#vc reread

[chthonic-cassandra]

"In an effort to save the story from Interview and to save Claudia," [Anne Rice] said, "I suggested we make Louis a woman [in a proposed film version] It works. It's all the same passivity, the same philosophical ideas, the same inability to fight Lestat's domination. It's fine for Louis to be a woman because he is a woman - he's really me." With Cher or Meryl Streep in mind, she set about creating a transvestite, trans-gender female [sic], whose husband and daughter had died on the way to Louisiana from the Islands. Since women could not inherit plantations, the character steps on shore in her husband's clothes and challenges anyone to say she's not a man. Everyone knows she's a woman and she gets into brawls. "She was a good swordsman," said Anne, "and a good gunfighter, and she kept her plantation, which everyone wanted, by fighting people off. So it was an interesting story. And there were very famous transvestites in this era. It was a common motif."

Katherine Ramsland, Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice

#is anyone going to write this transmasculine louis fic? #anne rice #vampire chronicles #vc reread

[simonstamenovic]

the signs the foreshadowing

#I HATE YOU. MOTHER FUCKER. #ill make a liveblog tag toooo for like shit w/o screenshots esp but block uhhh #fuck me man idk its kinda a long title to type twice w another word #not even just lazy #vc reread #block that if you want but dont bc its a good book and you want me dead again specifically

[paintaboveyourbones]

Everybody wants Armand

I know I’ve talked about it before, but the way Khayman shows up in the midst of one of the most chaotic and tense scenes in the whole book and then just immediately starts to THIRST after Armand is pure gold.

My man has spent the last few centuries in the dirt and he is ready to get Dicked Down

“Gee, Daniel sure is lucky to have that cutie pie by his side. Wish I were that lucky! 🤭🤭”

“We’re like, sooooooo similar!”

“He’s sooo much cooler than Mael 🙄”

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, poor Mael is sweating mother fucking BULLETS about the shit show that’s supposed to go down. What I love so much about this part is that, even after Khayman realizes Jesse is his great-granddaughter and gives his vow of help to Mael, he still fucks right off.

Khayman JESSE IS IN tHE LOBBY WITH A BROKEN NECK????? YOU TOLD MAEL YOU WOULD HELP THEM!

Twink thirst is destroying his life!

#Armand #tvc #anne rice #iwtv #Khayman #queen of the damned #Armand/khayman #armand - Aphrodite of the grave #tvc reread #vc meta

[desertfangs]

One of my favorite things in The Vampire Lestat (and maybe the VC) is when Lestat has his extensional crisis with Nicki, where he realizes that he believes there's nothing after death but oblivion and it freaks him out so much he can't stop saying "Oh! Oh!" over and over.

He's just overwhelmed by the realization that life may be meaningless, that there's no guiding hand, and that when you die no secrets are revealed, no truths, only nothing:

I realized aloud in the midst of saying it that even when we die we probably don't find out the answer as to why we were ever alive. Even the avowed atheist probably thinks that in death he'll get some answer. I mean God will be there, or there won't be anything at all.

"But that's just it, " I said, "we don't make any discovery at that moment! We merely stop! We pass into nonexistence without ever knowing a thing. " I saw the universe, a vision of the sun, the planets, the stars, black night going on forever. And I began to laugh.

"Do you realize that! We'll never know why the hell any of it happened, not even when it's over! " I shouted at Nicolas, who was sitting back on the bed, nodding and drinking his wine out of a flagon. "We're going to die and not even know. We'll never know, and all this meaninglessness will just go on and on and on. And we won't any longer be witnesses to it. We won't have even that little bit of power to give meaning to it in our minds. We'll just be gone, dead, dead, dead, without ever knowing! " But I had stopped laughing. I stood still and I understood perfectly what I was saying!

There was no judgment day, no final explanation, no luminous moment in which all terrible wrongs would be made right, all horrors redeemed. The witches burnt at the stake would never be avenged. No one was ever going to tell us anything! No, I didn't understand it at this moment. I saw it!

