and brushing against me like a kitten. You were just begging for my attention.”

You squirm slightly under the spotlight of his affection. Somehow, you maintain eye contact even though every cell in you feels the urge to look away. Part of your mind wonders if he’s still teasing. If he’s about to pull away and leave you wanting.

Before you could overthink anymore, his head lowers to the crook of your neck. He takes a deep breath of you as he moves himself further on top. 

“Now, you’ve got it, but all you had to do, sweet thing, was ask,” he says as his mouth ghosts over your neck, “That’s all you have to do right now. Just want to hear that you want me as bad as I want you.”

“Yes,” you whimper without a second thought, “Please touch me.”

“That’s my good girl,” he hums as he begins kissing your neck. The kisses are soft. They’re barely there, but they’re overwhelming to you. You can’t help the pathetic sound that leaves your lips as you tilt your head back. The hand that had been touching your face trails down to your waist and begins caressing your side under your shirt.

His tongue gently laps against the skin of your neck between kisses. Your whole body is starting to heat up while simultaneously getting chills. Every inch of you aches for his touch. Your thighs subconsciously spread as your breathing becomes heavier.

Leon lets out a small laugh at your display. “You must really want this Baby. Just a few kisses and rubs and you’re already mine,” he murmurs as his lips move up your neck and down your jaw. He kisses your lips next, giving your bottom lip a little nip.

Another needy sound escapes your mouth. You return the kiss and flick your tongue against his lips. “I do, wanted this since I met you,” you moan, your body writhing for more.

“Naughty girl,” he teases against your lips, “That’s okay though, Angel. I’m the same way. Wanted a handful of these pretty tits since I saw you.” His hand moves up and kneads your breast. His fingers massage the flesh before centering and pinching your nipple. 

You whine and arch into his touch. Your eyes flutter as your face contorts with desire. He slides over you, straddling your waist. He stares down at you and takes in what was finally in his grasp. He coos for you to sit up a little while he pulls your shirt off of you. You comply and then flop back against the pillows. Now exposed from the waist up, his eyes feel even more intense. He’s locked on to the view of your tits.

“Oh, Sweetheart,” he mutters, “Even better than I imagined.” His hands cup the sides of your breasts, groping them a bit. You can now see his cock beginning to strain against his jeans. Your mouth waters at the sight, but it’s gone when he leans down to take a nipple into his mouth.

His tongue circles the peak before lapping against it, drawing more whines from you. Your body arches into his touch while his hands never let up their fondling. You take your lip between your teeth again. He moves to give the other nipple the same treatment, leaving the other one cold as the air touches the saliva-coated skin.

He plays with your breasts for a while more before drifting down your abdomen, lavishing your stomach with kisses. He squeezes your waist as he playfully tugs the hem of your panties with his teeth. He looks up at you deviously. “Your nipples were so hard, I bet your pussy’s fucking soaked for me.”

All you can do is nod, any verbal response tangled up in your esophagus. He leans back on his knees and swiftly pulls the garment off. His pupils seem blown out as he gets a look at your cunt. He pushes your thighs to your stomach, spreading you out for his gaze. You felt so exposed, at his mercy as he held you there and just looked at you. Your arms reach down and pull at the hem of his shirt.

“Wanna see you too,” you whimper with pleading eyes.

“Yeah?” he says with a soft smile. He leans back and pulls his shirt off. It takes everything in you to hold back a gasp. “Been fantasizing about me, have you?”

Your eyes rake along his chiseled abdomen, drinking in every line and shadow of his muscular frame. You reach out and pull him back on top of you. His grin grows, and he indulges you. You connect your mouths again, this time sliding your tongue inside his. He groans at your sudden eagerness. He runs his hand through your hair while you feel up his back, exploring the definition there.

You give him a little push, signaling that you want to roll over. His body flips over and takes you with him so that you’re positioned how you wanted. You make out for a minute more until you pull back, looking at him with your lustful eyes and swollen lips.

“Wanna suck your cock,” you say simply, sliding down his body so that you’re lying between his legs. You nuzzle against the bulge in his pants before unzipping them and tugging them down.

His eyes follow your every movement. He pets your head as you rub your face against the outline of his dick. He tilts his head back and lets out a sigh. 

“That’s a good girl, just gotta give you some love and then you loosen up, don’t you?” he coos.

“Mhm,” you hum. You kiss his solid length over the cloth of his boxers. Then, finally, what you had been waiting for since meeting Leon. You loop your fingers over the waistband of his underwear and pull them down, unveiling his beautiful cock.

You wrap your fingers around it, just an exploratory touch. You feel the veins in your hold and the heat radiating from his shaft. You slowly bring your head to the tip to give him some tiny licks. Your eyes dart to his face, looking for approval.

Leon’s chest ached from the way you were looking at him like he was a god. When your tongue sticks out and your eyes return his stare, he nods at you and keeps stroking your hair. Your lips soon wrap around the tip, and you bob your head a little. He groans and his hips twitch.

“That’s a good girl, baby. Good fucking girl,” he moans as your head slides further down his member. His fingers lace through your hair, pulling a little.

The praise only makes you more enthusiastic. You move up and down with more speed, making lewd slurping noises as you work. His hand on your head and his sounds of pleasure has heat collecting in your belly, leaking out of your dripping pussy.

His head rests against the head board as he watches you with half-open eyes. His eyes squeeze shut and his body tenses as you push your head all the way down, taking him into your throat. Spit trickles from your mouth and drips on to his pelvis.

“Fuck, Sweetheart,” he whimpers, tugging on your hair a little. You taste his pre cum leaking on your tongue. A gagging noise comes from you and his hips twitch harder. He barely restrains himself from bucking up and lodging himself deeper in your throat. You moan around his cock, driving him even crazier. He feels the rush of an orgasm approaching and tugs your hair with more firmness, guiding your head up and off his lap. You whine softly as you lose the taste of him.

“Sorry, pretty girl, don’t wanna cum just yet,” he says.

You crawl back up his body, so you’re in his arms again. You kiss his cheeks and the corners of his mouth as he rolls the two of you over so he’s on top again. He connects your lips in a deep kiss, tasting himself on you as he drags the tip of his cock through your slippery folds.

He doesn’t tease for long though. Soon enough, he’s pushing himself into your tight cunt. You both let out a symphony of sinful noises. Leon watches as your face contorts with pleasure as he stretches you out. You both felt a budding sense of satisfaction after finally receiving what you craved for the last several months.

He bottoms out inside of you. His head falls forward against your neck. He pants as he holds himself together and lets you adjust, keeping an iron grip on your hips. Your fluttering around him as you accommodate his girth. Your nails lightly dig into his back while you cling to him.

He begins thrusting with slow and deep strokes. You moan out his name a few times with a variety of expletives. He keeps his face buried in your neck, grunting as he feels the velvety sensation of your walls around his length. His motions become more fluid as he finds a rhythm with you.

“That’s right Angel, better than your dreams?” he murmurs against your neck.

“Yes, fuck, yes,” you whimper, “So much better. Think your cock was made for me.”

“That so, Baby? I’m made to fill up a precious girl like you? Keep you happy and full of cum,” he growls into your neck, his thrusts gaining intensity.

You nod thoughtlessly as he continues battering your insides, gliding over your sweet spot repeatedly.Your arms wrap tighter around him as you feel yourself getting dragged closer and closer to the edge. Your noises become more strained as Leon lays sloppy kisses on the side of your head.

He hooks his arms underneath your knees and brings your thighs up to your abdomen again. His arm loops around and thumbs your clit as he slams himself in and out. Your back arches and you squirm from the rush of white hot pleasure. You’re right there, not able to hold on for much longer.

“I’m gonna have you so full of my cum today, it’s gonna be dripping out of you still the next time you’re here,” he grunts into your ear, “Make sure your pussy remembers me till I can fill her again.”

His vulgar words rip a high pitched moan from your throat and cause your eyes to roll back. “Fuck, Leon, I’m gonna cum,” you whimper.

“Go ahead, sweet girl. Squeeze me nice and tight,” he moans, his own voice getting strained.

You do as he says. The orgasm overtakes you. You release a strangled cry as your body rhythmically rolls into the feeling. Your pussy clamps around Leon tight, sucking him deep and keeping the attention on that blissful spot. The thrill of satisfaction rushing through your mind only works you further. Your eyes flutter and your lips part as you completely let go.

As he watches you cum, he notes that it might be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. The sight of your gorgeous body writhing and trembling because of him. The primal sounds of your moans and cries. It’s too much for him. He growls and grunts into your neck, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. He snaps even harder into you and floods you with his sticky, hot cum.

You both ride the waves of euphoria together until you both start coming down. He basically collapses on you as he catches his breath and you wipe the sweat from your brow. After a minute, he pushes himself off of you and flat on to the bed next to you. He gazes at the ceiling as his chest continues to rise and fall with the need for more oxygen.

You sit up slowly, realizing he probably wants you gone now. Like he said, you feel his cum leaking out of you as you move to grab your panties from the corner of his bed. This is how you expected it to be, but it still hurt a little. Nothing you couldn’t handle though. Your pulling them back on when your snapped out of your thoughts by Leon’s arm around your waist, dragging you to him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks teasingly, spooning you and softly kissing beneath your ear, “You got what you wanted and now you’re running out?”

“Oh, uhhh… I thought you’d want me to leave,” you say quietly.

He guides your face so you’re looking at him. His eyes are still soft but more serious. “You think I would just fuck you and then throw you out on your ass? You’ve been sleeping in my bed for months, but you don’t know me as well as you think,” he says and kisses your nose, “You don’t have anywhere to be today, yeah? You thought you’d be here till later anyway.”

You nod in agreement, your eyes casting down with some embarrassment over your assumption.

“Hey, don’t get all shy on me now. There’s no reason for it,” he teases, “We have all day for me to show you how I want to take care of you. Just give me a moment, I’m not as young as I use to be.”

[torawro]

I’D DIE FOR YOU (AND I HAVE). ( s.a. )

sousuke aizen & black!fem!reader.

cw ━━ ! minors, blank and ageless blogs DO NOT INTERACT. reader is portrayed as a black woman but you do not have to imagine her that way. using this map of the seireitei as a reference (i searched high and low for a consistent accurate one but it was hard). the first half is set pre-ryoka invasion / pre-soul society arc. the second half is aizen-centric (from his pov told from the 3rd person) and set post-tybw arc, years after he was sealed away in mugen, also including mention of events from vol. 1 of can't fear your own world (a light novel that's post-tybw & can be considered canonical); so all this being said: SPOILERS i guess???? of course you're welcome to read if you don't care about spoilers! somewhat based on 'die for you' by the weeknd & even more loosely based on 'dark red' by steve lacy. contains themes of heavy-ish angst, existential crises (?) & inner emotional turmoil within reader + aizen (separately). descriptions of character death, blood and violence. descriptions of manipulation/mind games. aizen is an unkind man. proofread (i did my best).

word count ━━ 11k

notes ━━ ! the way this fic was supposed to finished a month ago...but life once more gets in my way. and the way that it's this long....i anticipated the max being 10k but i greatly underestimated how long it would take to flesh out my idea. anywho i'm somewhat reentering my bleach era again. i’m not sure what it is but character analyses in the form of fanfiction is my jam rn like i really enjoyed writing this (i got tired of the length by like... 7k words lmao) but i like how this turned out. i've watched & read quite a bit of content that provide explanations as to why aizen is the way he is so i wanted to try my own portrayal of that in the context of canonical events. how i characterized him here is partially inspired by a fic i read about him last year so shout out to them for their support :D i hope i've depicted and humanized aizen well ♡. reblogs + commentary are heavily appreciated!!!!!

THE PAD OF YOUR THUMB SLOWLY glided against your bottom lip, the lingering aftertaste of jasmine tea still on its surface and on your breath. The absentminded motion of your thumb caressing your mouth, as if in deep contemplation, continued as you stared at the clock hanging on the wall above you.

It was past eleven, and the midnight hour only continued to draw near as time sustained its temporal march. And there you sat at your desk, floating in the limbo of your mind that was filled with hesitancy and admittedly, budding anticipation.

Your gaze lowered to the now empty porcelain cup, nothing remaining of its contents except the shriveled remnants of herbs and a few wayward drops of the brew.

Your senior comrade, captain Sōsuke Aizen, was correct in his prediction that you'd take a liking to its floral and delicate taste when he gifted you a jar full of the jasmine tea leaves as well as other ingredients.

The captain of Squad 5 seemed to be correct about a lot of things.

His intelligence and foresight, along with his kind and politely witty disposition, were qualities that you found somewhat charming, and gradually drew you closer to him.

Being the current third seat of the 9th company, your barracks and those of squad 5's were relatively close to each other's, so often you'd catch glimpses of and run into Captain Aizen on a pretty normal basis. Over the years, the conversations that bounced between the two of you expanded past the realm of formalities between a higher and lower ranking officer, and instead ranged in territories from literature, to art, to food & drink, and even to the politics of the government for which they were soldiers for.

Sometimes, you found it hard to believe that you managed to befriend a man like him. A man who seems to have mastered the balance between being a gentle soul, helpful to others, but also possessed enough refined power and skills to be named a captain within the Gotei 13.

Especially a man who wasn’t even of your own squad.

Despite the increasingly friendly relations and generally pleasant conversation, there were few moments where Aizen's words didn't feel quite. . . . real━ he didn't feel real. He spoke eloquently, often relying on figurative language to further illustrate his point and to breathe meaning into seemingly plain and meaningless words. But at times those words, his tone felt stained; stained with some substance or color you couldn't quite place. An enigmatic façade was painted over his speech, and it took too much mental capacity to try and find your own meaning in it.

So you'd often brush it off. Your over-reliance on your own reasoning that 'you weren’t able to come to a conclusion because there is no problem a conclusion could be generated from' successfully quieted your mind’s voice. You'd also frequently blame exhaustion, or your newfound hobby of watching human psychological crime shows during your off days for these subconscious ideas you had.

But you feared that the request Aizen made of you yesterday, the source of your current predicament, couldn't be blamed on any of those things. You looked at the clock again before returning to stare at your empty tea cup. For what reason could Sōsuke Aizen wish to meet you outside of the 1st division barracks? Specifically at this hour? You immediately thought of his question as uncharacteristic of him but prevented yourself from jumping to any further conclusions.

Aizen was a reasonable man, and you were sure there was a reasonable explanation.

With a final sigh of acquiescence, you stood up from your sitting position to retie your yukata before slipping a thicker, dark colored haori on top. You were unsure how cold it was this late at night or how long you'd be out, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

You paused for a moment, glancing longingly at your vanity mirror a few times, clearly torn between a decision, before giving in with a soft groan. Grabbing your favorite perfume, you quickly spritzed the spray onto both your inner wrists, either sides of your neck, and stray areas on your clothes. You’d proceed to make sure your hair was in order and your lips were as moisturized and glossy as a pair of tear-filled eyes before making your way to the door and slipping on your sandals.

