assembling some class materials and fondly thinking about (yet) another reason Six Hearts have bewitched me, body and soul.
Bleach tells many stories, and one of them is the story of Ichigo learning how to deal with power/violence to protect people, while his five beloved pookies represent different types of violence people are victims of
Orihime as a window into gender violence. it's so explicit throughout the series, but oh Arrankar Saga is so brilliant in addressing violent masculinities and misogyny while Ichigo is learning how to deal with the power/violence he's most afraid of. and then in the end, Orihime finds her agency and Ichigo is able to wield this power by relying on her and connecting with her.
Chad as a window to racism. the gut-wrenching turmoil of racialized bodies having to deal with rage but not allowing himself to fight back. Then Chad finds a way to use his fists because Ichigo, also struggling with self-defense, supports him and vice versa. Chad finding pride in his skin while reminding Ichigo that he's not powerless.
Uryu as a window to war/genocide. being a survivor, struggling with the logic of enmity, then learning how to make friends because of Ichigo and Orihime and Chad... then all of this coming back to show us a) Ichigo learning how to handle the radical duality within himself to be his most powerful self and b) Uryu confirming his friendship.
Then Rukia and Renji as windows to class oppression. being victims of the system, then joining the ranks to try and change things, but then having the organizational system tear them apart... then ichigo's defiance brings them back together, and even though they don't lead the great rukongai revolt, they find a way to make the gotei different (also because of ichigo) and have their voice.
for the OTP ask thingy (and i’m trying very hard not to beg you to just do all of them) - 1, 2, 6, 14, 22, 26, 48, 50, 56, 58 ❤️💜
lol, this one is very long, so am throwing it under a cut.
(1) Who would end a heated argument by defending their actions with ‘because I love you!’ ?
Answered that one here
(2) What would they do if the other woke in a manic state after a nightmare?
I think they would have the same reaction, which would just be to hold the other one real tight? Maybe pet their hair and say quiet, reassuring things.
Sleeping together has been a comfort thing for them from childhood. After all those years of not being able to do that, I think waking up in each other's arms would already be the first step on the way back to getting them feel safe and anchored.
(6) Who would beg the other not to leave? Who has to leave to protect the other?
I'm just gonna admit that I'm not entirely sure what this question is asking.
Leave...the relationship? I mean, this very much did happen and nobody did any begging and they both did the leaving because they thought they other one was better off without them. I'm not sure that's the same as "protecting."
Or is this like a scenario where someone has to leave the bunker and go fight zombies, like literally protect them? And in that case, it's silly, as if one of them would go out to fight without the other one at their side.
(14) How do their personalities complement each other? How do they clash?
I talk all the time about how Renji is a(n over)planner and Rukia is a pantser. They both screw up a lot on their own, but working together, they are incredibly good at coming up with insane plans that only they could pull off.
This is kind of an interesting way of thinking about the question, but I think their friendship gives them a boost toward being perceived as the sort of person they would like to be. Rukia would like to be regarded as a tough and competent fighter and general badass. This would generally be complicated by her social status and physical appearance, but hanging out with a noisy roughneck ups her street cred considerably. Renji enjoys being a noisy roughneck, of course, but he's also the Squad Six Assistant-Captain, and he'd like to come off as a respectable and interesting guy when he has to move in Byakuya's social circles. Rukia's often able to give him the Cliff Notes edition on things like specialized etiquette, proper attire, and the context of the crowd and occasion. Furthermore, being a known of associate of the First Daughter of the Kuchiki goes a long way towards cementing his own status as a man worth making the acquaintance of.
Relationship-wise, Renji is often soft, but is very self-conscious about getting treated with softness. Rukia isn't very good at being soft, and needs to have softness thrust at her for own good from time to time. She is, however, very good at validating Renji in the way that he needs: being very honest and exacting in her judgment, so that when she tells him he did good, he knows that really means something.
As far as clashing, I think they clash the most in the ways where they are alike. They are both incredibly stubborn. They'd both rather be the one who makes a sacrifice, rather than the one being sacrificed for. Neither one has enough instinct for self-preservation by half, and they had an absolutely unhinged respect for each other's position on this. They will jump into a fight way above their weight class like "I guess we'll just die then." Sometimes they are very stupid in exactly the same way, and that's how we got the Captain Hitsugaya's older brother incident.
