Jumpy Star

When the sword penetrated his chest, Aizen barely whimpered. He should have been perturbed, perhaps even fearful. Yet the physical pain didn’t concern him much. It was something else that did.

The shock of being run through by Gin’s treacherous blade didn’t come from the impact or from the sudden, though expected, betrayal. It came from the perplexing flood of emotions pouring from Shinsō itself as it cut his flesh. From a disturbing wave of sensations that filled Aizen as though he were an empty cup.

These alien feelings didn’t belong to him.

They belonged to Gin – his betrayer, his killer, his...

It's not very clear whether those two are nobility but kisuke + tessai are implied to be indebted to the shihoin estate. (Im unsure what details we have aizen) Wonder what that would mean for uraai's family situation prior to integrating the academy and if they have siblings/living parents somewhere

hello!

sorry for the late reply! this is a very tough question because there's so much we don't know about them! i do agree that perhaps kisuke and tessai were under the shihoins, maybe as minor noble families? however the trick with aizen is that he knew of kisuke before kisuke knew yoruichi, (kubo using yoruichi as a metric is really interesting, it is used to emphasize how long aizen has known kisuke because kisuke and yoruichi have been friends for so damn long... ) so i really do believe they've met, with aizen observing from afar or even interacting once with urahara, who completely forgets.

my hc is that aizen didn't come from a noble family. i'd like to refer you to my friend @bleachplease's post here about Aizen's mom and his upbringing; i think it is brilliant, and I agree with it. more specifically the parts revolving around his mother and then him growing up in a geisha place, i love that haha. another hc is that sosuke rigorously trained his mind, he was naturally smart but not as kisuke and so he engaged in activities that nurture the brain.

for kisuke, it's a bit tough. but i like to imagine him being from a minor noble family, where he could nurture his intellect without a care, especially after yoruichi's family picks him up lol. i think he would be very mischievous and sneak into the rukongai to find stuff and tinker, which is where he meets sosuke. my personal hc is that he has a lot of siblings, but i think aizen's an only child. it's a bit cute.

here is my uraai timeline from before i think i've posted :D ty for the question

Thank you for your support! I put a lot of mental energy into these posts and analysis.

I love your question! It is an extremely interesting topic!

The three hollow holes of the Monster Aizen (AKA The three-holes problem).

This is the question that is bothering me from a while now, and I still don't have a satisfying answer to it.

But let's try to come up with some possible meanings.

We know that a Hollow hole is created when a soul leaves the body and their soul chain is broken and corroded. So the hole replaces the core of the chain. The chain itself might symbolize the attachment to the material realm (anchoring to the body in literal sense, but to all the things in the Human World in the metaphorical sense, like your connections to the family and friends, hobbies, goals, everyday life etc).

"There's an old legend that a silverwood once fell in love with a witch..."

How do you think zeno would react to a weighted blanket? Would it remind him of his coat? I cant help but imagine him sitting somewhere for a smoke, the weighted blanket on his shoulders while he ponders everything and nothing.

The bunnies love the food! 💖

Oh my goodness YES. Yummy idea. The yapping is coming. Give this man a weighted blanket. He's starving for touch and human contact that he still doesn't think he's allowed to reach for. A weighted blanket helps bridge the gap and it's comfortingly familiar, like his coat! Maybe Leon gets it for him. Privately he'd be confused at first like 'why is it HEAVY' and 'is this a new form of discipline I haven't been subjected to yet' but then when it's around his shoulders he Understands™ what it's about.

Make it a nice fancy black faux fleece for extra Soft. I think it would become one of his important possessions that he doesn't let anyone else see him enjoying, but he's wrapped up in it so often in his private time. While smoking too, yes! Fire warning labels are for other people. People who haven't lived most of their life running a virus-induced fever and now find themselves always cold. Sometimes he gets lost in thought while stroking the soft fluffy texture of it with his bare fingers. It's very comforting. Leon knows Zeno really, really likes it because he never sees him using it unless it's an accidental glimpse, like when he's reading a book and doesn't notice Leon's come back. He always acts so guilty about it. Kinda sad that he feels like he has to manufacture a Detachment like Leon's gonna yoink it away as punishment if he lets on that he's fond of the thing. I'm sure there's no tragic background there whatsoever.