Meeting with a captain— with Aizen of all people— in the dead of night resembled too closely to forbidden lovers rendezvousing under a fruit tree to fulfill their desires of embracing one another, with no one but the moon as their witness. The comparison alone caused the apples of your cheeks to burst aflame with embarrassment, and you lightly chastised yourself for even indulging in such an inappropriate train of thought. Such a scenario seemed far too deluded to even be considered ‘wishful thinking’.

But those delusions still seemed to make more sense than whatever other conclusion you have yet to reach.

Making your way out of your personal quarters, you activated your shunpo technique, stealthily hopping from one rooftop to the other in an effort to make it to Squad 1 barracks quicker.

After several minutes, your mind mostly engulfed with the 'what if's', the soles of your sandals finally touched ground, and you stood a few feet away from the massive walls and bridges that connected to and from the barracks. Even at night you were able to make out the bold-printed kanji for the number 1 that was painted on the building.

When you arrived, even from a nearby rooftop, you didn't see anyone around. Feelings of confusion and worry began to creep up and flicker to life in your mind.

But, as if your thoughts were as audible, you felt a light breeze of wind behind you, a familiar sound that indicated someone had made their presence known.

Startled, you reflexively reached for your zanpakuto, when you remembered that you hadn't even brought it with you. It still laid against the wall near your bed, just where you placed it earlier when you were relieved of your duties for the day.

You didn't think you needed it necessarily if you were just going to meet with Aizen, hence why taking it with you slipped your mind.

The flickers of concern were swiftly extinguished as your brain caught up with your body upon realizing who just appeared. A relieved sigh left your lips, a breath of air that seemed to release all the tension that had a grip on your heart and wound tight within your muscles. "Ah! Good evening Captain Aizen. You caught me off guard for a moment there."

"My apologies, that was not at all my intention." The Fifth Division Captain sported a dark colored scarf, his long captain's coat and the standard shihakushō all Gotei officers were supposed to wear. In the sash around his waist resided his own sheathed zanpakuto. His tawny hair maintained its usual part but looked slightly tousled, yet still remaining so in a meticulous fashion that made it look intentional.

The state of his hair alone, and his current facial expression made Aizen look more . . . approachable if that’s how you were to describe it. There was a glint in his eyes that you had seldom seen before.

"Thank you, for making your way down here to accommodate my rather. . . . atypical request. I again extend my apologies if I have inconvenienced you in any way."

You shook your head in reply, "It's alright, I wasn't doing anything too important anyway. Just having a cup of tea and delighting myself in a book before bed."

You glanced downwards at the foot or so of space that was wedged in between the two of you. You forced away the murmurs of your lingering thoughts that took note of how the moonlight and shadows danced across the surface of Aizen's face just right, and emphasized his decidedly handsome features.

"But having a complete and good night's rest is important to be fully functional in all areas of one's performance. Wouldn't you agree?"

You couldn't help but chuckle softly. "Yes, I do agree with that sentiment."

Aizen all but hummed in acknowledgement, letting a moment of silence fill the air before speaking again.

"Shall we be on our way?"

You nodded in agreement, following him as the both of you walked about the First Division grounds. From what you could tell based on your position, your aimless nightly stroll drew you closer to where Sokyoku Hill was located. The area became increasingly more grassy and contained less buildings.

Although Squad 1 grounds weren't terribly far from either of your barracks, you still weren't sure as to why Captain Aizen wished to meet out here. Initially you thought that perhaps he was just fond of this particular scenery, but really it could have been anything.

But still, you believed Aizen always had a purpose for everything he did.

After several moments, his warm voice replaced the evening silence, vocalizing your current thoughts. “I assume you are contemplating why it is I have asked you here, and I’m afraid the reason is quite benign. Truthfully, I just wished for your company. I often go on night walks to clear my head after a long day and thought I might invite you to join me this time, and have a conversation with each other."

Your brows shifted upwards, for that was not quite the answer you were expecting. It seemed too . . . simple. “Really? You just . . . wanted to talk with me? Plainly?”

The Squad 5 captain let out a short, soft laugh at the disbelief that was painted on your face. There was an expression of fondness present in his eyes and in the light smile he offered you. “Yes, exactly. I quite enjoy our discussions actually, they’re intellectually stimulating and relatively pleasant. You crossed my mind, and before yesterday, it has been quite some time since we’ve had the opportunity to unwind and talk.”

You hummed an mhmm in agreement, tearing your eyes away from Aizen’s side profile in favor of the hem of his captain’s haori, watching how it danced in the soft breeze. It seemed to be less distracting than the way Aizen peered down at you from time to time.

"I see. I am. . . . truly flattered by your words, Captain Aizen; you're too kind. Forgive me for asking but," you took longer strides so that you could fall into step next to him━ as if to speak to him more directly, "Why at this time? To talk with me, I mean. It couldn't wait until more . . . . . conventional hours?"

He chuckled again, and answered as smoothly as if he were awaiting you to ask him that. "Unfortunately, today's tasks ran a little long today, so I had to stay at my office later than usual." The spectacled man paused for a moment, before setting his soft gaze on you, "And besides, that completely defeats the purpose of inviting you on a night stroll, doesn't it?"

You ignored the heat flaring up in your cheeks again. Your mind refused to move past the fact that you had crossed Sōsuke Aizen's mind enough times━ or the times that he thought about you were significant enough━ and highly enough to invite you into his realm and indulge in these moments with him, when he very much could have done that alone.

A tender smile appeared on your lips, more towards yourself than the man next to you. "I. . . suppose it does."

The ashen-white moon only rose higher in the sky, providing an ambiance of tranquility as the both of you talked about whatever crossed the surface of your minds. Other times, the stillness of the night did the talking, and you'd listen to the leaves, and the wind, and the crickets sing together in harmony. Gradually as you walked and the beaten path grew more narrow, your figures drew closer together, until you could feel the long sleeves of his haori brush against your own.

You hadn't noticed that the two of you eventually stopped walking and paused under a tree until Aizen struck up conversation once more. When he called out your name in that gentle, velvety voice, you swore your heart was going to lurch out of your chest. The sound of your name rolled of his tongue so smoothly, the desire to hear it again grew within you.

"Uh━ yes, Captain Aizen?"

"Are you satisfied with way things are at the moment?"

You stood next to him, perplexed at his inquiry due to its vague nature. "Um, what. . . . things? I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking."

The wind brushed Aizen's dark ochre tresses across his face as he took a step towards you, like the breeze itself was pushing him towards you. "Hm, perhaps I should be more clear then. Are you content with being a soul reaper? Are you satisfied with being a soldier for the Soul Society?"

With your brows slightly furrowed in thought, you remained silent for several seconds and overanalyzed his every word, trying to predict where he might be steering the conversation now. The longer you thought it over, the stronger that nagging feeling from within your soul became. The one that often told you what he was asking wasn't exactly . . . it didn't quite feel . . . . .

"This feels like a prelude to another insightful discussion on Shinigami━ and by extension━ Seiretei politics." Your words cut off your own thoughts, as if your mind was trying to sweep something under the proverbial rug.

Aizen huffed in amusement, before lightly shrugging, leaving your statement definitively unanswered.

You sighed as you seriously considered his question this time. "I mean sure, I guess. I'm somewhat satisfied with my job and all of . . . this," gesturing your hands in the air around you to emphasize your point. The 5th Division Captain made another humming noise, indicating that you still had his full attention. He inched a little closer into your personal space.

The mere action caused your next words to die in your throat and a quiet chuckle resounded from his, before your thoughts revived themselves again.

"Of course things could always be better but. . . . y'know. This is just how it is." You weren't quite sure if you should voice negative opinions about the Soul Society so plainly to a senior officer, even if he was the one who asked you in the first place, so you treaded lightly.

The same plainly relaxed smile from earlier remained painted across his lips, held in his chestnut irises was an emotion akin to affection. He seemed somewhat pleased that you were expressing your thoughts with him.

“And you? Are you satisfied, Captain Aizen?” You were unable to keep the teasing endearment out of your tone as you returned his gaze, casting aside the notions of Gotei officer seating and ranks for the moment. The air seemed like it shifted━ towards what, you weren't sure of━ but it kind of made you feel like you were adrift, floating in isolation from everything else around you.

It was still hard to process that you were alone with Captain Aizen right now. . . . at night.

A low hum reverberated within his chest, contemplative in nature as he replied, “Perhaps.”

The wind whistled lowly again, erecting goosebumps on whatever part of your skin happened to catch the midnight breeze. You fought the instinctual urge to twitch towards the nearest source of heat, which happened to be Aizen. Now that would be even more wholly inappropriate than the 'lovers meeting at midnight' scenario.

The silence between the both of you was brief, but comfortable nonetheless. Once more his mellifluous voice cut through the quiet, leveled and calm, like still ocean waters.

“Come. I want to show you something,” Aizen reached his arm out towards you, your spine as straight as if someone stuck a metal rod dipped in ice water down your robes.

The captain's movements seemed steady and slow━ it had felt like time itself had hesitated for several moments. You thought he was going to . . . . well you weren't sure what he was going to do, and that's what you made you nervous.

Was he going to touch you? Cradle your cheek? Remove a stray leaf that happened to land on your head? You were left somewhat dangling in anticipation, not daring to flinch backwards because you felt it would be disrespectful or offensive. You hadn't even blinked, subconsciously fearing that this was only a very vivid daydream.

But alas, when his arm drew near it extended past your head, slightly above you, and held a small branch in his palm it like a delicate flower. You released a breath you didn't know you were holding, but that breath drew short again when your gaze was eye level with his lower neck and chin.

He seemed . . . . closer.

“I think that regarding the condition of the Soul Society," Aizen began in a quiet voice, referencing his own reply to his earlier question, "and therefore my thoughts about it, is akin to this set of leaves on this branch."

Snapping out of whatever stupor you seemed to have slipped in, you exhaled softly before stepping back a bit to look at what he was talking about. In his palm he cradled a wayward branch that grew from one of the other sturdier branches of the tree. The green foliage of its arms had started to weaken and dull in color. The cold air due to the seasonal transition to autumn caused the leaves become brittle, nearing closer to the edge of death.

The sound of just how brittle they were resounded in the air when Aizen thumbed the leaves in between his fingertips, observing their texture with pity laced in his small movements.

"These leaves will fall off as it gets colder. And soon, the rest of this tree will be bare as well. When the time comes, when the right circumstances fall into place, the old die to make way and usher in the new; it's simply the way things are. I think of the Soul Society government is structured in a similar manner."

You hung onto his every word, like he were imparting crucial wisdom to you. Even though you were a bit confused on the last part, and on the connection between dying leaves and Soul Society, you still listened intently, waiting for him bridge the gap between the two.

"The Soul Society as it is now can be thought of as a season. And this particular season, this climate has remained so for several centuries. How can nature continue━ how can we continue to progress when the old have yet to be washed away by the currents of time? It defies that of nature, yes?" He directed this question at you specifically, in search of your agreement.

You nodded your head, tearing your gaze away from the branch and directed it at the grass beneath your feet. Your brows furrowed a little as you mused over Aizen's words. He gave a rather ambiguous answer before but now, his words sounded like vague displeasure and muted criticism. Everyone was entitled to their opinion, and on some fronts, you'd sometimes agreed with the 5th Division Captain. The Soul Society was far from perfect, too much emphasis on nobility and status, the government resembled too closely to an oligarchy . . . But you didn't━ wouldn't voice these thoughts, though.

Instead you hummed quietly under your breath. There was that tugging sensation again. This time it told you that there was something deeper to this conversation than meets the eye. But what could there be? Was there anything at all or were you just overthinking it?

The voice-like sensation in your soul was calling out to you, but you couldn't hear it that well or quite make out what it was saying. It's as if someone was calling out to you in a crowded room that had music playing on the speakers: you felt like if you listened hard enough you could make it out but ultimately, the result would fruitless.

"And when that happens," Aizen continued, "sometimes nature has to be gently nudged back on track to keep things moving smoothly. That may require . . . shaking the tree. Pulling a few harmful weeds from one's garden, so to speak."

"Weeds?" You echoed. You felt like you understood this analogy and therefore what he was trying to say, but at the same time you didn't. Or was it . . . . you didn't want to understand what he was implying?

Because if you were interpreting his words correctly, if he were inconspicuously comparing the higher-ups and the government itself to dying leaves and harmful plants that needed to be removed, then . . . .

"You, dear child, are a mere weed in this scenario."

Wait, what did he just━

Your thoughts were cut short when a gush of air that smelt strongly of Aizen━ warm oak, vanilla, and a kind of musk that you weren't sure how to describe but was still pleasant all the same━ brushed against your face and took you by surprise.

But there was another aroma that arose, steadily becoming more apparent alongside the increasingly painful throbbing feeling you felt in your abdomen.

It smelt metallic. And it was something that you've smelt all too many times before.

It was blood.

Your gaze that was initially narrowed in confusion lowered as it followed the source of this pain. Your eyes slowly widened in as you struggled to comprehend the blade that was currently ran through your torso.

Aizen's blade.

"Actually, instead of weeds, a more accurate and befitting analogy perhaps would be blades of grass. You unfortunately have to step on them in order to reach the weeds you want to remove."

You couldn't really focus on what the captain was saying, because your brain was still struggling to process what the hell just happened. Your hands slowly rose from their sides and shakily grazed the zanpakuto, wanting to believe that if you touched it, it would pass right through your fingers like mist. But no, the sensation of cold steel was as real as the robes you wore on your back. You only just now are processing the muffled squelching sound of his sword impaling your flesh.

You wanted to scream, to cry in pain, to vomit, to push him off━ something. But all you could do was stand there, stunned, words completely failing you. "Wh. . . . what? Why did . . . . you . . . . "

A cough replaced your attempt at a comprehensive sentence, and you tasted iron in your mouth.

Fuck....was this really happening?

"Please don't push yourself trying to talk," His voice was like an index finger to one's lips, similar to a parent's gentle caress to quiet and sooth their child, "You'll only hasten your death. And I'm sure you wish to know the reason for my killing you, yes? You'd have to be alive for that."

'Killing me?' 'My death?' The certainty that rang in his words chilled the blood in your veins, and they confirmed the one conclusion you hoped wouldn’t come true: that you were going to die.

The frigid embrace of fear and dread engulfed you from behind and you shivered, causing the blade snugly lodged in your organs to shift. The pain of that foreign object moving even a little bit shot through your entire body, causing a groan to emerge from your throat.

Desperate to conserve your energy and the oxygen that was becoming a little harder to take in, your breathing became uneven and a little wheezed. Even then, you couldn’t bring yourself to meet the gaze of Captain Aizen to confirm if this was really happening or just an extremely realistic and vivid nightmare. The sight you might be greeted with could be more frightening than the actual impaling of his sword.

As if his betrayal couldn’t actually or figuratively cut you any deeper, just then there was a noise that grew louder and louder within a matter of seconds until it was almost deafening. You’ve distinguished it to be the sound of glass crackling.