And I began to make the single sound: "Oh! " I said it again "Oh! " and then I said it louder and louder and louder, and I dropped the wine bottle on the floor. I put my hands to my head and I kept saying it, and I could see my mouth opened in that perfect circle that I had described to my mother and I kept saying, "Oh, oh, oh! " I said it like a great hiccupping that I couldn't stop.

Lestat at this point knows his mother is dying (she told him she likely won't last through winter) and he's been getting drunk and listening to Nicki play violin and having these deep, philosophical discussions about life, the universe, and everything, and then it just hits him suddenly.

And he's so overtaken by the idea that death is this finite end, and there's no meaning to anything, that it just kind of breaks him and his brain keeps skipping and all he can do is repeat 'Oh! Oh!' over and over while Nicki tries to get him to stop, probably worried that he'll be locked away as a madman if he doesn't.

It's just such a poignant scene. Lestat realizes the universe is cold and uncaring, and it kind of breaks him. Baby's first extensional crisis. He will have more of them, of course. And it's such a great dichotomy with Armand, who is so deeply enthralled in the Children of Darkness, and it explains so much about why Lestat reacts to becoming a vampire in the way that he does, reveling in it and almost immediately turning his mother. And it's just such a well-written scene, I love it.

#the vampire lestat #lestat de lioncourt #vc meta #tvl #vc quotes #anne rice #vampire chronicles #vc #armand #nicolas de lenfent #random things i think about when i reread these books #lestat/nicki

[victorfrankensteinapologist]

could you talk about. Autistic victor frankenstein. If you like. (reading 1818 and have brainworms)

it is my genuine opinion victor as a low empathy autistic person is a lot more sensible reading of victor's character then just "selfish dick" because a lot of his other behavior fits it. obviously, a disclaimer that I am fully aware autism did not exist as a disorder in the time the novel was written and mary shelley certainly didnt say "my protagonist will be autistic", but also autistic people always existed, etc. anyways!

special interests: this one's a given. victor's obsessive interest in alchemy in his later teens is the most obvious, and then later on in chemistry in university, but also victor states a lot that since he was very very young he wasfascinated by the workings of the world itself. admittedly this is made more apparent in 1831 with the "it was the secrets of heaven and earth that i desired to learn" and "the world was a secret which I desired to discover" and other lines, but it's also made quite plainly obvious by him talking about how excited he was just to watch a thunderstorm

low empathy: he can't pick up on the extent of the feelings of others, and paired with his own very strong emotions, is why i think we often see victor talk about how he's the world's most miserable human creature. it also leads to him saying some pretty rude things, like that he feels worse then justine who's on death row and telling ernest to stop crying over william so he doesnt get more upset

literalism: "i will be with you on your wedding night", very plainly did not catch what the creature was threatening bc he took his words at face value. he genuinely thought the creature would be with HIM on his wedding night. because that is what he said

volatile emotions: victor on repeated occasions goes from calm to very upset or vice versa very quickly. walton mentions it when talking about victor's tone: Sometimes he commanded his countenance and tones, and related the most horrible incidents with a tranquil voice, suppressing every mark of agitation; then, like a volcano bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression of the wildest rage, as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor.

repetitive speech: this comes up multiple times in the book in victor's dialogue, where when he gets agitated or upset he tends to repeat words and phrases. i cannot thing of examples off the top of my head but they are definitely there

repetitive body motions: victor repeatedly gnashes his teeth was agitated or irritated, the creature also does this once as I recall but I believe victor does it about three times

#victor frankenstein #frankenstein #victor is a character i appreciate because an autistic reading of his character shows the reality of being autistic in my opinion #thats its not always pretty and palatable #and in fact rarely ever is #i would talk more but unfortunately i am also autistic so explaining things very well [doc mitchell vc] just aint in my nature #i'm also probably missing some things. i havent really reread the book since frankenstein weekly haha #been meaning to do so though...