Sometimes life falls apart around you and the only thing that helps is the heavy blanket that feels like the hug you never got as a child. He's fine, why do you ask?

Anyone who finished the Arrancar Saga knows that Aizen got one-shotted by Ichigo, then sealed by Urahara and imprisoned in Muken for 20,000 years. And yet, when you think about it — he won.

No, he didn't achieve his grand goal. He never became the new Soul King and didn't even reach the Royal Palace. Yet the changes to the Gotei 13's old, rigid system took place anyway.

Shrouded Stars🌟 It was so fun painting Hidden Stars that I had to make a mirrored version with dark wings :)

Video of the painting process:

AGAIIIINN my favorite client in psychoanalysis

Or rather how you accidentally raise a future god-complex mastermind by teaching him how to pray wrong. I had two itches in my brain that lead me writing the fanfiction The Nameless Moon that would NOT leave me alone, which is basically:

1.understanding his god complex and overall personality development ( my ramblings here) 

2.if you elaborate on his hatred for the soul king how did it start at the roots 

Because the last scene before he was sealed just did not left me alone. The way he talks about the Soul King, the system, the fact that people like Kisuke just… accept it? That reads so personal. Like offended personal.

And I kept thinking:

this is not just “I discovered a truth and didn’t like it” — this could be “I have been surrounded by this my entire life and I am DONE.”

So my brain went: okay… what kind of environment creates that level of reaction?

And the answer that made way too much sense was:

Being raised inside a belief system that nobody ever questions. And being forced upon it for years and so THIS headcanon was born

— (and my fanfiction…) 

And yes, I KNOW we will probably never get Aizen’s backstory, which is exactly why I will continue believing that THIS could be one key element in his personality development as if it would be canon with zero shame!!!!!!

Soul Society already has the framework for religion( Just look for 2 seconds)

Kubo never goes: “Here is the official religion of Soul Society.” But it doesn’t need to, because the pieces are literally just… sitting there. LOOOK

Jūshirō Ukitake being taken to a temple as a child while his parents pray for divine healing 

The shrine aesthetics, purification rituals, spiritual hierarchy

nobles being treated like inherently “better beings” (which historically ALWAYS ties back to divine justification, let’s be real!)

cursed/sacred objects like Nanao’s Ise family artifact(which is VERY on brand for Shinto ideas of objects holding spiritual presence or becoming… not so friendly if mishandled)

So if you take all of that and just go one step further — im not inventing… I’m LITERALLY just connecting dots right now—

it is almost impossible that something similar like a religion would NOT exist. And realistically, it would resemble Shintō and Buddhism.

Not copy-paste versions, but universe logical adapted ones, because Soul Society is basically “afterlife edo Japan but make it structured and slightly concerning.”

But there is a Problem: It’s all built on a LIE (big oops)

Now here’s where it gets REALLY funny in a dark way. Because the god the Soul King? Is not a god in the way people would believe.

He is:

a linchpin

a system requirement

basically a cosmic infrastructure corpse

And the best part? It is said that most people don’t know that. Only higher authorities and nobles do. Which is… yeah, not suspicious, totally normal, love that.

So what happens?

They distort the truth to make it practical for their own agendas controlling the narrative ;D

Congratulations, you now have a concept of a religion and the means to weaponize it

I believe it would look like 

temples built around partial truths

rituals that reinforce order

teachings that go: “this system is sacred, don’t worry about it everything is good, everything is like it supposed to be :)“

So is it fully fake?

No.

Is it fully true?

Also no.

I would say it’s a very functional misunderstanding ;D

The pros, this system gives:

keeps some people calm

keeps some people obedient

keeps some people from asking the wrong questions

Monasteries: or how professionally teach people not to ask questions 

If temples like Jūshirō was taken to exist, monasteries probably do too. And what would they teach?

Not:

ultimate truth

deep enlightenment

But:

acceptance

detachment

obedience

and the art of NOT asking “why”

While they say they free you from illusion. In truth they are just making you comfortable living inside of it.

NOW SPEAKING OF ILLUSIONS: AIZEN — Put him in there :D 

As a Child. (if you hear a clapping sound it's me clapping my own back for finding this smooth transition xD)

Young, observant, already-too-smart-for-his-own-good Aizen. And like he is put there forcefully like in a sense he was brought up there.