Your surroundings formed cracks everywhere on its surface, like it was just an oversized window. Even on the grass you stood on, or what you thought was grass, began to crumble away.

A dumbfounded but panicked look was plastered on your face when your world literally shattered around you, the only remnants of it being you and the Captain.

What was underneath the mirage━ or you should say, the fact that it was a mirage at all━ only disturbed you and increased your perplexity.

Slightly hunched over and breathing heavily, it took a minute to process where you were, but you noticed that now the two of you stood in a formal room that looked like it was used for important meetings. The lights in the room slowly started to brighten, most likely due to motion sensors. Even with Aizen's scent lingering in your nose, you could still pick out a rather stale aroma that hung in the air like dead fruit that hadn't fallen off the tree.

"Is . . . this Cen . . . tral━ "

"You are correct. Where we currently stand is the assembly hall for Central 46, the judicial power of the Soul Society. All judiciary as well as legislative trials and proceedings are held here."

All around the room were seats with partitions, the kanji for 1 through 46 printed on them. In the seat for the 19th member, your gaze caught onto something on the translucent barrier. It was a little farther up so you had to squint your already blurring vision to see it properly.

You saw, and your heart promptly sank as a result, eyes widening once more.

There were splatters of a dark colored substance on the partition━ undeniably blood. And the lithe, bony fingers of an older man laid lifeless, peeking out from the side of the screen like the appendages themselves were trying to escape from the body they were attached to.

That man . . . was dead. That stale aroma you smelt was the stench of death.

It was only after that unsettling epiphany did your eyes dart frantically around the room and realize that every member of Central 46 was dead.

The disturbed expression on your face only intensified as your stare was pulled back down to where Aizen's blade still resided in your body.

" Cap.....Aizen," you uttered, swift to correct yourself. All the moisture in your throat dried up like water underneath the unrelenting rays of the sun. You kept gulping your saliva in an attempt to assuage the sensation, but relief only last for a fleeting few seconds. "Did you ━ you killed them . . . didn't you?" Your question was laced with shaky hesitance and swelled with apprehension, fearing that you already knew his reply even before he answered.

There was a moment of silence and a hum before he replied. "Smart girl."

The muted mirthful tone in his voice sounded like sarcasm, and it was enough to finally draw your attention away from everything else and directly look at him. Almost instantly, you regretted it.

His umber tinted gaze was colder than you remembered. You couldn't find anything in his eyes that hinted that all of this was just a big misunderstanding, or a dream, or that Aizen had a secret sense dark and complex humor.

This was your first, and apparently your last time, that you have ever felt a fear such as this. Your mind was struggling to comprehend this was the same Aizen that spoke with you so gently, full of encouragement and wisdom. The same man that recommended you books to read and gifted you tea to drink and gazed upon you like . . .

Well, none of that mattered now. In this moment, Sōsuke Aizen wasn't the same man anymore. This Sōsuke Aizen was someone else, and it frightened you.

"When?" you croaked, your voice no longer sounding like your own. Nothing felt real anymore. "W-When did you . . . . . how? Why?"

Another noncommittal hum resounded from the spectacled man as he closed his eyes, feigning the action of thinking of an answer. When he reopened them, his narrow gaze returned to you.

"Everyone in the Thirteen Court Guard Squads was previously aware that the ability of my zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu, allowed me to confuse the enemy using bodies of water, mist and even moisture in the air in order to attack. However, that is not my zanpakuto's actual power; there is more to it than just simple confusion. Kyoka Suigetsu's true power is Complete Hypnosis. Essentially, when someone looks at my blade, I am then able to take control of that person’s five senses, causing them to believe that something is real ━ or that something isn't real. In a way, once glancing at my unsheathed zanpakuto, that person forfeits their sense of existence to me. Kyoka Suigetsu is quite flawless in its deceptive abilities."

A heavy silence, aside from your uneven breaths, endured in the space between both of you. You didn't need him to spell out what he was trying to say.

It was all . . . . an illusion. A convoluted, premeditated illusion. And you walked right into it without even knowing or considering, that it was all fake.

The Fifth Division Captain inwardly smiled at the despair clearly written on your face as he watched you mentally put the pieces together. He took your lack of reply as a sign to continue. "The members of Central 46 have unfortunately been dead for quite some time now. And as for your question of why......"

The taller man stepped towards you which inadvertently (or purposely, you began to fear), drove his sword deeper into your abdomen without warning and slight force. You bit down on your bottom lip hard to stifle your exclamation of pain. In an attempt to somehow resist him, with the little strength you had left, your hands automatically took purchase in his oversized sleeves, but it did nothing. You found it ironic that you could feel how warm Aizen was underneath his robes, but his soul was anything but.

" . . . . I believe I already mentioned it earlier, yes? All flowers die eventually and the weeds......must be removed."

At that moment you remembered that tugging sensation that told you something felt off in some instances whenever you talked with Aizen. This must have been what it was. Damn it all. You still didn't understand exactly what bad things Central 46 and the Soul Society have done to cause his actions, but based on what you've been told and your current position, it must have been heinous. Again, you actively swallowed the urge to vomit.

"You . . . you lied. I can't believe━ how could it have all b-been a lie?" Another nasty cough rattled your body, followed by a shiver and a groan.

The brown-haired man slightly tilted his head, like he was truly confused. "Lied? Hmm, well. I suppose you could put it that way based on your limited knowledge of the circumstances, but I wouldn't put it that way. Besides, this isn't really about truth or lies. It is, and always has been, only about the reality of what is. And what is, is that you were unable to anticipate my deception. No one could, because it was outside the domain of your thoughts. What is, is that the current way the Soul Society operates is tainted, and I shall be the one to remedy it."

You drew another shuddering breath and looked down at the ground with a grim expression as your blood continued to pool at your feet. Briefly, you even considered unsheathing yourself from his blade and take the chance to make a run for it, but the chances of you making it to the outside world, let alone coming across someone before you bled out and died were slim. Besides, it was clear that you couldn't even trust your own senses anymore after Aizen demonstrated that he had complete control of your reality.

Which reminded you of something else.

" . . . when?" you asked the same question again, but much quieter than before, despair palpable in your voice. 'When and how did you subject me to your zanpakuto's Complete Hypnosis?', is what you were really asking. And being as intelligent as he was, the spectacled man understood.

Abruptly, with a large palm on the small of your back, Aizen used his gentle hold grip to pull you towards him in order to close the remaining distance, causing him to drive the remaining length of his zanpakuto all the way through until the tsuba of his blade rested against your stomach. You looked like a skewered piece of meat.

You didn't have the willpower to hold back the piercing shriek of agony and physical anguish as tears sprung forth from your eyes. You could no longer tell if your blurry vision was due to your tears obstructing your sight or if it was from being a step away from death's door.

"Do you remember . . . the first time we met?"

The hand that rested on your lower back slowly glided upwards until his fingers found your jaw. With a tenderness that reminded you of a time before his betrayal, he lifted your chin and guided your gaze to look at him directly. His thumb moved to graze your bottom lip just as you've done mere hours ago━ as if he knew that, as if he watched you do it. His thumb was dangerously close to slipping inside your mouth and that both excited and scared you. Your breasts against his, your breaths synchronized with his, your body and his were fully pressed against each other and it made focusing on his question more difficult.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The first time . . . we met? Sure, with a little bit of effort you could easily recall the first time you formally met Aizen. It was sometime in the spring, and you remembered him running through combat formations with his lieutenant and the rest of his squad. But why d━

A silent gasp left you. Another epiphany, another figurative blade piercing your heart.

Battle formations, and he . . . offered you to join them . . . his zanpakuto . . . . .

Confusion crumbled away, and was replaced with vacant horror and sadness. It seems you've already been defeated, for many, many years now.

Aizen seemed to murmur something under his breath, a pleased sound you couldn't quite decipher. His mouth brushed over yours, rendering you literally speechless, before he closed the distance and brought your lips together. You could barely process what was happening.

It was ironically tragic how soft and skillfully gentle his lips were against yours. The kiss felt longing, like a departure between two sweethearts and their last meeting together. It also felt heavy and final, making you want to cry.

And you did. Silent tears streamed from your eyes and rolled onto the fingers that still held your face so affectionately. The captain reacted by guiding your chin up a little further, dipping his head a little lower, so he could deepen the kiss. You weakly scorned yourself for thinking about how the two of you must really look like lovers now, sans the sword sticking out from your back.

Oh, how cruel this was; how cruel he was. It was cruel for him to kiss you like this, hand still splayed on your back like he needed to touch you stay sane. And how cruel it was that still managed to enjoy it, even as you stood there dying. Your lips moved together in tandem, slow and almost passionate, all while tears stained the apples of your cheeks, drying up the plush youth that once resided in them.

Aizen's tongue had slithered its way into your mouth, and you suddenly felt like crying harder. There was a tart, sweet flavor lingering on his tastebuds, and you absently wondered what is was. Perhaps hibiscus from tea, you surmised. And he too tasted the sweet jasmine and citrus that clung your tongue and lips. At this, he chuckled quietly into your mouth, humming before retracting from you by a few inches so he could speak.

"I knew you would like the tea. It's sweet and flavorful, isn't it?" You hated how low his voice was, how its timbre pleasurably vibrated and rumbled against your lips, and you hated that lidded stare he gave you. You again thought it unfair that you couldn't even revel in the rare sight of Aizen's lips slightly wet because your lips were intertwined with his.

"I have to thank you for humoring me and my recommendations. I really appreciated it. And I also," you winced loudly and cried out in affliction as Aizen finally began to withdraw the sword from your body, "must to bid you farewell now. It seems you don't have any more time left, and this has dragged on for longer than it needed. I'm not surprised you've held out for this long, as I already knew you possessed commendable strength. But alas it wasn't enough. I am sorry that you have to die; it's rather regrettable that you happened to be that blade of grass that ended up underneath my foot."

Another wail was yanked from your chest as he steadily removed his sword from your abdomen. The pain was becoming excruciating, you would have collapsed by now if the taller man weren't holding you.

You saw two things before the light in your eyes had all but faded away. The first were the colors of faux pity and apathy that swirled in Sōsuke Aizen's irises, spiraling like a storm that was certain to wreak havoc in its wake. His gaze was devoid of any regret or remorse; the final metaphorical nail on the coffin. The second was a small smile.

But this wasn't one of his smiles you were familiar with. No wait . . . . the one you knew was simply a veneer of what is.

This smile was slanted, the corners of his lips tilted upwards and was sharp. Sharp enough to cut open your already gaping wound further and completely tear you apart, spelling out your demise. It looked insidious as if it were hiding razor-edged fangs. This was what is; Aizen's real smile.

"I. . . I see. Aize. . . ." were the last words you were able to manage. You didn't have the strength to be upset or hurt any longer, so you gave in to the exhaustion.

Your body permanently relaxed, long lashes veiling your now empty eyes as your arms lifelessly dropped to your sides. The captain found a disturbing amount of pleasure in his name being the final word you attempted to speak before succumbing to the sleep of death.

And even after the fact, the facade of doomed, star-crossed lovers persisted as your body slumped backwards. Aizen's strong forearm wrapped tightly around your waist being the only reason you didn't fall to the ground in a puddle of your own blood.

That day was the last anyone saw of you, your zanpakuto still laid idly in your room, its spirit destined to forever wander in the afterlife between worlds alone, eventually fading from existence without ever feeling the presence of its master again.

They had declared you missing by the end of the next day. Lieutenant Hisagi was probably the most perturbed about your sudden disappearance. Days, weeks passed, and they never located you. The Gotei 13 was left unsettled by the lack of progress, but ultimately had to rule your case inconclusive. Some believed that you were simply killed by a stray hollow, or even ran away from your duties because of the stress.

The news of what happened spread like wildfire across all the squads, that a high-ranked officer just up and vanished without a trace. The spirits and morale of the thirteen companies dampened, sorrow and worry swelling like a festering boil.

And that boil burst when Ryoka infiltrated the Soul Society, and when it was revealed that all of it was carefully orchestrated by Sōsuke Aizen.

Like a blade of grass that somehow snuck into one's sandals or in between their toes, during his time in Hueco Mundo, images of you flashed in his head at unexpected times when his mind was quiet. He'd remove the grass, tossed you aside, and moved on with his day. There was no room for you in the grand scheme of things. Such reminisces were beneath someone like him.

And yet.

He'd always find another piece of grass from the greenery he stepped on whenever he advanced a step in his plans. There you were again.

It was common knowledge that if you kept repeating the same action over and over, it will eventually wear you down.

━━━━━━ 鏡  ━━━━━━━

It was dark, and there was nothing.

There had been nothing for quite a long time now. Utter darkness and the abyssal shade of black engulfed every inch of Aizen's body and surroundings.

He saw nothing, the seals over his eyes too opaque to let anything through. And even if they weren't obscuring his vision, he would barely be able to see three feet in front of him; there was seldom a few lanterns in his cell to begin with. He felt nothing but the bindings that kept him imprisoned in one of the deepest pits of the Seireitei. At times it felt like even his internal organs had stilled in their functions. He heard nothing but the unrelenting quiet of his cell within Mugen's maw. The only thing that served as proof that he hasn't spontaneously grown deaf yet was the occasional muffled noise that originated from outside of the entrance. And even then, he could hardly hear much of anything.

Such is an ironic fate for someone who, with a stray thought and a glint of his blade, could control someone's senses and take away their free will to experience those senses in their reality. And now, he was stripped away of all of his in nearly every capacity.

Sōsuke Aizen was rendered stationary and stagnant, qualities he detested and were the antithesis of his ambitions and plans, perhaps even his existence.

Aizen had always believed in being in control of your own destiny and making your own choices; if you had the opportunity and the power to change something━ especially if it was something that was wrong, unfair or immoral━ then one should be able to move towards that goal by making change, even if by force. The former captain had always been intentional about his actions and his desires right from the start.

And yet, here he ended up.

Spending years strapped to a chair in this dark, cloistered hole, Aizen had nothing but time to reflect the reason for his arrest: that orange haired Ryoka boy, Ichigo Kurosaki. He had nothing but time to admit to himself and settle on the conclusion that his last battle with the substitute Shinigami . . . did something to him.

Fighting the Ryoka boy ignited something inside him that he previously believed would forever lay dormant.

The thrill of a challenge.

Adrenaline was injected into his veins with each clash of their swords, spreading far and wide across every inch of his body. It no longer reacted in the measured, calculative manner he had programmed it to, but with unadulterated, pure instinct and raw power━ all in an effort to not only withstand such potent spirit energy from his opponent, but to come out on top and win.

It made him feel alive.

Aizen's desire to be the victor in battle and in his philosophy━ to prove himself right━ both fueled him and consumed him so thoroughly it led to his own downfall. That was a rather difficult fact to acknowledge; so much so his head started to pulsate intensely whenever it crossed his mind one time too often.

All of it unfolded right in front of his eyes and yet . . . he didn't really see it happen.