[licncourt]

pov you are daniel interviewing the vampire

#you're all going to be so tired of me during this reread #he's a freaky loser nerd and he's staring at you like a big mac #vc #louis de pointe du lac #the blursed texts

[loelett]

i usually don't care for swap aus but this one is turning in my brain like a little microwave

#swapfic #sorry for my illegible writing (it's the insanity) #um i started a little fic for this but who knows if i'll do anything with it #might be writihg it wiht butchybats ray.... #this is 20 year old louis compared to my usual louis drawings but i might change his hair length to this #rereading claudia's story changed my brain chemistry #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #loustat #iwtv #interview with the vampire #tvc #vc #the vampire chronicles #my art

[hermidetta]

[ 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 ] : sender has harmed someone who threatened the receiver. ( prime minister bernadetta stand back im about to drop fodlans greatest hit. its called Meteor )

* for you i would.

mother says there are locked rooms inside all women. sometimes, the men—they come with keys; and sometimes, the men—they come with hammers.

the stack of reports drops to the floor in a flood of loose leaf. bernadetta, hands still suspended mid-clutch, gawks at the woman in the doorway whose figure cuts a perfect picture from every possible angle.

and the both of them already know.

"dorothea, you didn't!"

but dorothea, she did. and some years ago bernadetta would have been petrified—in some small form, the gnaw of anxiety might always haunt her. old habits die hard. she has learned since, however, that sometimes it is the men who die far harder...

a meteor, from dorothea? and grégoire lives still? if bernadetta weren't shaking she might have fussed up a storm for the both of them to go hide right now. bar the doors and the windows with all the furniture in the room. she is shaking at the shoulders, soundlessly at first—with her head having lowered, trimmed fringe veiling her eyes.

"...p...pfft..."

a meteor to the head. isn't that something?

"pfft—" bernadetta lets out a noise—a sob?—before her head throws backward, in fact, with an unmistakable bubble of laughter. "h-hah! ahaha!"

there are times she may be an absolute whirlwind, a string of shrieks or a seemingly impossible case. but dorothea knows all of this, all of her, already. dorothea learned everything and still never ran—never let bernadetta run from her friendship, either. bernadetta laughs and giggles until her lungs might give out. what she wouldn't give to see the look on his face!

dorothea, who wouldn't give up on her despite everything. where countless others had lost their patience, concurred with bernadetta that she was a lost cause, dorothea had stayed. proved she was strong enough to fight off bernadetta's fears. proved it again, just now.

(watched while bernadetta eventually grew strong enough, too.)

bernadetta abandons her reports and dives fearlessly into dorothea arnault's embrace. they grin, they talk, and they laugh, over and over until the scarlet sun sets.

#encantresse #and everyone clapped! #s: ⚘ * godhood‚ like girlhood: a begging to be believed. | encantresse #asks / #bikini bottom narrator vc ahhhh yes another day in my element (post-academy bern who i only ever wrote before toa tbh. whiplash so real) #she's so much happier and i love her i love her I LOVE THEMMMM THEYRE THE GIRLS EVER GGGRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #DOROTHEA WHO IS ONE OF 2 PPL (3 depending on route) WHO IMPACTED HER CHARACTER SO HARD GGGRRRRARHRRARGURUUAAAARUERRAAGAAAA AGRGRGGURGUA #ok. sorry. normal again heehee (jk) (rereading comparisons of her pre + post timeskip dialogue and heaving) #i know damn well this girl did not change her wardrobe and get a hot glow up without dorothea's help either she said bern honey look at me. #look. look at me. your new dress is gonna fit like a fucking glove. WE'RE SHOWING MORE SKIN!!!! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL WITH YOUR BURN SCARS!!!! #i lvow yuouoyuu

[mercyofempty]

spinning him

#wispy.txt #im so glad most of my friends are asleep now cus i kept deafening during vc to try get this beast into existence #i cantlet them know i was gone for basically the entire call because i was trying to make a transparent spinning tposing silver #saw a post like oh i wish i had a tposing spinning silver and i was like ohh this is a good excuse to learn blender again #and then reread it and specified low quality #sad! well off to the shredder then #silver the hedgehog #<- ok you all have to see him now

[apoptoses]

Hi!! I'm too shy to comment on AO3, hence the anonymous ask, but I just wanted to let you know that you are my favourite VC fanfiction writer out there!