Which means:

no family attachment

emotional distance is normal maybe even wished upon

identity is shaped through expectation, not true self (important)

intimacy = forbidden  

questioning = problem

But he doesn’t believe without explanations. So he studies it artificially.

This is where everything goes wrong. Aizen always did notices things. Always too many things. Instead believing in the divinity he sees unquestioned structure. And he noticesed if he rebels to openly it would be inefficient. 

So he replicate it. Perfectly.

Faith is remarkably easy to imitate… once you understand the pattern.

(he would maybe think something like that)

Monk Training: more like psychological conditioning 

For Aizen, being trained as a monk is not spiritual. It was imposed on him, but it turned out to be useful in the end.

Since he learns in that time:

how to control his expressions

how to appear harmless

how to say exactly what people expect to hear (very important)

how to suppress what should not be seen

One key thing some monasteries practice is mediation— for him it wa patience training. The kind you need when your plans take literal centuries.

So Aizen did not just learn how to lie well and how to be basically a trickster shout out to @kitsmits —but rather he understands why people want to believe the lies in the first place! Which is… worse, for his future victims!!!!

The Emotion during that all

Before his ambition.

Before his rebellion.

There was his boredom.

I agree with the general consensus that he doesn’t need a sad abuse backstory— boredom in his case already plants the seeds for later existential havoc.

Because it is not normal boredom, more like:

intellectual suffocation

repetition without depth

a world that never challenges him

Because even since a very young age Aizen doesn’t accept things “just because they are.” So at first, his goal is not domination in this headcanon.

It’s escape. 

So becoming a shinigami = escape (?)

 Power = maybe finally something real? (spoiler: KYOKA SUIGETSU. )

Then he becomes a shinigami.

Because power looks promising. Power feels real. Maybe THIS is where meaning is.

Except. The tragic of it all. He’s too good.

learns too fast

surpasses others immediately

And once again:

he hits the ceiling way too early. The boredom returns. Again. AND now he has a weapon that can literally shape the concepts of reality for other people, which does not help—at the end devaluing anything that seems to be real. Like in his pov does the concept of real even matter?!can he even have the same concept ?! MAYBEEEEE if he would care for other people.... But well u know :)

The Existential Crisis 

And then at some point comes the moment in him which would be:

“This is it for me now?”

the monastery was shallow

And this system is the same

the world doesn’t expand further

the “god” isn’t even what they claim

When it stops being boring and starts being insulting 

Because now it’s not just emptiness and boredom. Now it’s offensive. Since he surpassed all! 

And yet he is:

still controlled like the monastery 

still expected to obey like the monastery 

still placed under authority he never chose like the monastery 

I think he would think something like 

I have surpassed everything they taught me… and they still expect my submission?

Inside a system pretending to be divine.

So What’s Left?

From his perspective:

He cannot just live in this world accepting the lie that are placed to control people-like for example, Kisuke does! Because this world is literally EMPTY for him! He has no bonds in this world that make it bearable. Like Kisuke has Yoruichi etc. (I believe Kubo said somewhere that Aizen is that what Kisuke would have become when he had no attachments and if he had been more ambitious) 

And he cannot just destroy and cause havoc just for the sake of destroying like Tokinada does— not stimulating enough.

So there is only one option: the hogyoku. The last final step and while using it to transform something god like he will destroy the last string that is attached to him that tries to controll him. The system itself. And since he knows that this world works on the performance of duty and morals but at the end it is build on a lie. Then he thinks it is best to keep perform a lie but now a functional one that works for HIS agenda.

Final Thought (aka why I think this backtory headcanon could work)

Aizen is here THE logical outcome of a system that teaches

devotion without truth

obedience without understanding

belief without ever allowing the question why

+ being ridiculously powerful, fatally ambitious and very important a natural lack of emotinal empathy.

So his thought could have been when he set his goals:

he starts to get aggravated quickly while fighting ichigo, acting petulant and insisting he is strong, then breaks down at kisuke yelling at him & saying he hates him, that he’s a winner and calling kisuke a loser. it does kind of feel childish at times. however, as aizen's layers start to peel back, one thing for sure is that he is very, very intense and not as aloof as he pretends to be.

If you look closely, or perhaps from a slightly different angle, Aizen's character development during the Soul Society Arc in Bleach is structured the same way as a classic Noh play.