As time passed during his perpetual incarceration, with hooded eyes, the former captain spent an unfathomable amount of time tossing and turning every single event that led him to this underground prison, even pondering his temporary release by the Head Captain Kyōraku to fight in the war. Scenarios both minor and significant displayed itself in front of his mind's eye as if he were watching a film.

Every so often, a blurred visage of your image would make a brief appearance, like the flickering sparks of a match before they were able to come to light, fading away into the void and were overshadowed by his other thoughts. It was as if his own consciousness and intentionally muted any manifestations of your existence in his memories. As if he wasn't able to or allowed to see them━ to remember you for too long.

Mentally reliving moments from the last several months, years, decades, centuries━ trying to analyze each moment and decipher where it could have went wrong━ turned out to be quite an exhausting task. His mind and body would grow heavier with inertia, and eventually he would succumb to the alluring pull of slumber. After some time he would rouse from his sleep, and continued from where he left off.

These were his daily activities day in and day out (even though he had trouble distinguishing day and night in his chambers) for years. He saw a positive side to it though. He'd instead think of it has him getting stronger because he had spent so long . . . thinking. Ruminating. Contemplating every possibility in the past, present, and future. His mind would become as sharp as his zanpakuto.

Aizen had always been intentional about what he did, what he said, and how he conducted himself. He was sure in his abilities to orchestrate an image━ a belief for others to have faith in, and act on it in order to further his goals. He was always sure in that image, knowing who he was and what he stood for.

Or at least, that's what he thought.

Aizen wasn't consciously aware that his certainty in this crafted image had already begun to waver. He could not and was unable to anticipate how severe these small fractures had become until after a certain lieutenant paid him a visit outside his cell of confinement, right before he was scheduled to be thrown back into that dark hole of the Mugen.

Lieutenant Shuhei Hisagi was quite emotive when he burst through the doors. His expressions were contorted in volatile mixture of frustration, anger and sadness. His emotions were every which way, directed at everything that has happened so far, including himself. He was especially emotive at Aizen specifically for what he did to former captain Kaname Tosen and 'corrupting him with his twisted ideals.'

Aizen found amusement in that.

Before he was rolled away by the punishment force and therefore out of earshot, a particular set of Hisagi's words caused the small, content smile on his lips to uncurl ever so slightly. "Everything . . . and everyone that has ever gotten themselves involved with you has been trampled on by you and your ideals one way or another, and they all end up dead. If you think what you did to Captain Tosen was justified━ to call it mercy . . . . . then there is truly no justice in this world. You will . . . forever be the enemy in my eyes."

There was a trembling anger in his voice. Pain that wanted to cry out and be set free but, the thin lid of reason prevented it from doing so. And after a moment of silence, the corners of Aizen's lips curved upwards once more. A little bemused, a little more wolfish this time. He maliciously imagined Hisagi's reaction if he ever discovered the true reason for your disappearance.

But instead, all he said was. "What an interesting thing to say, Shuhei Hisagi. Your conviction is admirable." Any evidence of emotion that might have been reflected in his sepia irises was swallowed up and obscured by the darkness of the Mugen's jaw.

The cracks in Aizen's sense of self, in his beliefs, in the image he invented started to cave under the weight of Hisagi's words before he himself realized it was happening. They were like stains in the fabric of his mind that refused to come out.

What puzzled him more, was that with each attempt to figure out just why Hisagi's words echoed in his mind, they all lead back to you, the third seat of the 9th squad. Annoyingly so.

The tattooed lieutenant hadn’t said anything particularly profound ━ at least, Aizen didn't think so. Your name didn’t even fall from his lips. So why were memories of you and your likeness the only clear thoughts he could make of Hisagi's speech? Was it because he was aware of how close the two of you were? He doubted the reason were that trivial and insignificant.

His thoughts grew more discordant by the day, his soul a little more weighted than usual. Perhaps these new seals that Urahara had fashioned actually had an effect on him, Aizen thought. It made sense. His intellect, other than his own, were the only ones capable of creating such effective restraints.

After a while, he had a revelation. This was a different kind of weight.

This heaviness, the closest word he knew to describe it as . . . . was loneliness.

Time taunted him as it seemed to drag on━ Aizen grew even less sure of how much━ when he came to this realization. Hisagi's words were a clear mirror to the loneliness that echoed within him after what happened to you and to Tosen. It was so . . . potent, that it seemed to strike some chord in Aizen he had never heard before.

Such a chord, this sound of loneliness, it was strange and uncomfortable; he wasn't very fond of this sensation. He'd try to scrub it away, but it was all for naught.

His eyes had slid shut at some point, his ruminations leading to dead ends and wearing him down. And, almost as expected, there you were again, in all your translucent glory. The hem, the sleeves, and even the smell of your yukata slowly dragged across his dreams, haunting his thoughts like a lonely wraith.

And Aizen hardly dreamt of anything.

When he regained consciousness he was plagued with yet another epiphany. An additional reason behind this newfound depth.

Aizen's own loneliness. Guilt. Much to his own quiet horror.

How foreign and unusual a thing like guilt is. It was like looking into a mirror and not recognizing something you had never noticed before, but wondered if it had always been there.

But the thing Aizen did recognize, how lonely he actually felt, was something he had hoped would never resurface again. It was a notion he hadn't had the time or regard to consider━ 'loneliness'. Its only purpose, if any, was solely to serve as a motivator. At times though, it was more like a hindrance.

Something akin to nausea slowly started to bubble up in the pit of his stomach, but he suppressed the sensation before it became any more intense.

What of his previous actions did he need to feel guilty for? He hadn't felt it then, so why would he feel it now? Again he ruminated such a question endlessly into oblivion.

The former captain had no doubts that his plan to remove the Soul King, and therefore the Soul Society's sins, were necessary.

Nor did any hesitancy about removing the opposition or dead weight━ whether shinigami or arrancar━ existed.

He certainly had no reservations against killing Kaname Tosen, for he knew the man well enough to know that Tosen would have been so thoroughly appalled with what he had become, it would have drove him mad.

So what was it, then? Why were such useless emotions as guilt and loneliness being amplified n━

"Y....know, S....."

Even covered by the seals, Aizen's eyes widened and his brows were slightly furrowed in distress. Had his mind finally tipped the scales of sanity and madness, to the point where he was hearing things?

It was quiet for several moments longer, before his senses caught onto the sound of water dripping onto a hard surface.

One drop at a time.

Its cadence a little too rhythmic to be natural. And for a second time, he heard that soft, ominous sounding whisper. Its voice a little clearer this time.

"You...know.....Sōsuke."

In the second it took for his eyes to flutter shut behind its seals to blink, when he reopened them, he was no longer sealed to the walls and floors of the Mugen, nor was he surrounded by every shade of darkness imaginable. His limbs and senses were finally freed to breathe for the first time in what felt like ages.

That relief was short-lived when his senses absorbed the unending landscape of water underneath his feet, water lilies lifelessly floating on its surface, and the dim sky illuminated by a full pale moon.

Aizen was in his inner world, and now he was aware of how he got here, or rather who brought him here.

"You . . . already know the answer to that question, Sōsuke." The voice was even more clear, its sentences more comprehensible. And it sounded it eerily like you.

Why the voice was impersonating your likeness had caught him off guard for half a second, but he realized it was only the work of his zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu.

An illusion it may be, there was an untouchable quality about your voice and how you spoke that even Kyoka Suigetsu couldn't replicate.

A few feet away from him, the water was disturbed by a being emerging from the depths. Ripples formed around a manifested version of his zanpakuto, who took the form of you, smiling ever so gently. The smile felt airy, and it didn't seem like the same one that haunted his dreams and every waking thought as of late. It felt....knowing.

Still, the former captain couldn't be bothered to maintain eye contact with his sword spirit, so he turned around and opted to keep his unreadable stare trained on the vast expanse of water and white lilies.

"It's been quite a while since I have stepped foot into this realm. There must be something you want . . . Kyoka."

The zanpakuto chuckled, it sounded like the way you would softly laugh at one of his clever quips. But this wasn't you.

He didn’t want to admit that something about that fact didn’t sit right with him.

"Judging from your tone, would I be correct in assuming you don't want to be here?"

Silence rang out within the soul scape, before Aizen interrupted it, his gentle voice colored a shade darker, and a little rigid. "And I fail to see the reason why you must take that form when you revealed yourself to me. Is your aim to get a reaction out of me? Or something along those lines?"

Your eyes━ the eyes of Kyoka Suigetsu━ narrowed at its master's back, as if they were trying to create concavities in his skull. But the expression was washed away the moment it appeared, the serene smile from before was back in place.

"You know . . . it's considered quite rude to not look at someone when you're addressing them. That, and when you deliberately ignore things they say. Your manners have been deteriorating, Sōsuke. Tsk, tsk."

Kyoka-dressed-as-you suddenly appeared before him, as if they had teleported. Even when they were in his peripheral vision, Aizen still maintained his stare off into the distant nothingness.

"Unless, you can't find it in yourself to look at me. . . that's correct, isn't it? It's because I look exactly like her, right?" The zanpakuto continued to provoke him, taking a step closer into his personal space.

With an exasperated sigh, his eyelids fell shut for a second, using that time to gather the strength he didn't know he needed, and directed his gaze to meet his spirit's. Aizen's face gave nothing away, but his heart lurched about his chest when his bronze eyes met with yours, or what was made to look like yours. The undesired affect it had on him was all the same.

"If you wish to chastise me about manners, I suggest you take your own advice. You didn't answer my first question, either: what is it you want? Why am I here?" Again the former captain chose to not address the other parts of Kyoka's statement. For the sake of his sanity and his thinning patience━ or was it to preserve his resolve?

Its smile widened a bit, moving another step closer to their master. God, Kyoka even smelled like you, mimicking your signature honeyed scent that Aizen didn't realize he found so intoxicating until this very moment.

"I called you here to save you from yourself."

Aizen remained silent, only narrowing his eyes in speculation. "Meaning?"

"Didn't I already say it earlier? I think you already know what I'm talking about, Sōsuke. You've always known."

Fate's pairing of Kyoka Suigetsu with Aizen was a match crafted from the spindles of heaven, but also a maddening curse pulled from the depths of hell, for they complimented each other a little too well. The zanpakuto was too perfect a reflection of Aizen and his soul, looking at it started to hurt his eyes.

His sword spirit insisted that he already knew the reason for his coming here, and perhaps he did have an inkling the moment the light of epiphany was shone on his profound loneliness and guilt. But that couldn't have been what it was referring to . . . . could it?

"You cannot feign ignorance here, my dear Sōsuke, however I do find it rather humorous you bother trying. If you'd like, I don't mind humoring you by spelling it out for you. I'd be glad to unearth the truth that you have buried in the most neglected corner of your heart."

"When you were . . . . subjecting yourself to such mental torment, it had an affect on this world as well. The ripples, the waves in this scape become quite . . . tumultuous." The nuances in your voice were perfected by his zanpakuto, but the way it talked sounded like a fog that was gradually closing in from over the horizon. The uneasy feeling that resided in his chest traveled down to his stomach, but Aizen's face remained steely, even when Kyoka Suigetsu took that final step to close the gap in between them. "And the reason for that, the reason why Hisagi's words rattled you so is because you regret killing that woman."

The creased line in Aizen's brow grew more prominent as he stared down his sentient sword spirit. With its breast pressed against his, they placed a hand on his clothed chest in a tantalizing manner, but he felt nothing. There was no warmth from its palm, much unlike when your hand touched him. There wasn't even a cool sensation either. Even minutes before your death, your touch brought a soothing heat that permeated through his shihakusho and penetrated his skin.

Kyoka's face grew nearer, their smile━ although still tender looking━ grew cold at its edges, nearly resembling that of a predator eager to see despair reflected in the eyes of its prey. It didn't fit the graceful allure of your face at all, and seeing this expression deeply unsettled the former captain more than he would like to admit.

"You regret . . . killing me."

A chill tore through Aizen's body, the weight of Kyoka's words adding onto the heaviness that still hasn't been alleviated from his heart; he was hardly able to suppress the involuntary shiver.

Without warning, Kyoka's mouth suddenly became dangerously close to their master's, its lips brushing against his in a provocative manner. Aizen's expression darkened when he realized that it was reenacting his last encounter with you when you were alive. His mouth started to grow uncomfortably dry, despite his soul scape being full of moisture, and there was a taste on the back of his tongue that's been lingering there since he arrived.

The lilt in Kyoka's tone continued to taunt him. "That is the reason for your guilt: regret. You have been in denial. And in the spirit of unearthing truths, I suppose I can admit that perhaps . . . . I've been . . . . encouraging said delusions, adding drops of fuel into the flames of your emotions and ambitions. But after all that's happened, when it comes down to it there's no point in continuing this hallucination any longer. I've grown tired of this game, so it's time to for you wake up now, Sōsuke. I've brought you here to release you from your own illusion, to completely shatter it."

Aizen's back was as stiff as a board, not moving a millimeter when Kyoka's lips grazed his again. They were breathing softly onto his mouth, but he hardly felt any puffs of air.

The former captain was having a rather difficult time processing the fact that his zanpakuto had its own agenda and had been manipulating his emotions without him noticing. Specifically the emotions he felt towards you.

He never truly believed that such a thing was possible, one's own blade having such a deep-rooted influence━ no, control over their master. Or would it be more accurate to say that he never expected himself to be controlled to such a degree? He that prided himself on being freed from the marionette strings of fate that were tied to his limbs and mind, he that relished being able to do what he wanted, think what he wanted, feel what he wanted━ or what he didn't want━ it was hard to believe that none of that mattered in the end.

Kyoka Suigetsu's deceptive abilities were indeed undeniably perfect. No one, not even Aizen himself could have anticipated that Kyoka's most absolute and complete hypnosis would be enacted on himself.

"Do you know now, Sōsuke? Do you understand?" Kyoka's voice was as soft as a whisper, but it couldn't hide the edges of its tone that were still sharpened from finding amusement of seeing the truth flash across its master's face. "You had destroyed the solution to your existential question of loneliness, before you could fully understand the question itself."

Yes . . . . . Aizen understood now.

He didn't bother acknowledging what Kyoka had said. His grim facial expression━ still, tinged with dolor, and paired with an indescribable, distant look his eyes━ said all that it needed to. His silence was as much as an admission as any.

Kyoka-dressed-as-you leaned forward again to fully close the gap between their lips and Aizen's. Tenderly, like the intentions of a lover, it spoke against his nearly closed mouth. "Have you figured it out yet?"

Nothing but quiet could be heard between them, as Kyoka's mouth moved about their master's face and placed something like kisses upon its surface, but not quite.

Aizen's cocoa-shaded eyes slide down to stare at his sword spirit pressed up against him. His gaze was hard, and yet something swam underneath its surface that his zanpakuto had never seen before. Melancholy, it guessed? They weren't quite sure.

Kyoka pressed on when Aizen remained quiet. "The taste in the back of your mouth. Have you figured out what it was? You know it quite well....."