Seriously, your writing has become my go-to for . . . whenever, really. Anytime, any kind of mood I'm in, I can't get enough of it!

I also wanted to ask: what happened with the "one ship and one sentence" askgame? I was hoping you'd share some of the prompts you received

first of all the idea that someone won't comment on ao3 makes me so sad, please just comment. you can do it as a guest there which is essentially on anon! all writers love comments, there's no reason not to drop a line and say why you liked a fic there.

unfortunately between selling my house, trying to sell/dispose of stuff in it, keeping in touch with my wife and making moving plans together, dealing with worriyng that the last fic i posted was a waste of energy, supporting my friends, dealing with some chronic pain, supporting my friends' creative endeavors, and dealing with my cat needing some special medical attention i haven't been able to get to them yet.

but also please keep in mind that i can't promise to always respond to every prompt, i can't control what does and doesn't create a scene in my mind so if i don't do your prompt specifically then i'm sorry! and unfortunately i don't do commissions so i can't offer that.

but again, please, anyone who feels shy about commenting on ao3- just leave the comment. a lot of VC writers have been talking about how they feel their fic is just silently consumed and feel really down on the idea of posting their works at all anymore.

and asking for comments isn't asking for praise, or gold star stickers or whatever. writers usually create works to connect with other fans about their ideas and receiving comments creates that connection. it's about sharing your feelings on a character with a community, and having the community reply and say 'i feel this too!'

your favorite writers are big nerds just like you, we WANT to hear from you about what works resonate with you! and getting no response at all, or just getting a message in our inbox saying we're good enough to reread but somehow too scary to comment to...idk it just feels so othering and sad ☹️

#this is long but i just have so many feelings about the current commenting situation #and the thought that people can be reading and rereading and you'll never ever hear from them on that fic #why is the VC community specifically this way #it's so confusing to me! #apoptoses answers

[nalyra-dreaming]

"Lestat killed humans all the time, sometimes two or three a night, sometimes more. He would drink from one just enough to satisfy a momentary thirst, and then go on to another. The better the human, as he would say in his vulgar way, the more he liked it. A fresh young girl, that was his favorite food the rest of the evening; but the triumphant kill for Lestat was a young man. A young man around your age would have appealed to him in particular.” “Me?” the boy whispered. He had leaned forward on his elbows to peer into the vampire’s eyes, and now he drew up. “Yes,” the vampire went on, as if he hadn’t observed the boy’s change of expression. “You see, they represented the greatest loss to Lestat, because they stood on the threshold of the maximum possibility of life. Of course, Lestat didn’t understand this himself. I came to understand it. Lestat understood nothing."

Geeee Louis. 🙄

You were so close. Sooooooo close.

#honestly Louis was sooooo salty still he didn't stop to think about what he was actually saying in the first half of the book lmao #It’s actually quite astonishing what Louis didn’t note rereading #like the stuff with the money too #iwtv #interview with the vampire #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac #loustat #the vampire chronicles #vc #vampire chronicles #book quotes

[chthonic-cassandra]

Alas, one too few poll options to list them all individually. If you read them in a different order or combination, I would be glad to hear in replies/tags.

#got curious #vc reread

[hekateinhell]

#VCKinkWeek, Day 5: Play Party

I was scrolling through my ao3 to see if I had any older stuff to repromote that might fit today's theme of "voyeurism, exhibitionism, threesomes, and orgies" and it looks like I do — for each one of those! (Shocking, right?)