(22) What reminds each of their partner?
I am choosing to answer this question during the separation period because it's juicier that way.
I know this sounds cheesy, but almost everything reminds Renji of Rukia. I think he tends associate everyday things with memories of people he's spent time with. Unfortunately for him, the trip from Inuzuri up to the Seireitei involved a great deal of experiencing things for the first time and all of it was with Rukia. Almost everything in the Seireitei reminds him of her: foods they had never tried before, places she wanted to go, things she wanted to see and do. That being said, anything associated with Rukongai also reminds him of Rukia--fistfights, terrible booze, the woods, subsistence foods like millet or horse chestnuts. Anyway, it's no surprise he spent a lot of time getting drunk and letting people punch him in the face.
Rukia was much more intentional about trying not to think too much about Renji. She's much better at the mind-over-matter thing and at setting her feelings to side. The thing that does remind her of him from time-to-time--and always blindsides her--is other people. She hears someone with a loud, barking laugh. She sees someone showing off a new tattoo and talking about the next one they want to get. Someone grins and she notices their canines are a little too prominent. Sometimes it's just the way someone gets caught in the light or makes a certain facial expression. This is probably a hot take, but I think part of what drew her to Kaien was that he reminded her of the sort of shinigami she always imagined Renji would be someday.
(26) What are their vices?
I think they are both pretty heavy drinkers, but they also have extremely high alcohol tolerances (I think that for shinigami, it goes more with amount and type of reiatsu rather than mass and you will will pry my heavyweight drinker Rukia headcanon from my cold dead fingers). They're mostly social drinkers. They don't tend to drink to drunkenness around others, for Kuchiki/Squad 6 propriety reasons. If they want to do that, they do it together, either on the hill behind the Squad 13 training grounds, or at Renji's place.
Renji had a rock-bottom period during his Squad 11 days where he drank too much for self-destructive reasons. He didn't like the person he was then, so that's the other reason he doesn't tend to do that anymore. He also doesn't tend to drink much alone, beyond, like, one glass in the evening to relax.
Rukia might have done the same, but she's not really able to drink herself into numbness, for Sode no Shirayuki-related reasons. She just gets mean and bitter if she drinks when she's sad, so it's not really worth it.
I think they both occasionally smoked cigarettes in Rukongai. They have since quit, but are not above the occasional smoko. I did a whole post on Renruki's smoking history/habits, and I still stand by everything I said there.
Renji reads about an average amount of pornography. Rukia reads a somewhat larger-than-average amount of pornography.
(48) Who’s the better driver?
Answered that one here
(50) Who’s more likely to do something out of spite?
I think that when they were young, they were both extremely motivated by scenarios where the odds were stacked against them or where they were overestimated. They survived ten years in Inuzuri, clawed their way out, and held their own among the aristocratic snobs at the Academy.
In Renji's case, I think his subsequent 40-year training montage was also powered by some degree of spite--spite at Byakuya, spite at the Seireitei in general, spite at the grizzled fighters at Squad 11 who laughed at him and called him "kid." I don't think Aizen's Squad 5 was a very good place to let your spite drive you, and that may very well be why he left.
After the Soul Society arc, once he's past his big confrontation with Byakuya, Renji suddenly finds himself running short on spite. He has to deal with aristocratic snobs again, but they're his subordinates now--he's better than them and they have to do what he says. He's got a job he likes, he works for one of the most respected captains, and he gets to see Rukia again. Yeah, sometimes Byakuya says some insane thing that pisses him off and inspires him to learn some new move just to prove the guy wrong, but for the most part, Renji's kind of left the spite thing behind.
As for Rukia, I think part of what threw her for such a loop about being adopted is that didn't know how to be without starting from an enormous disadvantage. Things just started to be handed to her, and she just stood there holding her new position at Squad 13 like "what do I do with this?"
Losing her powers in Karakura Town had her on the back foot again, but it also reminded her of who she is. It was familiar territory. Maybe spite is a strong word, maybe it's more like cussedness, but that's Rukia at her best.
I don't think that either of them is a particular spiteful or vindictive person in general. Rukia is definitely a grudge-holder, but I'll talk about that more when I get to that question.
(56) What do they do turn the other on/put them in the mood?