Aizen's tongue grazed the roof of his mouth, sensing the rather unpleasant taste that has coated the inside of it. And within a moment, because he was faced with the current circumstances, Aizen had finally placed a name associated this particular taste. How unfortunate this was.

Upon his realization, Aizen's head lowered, and his brown tresses hung freely over his lashes. Perhaps it was so Kyoka couldn't properly see whatever remorseful expression painted their master's face, but it mattered not. Even from here, the sword spirit could already sense exactly what it was he was feeling.

And they loved it.

"It's a sweet and flavorful taste, isn't it? Quite lovely." Kyoka Suigetsu mimicked the exact words he uttered against your lips all those years ago when he tasted jasmine tea on your tongue, and sealed your death with a kiss. "It's too bad you don't seem to enjoy it anymore."

Aizen's chest continued to rise and fall calmly, and the hands of his sword spirit that rested there glided upwards to cup his strong jaw, caressing his skin with its thumb. Its phantasmic touch did nothing to stir their master.

"Sōsuke, do you know what the jasmine flower from that tea symbolizes?"

Aizen's lips were slightly parted, but again he didn't say anything. Instead, its corners twitched and lifted upwards by an inch, and he huffed softly.

Kyoka Suigetsu grinned in reply. "Good."

The next time Aizen blinked, he was plunged in darkness yet again. The restrictive feeling that swallowed his being whole had returned, and was an indicator that his zanpakuto had released him from his inner world. He was consciously back in the Mugen, back in this abyss they called a prison cell.

Kyoka was indeed as much as a formidable force in its own right, as much as, if not greater than Aizen himself.

The conversation he had with his sword spirit would be cemented in his head for all eternity. When he grew senile and began to physically wither away, the one thing that would remain vital like a young heart, was this epiphany that he had. This realization that he actually . . . .

As the chains of despair bound him tighter to the bottom of the metaphorical pit, regret and his loneliness corroding his flesh and spirit like metal exposed to moisture, a stray memory of his time in Hueco Mundo flashed in his mind. He recalled having tea prepared for meetings with his Espadas and he could not pinpoint when, but at some point, Aizen developed an aversion for jasmine flavored tea. For one reason or another, he no longer found its taste appealing; whenever he drank it, it always tasted bitter.

Now that reason had become painstakingly clear.

The binding on his mouth muffled a rueful chuckle at the though, and it trapped the flavor of jasmine on his lips.

(#) @soaringmirror @stygianoir @ryukenzz @blkjupiters @chrissie2003 @nymphoheretic @dejwrld @triangularz @souyaszn @kuujo @honeybleed @valentineluvu . let me know if you’d like to be apart of my tag list ♡♡.

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

#966

I grew up watching a lot of the older series, VOY and DS9 especially. DS9 will always be my favorite...but SNW is up there right with it, honestly. I feel like other DS9/classic series fans I know always try to persuade me to change my mind/start disliking SNW when I say this, but idc, I just have such a good time watching it. I understand a lot of the criticisms, but also think the majority of them apply to some of the other shows, too (including pre-DISC ones) and it's a little frustrating feeling like people are telling me it deserves harsher judgement for having the same flaws I see in a lot of Trek? The only thing I can think of rn that I see people criticize it for that isn't really shared as much by the classic shows is people saying its nostalgia bait-y, and even then, tbh, I don't think that's entirely accurate. Of course its focusing a lot on older material, but to me its just doing like, things that are pretty typical of prequels? And I don't totally understand what else people would expect from a prequel? If you just don't like prequels in general that I get, I know people who find them just tedious as a genre and that's totally fair, but then I would say that feels like a matter of personal preference and not an issue with the show itself, and at that point just don't watch it. And w/ criticisms that its fucking up previous canon too much, it's another like "I think its fair if you don't like the choices being made but I don't get the attitude that this is a specific problem of SNW, basically every Trek show has done this to some degree". I guess generally, I think there are many things to criticize but I feel like people judge it in pretty lopsided ways and give their personal favorite shows passes for doing things that are pretty similar, and idk really I just wanna be able to share my enthusiasm for the show without getting yelled at by other fans. I love the classic series too, so much, but I often don't feel welcome in spaces w/ other classic series fans because there's so much negativity about the new shows. People also always assume I must've just started watching or that I haven't seen any of the older stuff yet when I say that its one of my top shows, when that's not at all true. ST has meant so much to me for basically my entire life and its really frustrating.

[asliceofzosan]

please do continue your thoughts on the hockey player sanji and figure skater zoro bc i am eating it like a feral dog rn 👀👀👀👀👀🫦

with pleasure !! fair warning, i don't know every single thing about both sports. i've retained info from when i was super obsessed with them but i might not be the most accurate HAHAHA this one is about zoro as a figure skater ! mayhaps if u send me another ask, i can talk about sanji as a hockey player :>

when i was thinking about figure skater zoro, the first thing that came to my mind was which discipline would he major in. when he was a kid, i think he was dead set on being an olympic gold medalist and was determined to get it alone. so he wanted to be the best in the mens singles discipline. i saw someone wrote in the tags of my post that sword fighting is akin to figure skating (at least in singles) to not be a team sport. for the most part, it really isn't. especially since early zoro, who was determined to become the best figure skater in the world, didn't think being in a team yet mattered to his goal.

in this au, i envision that kuina just had a major spinal injury that left her unable to skate again. kuina and zoro had the same childhood coach (kuina's dad) and eventually zoro changed coaches when he grew up and decided to switch to pairs skating. (his current coach is mihawk — former 3 time olympic gold medalist. twice in mens singles and once in pairs. debating on whether his one skating partner before retirement would be perona or someone else)

the reason why i think he'd much rather go for pairs skating over ice dancing is due to pairs skating being more acrobatic. which isn't to say he hasn't considered it before !! some of his other figure skating idols are in ice dancing. however, he found pairs skating more appealing to him and his personal goal.

the absolute trust as well that you and your partner have is crucial. zoro entering pairs skating ties into what his philosophy of strength is. he can't be the best alone. he can be the best with nami as his skating partner, who trusts him implicitly to catch her every time she's tossed into the air. there's also so many opportunities to push himself mentally and physically when in pairs. it's not just you on the ice. you can't be the only one who looks good. your partners and you have to be in sync the entire time. this definition from the us figure skating site sums it up pretty well:

"The pairs event combines the athleticism of singles skating with the challenge of unison and the acrobatics of overhead lifts and throws. Each movement is performed in unison, requiring a significant amount of timing and trust between partners." (usfigureskating)

also on a personal note, i have a very self-indulgent headcanon that zoro is very musically inclined. probably took lots of dance and ballet lessons as a kid to strengthen his skillset for skating. he's very strict with hitting beats just right and feeling the flow of the music from his head down to his toes. thats very important in figure skating. zoro considers the presentation score just as important as the technical score and anyone who says otherwise is stupid.

he's very defensive over his sport. he's had to be held back from fist fights before with obnoxious hockey kids who thought his sport was lame and not a real sport. that's part of the reason why he never found interest in hockey. though his best friend luffy is a fantastic athlete in his own right, he can't for the life of him ever find it enjoyable. (except when the teams go into fights on ice. he cheers for luffy to punch people in the face every time)

ofc zoro only really ends up having more interest in the sport when sanji joins luffy's team a few years later. but that's a story for another day ;)

[thewiz9062]

Smiling Critters AU: Familial Relationships & Friendship Status Headcanons

NOTE: THIS IS NOT RELATED TO CANON IN THE SLIGHTEST. An accurate description of this au is that I took every playtime.co poster art and promotional material from the game and lit up the rest of canon in a bonfire. That means EVERY character is part of one big cartoon. That's it. No bigger bodies project, no child souls, no experiments, just a depiction of a cartoon. PLEASE do not ask me to do anything suggestive with anyone.

OK I'm jumping straight under the cut, these are pretty long so be warned

Bubba's relationship with his parents is pretty good. The only reason I say "pretty" is because he feels like they "undermine his intelligence." In reality, he just wants to help them. In his younger years, he accessed the internet pretty easily and used context clues to figure out that with all the factors of an adult life, they weren't doing so well financially. But he saw a solution: a lot of people who have easy lives have a good education. So, he got to work, teaching himself anything and everything. He even (somewhat legally) got multiple jobs, ranging from tutoring to coding and other similar occupations. He hid these from his parents for a suprise. (This is when he was about 8, but my timeline is weird rn) anyways, he in total made a LOT more money than any child should have. Eventually, he told his parents and told them about his entire plan to help them. They exchanged a few words between each other and turned back to Bubba. They told him that they were very proud of him, but he shouldn't have to worry about things like that at his age. He understood because he knows that a lot of kids his age don't know a quarter of the stuff he does, but he also felt betrayed. As if they think he doesn't really know anything. In reality, they just want him to be able to live a life without their own issues, dragging him down. But they still are a happy family. There are just a few misunderstandings. Moving on, he still kept those jobs to the present day, meaning he's (for lack of a better term) loaded. In terms of the friend group, he is the one to give out life advice and such. He also funds their more expensive outings. If bobby is the "mom friend," Bubba is the "dad friend." Speaking of which, Bobby is his closest friend outside of Kickin. They both care for their friends and family, even though they do in different ways. He's still in good light with everyone else, though.

Kickin has fairly normal parents. They were a bit concerned with his behavior shift, but after meeting Bubba and his family, they were able to see him truly happy again. They care about him, like parents do. In regards to the friend group, Bubba and him are attached at the hip. If you were to invite one, you'd get the other. Package deal. This made and broke a lot of parties or outings with their peers, but with the critters they're both welcome anytime. Outside of Bubba, Hoppy is his closest friend, Dogday coming at a close second.

Hoppy's parents are her biggest inspiration. Athletes, just like she wants to be. They're pretty chill with each other, and they support her dreams. With the friend group, kickin is her best friend, but bobby is cool to her as well.

Crafty's parents are total assholes. I've gone over her parents before, but to give a brief summary, crafty wants to be an artist because she genuinely enjoys it, but her mother wants her to follow in her footsteps and be a model, simply because their rarity as unicorns. Her father knows, but doesn't care what she does either way. He's off defending people in court most of the time, and it was an arranged marriage anyway, just to keep the line going. (Not incredibly proud of this one, but it'll do). Whenever she wants to hang out with the friend group, she usually appears in far too expensive clothes for the activity, but Bobby's usually prepared and brings some clothing that Crafty feels comfortable in. She's closest to Dogday, him being the one to help her make friends in the first place and give her the motivation needed to be proud of her art.

Bobby's parental situation is bittersweet. She's the only critter with siblings, and regularly has to watch them because she has a working father, and her mother divorced him and didn't get custody. She is understanding and is more than happy to help, much to her father's regret, him having wanted her to have a normal childhood. (See why her and Bubba get along?) This led to her being essentially their mother. She wasn't exactly alone in this, as Picky Piggy was a huge help in some departments. Eventually, her father started earning enough to pay for a babysitter, allowing Bobby to be normal. But old habits are hard to shake. In the friend group, she is undeniably the mom friend. Other than picky (which she knew before joining the critters), Bubba is who she's closest to, for sharing the same goals: to help. Dogday makes ideas and plans, but bobby and Bubba make sure they go flawlessly.

Picky is also pretty normal. She has parents that support her culinary arts and had a few friends before joining the critters, including Bobby. Her knowing bobby immediately places her as Picky's closest friend, but she's fairly indiscriminate to everyone.

Another one I've gone over before: Catnap lost his parents at 4 (cause of bye-bye still pending and I honestly need help) and has lived on his own ever since. He's not COMPLETELY parentless, though, even though he'd never admit it. Although he never shows it like ever, he appreciates boxy boo just stopping by to check on him. In terms of friends, he's not actually an official member yet, but Dogday, Bobby, and Picky know him. Bubba and Kickin know of his existence because Dogday muttered his name when planning their sleepover but have yet to meet him. Dogday is his best friend, and wants to help him see that although it's great to be happy, he's still human (ik ik he isnt but yk what I mean) and is allowed to see things in a negative light sometimes.

Dogday was abandoned by his parents shortly after he was born, and was put in an orphanage and has lived there since. Just like catnap, however, he's not totally fatherless. One time, during one of the rare outings when one of their caretakers would take them to the local park dogday and wanted a balloon but didn't have a quarter to pay. Luckily for him, someone came and bought one for him. That someone was Huggy Wuggy. They became acquainted after Dogday thanked him, and anytime dogday visits the park, they sit on a bench and talk about things. (He also learned that Huggy gives the greatest hugs and now he won't leave without one everytime he has to go.) In terms of the friend group, he was the one that brought most of them together and along with being generally likeable he's in great standing with all of them. Though, hides the fact that he lives in an orphanage, thinking that they would treat him differently. When he met Catnap, however, they bonded over their lack of biological parents, and they became best friends. Dogday, even though he barely knows more than Catnap, wants to teach him how to make the best out of situations, even when times are bad.

------

Edit: tumblr try not to post my drafts challenge go- failed

[ropuszysko]

HUNTIK EPISODE 3

as an amateur yiddishist who is visiting prague rn

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

MY CREDENTIALS:

as you may have know already, i am an amateur polish yiddishist with a great interest in judaism in general. i speak some yiddish and have some expertise in ashkenazi culture. i am however not jewish and i dont speak hebrew (besides knowing the alphabeth)

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

We all know that Rainbow treats history very loosely and unconsistencies aren't a surprise to anyone, really, but I thought this would be fun. I watched the Golem episode in Polish a few years back and in English just yesterday, so this is what I am basing this post on. Enjoy!

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

1. The Legend Itself

The legend itself is retold pretty accurately, although it is shortened. More details are: the rabbi's full name actually was Yehuda Löw ben Bezalel, which means Yehuda Löw the son of Bezalel. He was a well-known cabbalist, mathematician, rabbi, teacher, etc., also known as Maharal. The Golem was placed in the attic of the Old New Synagogue(Staronová synagoga), after it got out of control of the rabbi and went on a murderous rampage. Now, there are two options of what was written either on his forehead or on a piece of parchment put in his mouth to animate it. It was either indeed truth (emet, אמת) or it could also be Adam (אדמ), "a man" in Hebrew. To deactivate it, the rabbi erased the first letter א (you read Hebrew from right to left) to make it either "met", which means death or "dam", which means blood.

2. The cemetery

There is not a lot I can say about the cemetery. In the show it says is the Prague Central Cemetery, which... doesn't exist xD. For real. There is no such thing, especially in the jewish contexy.  There's one jewish cemetery in the centre of the city and it's the old jewish cemetery (starý židovský hřbitov)(not to be confused with the old jewish in Žižkov district, which is a different thing in a different part of the town). Maharal was buried in the Old Cemetery in the Josefov  district, in the centre of the city. There's not a lot I can say, because creative liberty was clearly taken. Both in the show and the actual one look just like your generic jewish cemetery. All I can say is that the entrance looks very different. There are three gates to the cemetery, which are much narrower and sll of them are attached to synagogues.