Human AUs

🖤 I Feel You - Armand/Lestat/Louis/Daniel | E | 2.8k

Trans!Armand just wants to be loved by all of his boyfriends on his birthday, at any cost.

[READ ON AO3]

♥️ Exposed - Lestat/Armand/Louis | E | 5k

Teenage delinquents Lestat and Armand are dating Louis together while navigating their own situationship.

[READ ON AO3]

🖤 After Party - Lestat/Armand/Daniel | E | 1.2k

Armand overdoes it after a wild night out with Daniel and Lestat, and he needs just a bit of help to settle down.

[READ ON AO3]

Canon Compliant

♥️ The Language of Flowers - Lestat/Armand/Daniel | E | 9k

Lestat pays a visit to Trinity Gate where Armand has something interesting planned for him. Daniel gets to indulge his voyeuristic side when he gets a front row seat to the entire show.

[READ ON AO3]

#i honestly had more than i thought i did lol i didn't even touch my prompt boxes for this one #hope you enjoy whether you're reading them for the first time or deciding to reread!! let me know <3 #armand/lestat/louis #armand/lestat/daniel #armand/lestat/daniel/louis #armand #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac #daniel molloy #vc #the vampire chronicles #vckinkweek #vc fic

[paintaboveyourbones]

That time Marius had a prolonged depressive anxiety attack and changed a 12 year old also this is a pro-Marius blog

Thinking about that time, Armand suddenly showed up from the dead to visit Lestat when he was embracing his ✨ religious stupor aesthetic ✨ , and Marius proceeded to embarrass himself by following Armand around and inviting him back to his place to chill or whatever THREE GODDAMN TIMES IN A ROW and got shot down for all of them! Amazing!

Marius : Wanna come over? Armand : Lol no :)

it gets worse

Hahah like wanna come back to my place? No? Oh that’s cool. Listen my house is so cool here it’s all Roman and stuff, you’d love it if you saw it? Oh? You don’t want to see it right now? Oh, uh uh. Um, what if like, I promise to be a good listener and not interrupt? You could, you could stay for as long as you like! He's such a simp

And Armand is literally looking at his raggedy dusty clothes and kinda gives him a little pat on the hand and gives him his best “oh yeah, I’ll be by later! Totally!” And in the very next sentence, he’s thinking, “I gotta grab my kids and get the fuck out."

You think I'm exaggerating - how I only wish that were the case! It's so painful to see him suffer.

But beyond pain, the thing that I love about this is how much of a shock this is to both of them. Anne gives us all these excellent context clues that show us MARIUS HAS NOT BEEN OK! ALRIGHT - HE'S GOING THROUGH IT. Like, in my head, he's still trying to process what happened with Akasha - and part of that will inevitably go back to his own failure with Armand. And that failure is multifaceted and painful for him because he's been the cause of so much of it.

Obviously, there's all the stuff with Armand that directly echoes his failures with Pandora. I'm thinking specifically of him flying into a rage just because she mentions she saw the apostle Paul out preaching, and of course, there are the beginnings of the Roman coven. And then Christianity deals the death blow again when Armand falls into the cult. He has a proper pagan disdain for it, and I don't want to minimize the validity of his fear surrounding it and how religious trauma of all varieties has had a hand in shaping his neurosis.

Marius has always been so proud of his reason, but he's drawn again and again to these people who are more spiritual or untamed than he is. And part of this is his wanting to emotionally and intellectually dominate them. He wants so BADLY for someone to go, "Yes, Marius, you're right! Your superior Roman reason has shown me the way!". Because then he's validated as the superior Roman scholar for once, and not some half-breed Barbarian adopted into a proper Roman family by his father. But I can't help but think the other part is he's so attracted to their complete sense of comfort and acceptance of these illogical parts of themselves.