I want to start by saying that they don't need to do anything to put the other one in the mood. They are both incredibly horny for each other, all they really would ever need to do is ask. However, they both really enjoy the game of "trying to turn the other one on", maybe because it's just a very specific, sexy form of teasing each other. They especially like doing this in front of other people, even though Kira really wishes they wouldn't.
Renji tends to use more traditional methods. He always takes extra care on his appearance when he's going out and Rukia's going to be there. This only half works, because she thinks he's always like this, but everyone else is like, "oh, he's got on 3000kan eyeliner and his tits are out, I guess Rukia will be here later." He likes to make eyes at her and has various sexy voice tricks. He will roll up his sleeves and try to show off his biceps at the slightest possible excuse.
Rukia enjoys all this, but the real thing that gets her hot and bothered is when he does his effortless confidence and competence thing. This almost always happens when she happens to be at Squad Six and accidentally catches him doing his Vice-Captain thing--enthusiastically offering tips to his youngest officers, cheerfully beating up his top seats, having impenetrable conversations with Byakuya that the both of them are clearly enjoying. The absolute worst, though is when he comes to noble shit and uses his insane charisma to charm the elderly or very clearly win a conversation with some blowhard fancy boy. This is, more often than not, how Renji finds himself getting dragged off to the hedge maze.
Rukia's attempts at bar-flirting usually entail bragging about herself or shotgunning her alcohol. She is so obvious about this and it's super-effective. Renji is also incredibly horny for her shittalk, especially if it's directed at someone from Squad 11. If she starts arm-wrestling, he's gone completely.
(58) Who’s more likely to hold a grudge after an argument?
I do not think Renji is a grudge-holder. He's a pretty easy-going dude, and he'd rather just move on after he considers an issue closed. That being said, the issue is closed when he thinks it's closed, and not until then. If he wants to defeat someone and loses, he will just keep showing up and challenging them until he comes out on top. If he gets in an argument over something that can be proven, he will go off later and try to find evidence to support his case (this happens a lot over Dumb Bar Discussions and usually everyone else has forgotten the conversation ever happened when he shows up with a bunch of Facts About Turtles). This is really more about himself and his own stubbornness, I don't really consider it grudge holding.
Rukia, on the other hand, keeps lists and never forgets. In her younger days, in Inuzuri and at the Academy, she would bide her time and exact her revenge when she got the opportunity, usually in ways that were difficult to trace back to her. She actually didn't care all that much about slights to herself, but she would be merciless to people who were mean to her friends.
If anything has cured her of this behavior, weirdly enough, it is hanging out with Byakuya. He has a very similar streak of natural vindictiveness, but was taught from an early age that with his position and power, it was unseemly to hold petty grudges. The best revenge is to not think about the other party at all. Rukia has been trying this out, and to be honest, she's kind of into it. (It is still okay to get revenge on people who attack the Soul Society or point their blade at your pride, but that's not a grudge, that is the straightforward execution of justice.)
Hi, I’m Polynya and I write Bleach fanfic. At this point, I have written kind of a lot, and I wanted to make a little intro page for new readers.
If you’re impatient and don’t want to read all this, here are the quick links: AO3 | FF.net. ao3 is my preferred platform. Unfortunately, due to various ai-scraping and other scams, I archive-lock my fics, so you’ll need to be logged into read them. As of spring 2024, I am sick of FF.net’s crap and no long posting new fic there, but I’m leaving up the stuff that’s there. If you ever have trouble finding one of my stories, just let me know and I’ll find a way to get it to you.
Would I like your fanfic, Polynya?
99% of my fanfic is Renruki or Renruki adjacent. If you come in here looking for something different, you’re going to be disappointed, is what I’m saying.
I like big casts, and frequently recurring characters are Byakuya, the other lieutenants plus Ikkaku, Yumichika, and Akon, the Karakura kids whenever I can swing it, a smattering of other captains (particularly Hitsugaya, because I like his friendship with Byakuya), and various members of the Kuchiki family and Squads 6 and 13.
I like to write about relationships, whether they are friendships, romances, families or work relationships. I write a lot of romance, but people constantly tell me that they don’t like romance but they do like my writing, so make what you will of that. I’m old, and I write like an old person: my work has a lot of career feels, mistakes made and lessons learned, second chances, accepting people as they are and making yourself into person you want to be. Even though my main pairing is M/F, I write them as bi4bi and I regularly write a number of LGBT+ characters and pairings. I also write a number of characters as neurodiverse, most notably Byakuya, my autistic king.