3. The Grave

What can I say about the grave? Just look at it, it's completely different. The only detail, that I can actually point out, that actually annoyed me, is that the matzevah (tombstobe )is usually placed in front of the grave, not in the back of the grave. And this is the detail, that even considering the creative liberty, doesn't make sense. Also not to be that guy, but I think that actual matzevah looks much more interesting and I kind of wish they used the actual one. Also the papers you can see are so-called "kvitelech", piece of paper with prayers or pleas, usually for help written on them to the rabbi, to Maharal.

4. The word Sophie writes

The word Sophie writes here allegedly is emet, truth. Except it's not xD. Not only she writes it from the wrong side, like you write in latin alphabet, but also some of those symbols don't even exist. I cannot really write them. If I had to guess it would be LLLILONA and a symbol that doesn't exist. Or maybe the are Ks instead of Ls. It resembles katakana more than Hebrew alphabet. There's my handwriting comparison on the left, which my Hebrew handwriting isn't very good, but it's there.

5. The place they find the Golem

The place they find the Golem is interesting to say the least. In the show it says it's in the alchemist road, which... You guessed it, doesn't exist. There is the Golden Lane (Zlatá ulička), where alchemists were rumored to live, however it ha nothing to do with rabbi Yehuda Löw. Most of the jewish life of Prague was focused in Josefov, which is at the other side of the river. And obviously there is no synagogue in the Golden Lane.

I've seen most of the synagogues, that are in Prague today. The one shown in a show is pretty destitute and there's no such synagogue in Prague right now. None of those that are, resembles the one shown in a show. Technically it should be the Old News Synagogue, because that's where the legend says  the Golem was locked. However! The Old News Synagogue is much smaller, like much, much smaller. If I had to pick the closest one I'd said is the Maisel Synagogue, just by the sheer size of, it but it looks pretty different. Maybe Klausen Synagogue, also,by the size of it, but again, the architecture's different. I'd say the Pinkas synagogue looks the closest, but it's again waaay smaller and there's a bima in the middle. So I think Iginio Straffi just made up his own synagogue. I will be posting photos in a reblog, because there's a limit per post.

6. The Golem itself

It's the same story as with the tombstone. It's so different, that there is no point in actually comparing them. Just have a look.

[pumpkinsy0]

OMG HI!!! I’ve been reading ur blog for the past hour and I’m absolutely thrilled to see it lol. I’ve always been a big papercut shipper and seeing other people ship them is a dream come true for my 13 year old self. I wanted to dump some of my headcanons for the outsiders/S.E Hinton Verse mostly because it’s so rare to find people who also like it

I personally see most of the greasers as white. Mostly because of what type of greaser culture the book describes, it’s leant towards white kids back then in the 60s rather than kids of color. But I’ve never seen the Shepards as white. It’s just never something I’ve seen. I grew on a block where everyone raised eachothers kids, as we grew older we joked we were one big mixed family. Ive always see the shepards as that Mexican-American family that I spent my after schools with while my parents were busy.  But that could totally be me projecting Idk

for Johnny I’ve always pictured him as mixed. Probably African American-Italian. He’s described with features that look like people of that heritage look and in my opinion it’s probably one of the main reasons he was targeted. 

For Two-bit I’ve always seen him as a super pasty, always sun-burnt white boy who is super into his European heritage. Like this man can’t deal with school but he’ll do deep dives on Scottish mythology and Vikings any day of the week.

Steve definitely has always looked like he does in the movie to me. He’s definitely a hillbilly, I have cousins who act exactly like him and it’s absolutely hilarious because the deep southern accent just makes them not understandable. I’ve personally viewed Steve having that deep accent and also having a lisp (wowza I’m just projecting on him lol) so no one understands him besides from Soda and the older women who come to the DX.

I’ve always viewed Dally as Italian also but he is the type that can not tan to save his life. His nearly white blonde hair is not just from the bleach he puts on it but from running around in the sun all day every day. There is this one artist that draws him like a gremlin that I love I’m pretty sure their @ is something among the lines of crow1121? I can’t find rn and it’s killing me lol. But the other artist is @/ nutsackx and I absolutely love their interpretation of the gang 

Honestly with the Curtis’s I love ur interpretation of them being Arab-American but my little projecting heart (wow I do that a lot) always have viewed them as a German-Jewish and Romani as that’s what my family is and they lived very similar lives back in the 60s. It’s a small little head cannon I’ve always had and I’ve always held onto for the Curtis family. I can’t ever view them as non-immigrants tho. 

Sorry this is so long sweetie. I just got super caught up in rambling and your blog really inspired me 🫶

HELLLOOOOO!!! glad u found this blog!!! we r all here for funsies and just doing whatever, glad to have u onboard<333

OKOK NOW LOOK☝🏽☝🏽i knooowwww SE Hinton wrote the outsiders w everyone but johnny being white in mind, but honestly i think what makes me change them some of em into poc instead is just bc i want to and its fun to me!!!! tbh, i like having different ideas on characters than others, plus part of it is just inspired by the ppl around me!!! at the very least tho, i do tryyyyyy to make it more historically accurate so its not like i just SHOVED them in there and i dont get 100% attacked by the “this isnt historically accurate grrrr” brigade, for example my haitian shepards, at the end of the day its mostly a self projection but i do have lore for them as to y theyre even in oklahoma, yknow??? doing things like that is fun to me!!!

WHEN IT COMES TO THE SHEPARDS, i will say, whenever i would see white shepards im like “oh i thought we all saw that they were poc guys</333” EVEN W THE MOVIE i was surprised tim wasnt a poc but whateverrrr we move onnnnn

BUT I DO LIKE UR ETHNICITY IDEAS!!!!, once again ANOTHER version of the characters put into my little multiverse right there w arab curtis family<3333

personally i hc dally to b italian, but considering the demographics of brooklyn back then, yea it is 100% possible he couldve been italian, and w johnny to me hes mexican/bengali, so i think its pretty cool that u see them as both being italian, im def rockin w it, it gives them something they can connect over a bit!!

and im happy to say we both see the curtis’ as being jewish, to me theyre ethnically jewish, i based the curtis’ off my gf im ngl

BUT ANYWAYS NO WORRIES!!! i love answering long asks and so happy my blog inspired u to share ur thoughts<333

[indigochromatic]

I sent this ask to someone else but I'd like to ask more systems - may I ask what your opinion is on subjective reality within systems? Systems that don't have consistency in the headspace, or a consistent timeline, consistent memories...that sort of thing. I'm struggling a bit with that now and it's really freaking me out :( so I'd love to hear your take, if you'd be willing

Hey there! Yeah for sure, we'll take a crack at this. First, though: Content warning for discussions of reality, subjective reality, unreality, etc. If too much that stuff makes your brain unhappy, maybe skim or skip this one.

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling a bit rn, Anon. It's not fun to feel like you don't have "solid ground to stand on", and having to deal with not having a consensus about your autobiographical narrative can be really frustrating and scary.

Lemme try to come at this from a couple angles. First off, I'll say something about how we think of big-picture philosophy, which is that everyone has a subjective reality to some extent. There's a reason it's called "consensus reality" not "objective reality", and that's because no two people on earth are having the exact same experience. Perception is biased, memories slowly alter every time they're recalled, interpretation differs wildly depending on context. The human brain isn't an accurate recording device, it's a pile of synapses telling stories to itself in the dark.

So what do we do with that? Philosophically, that's a big question, and I'm not gonna pretend I have all that figured out. Learn to yourselves stories that give your life meaning and purpose. Practically speaking, though? That'll depend on what you're struggling with specifically, and what you're hoping to change.

For example, let's take memory consistency. The two of us have generally pretty consistent memories (e.g. we agree on what events happened rather than having conflicting memories about it), but we also have a shit memory overall--we've described it like we're living in a sliding window of 2-8 days, and everything else is kind of a mess since around 2019-2020. We also have ADHD, so that doesn't help either. What do we do? Honestly, just super basic stuff like "keep a calendar notebook that we write stuff down in to keep track of it, and don't worry if it's not perfect or fully complete", "set alarm reminders for non-routine things we don't want to miss, like medical appointments or phone calls with friends", and "check in with each other when we can, to ask if we're missing anything (and just to say hey)". We also know our memory is affected by our overall dissociation levels, so just generally trying to take care of ourselves and slowly improve our life situation is pretty likely to help, too.

On headspace consistency, though--I'm actually a little confused by what you're asking. Are you worried because your headspace isn't static and changes a lot? Anon, with love, that shit is so common, I wouldn't be worried about it in the slightest. Our headspace is a whole mess, for instance--not only is it different based on whether you're in "my mind" vs "L's mind", even the small handful of semi-consistent places and/or 'themes' change around all the time, not just day-to-day like the weather but also evolving over time, especially as we learn more and process more stuff and experience more things. Hell, my exomemories don't even all have a consistent continuity. And even the "semi-consistent" aspects of our headspace basically exists in a sort of...Schrodinger's Headspace superposition, most of the time? For example, there's a whole, like, Hades/The Spirit Realm in there--except when it doesn't exist, or when it's wrapped into some other part of headspace, or retroactively never existed, or was all just symbolic anyways, or is personified in one of my facets instead, or...well, you get the idea. If you're looking to create a bit more solidity in your headspace, it's usually possible to develop more 'concrete' headspace locations by practicing visualization over time--this can be guided meditation stuff, writing about it, collecting a moodboard of images, constructing a model of it in minecraft or another "virtual space-builder" game/program/whatever, etc. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't happen overnight, this stuff can take a bit of practice to solidify.

Timeline consistency: yeah. That one can be especially hard to avoid when you have between-system-member amnesia in general, and/or multiple periods over your life where there were different main fronters. We're not experts on this front, but a lot of it, as far as we can tell, tends to come down to just...trusting each other, as a system. You've all got pieces of the puzzle, and some folks' pieces are written in map coordinates while other folks have cryptic, symbolic riddles--they're all important pieces, even when they conflict. And sometimes you have to kinda let go of trying to ever Perfectly Reconstruct Exactly What Happened, and focus more on what you want your life to look like now and moving forward. Not sure if that system member's exomemories are 'purely symbolic/emotional' or have some basis in physical events? Ask them how they want to deal with it, and what support they want. Sometimes the narrative is more important than the events, because the events themselves are gone. They're over. What we carry with us--everyone, systems and singlets--is the narrative we've told ourselves about the events, and that's the part that grows and changes with us throughout our lives.

Anyways, that's my take on it. Hopefully this gets at a bit of what you were asking about, Anon? Feel free to toss us followup questions if you want, thanks for the opportunity to talk about all this a little. -S

[iheartstarssm]

i'm gonna be so fr rn, doxxing people for writing smut about the triplets is unhinged. all you are doing is indulging in the problem and even being a part of the whole issue yourself. and if you're one of those people going on all the smut writers accounts and harassing them with the "the triplets don't like being sexualised." comments, you're just giving them a reason to clap back and then you guys get upset with it. everyone's entitled to different opinions on how they think fics of the triplets should be written within the fanbase. personally, i like to read fics where they're just nice and cute and i know i can usually read a well-written fic without it getting tooooo sexual.

and since we don't know how they feel about s*x fics being written about them, i don't think it's safe to assume anything. if they want to speak out and say "hey, just for the record, we still don't want smut fics written about us", then cool. if they come out and say "hey, we really don't give a fuck what you write", then cool; it's their decision and we have to respect that and what other writers do with that info.

as for smut writers, i've seen some of your guys' blogs and the fact that you are CONSTANTLY talking about how stupid and "sensitive" sturniolo fans are is just plain annoying and uncalled for. sure, you can have your own opinion but when you make your opinion the ONLY thing you post about on your blog, it's really annoying. you don't see "sensitive" writers constantly complaining about the smut fics rn. they say what they want and move on but you guys are the ones who are going on rants about how "sensitive" and annoying some fans are for not agreeing with you writing smut about chris, nick, and matt.

as for the whole nick x fem!reader stuff i keep seeing (i won't say names or accs, you guys know who you are), it's honestly pretty sad because it shows me and other fans around you that you don't respect nick or nick's sexuality. he has always said he's always known he's gay and that he's never liked another girl so why are you writing fics where he's making out with a fem!reader?

and also, all i can say is, the whole incest shit and "oh, i had a dream chris made out with nick" thing is just gross. they are brothers, not fuck buddies.

also, the whole thing with "suggestive" fics is honestly something for each reader/writer to decide if it's okay to them. i know some writers use the word "suggestive" heavily and lightly. for some writers, "suggestive is making out without actually getting to a point where sex happens (which can happen a lot in real life! you can definitely makeout with someone without having sex with them). and for other writers, "suggestive" can be alluding to sex or suggesting that sex was going to happen. personally, i'm fine with a fic that has a small makeout moment but if it gets to the point where sex is going to happen, that's where i will probably just silently scroll away and find a different fic to read without makking a fuss on every smut/suggestive writers account and it’s not because i hate smut writers, i’ve just had bad experiences with sexual things and i personally choose to avoid it! there's some writers who have a few works i read but they also write "suggestive" fics about the triplets and that's where i agree to disagree with a writer but i can still enjoy other fics they write. it's like strawberry picking what works for you.

and to tie it all up, smut is usually poorly written and not accurate to how real life s*x is. so for a young fan to read that and get a poor representation of how sex is can be really damaging and can cause insecurities in someone. i know when i was younger and people introduced me to smut, it made me insecure because i thought my body was supposed to be a certain way for men to like me. so with that being said, if you are a smut writer and want to continue your writing, no one can forcefully stop you. but i would suggest that if you are going to write smut, label it mature so people can turn on/off their mature tags and get the fics they actually want to read. wattpad writers do it with their work and i think it's only respectful for you to do it as well on this app.

also, i'm tired of seeing smut writers saying "Well they aren't minors anymore and they didn't like it when they were minors". they can still not like it even if they're 20. smut about a real person is very invasive and can make someone insecure about their body. if someone you didn't know wrote smut about you and they knew nothing about you, you'd be uncomfortable and grossed out too.

all i'm saying is at the end of this, no ones going to win their case. smut writers aren't going to get "sensitive" fans to stop rambling about smut since there are always going to be people who don't agree with you or what you do. and non-smut writers aren't going to get smut writers to stop writing smut since they think it's fine and will continue to do whatever the fuck they want. i still stand by my thought that if you are a smut writer, label your sexual works 'mature' so people who don't want to indulge in smut can turn that tag off.

that's all i got to say about it !