Like Pandora, Mael, and Armand are all so spiritual. And I know I've made the joke about him being the Reddit Atheist Guy falling for the Coexist bumper sticker girlies, but it's true! I'm not saying that any of them don't struggle with their faith or delight all the time in the sacrifices it asks of them, but they never question it as a part of themselves. And that's the thing - faith IS illogical. It requires us to take leaps we can't explain and carry on when there's no proof of reward or empirical evidence to give us peace of mind. And the fact that all three of them are ok with this just drives him FUCKING BUG NUTS. I also can't help but think some of this goes back to his Mommy Issues and how he works so hard to scrub his mother's barbarian identity from himself

And all that is there in Armand! And whatever might have happened is a wash, because obviously the coven comes and breaks them apart. But the funny thing is AKASHA also has a hand in it. At the time, Marius accepts it for what it was. But, in retrospect, after everything that happened? How fucking bitter is that pill to swallow that Armand became one of the things he had to give up, and all he got was a mouth full of ashes in reward.

And it's so clear they're both so hurt and awkward around one another! When we see them in Night Island, it's Santino Armand’s playing chess with - not Marius. It's no wonder that, of the two, he's the easier bridge to mend.

I can't help but think that, before Armand burned himself in the sun, Marius had convinced himself that he was still perfectly in control and ready to face what came next with stocism and rationality. Then Armand gets crisped up, and that's finally the catalyst for things to break apart.

It reminds me of this thing I was listening to recently about a pet bereavement therapist who mentioned that almost inevitably, when people talk about pet death, they talk about the death of a loved one that also hasn't been mourned or processed. And Marius does treat Armand like a pet - and Armand's death is the damn break for everything else that's happened with Akasha. Hence, we get Marius wearing rags, covered in dust, turning Benji and Sybelle. He's so painfully out of control - he's spiraling and returning to his old pattern of leaning on Armand and putting him back in that place where he's responsible for Marius' emotional well-being again. Only this time, he's not a fucking child (even though Marius greets him by calling him 'young one").

This entire time, he's softly rebuffing Marius, refusing to do the heavy lifting for him, he's finding his footing! My heart is beaming with pride because he's finally putting the pieces together! He's not Marius' emotional support pet anymore!

Hence why I think we get this line :

There's always this scary part when you're getting out of codependency where you realize the possibility of going back to old habits is always there. And that's tempting! Focusing on healing doesn't mean these things stop being temping - it just means you find better ways to work around that temptation.

And, of course, this just does not compute for Marius. And to be fair, that makes sense - historically Armand has always wanted to be a slave for something or someone. So seeing him come back from the fire, changed and changing, even if it's just shakey baby steps, has to be so devastating. Because, at this point, it's one more person outgrowing and changing beyond him. And everything that he's held onto at this point to justify his lack of change and growth has just been burnt to the ground.

So I can't help but wonder if his turning Benji and Sybelle is a desperation grab to try and re-establish the order of things because he's genuinely terrified that Armand might actually try and off himself again. He's gotten a glimpse of what a world without him looks like and he's not doing well in it. And hey - back when he was thinking of ending it all, didn't Akasha trick him into making Pandora? Hasn't Pandora been his anchor? What if he gave Armand an anchor. No need to go into wither or not Armand wants it or actually needs it. And all the better if their turning reinforces his own new belief in nothing. After all, this was the man who once imagined that he stood apart and above humanity like some loving patrician figure, but now everything he's dedicated himself to is gone. And rather admit he's having a depressive episode, it's so much easier to put the world to blame and say he's rescuing them from it.

He needs Armand - and whatever that means - if it means need like a little dog in an emotional support vest kinda need or if its I'm ready to build a human connection and need you romantically/paternally kind of need - Marius is not ready to have that conversation. So, instead, he puts his emotions into reverse and floods the engine backward in an attempt to put things back into a pattern he can recognize.