Getting started with Polynya fic
If you aren’t sure if you’re gonna like my work or not, I suggest trying out The Letter of the Law [AO3] [FF.net] [Tumblr] It’s short, it’s funny, it’s sweet, by ratio, it’s probably my most popular fic. It’s about Ace Attorney Vice-Captain Abarai Renji getting Uryuu out of legal trouble at the end of the TYBW.
If you’re feeling a little braver than that, please consider Hold On, Hold On [AO3] [FF.net] , an Academy Days story about Kira and Hinamori trying to keep Renji from falling apart after Rukia’s adoption. I consider it my best fanfic and if I can ever get people to read one thing of mine, it’s this.
A recent thing I wrote that I am pretty proud of and stands alone well is i got everything i want (and i got nothing that i need) It’s about Renji having a Hallucination. (absolutely cannot be read fandom-blind, the better your love of the Soul Society Arc, the more you will enjoy it)
Okay, I’m on board now:
So, the thing I’m the most “famous” for is my series, The Heart is a Muscle [AO3 series]. The first couple of stories are interwoven with canon (the last few will be, too, if I ever finish it). The actual reason I started writing Bleach fanfiction was that I wanted an extremely long, slow burn RenRuki story that wove through the entire Bleach canon and I’ve never found one. So I made one myself. It is still in progress. It may be in progress forever. Each story gets subsequently longer and more ridiculous. I’m in the timeskip now and I may never stop. The name is dumb, but so are Renji and Rukia, so there. If you like audio, you can listen to part 1 as a podfic.
For the very brave, go places is my most world-buildy story and the closest to my heart. It is about Rukia and Renji’s brief stopover at the South Rukongai District 70 Consolidated Shinigami Recruitment Station between leaving Inuzuri and arriving at Shin’ou. Features the Gotei courier service, thoughts on how shihakushou relate to manifestation, and Inuzuri Rukia, the squirreliest girl in Soul Society.
this could be permanent, you know [AO3][ff.net] is a modern/no powers AU where Renji is a tattoo artist and Rukia is a high-powered businesswoman with terrible (or possibly fantastic?) taste in tattoos. This is a weird one for me, because I rarely have much patience for stories that don’t take place in Soul Society, but I have always wanted to write a romcom. This is my romcom. As a bonus, it has many wonderful illustrations by my kind and talented friend @fluffnflightillustrations
Do you like angst? I have written one angst story, but it’s a doozy. Portions for Foxes [AO3] [AO3 - Fade to Black version] is an AU where Byakuya dies after his fight with As Nodt, and he leaves his family and his squad in the care of Rukia and Renji, respectively, who can barely stand to face each other. It is really sad, and there are explicit sex scenes, but my brand is incredibly strong, so it also has friendship and some funny bits, and the end is ultimately hopeful. This is honestly one of the better things I have written. The Fade-to-Black version has the explicit parts of the sex scenes removed, but it is still rated mature.
I got a request for a Hisana-Lived AU once, and it was pretty open-ended. I didn’t want to step on the toes of my other favorite Hisana-Lived AU (A Thin Red Line) so I gave myself the restraint that in my version, neither Rukia nor Byakuya ever bothered to mention Renji to Hisana, so she doesn’t even know he exists before becoming Byakuya’s lieutenant and helping to stop Rukia’s execution. I was reading a lot of Jane Austen at the time, so I wanted to write it with sort of the vibe of a Regency Romance, and that’s how I ended up with my other Big Story, a little in love now and then [AO3][ff.net]. It also features a number of lovely illustrations by Fluff. Three out of five acts are done at the moment. I tried to finish it in the summer of 2022 and failed. I tried again in fall 2024 (it did not go well). It is now the autumn of 2025 and I am on my third try, but act iv is about half done and act v is basically done so I think am really gonna have it done around early spring 2026.
I get a lot of requests for kidfic. I don’t really like writing kidfic, but most of what’s out there is horrifically out of line with my experiences as a parent, so I wrote some from a while. If that’s your bag, I’ve collected them as a series, The Greatest Family in Soul Society. Please don’t ask for more. I’ve done more than my part.
I don’t know what happened to me, because I didn’t used to be like this, but every so often I get the urge to write some smut. Unfortunately, I only write goofy, high concept smut. No one is more sorry about this than me. I have made a collection for them: What If We Kissed Under the Dick Rope? j/k… unless…? I use the pseud polynya_after_dark for these, so that link is another way to get to them directly.