[kogaan]

hey i saw you post that the only thing that makes you a woman is being female... so a woman can use her/him pronouns, and a 'male' name, and pass as a man, and still be a woman? if so, awesome!! im fine with you classing me as a woman if the definition of woman other than "can bear children" is non existent

so based off your profile and pinned post, i can only assume you aren't an adult. if i'm wrong i do apologize. you and your tumblr just kinda remind me of myself at 14-17!

since i believe you might be a bit younger, the only thing i'm gonna tell you to do is to focus on your education, your hobbies, and your RECOVERY most of all. many things in life will fall into place as time goes on and it will matter little if other people see you as a man or woman. i think maybe you want to be seen as a person, and your needs aren't being met. i truly sympathize with you! i felt the exact same way.

yes, a woman can pass as male and perform masculinity perfectly and still be a woman... dressing like a man and having a man's name etc. is not what makes a man a man. it doesn't make a woman or girl a man, either.

i think if you truly read my post you're referring to, you'd know that i know "woman" absolutely does not simply mean "can bear children". obviously that isn't entirely accurate. a more accurate statement would be something like "women, not men, are the ones with the ability to bear children, even if an individual herself cannot".

my point was that women and girls are those of us born female (or maybe you'd rather say "assigned female at birth". same thing either way, i guess) and our femaleness does not limit anything about ourselves. a woman can wear whatever she wants, including traditionally masculine clothing. a woman can go to a men's barber and get a men's haircut. she's still a woman. any amount of surgery, hrt, name changes, wardrobe change, personality changes, etc, will not magically or scientifically or spiritually turn a woman into a male. you are born female and will be female until long after you are dead. it's not how you identify, it's what you are.

and that's a good thing! being a woman is amazing. unfortunately society is extremely misogynistic and pretty much sexualizes us from birth. but the best thing you can do for yourself as a young woman is to take care of yourself! embrace your body because your body is you. it's all you've got! you don't have a male soul, you don't have a male mind, you don't have a male personality, you don't have a male body. that's impossible. you're a woman! and that means no limits! being female does not limit you! it does not mean you have to be feminine, it does not mean that when you conform to male standards that you are male. it means you're you, you're a woman/girl, and that's wonderful!

womanhood isn't something you can take comfort in. it's not something you can identify into/out of. it's not being totally feminine and wearing makeup and dresses and having long styled hair and being submissive to men. womanhood is being a woman. and a woman is an adult human female.

i know you might be dealing with a lot of trauma and stress rn so don't even respond to this. just read it carefully! and please be yourself, give yourself some grace, work on your recovery - at least, don't die; there is only time to recover if you are alive. i understand that some days it takes a lot of strength to simply remain here. 💗💗💗

[wrongcaitlyn]

okay so ‼️TW‼️ for this ask and off you do not have to answer or read it if you don’t want to please stay safe!

so. i think once in tyt there was a short reference to nico being suicidal and having self harming/self destructive behaviors. i believe maybe it was after he had to jump off the balcony? and will was like “nico did you do that on purpose” and he’s like “no” and it’s “he kept thinking of the time will caught him” or something like that i’m sorry i can’t look at it rn!

BUT

I was wondering if we’re ever going to get an expansion on that or just any mention of it in general.

me personally i would love too see some scar representation but ofc it is your fic and please don’t feel pressured into anything! i totally get if you don’t want to include anything about this.

and i’m very sorry if this made you uncomfortable or that this was triggering for you.

have a good day! and plz don’t feel rushed to respond! ❤️

yes! you are remembering correctly, and do not worry, this isn't uncomfortable/triggering at all to me! in fact, that's actually one of the reasons it wasn't expanded on - i have no experience with self harm/ thoughts of self harm/ being suicidal, and so even though i made those vague references, i felt very unsure about diving any deeper.

also, i started writing this fic when i was still pretty new to writing in general (or at least, i used to write a lot, and then i took a pretty long break, and then i came back with some one-shots, and this was my first really long project in quite a long time), and so i was just really,,, idk not insecure but i was overly cautious about making sure that i wasn't writing anything wrong, especially because i was writing about things that i had no experience with. like, my family's pretty alright, nowhere near abusive, no alcoholics, and despite the depression my mental health's pretty alright, at least at the time i was writing this - and, obvi, the main thing was that i'm not trans, and yet i was writing a trans mc coming from a very abusive household.

so with all of that, i dropped in these references to his freshman year, and very purposefully didn't start in freshman year because i knew that i wouldn't be able to write that accurately (or, at least, i didn't want to risk writing it inaccurately and portraying these very serious topics in a way that might trigger/offend people who do struggle from these things) and started off the fic in a time where nico was mostly in a much better mental state than the year before, but still struggling with those problems - just not as severely(?) as before.

i'm honestly considering/have been considering going back and editing talk your talk (the og fic) just because i think i've grown a lot as a writer while writing that, and there are a lot of, firstly, tiny grammatical errors, and some scenes that i would like to restructure/fix. i might be able to start that this summer, we'll see!

but ANYWAY to answer your question!! i honestly hadn't thought of going more into that, even though i am adding some more detail to nico's current mental health issues/his ptsd. i'm not completely sure about going into *detail* of it, because of the aforementioned reasons; i just think that these kinds of topics are very sensitive and it's not like the kind of stuff you can just, like, google and understand. if i were to add more about sh/past suicidal thoughts, i would definitely want to do more research/look up accounts of people's experience of it, because i'd want to make sure that i'm writing it correctly and not in a way that would just brush aside any of the details, yk?

i also think that, in a way, nico has completely blocked out that time of his life. it was very dark, and he's experienced even more trauma after that, and so it's just something that he tries really hard to avoid/not think about - even though i do think that he talked to mr. d about it at some point.

so the answer, to be honest, is that i don't know, but it's leaning toward a no. now that i think about it, though, i'm not entirely sure if it's realistic for me to just drop that toward the beginning and then never have nico think about it again- so i would have to do more thinking on the topic! thank you so much for bringing this up to me because even though i do remember mentioning it, i never really think about those early chapters anymore, which dealt with some pretty heavy material, even though i tried to stay very vague about it all.

i think that i'll try to include it at some point, and i do have a scene kind of forming in my head that i think i could put it into, but i don't think it will be very detailed, probably staying in the same lane as everything else that i included in the early chapters of talk your talk! thank you for the ask!!

[sharpth1ng]

nah because yk what’s crazy?

you could be dead rn n not know it cause like yk how people say your brain stays active for like 7 mins before you die? what if this is ur 7 minutes and your whole life is just you imagining things and your actual life was wayyyy different. like you were a different person n shit. and it feels like a lifetime csuse like yk when ur dreaming and it feels like a long time even tho it’s just a few hours? yeah

So the 7 minutes thing is very general, it varies a lot but according to some sources in at least some cases it can take hours for total brain death after the heart stops. Crazy to me. Anyways.

Apparently though, (according to people who have near death experiences) they tend to be aware that they're dying but they feel peaceful about it. A lot of them report being visited by dead loved ones or having a "life review" through their memories but I've never heard of someone seeing a life that wasn't theirs (not that that couldn't happen, anything is possible). A lot of people also have a shocking amount of awareness of whats happening to their bodies, like a lot of people are able to accurately describe how they were resuscitated (literally a 97% accuracy rate, that's unheard of). Its pretty crazy, theres actually a lot of research on it and I find it fascinating.

[sugoi-writes]

♥️♣️♦️♠️♥️ thank you!

113. What was your childhood nickname?

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?

127. What makes you happy?

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

133. Favourite lyrics right now?

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

137. How tall are you?

140. Summer or Winter?

145. Tea or Coffee?

146. Was today a good day?

148. What’s your favourite quote?

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

Awww, Anonie!!! Thank you! 💋 I've got you!

Childhood Nicknames-

Most notably, my mom would always call me 'Sweetpea' (very Southern thing, I know), meanwhile my Step Dad would always call me 'Kiddo' (which rubbed off on me now... FML)

Legitimate nicknames were hard to come by, as it were! My weeb friends would call me 'Keshi', which is a so-so pronunciation. (More accurately, Kei-shi, which my friend @hazelfoureyes pointed out, if I remember correctly)

Other noteworthy things that came from Bastardizing my Maiden Last name (which is Dice... Usually it's via Mispelling--)

-Diez

-Dice-y

-D*ke(A SLUR? IN EARLY 2010s? More likely than you think)

-Dick

Most people aren't very creative when it came to my name;;; these days, my wives call me Danny-Boy, which fills my heart with joy ❤️

Can I keep white shoes clean?

HARDLY... I can barely keep my multicolored Crocs clean. Feet are gross. I do what I can, but most days I'm too lazy with my shoes. A little dust adds ✨Character✨

What Makes Me Happy?

Oh, a good number of things!

-My legal Wife, Robin, for one... But mostly when she's not making her horrendous Dad-Jokes. 💀 Quality time with her is rare and loved.

-My HDC Coven, featuring Hazel, Minky, Syn, and someone secret (SHE'S MINE, YOU CANT HAVE HER). Quality time with them also brings me joy and peace.

-Stability (weird answer, I know). But being on the ✨Spectrum✨, I resist change heavily. So Stability in all aspects of life brings me the MOST happiness/relief. Especially Financial Stability (that can get dicey)

-Dabbling in my hobbies! Writing, Crochet, Doodling, and as of recently: Fashion/Makeup. I love exploring my gender through those mediums❤️

-Haunted Attractions/Haunt Acting- Being a Haunt Actor for the past 7 or so years gives me the most joy I can get while not being paid for it. I love dressing up, I love teaching people how to scare. And dare I say, I'm pretty good at it 🔥💀 I've been an actor manager at a Volunteer Haunt for 3 years, fun fact! 💀❤️

There's... A LOT of things that can bring me joy. I just have to remind myself sometimes!!!

Who is the last person you've had a deep convo with?

DEFINITELY my HDC Coven. We accidentally stumble into deep, insightful topics... Or, Trauma Stories (which I affectionately call ✨Lore✨). I'm sure you good folks will hear more about my lore one way or another!

Favorite Lyrics rn?

*Looks at Sleep Token's Discography* I-- ...THIS SONG SPECIFICALLY. ALL OF IT. IT DOES THINGS TO ME--

But, here is some of my favorites (it's like half of the song, don't judge. You get my favorite song now, to boot:)

"Won't you come and dance in the dark with me

Show me what you are, I am desperate to know

Nobody better than the perfect enemy

Digital demons make the night feel heavenly

Make it real

'Cause anything's better than the way I feel right now (THIS ONE FR FR)

Dumbest lie I ever told?

I am... WAS NOT... A smart child. I got my first hickey early on in middle school (SCANDALOUS, I KNOW)... And I told everyone a myriad of excuses. Fell and bruised my neck on a door knob, burned myself with a curling iron (I have naturally wavy hair), my sister threw hot food at me and burned me... Just... YEAH. But I hate to say I am a MUCH better liar now! 😂💀

How tall am I?

Begrudgingly, I am a mere 5"3, but in my mind's eye, I'm 6'2. Like my dear sweet wifey. ❤️ (#shortking)

Summer or Winter?

NEITHER, F A L L. But if I had to choose, Summer, because the town is so much more lively/has things to do during that time. ❤️

Tea or Coffee?

If you were to ask me a month ago, I would have said neither. But Coffee has grown a great deal on me... (Iced Coffee or Cold Brew preferred, hehe)

Was today a good day?

Could have been better, could have been worse! I DoorDashed most of my day and made some money! I got to wake up next to my Queen! And, hopefully, I get to talk to my Coven and write a little today. It wasn't perfect, but it was nice ❤️ Thank you for asking!

What's your favorite quote?

HONESTLYYYYY, the one I've been feeling most (as a Enby stuck in Florida with my Transitioning partner), I think of what Gerard Way screamed at a recent concert...

"In the face of extermination, say FUCK YOU!!!" (Or something similar)

I've been trying to live as my authentic self, while my wife gets the help and treatment she needs first. Together, we will be safe and we will love our best lives, unashamed. I also turned this quote into a sticker and sold it at art markets for a while (but sadly, living in Florida, it's hard to push Trans-Positive things...) SIGH...

But otherwise, a good back up is "History is doomed to repeat itself unless we learn from it". (Or something similar).And I Live. By. That.

Do you believe in ghosts?

As funny as this sounds (from a haunt actor), no! Not at all! I believe there's always an explanation or reason for the weird happenings people run into... But not ghosts themselves, no.

I am Superstitious in nature, but not supernaturally inclined... If that makes any sense? ANYWAY--

Hope this isn't too long of a ramble! I will try to post a sneak peak of something I'm working on (and tbh, the feedback is probably needed)

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and learning more about your boy, Sugoi! ✨❤️

[justalittleobsessed]

🧡 A Little Fanfic for You... Or My Fic Masterlist ✍️

Fandoms: Merlin, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (all iterations)

Total Fic Count: 29

Main Fic RN: When the Thunder and Lightning Comes (I Know That You'll Be by My Side)

All fics can be found on AO3!

*Last updated August of 2024!

Merlin:

How to Reveal Your Magic Because You Have No Sense Of Self Preservation Whatsoever: A Guide By Merlin Emrys

A series of unrelated one-shots and short stories about Merlin revealing his magic because both he and all his friends are idiots. Also, Merlin, for the life of him, has no sense of self-preservation at all and I try to embody that in these fics.

Series info as of November 2023:

Not completed

10 works (listed below)

Best + Bitter = Better (one-shot, 2,637 words, part 1 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

This was actually happening. They were being serious. They were actually being completely, utterly serious.

“You can’t actually believe this.” He gestured wildly to the group of people in front of them. Well, as best as he could tied up. This was one of the most ridiculous things he had ever heard. This was… this was… he didn’t even know. “This is complete bullshit.”

“Emrys was clear in his instructions. You must be sacrificed in order to bring peace to Albion”

OR

The one where Merlin has had enough of everyone's shit.

Ironically Alive (one-shot, 3,139 words, part 2 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

Gwaine smiled that way he does when he wants to tick Arthur off. So really, it was his normal smile. “Seemed like a perfectly reasonable detail to point out.” He flipped his hair to the side, turning to face Arthur.

“Perfectly reasonable?!”

Behind Merlin, he heard some of the bandits shifting, whispering to one another. He was pretty sure it went along the lines of ‘what in the hell is going on’ and ‘there can’t actually be that many mysterious magical druids with blue cloaks that talk about destiny and give out magical red amulets to help stop enchantments that one sorcerer meets’, which, unfortunately, was sad and accurately true.

OR

Merlin is never relaxing ever again. He was going to make sure of that after this shit.

Pick Your Poison (Literally) (one-shot, 2,469 words, part 3 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

So. That… just happened. Leon, in his lifetime, had witnessed many strange, unbelievable, and frankly quite concerning things. When one lived in Camelot, and was friends with both Arthur and Merlin, one usually got into a lot of crazy and unbelievable situations. And Leon was no exception.

But this. This had to take the cake. “Merlin.”

He hummed in response. It was entirely too calm. “Why did you just drink poison?” Fire, no literal fire and chaos reigned around them.

“It seemed like the reasonable thing to do at the time.”

And yet, he found himself not surprised in the slightest.

Leon pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the oncoming headache behind his eyes. Goddamn fucking stubborn idiot.

OR

Merlin decides poisoning himself is the best way to prove a point. Leon is just tired. So tired.

Caves and Valleys and Magic, Oh My! (one-shot, 2,603 words, part 4 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

Merlin stepped back. He was… appalled. Shocked. Angry. Slightly hungry. MAD. Who did they think they were?!