This is where it gets so painful to watch because he's at a point where just admitting he needs help, that it feels good to have someone else to rely on, would be so good for him! He doesn't need to fear change, and people evolving around him is a good thing. But he can't see it like that. So now we have this mess, only it backfires because Armand still grabs the kids and leaves. Just because trapping himself in old patterns fits Marius doesn't mean that others' needs have to regress to shape to his own. Once again, it's Marius who knows best, Marius' selfishness, his complete lack of self-awareness, getting in his way.

My man is his own greatest enemy.

#marius is a fucking mess and i love him #this is a pro marius blog btw #marius de romanus #the vampire armand #armand le russe #marimand #tvc reread #vc meta

[desertfangs]

Marius de Romanus, Notable Bi Disaster™, is so overwhelmed by his crush on Bianca that he pays someone to ferry him around the canals in a gondola while he lays in the bottom of the boat and feels sorry for himself and listens to the thoughts of mortals to avoid ruminating on his own thoughts.

This is how he finds Armand, btw.

#marius de romanus #blood and gold #vc meta #marius the bi disaster #vc #vampire chronicles #tvc #the vampire chronicles #armand #cat rereads blood and gold #y'all i hadn't read this book in years and i'm dying at how much i love it #marius is a mess and i love him #marius #bianca solderini #marius/bianca #marius/armand

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach 080]

All that hype about the fancy radioactive danger rocks, and Kuukaku has something that can beat it.

The Seireitei can't know about this, right? Because otherwise they certainly would not have banished the Shiba without making sure that info did not leave with them. *I* wouldn't. Though now that I think about it. Do you need these balls to go up to the Royal Realm in the cannon? Now I can't remember. I know a bunch of Team Shinigami were charging their Royal Realm elevator or whatever, but was that for the thrust or the "don't dissolve on contact with the barrier"? I'd look it up but I guess I'm not feeling super compelled to; searching through TYBW is too hard lol. And I guess it's not like Kuukaku got banished FROM SOUL SOCIETY (or from the Seireitei), unlike some people. Just from being a noble, which would be separate from dealing with the Gotei and their dumb wall and their dumb Zero Division and what-have-you, anyway. But given that the Shiba have beef with shinigami, too, maybe it doesn't matter.

After the dust has settled on the ryoka invasion and Aizen's betrayal, is everyone mostly just focused on Aizen's betrayal (and Ichigo existing at all). Or, in the late aftermath, as the reports get filed and the assessments get written, does it occur to someone to wonder how the ryoka got in? Even if it's not the first question anyone remembers to ask at that point, surely, eventually, someone does. Which means this was a huge risk on Kuukaku's part, in which case! She has to love and trust Yoruichi (and Urahara) a lot, or believe that whatever's brewing in the Seireitei is worthwhile enough to make this secret visible, right at this moment.

In an earlier post, I mentioned Kuukaku's line about doing this because "if Urahara's involved, how can I refuse?" Given Urahara's 2nd Division posting with the Maggot's Nest and therefore general jailiness, it would make sense that he would have some dealing with sekki-seki. Knowing Urahara, that probably also means figuring out how to counter it--which is perhaps where Kuukaku comes in, since the Shiba were already in charge of the "let's go to the Royal Realm!" cannon. Did she have to know this already? If not, maybe she invented it after her banishment just, you know, for insurance, using sekki-seki notes left by Urahara, and that's where her sense of responsibility to him comes from. Either way, in enlisting her help with their invasion, Yoruichi had to have known about both the cannon (obvious) and the cannonball (secret), since she's aware of how the sekki-seki dome works.

#literally the only thing i can ever think of when i think about these cannonballs #is the version of them that exists in bleach rock musical #sigh these pages weren't supposed to be interesting but then they were #honestly i'm just trying to get to the VC hallway meetup!!!! #shiba kuukaku #bleach worldbuilding #bleach manga #bleach reread 2021 #bleach カラー #no brain just bleach