your unohana is the funniest unohana ive ever had the pleasure of reading, watching her describe how she wants to see renji disembowl byakuya in detail immediately before giving him sword advice including the term loosy goosy made me laugh the hardest i have all day<3

Thank you, Anon, ::sobbing:: I just love her so much.

One of the headcanons I have about Unohana is that she does care deeply about all her subordinates, about their wellbeing and personal growth. Many of the most anxiety-laden characters in Bleach-- Isane, Izuru, Hanatarou, all end up under her care, and I think she honesty does do her best to try to support their confidence and try to help them grow into their best selves.

But then, she's got this other level, where she just. Loves to fuck a dude up.

And then, in this godforsaken AU, I have given her Renji. Renji, in the absolutely pits of despair. He's just been kicked out of Squad 5, his self-image, which is dismal at the best of times, is in shambles. He's lonely. He's depressed. The only thing that's keeping him hanging on is his stubborn refusal to ever skip leg day because he's so convinced that everything will be fine if he can just fuck Kuchiki Byakuya up.

Unohana has never had one of these before. He's such a project, but he's also incredibly straightforward. All she has to do is convince him that to really be good at swords, you have to face your traumas head-on, now. This man already gets up at 6am everyday to do crunches and drink protein shakes, he'll do a therapy if he thinks it'll help. He'll do three therapies.

This wouldn't work at all if Renji actually were a junior bloodthirty murder machine, because it would be too easy for Unohana to fall back into the old ways that's she's renounced. But Renji's just a hardworking, earnest guy who wants to get strong, and he makes very funny faces when she makes jokes about putting people's insides on the outside and then just deals with it, unlike, say, Hanatarou, who would be actively horrified. I mean, there is literally a scene in the anime where Ikkaku tells Renji-at-this-same-point-in-history he's gonna kill him some day and Renji's like "sure, sir. cool. can i go to lunch, now?"

On one hand, I think it's obvious how much Renji would benefit from having a Murder Mom, but I think that Unohana would also love being a Murder Mom. I love this journey for both of them.