“Excuse me?!” Arthur screeched. “Merlin has magic?!”

“Yes.” Leon deadpanned. “Now please, Merlin.”

How did he get here? How did this happen to him? Why was his life like this? He just wanted to be in his nice warm bed and instead he was soaked, stuck in a magical cave, and made to listen to his friends reveal all his secrets.

Right. Sounded about accurate.

OR

Merlin just wants to be home. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone else his different ideas. Typical.

Let's Do the Time Warp (Hopefully Not Again) (two-shot, 9,946 words, part 5 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

“Merlin, mate. He’s not lying. I wish you two were married. I, for one, would be your best man, obviously.”

"Poetry," Leon mumbled behind him, "Goddamned poetry."

Merlin gave him another startled look-voice rising in distress. “You were my best man!”

Oh, how thoughtful. Too bad he doesn't remember.

Gwaine gave him a thumbs up. "Okay."

OR

Gwaine is generally confused about everything that is going on. Merlin, on the other hand, just wants to go back to his NORMAL, totally STRESS-FREE life. Hahaha.

Just Another Tuesday (one-shot, 3,104 words, part 6 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

Arthur… really didn’t understand what was happening here. Look, he was generally confused by Merlin most of the time - the man was a riddle wrapped in an enigma with a side of sass to boot. But this was too much, even by his manservant’s standards.

“No. I refuse to believe this. You,” He pointed at the woman, who had just been walking on water, and then to Merlin, who had just kissed the lady who was walking on water, “and you are not married.”

Merlin and Freya held out their hands. Rings that formed out of water moved onto their previously empty ring fingers.

“Oh,” Merlin said, like an ass, “I think we are.”

OR

Arthur just wants to be in bed. It seems the entire world is against that idea.

Today Has Been Like... Torture (one-shot, 2,299 words, part 7 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

“Wait a minute… Do you have a pit of fire?”

The shack they were in was very small. Very cramped, and very much smelling of blood. They both looked around the room as if a pit of fire would suddenly appear. Merlin hoped a pit of fire would suddenly appear. That would make getting kidnapped on a Sunday worth it.

Murder Man looked at the ground sadly. “No.” His voice was quiet, sad. So disappointing. A pit of fire would’ve really spiced things up.

OR

Merlin is positively bored. Sounds like a great time to get tortured, of course.

Call It Like It Is (one-shot, 2,900 words, part 8 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

“How do you…” Arthur wiggles his fingers, like he’s teaching magic to a five-year-old, “conjure the fire?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Merlin starts, because what the fuck else does he have to do, and Lancelot just looks at him with that stupid look he always does when Merlin’s about to say something particularly stupid- “I call it forth from the deepest pits of hell.”

OR

Everyone may know about Merlin's magic, but nobody knows what he's actually capable of. Merlin decides that this is a great advantage when your boyfriend is an idiot.

To Be a God (one-shot, 2,419 words, part 9 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

“Bow before me,” The sorcerer announces from his perch atop a pile of rubble, “for I am the Mighty Emrys, and I am a god.” It’s not a very mighty perch for someone who claims to be a god. In fact, it’s a very sad, unremarkable perch. Or maybe he’s just a sad, unremarkable man.

“No, I’m Emrys.” Merlin bites back.

“Maybe… we’re all Emrys.” Gwaine breathes out. Gwaine, Merlin thinks, really needs to shut his mouth.

OR

The one where someone claims to be Emrys, and Merlin decides to put him in his place.

Just a Minor Accident (one-shot, 2,431 words, part 10 of How to Reveal Your Magic series)

“I’m sorry... I must’ve misheard you. What the hell did you just say?” This can’t be real. This cannot possibly be real. He must be hallucinating. Hearing things. Maybe he’s finally lost it. That would make more sense than this.

Gwaine grins back at him with a somewhat manic smile. Merlin tries to sink deeper into his bed. “I said that we accidentally raised the dead.” No. He heard right.

OR

The Knights raise the dead. Merlin just wants one full night of sleep, please.

The Once and Future Reign (one-shot, 7,034 words, part 1 of In Another Time series)

It started with Merlin. It always starts with Merlin.

Just One Yesterday (chapter story w/ 4 chapters, 24,076 words, on hiatus)

Merlin had waited a long, long, long time for the return of Arthur. Maybe even the knights or Gwen. What he wasn't prepared for was an ancient evil rising up to destroy the world. He certainly wasn't prepared for six new occupants in his house, who had no idea how to navigate the new world around them. But, he could handle it. After all, he was the most powerful being on the planet. How hard could it be?

Auribus Teneo Lupum (chapter story w/ 1 chapter, 5,691 words, on hiatus)

Morgana had unleashed something onto this world that had shaken Merlin to his core. Something cold and dark and not at all right. It swirled and settled inside of him, mocking his magic.

No matter what happened in the next few days, Merlin knew that nothing would ever be the same.

The Remnants of a Warlock (one-shot, 6,588 words)

Merlin sees everybody he has ever held close to his heart die off one by one. But he always moves on. He has to. So he locks it up and keep moving, because that's what he does. It's what he'll always do.

OR

The one where Merlin watches as all his friends die. He might see them live, too.

TMNT:

Move Along

Mikey's got this bad habit of dying, and his brothers got this bad habit of not liking that. Mikey would appreciate it if his brothers would stop caring so much, and his brothers would appreciate it if he could start caring about it a whole lot more.

It's gonna be a wild ride.

Series info as of November 2023:

Not completed

2 works (listed below)

I Get Knocked Down (But I Get Up Again) (chapter story w/ 50 chapters, 131,830 words, completed)

Mikey lives, and Mikey dies. He’s been doing it for years, and yeah, sure it’s not his favorite thing to do, but it’s whatever. It’s nothing to worry about. He’s not worried about it. He just hopes his brothers never find out, ‘cause he has a feeling that they’d way overreact.

OR

Mikey’s died a bunch of times and is totally Okay™ with this. His brothers? Not so much.

When the Thunder and Lightning Comes (I Know That You'll Be by My Side) (chapter story w/ 18 chapters, 50,102 words, updates frequently, side story to main fic)

Mikey lives, and Mikey dies. His brothers live too, although they don't die, and find it very concerning that Mikey continuously and worryingly continues to do so without caring. They'll get Mikey to understand that maybe that's not all that great... as soon as they figure out what's going on, that is.

OR

Mikey keeps dying. His brothers would greatly appreciate it if he would stop doing that, please.

On Some Days (one-shot, 2,431 words, TMNT - All Media Types)

Sometimes, if he listened closely enough, he could hear their voices. Not often, not often enough, but sometimes.

It's too Quiet. He misses the Loud.

Life Could Be a Dream (chapter story w/ 9 chapters, 35,678 words, TMNT 2003, TMNT 2012, TMNT IDW, completed)

"Hey Raphie..."

"And that's another thing," he adds, narrowing his eyes, "since when do you call me Raphie?"

Since forever. He wants to say. But that was before, and this is now. He thinks he might kinda hate now.

OR

Mikey, being Mikey, finds trouble. It's just that this trouble seems to involve him being human. It also seems to involve him not talking to his brothers, or having a dad, or being a ninja. So there's that. But all those things can be fixed, right? Something's telling him it's not gonna be as easy as it sounds.

Whumptober 2023

Michelangelo-centric whumptober fics!

Series info:

Completed

11 works (listed below)

If Only the World Could Stop Spinning (one-shot, 2,019 words, part 1 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - All Media Types)

The world is spinning, and his head is hurting, and he's not really sure what's happening, but he thinks it'd be better if his brothers were here.

Day 1: Swooning, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Denial Only Gets You So Far (one-shot, 1,569 words, part 2 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - All Media Types)

Mikey is not feeling the best... no matter how much he tries to deny it.

Day 2: Thermometer

All That Burning (one-shot, 1,058 words, part 3 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT 2012)

Mikey is burning, and he is fire, and he is everything, and he is nothing. He just wants it to stop.

Day 3: "Make it stop"

Just a Flesh Wound (one-shot, 3,301 words, part 4 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - All Media Types)

Mikey has an unfortunate night. You see, getting stabbed wasn't really a part of the plan, but here he is, bleeding out and all, and that might be a bit of a problem.

Day 4: Shock, "You in there?"

Under Pressure (one-shot, 2,965 words, part 5 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - All Media Types)

It's just a normal patrol until it isn't. It's just a normal patrol until Mikey decides it would be fun to get himself caught up in a collapsing building. The it was not a normal patrol. Donnie should've guessed.

Day 5: Debris, pinned down, "it's broken"

A Survivor's Guilt (one-shot, 833 words, part 6 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - The Last Ronin)

Michelangelo watches everyone around him die over and over again. Never able to save them. Never there in time. And the only thing he can think of the entire time as that it would be better if he was dead instead.

Day 6: Made to watch, "It should have been me"

Don't Go Silent on Me (one-shot, 2,846 words, part 7 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - All Media Types)

Mikey is sick. His brothers aren't answering their phones. Well. Big brothers will always take precedent over fevers, so he'll just have to deal with that later.

Day 7: Alleyway, radio silence, "can you hear me?"

Actions Have Consequences (one-shot, 3,524 words, part 8 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT 2003)

Donatello is not having a very good day. And to top it all off, his baby brother is on the verge of death. And if he does... if he goes down... all they've done will be for nothing.

On the other side, Michelangelo is thinking the very opposite. Because if his enemy, the person that tried to hurt his family comes away with only a few scratches, then it'll all be for nothing.

Seems both brothers have some issues to work through.

Day 8: "It's all for nothing"

Something Old, Something Treasured (one-shot, 3,517 words, part 9 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT 2003)

In his pocket, Michelangelo carries around a picture. It has four brothers in it – orange, purple, red, blue – and smiling, laughing faces. It’s still glossy, even after a few years. Full of love. A reminder of heartbreak and pain. He keeps it around anyhow. It’s his most treasured item.

Day 9: Polaroid

Broken Promises (one-shot, 2,228 words, part 10 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - The Last Ronin)

They keep leaving. They keep leaving him, abandoning him. They're not supposed to do that. His big brothers promised him, after all.

Day 10: "You said you'd never leave"

Not the Best of Days (one-shot, 3,926 words, part 11 of Whumptober 2023, TMNT - All Media Types)

Waking up in a cell is not the best place to wake up, nor is it the best way to start the day. He just needs to figure out how to escape, how to reach his brothers, and most importantly... how to not die at the hands of this psychopath.

Day 11: Captivity, "No one will find you."

[omentranslates]

Hello, I was asked to translate the authors' comments from inside the book jackets of Volume 30 and 31

Volume 30:

Kagami Sensei's comment reads - "There was something I wanted to do a little studying on, so that's what I've been at nonstop from 5 in the morning to 2 at night. I'd planned to wrap things up in three days and I'm on track to do so. It's a serious effort, and reminds me how students who are in exam prep work even harder. I don't have to study anything I don't already want to, you all are the real heroes!"

Yamamoto Sensei's comment reads - "We've finally reached volume 30, where Yuuichirou and Mikaela walk back through memories of the past. There are lots of surprises in store, so everyone, please enjoy it!"

Volume 31:

Kagami Sensei's comment reads - "Aaaaaaaaaah I'm too busy to think of a comennnnnnntttt aaaaaah from now on this next ten years, I've decided to break records in amount of pages written so I'll be doing my best on that!"

Yamamoto Sensei's comment reads - "It's volume 31 and we've arrived at the journey through and complete dissection* of Yuuichirou and Mikaela's past! What will become of the angels....I hope you're excited to find out!"

*the word used here that I've translated to dissection would probably at least in colloquial terms be more accurately called 'bible study' in English (altho while doing some checking ive seen it referred to other abrahamic religions not just specifically the bible but y'know for clarity's sake). I'm pretty sure this was used here to play off the religious theming and context the manga has going on right now they're like hinting at that but I just can't think of a way to really convey that with one word in English rn

@ferimika-gives-me-life thank you for your request as always :)

[smilesrobotlover]

Smiiiiiiiiiles

HI

Tell me something about a blorbo you wanna talk about! :D If you're not sure which blorbo to pick I will be biased and say tell me something about Ammon or Rusl or Kori or Twi Link or LBL Sky <3

Oh boy, I’m Thinkin about a lotta Blorbos rn so I’ll just talk about the blorbs you mentioned ���

The more I play with Ammon the more angry and vengeful he gets, and idk if it’s because he’s having to be around Kogha now or not but it’s a yikes like this poor guy 😭 he does NOT like the yiga and he does NOT like Kogha (tho he will warm up to him). It’s hard tho, he’s been through a lot cuz of the yiga so I can’t blame him too much. But he’s strugglin fr

Gosh Rusl is such a beloved. I’m just thinking about strangers across eras and someone kills a wolf and he panics a little cuz even tho he KNOWS it’s not Link the thought that it could be freaks him out. Like idk about you, but I get some intrusive thoughts and I imagine that Rusl just… has thoughts about the time he shot Link in the leg, like what if he didn’t move in time, what if Midna didn’t stop him, he could’ve died, and Rusl would’ve lost him forever and it would’ve been HIS fault. And so he struggles a lot with that (hence why he’d rather get bitten than to try to fight a wolf)

Twi Link…. This guy needs therapy. I’ve had many ideas where Kori is introduced to Ordon and it’s intense, his relationship with everyone especially Illia is very tense after what happened and he spirals pretty bad. But I won’t write about that cuz I don’t feel like I could write that very accurately. Honestly, Link is going through a huge crisis rn cuz after his adventure he didn’t want to settle down. He didn’t want to stay in Ordon and to have kids and all that, hence why his relationship with Illia didn’t work out. What he really wanted to do was to just travel and explore the world with Midna by his side, but after Midna left he just kinda laid around wasting his life away. And then he ended up having a kid. But the thing about kids is that everything with them is an adventure, and Link is able to heal more, but yeah he needs help. Poor guy.

And Kori… oh my sweet baby boy Kori. Here’s some things I discovered about him: he loves clothes except for skirts, he loves food, and he loves cats. Tho he’s adventurous, he’s actually quite timid and is less rebellious unlike Rela. I realize that he might grow up with self esteem issues cuz some people think he’s a monsters simply cuz he’s half Twili so uh, oops. And even tho he doesn’t remember it, I’m sure his body remembers being attacked by that advisor, tho idk if this is accurate to childhood trauma. But I’ve seen people talk about how their bodies remember certain things even tho they don’t, and I’m not sure if he’d actually remember what happened so. Feel free to correct me on that.

Lastly Sky. He comes off as a calm guy but it extremely chaotic and dumb. Like everyone thinks he’s responsible with the younger ones (especially the chaos trio) and he is to an extent, but he’s very chaotic and summoned bees to their camp so he could get larvae so (it was an accident of course, he’d never do that on purpose, and Wild, Windy, and Hyrule kinda helped sooooo), but yeah, he’s a little crazy and sassy. Tho I’m excited to explore his arm, he uses a whip because swords hurt his arm too much, all except the master sword of course :>