I occasionally write shorter fiction or run request events here on Tumblr. I didn’t want to flood my ao3 with a bunch of short stories, so I have an anthology story that I throw them into for archival purposes. It got too big, so I made a second one, and my plan going forward is to make a new one for each calendar year. There’s all kinds of stuff in there, a lot of birthday stories, AUs, etc. There’s an index in Chapter 1 of each.
Squad Six is Jerks vol 1 (2020-Aug 2021) [AO3][ff.net]
Squad Six is Jerks vol 2 (rest of 2021) [AO3][ff.net]
Squad Six is Jerks vol 3 (2022) [AO3][ff.net]
Squad Six is Jerks vol 4 (2023) [AO3][ff.net]
Squad Six is Jerks vol 5 (2024/25) [AO3]
There are a lot of these, but I particularly recommend the Squad 11 AU, where Byakuya is too distracted by his wife not-dying to adopt Rukia, and by the time he gets around to it, she’s joined Squad 11 with Renji, and the Dr. Renji AU, where Aizen transfers Renji to Squad 4 instead of Squad 11 and it turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. I talk about both of these from time to time and maybe someday I’ll spin them out into something bigger.
Speaking of AUs, I also have an AU that takes place in Soul Society, where Hisana took Rukia with her when she married Byakuya, and as a consequence, Renji never met Rukia and instead of becoming a shinigami he…became a tattoo artist instead. LOOK, I do NOT get paid, I can have as many tattoo artist AUs as I want. Anyway, there is a fanfiction part that’s not done yet, but I made a bunch of comics for it, you can find them all here.
Okay, that’s the major stuff! If you get all the way down here and you still want something to read, just go to my main ao3 page and read the rest.
Keeping up with my fanfic
I try to do a Tumblr post once a week (currently, on Friday) where I babble about what I’ve been working on and how it’s going. I do these for me, and they tend to be pretty personal. They’re always tagged with “writing update.” I sometimes take a hiatus from doing these at times when writing isn’t a big focus for me and I need to relax. It does not necessarily mean I’m not writing, it’s just that I”m not being goal-oriented about it. I’m taking one right now, but I should be back in the fall!
I tend to tag my writing with “my writing” and my art with “my fanart”. For some reason, when people ask me about my fanfics, I tag it with “my fanfic.” I should probably get a better system. Sometimes I’ll tag with the names of specific fanfics but I am super inconsistent about that.
I used to take requests, but it got overwhelming. I usually do one to three one-if-you’re-lucky request events a year (usually, centered around some topic). If I’ve got one going on, it’ll be my pinned post and it will say so on my ask page. If you have a very specific request that is extremely in my wheelhouse, you can send it to me at any time. I can’t guarantee I’ll do it, or that I’ll finish it on any kind of timeline, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. (If it isn’t Renruki-centric, there is almost 0 probability I’ll do it, tho).
I do not take commissions and never will, don’t ask.
out of everything on this beautiful green earth you could make a bleach filler episode about, thank you to whoever decided to include a subplot where renji acts out that one hozier tweet. you were so real for that.
::slams door open:: it's been two years, but I've written another dirty fanfic! it's very weird! i probably should have edited it more but I am busy all day tomorrow and I wanted to post it today! enjoy!!!!!
for old times' sake (ao3 link, open for 1 week, then registered users only after that)
Summary: Rukia gets a new toy and falls back on old memories in order to break it in.
Timeline: During the separation
Starring: Rukia and her sexy fantasy version of Renji
Rating: Explicit!! Contains flashbacks with arguably underage sexual activity.
Rukia and Renji arrive at Karakura Island. Somewhere on the shore the crew of the Slaying Moon are debating whether or not they should greet them and in that case who. Eventually they just send Ichigo.
For the entirety of their visit, Renji will get comments on how he looks like a pirate dressed up in a noble’s naval uniform. He tries to not let it get to him when people ask if he’s sure he’s not a pirate. He’s worked hard to get where he is, dammit.
one thing i completely missed when reading the one-shot is kubo confirming that all lieutenants and captains get a mansion to live in and now i’m just dying to know about the configuration of this district like WHO IS WHOSE NEIGHBOUR????????
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