Hear me out:

We meet Captain Aizen as one of the Gotei 13 many captain. He doesn't stand out much visually, no bells in his hair, no face-paint and ridiculous headwear, no fancy pink kimono. Just glasses. A mask of an average, educated, trustworthy man.

This man dies, mid-arc, and disappears out of manga panels, presumably to be seen never again.

But surprise, he is found in the depths of Central 46 privet living space, isolated from the outside world. He is revealing himself to Hinamori, and to the audience, not only to be alive but to be the villain of the series. His gentle mask is gone, and a devious smile is plastered to his face.

When Renji says: You don't act like Captain Aizen I knew, he answers: Captain Aizen you thought you knew never existed in the first place - confirming that his gentle identity was fake, a mask he wore all these years for the Gotei as his audience.

Then in the beam of yellow Negatione, Aizen and the two followers of his get carried up by the Menos Grande to the sky - apotheosis.

End of the play.

So what is considered one of the biggest plot twist in the history of anime (Aizen's villain reveal) when read through the lens of a Noh play structure becomes expected outcome. But to see this, let me tell you more about Noh.

Noh (能, Nō) is a traditional theater form born in Japan (Muromachi Era, 1333-1573).

There are 2 actors in Noh: main actor, main protagonist (shite) + supporting actor (waki). The shite plays a double role: appearing first as a common human, and then as a ghost, demon, or god (kami) - the first role is known as the mae-shite and the later as the nochi-shite.

Only shite wears a mask.

The play has 2 parts, in first act waki meets shite but doesn't know their 'true' identity yet. Then shite returns off-stage through the bridge (hashigakari). And at the start of the second act the reveal takes place. The shite returns wearing a new mask, crossing the bridge again, which is a symbolic connection between the world of spirits and the world of the living (liminal space). And the new mask is a mask representing a true identity of the character: oh, this old lady was a kitsune demon - the waki finds out.

So as you can see, there is no real twist - the change of the identity is expected from the start by the audience that knows that structure, it is only the play character who is surprised, or who learns the secret.

And symbolically the very similar thing happens with Aizen. He is pretending, wearing a mask of the every-man, just to reveal himself to be something more than an average shinigami. He goes into hiding into his liminal space, the world of the spirits, and returns as a mastermind who has planned that all. Wearing a new mask - a mask of a god, who wants to stand above the heavens.

I can imagine those feeling like trigeminal neuralgia, it affects one side of the face. Yes smoking can induce migraines, headaches

Wesker suffering from dry eye syndrome

All side effects of the viruses... And as a person who wears glasses and has experienced both, yeah I'm buying this!!!

Also

Like Grace would be like, "I can fix him, don't worry Leon" and Zeno would be doing a fit check in front of the mirror every day before slaying.

(I need this guy on one of those fashion shows)

Or,

Grace: Where's my little baby?

Emily: Here!

Grace: Where's my big baby?

Zeno: *deep voice* here

Al Wesker and Will Birkin headcanons

(from their Umbrella era)

♱ William never takes his lab coat off. He could be covered with blood from head to toes (of god knows what), but he simply couldn't care less. William's lack of basic hygiene irritates Wesker, so he once decided to throw away Will's coat, just to see his lab partner digging through the trash to get it back.

♱ Birkin might be clumsy in the everyday life, but he works with extreme precision when he dissects. When Al and Will were teenagers, Al used to be really envious of his lab partner who stole the show once by isolating perfectly the visceral pericardium from the epicardium of a pea-sized squirrel.

♱ Albert used to wear ties to work, until he dipped it (by accident) in a container with suspiciously looking gloop in the formalin. Having to end his shift in lab, he stayed stinky the whole day. Surprisingly Birkin didn't mind.

♱ When Wesker was 18 and Birkin 16, they stole a beautiful moth from the lab. Little did they know it was an extremely important specimen for the Umbrella's research- When they've heard of how furious Spencer was, they flushed it down the toilet to get rid of the evidence...

♱ Young Wesker used to draw a lot, mostly the futuristic nonsense. When Spencer found out, he ordered him to get rid of the sketchbook, since drawing is the hobby in which the emotions and spirituality play a major role. When Wesker lit a match to burn the sketchbook, he noticed that one page was missing. It was Birkin who took it.