#bleach poems

[troius]

This is the first poem that (for me) really hit the sweet spot of beauty and sadness. It's Byakuya's, and it neatly encapsulates the complex tragedy of a man who we've only just met. You and I know that the sentiments expressed here are wrong, that you should be in touch with your emotions and love people...and yet, we're also all familiar with the pain that can bring, the times that we've wished we never loved at all. This poem says all that, and it says it in a voice that sounds eerily like Byakuya's own. Gorgeous.

[elyonholic]

“ The heavens resound with deceit. The captive heart dances to the melody. ”

ー Bleach: TYBW Poems #17

[mdeathinside]

About Rose's new poem...

I found that it was translated to:

“The heavens resound with deceit. The captive heart dances(?) to the melody. ”

But the verb here is not dance, but “to run” (はしる, hashiru). Honestly, I couldn’t quite make sense of it with that word, but it also seemed weird to me that VIZ, apparently, couldn’t make sense of it either and decided to change it altogether. But if Kubo wanted it to be “dance” he would have written just that, so why change it?

But then I found this:

So apparently, in music it has a specific meaning; “to rush during a performance”, which actually makes a lot of sense considering how Rose’s fight with Mask goes. My guess is that it was meant to mean something like “The melody rushes to the captive heart”: Rose, thinking he has completely captured his opponent’s heart, rushes himself to victory, which leads to his own defeat. The irony feels more like Kubo’s dark humor writing, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love how the translation sounds, but it seems like a very odd change to do when the intention seems pretty clear once you put it in the context of the story.

[dopepoisonivyoncrack]

Doesn't all that venom make you feel dizzy?

[auslanderka]

[jellyribbons]

僕はついてゆけるだろうか 君のいない世界のスピードに

I wonder, can I keep up with it? The speed of the world without you in it?

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach 083]

Aizen's original line here is: 僕をあまり甘く見ないことだ. Taking the literal imagery into account, a translation might be something like, Don't look upon me too sweetly. While the meaning is technically preserved in that sentence, it's not particularly idiomatic English, especially in conversational dialogue. The phrase 甘く見ない (amaku minai) is usually translated as an entreaty to not underestimate or take something lightly, as in the Viz translation: "You'd be wise not to underestimate me."

But if we know this is not really conversational dialogue--we know it's Aizen and Ichimaru sowing the seeds for the Big Fake, and also, it's a comic--I feel like there's also an opportunity here to go big and get histrionic with this line. In my translation, I really wanted to preserve some of that "sweetness" imagery in the line by drawing on Aizen's "flower on the precipice" motif from the very start. To set the stage, I went with "perceive me as a threat" as a nod to Aizen's perception-warping powers, and added the flowers as a metonym for sweetness: "Perhaps you don't perceive me as a threat, but even flowers have thorns." 🌸

I wouldn't say the resulting line is beautiful. "Even flowers have thorns" feels pretty gauche/trite, because it's such a common analogy; there's no real bite to it because it's just not that fresh a line. (And this is a me problem, but I also can't read it without thinking about that Star Trek episode where Capt. Kirk is admiring roses with a hot alien lady and, when she pricks her finger and says "this one has thorns!" he's just like don't they all LMAOOO.) But I kind of feel like its triteness is the point.

It should be an overdetermined line, because Aizen and Ichimaru are here to lay the performance on THICK; because squiggly-dialogue Aizen would totally use an unassumingly bland metaphor; because Aizen's going to end up impaled on a wall before he gets to uncover Ichimaru's plot, and his threat here is going to appear empty.

The imagery is overdetermined here, because that overdetermination will stand in contrast to the illusiveness of Kyouka Suigetsu, to the "true" poetry, the flower on the precipice poetry, that Aizen means to unfold.

[majycka]

the “when they say i love you, but they say…” meme and it’s all from bleach

[gracebriarwoodwrites]

I am reviving the child I killed in church. I choked the holy rebellion out of that child in centuries-old pews and the cramped chairs of my old school's cafeteria when the first church wouldn't do. I worshipped false gods, Behavior and Belonging. I pretended at godly womanhood at 13 because I could not be that angry, bloody-knuckled, righteous child anymore. It hurt too much.

I failed my new gods miserably, but that didn't stop me for years. I was not palatable. I could not be delicious to those who would devour me whole, so I kept devouring myself and tried again. I was Prometheus and his eagles together in one flesh. I denied myself my fire with religious zeal. I would save the ending world and the world would let me--if I could only learn what sweater to buy and how to straighten my hair.

God, I never should have rejected my rage. Restore my heart.

[troius]

There's levels to this one.

Stylistically, it's very in the mode of Aizen's assumed persona, the man we meet in this volume. You can imagine him saying it to somebody like Momo, conveying what appears to be deep wisdom in such beautiful language, relating himself to everyone else through the natural human tendency towards self-preservation.

But of course that's not what Aizen actually thinks. In truth, it's a work of breathtaking arrogance, though no less beautifully worded for that. When Aizen says "we", he really means "you all", because he is the fearless flower. He will step out into the sky, and atop the heavens, and all you can do is marvel at his majesty, bound as you are by silly emotions he discarded long ago.

[elyonholic]

"One step forward, Never able to go back To a universe drenched, in a sea of blood."

ー Bleach: TYBW Poems #01

[mdeathinside]

“Love you to death”

I've been thinking about Giselle's poem all week because it truly seems like one of the simplest poems in the series, but at the same time it is very smart and perfectly fits her?

Starting with the fact that the word used for love here means "liking someone (romantically)" or "being in love with"; but it's also a word for "lustful", a play on Gigi's weird attitude towards Bambietta (sometimes hugging her & telling her that she loves her and other times just enjoying her zombie state too much).

And the second verse, "To death" is the same as in English, meaning "so much/like crazy", and not meant to be taken literally. But of course, the joke here is that Gigi surely means it quite literally...

So, simple and short as it is, it perfectly captures her character and personality, hiding a dark side behind her cute way of speaking. A very fitting poem for her indeed.

[rukia-writes]

You, without sin, are like the sun.

You, even with sin, are like the sun.

[forgiveitallasitcomesbacktome]

"I must change my life so that I can live it, not wait for it."

If it's meant to be then it will be, so I met him there and told him, "I believe", singing "if it's meant to be then it will be", I forgive it all as it comes back to me.

my thoughts for the new year, 2024.

Susan Sontag, "Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963" // Joan of Arc, John Everett Millais // Ethel Cain, "Sun Bleached Flies" // @davidshrigleydrawing, found on Twitter // Taylor Swift, "You're on Your Own Kid" // Unknown creator, photo from Pinterest

[mugenmcfugen]

Neither form nor soul shall escape my blade… Nothing…except you

[v333spertine]

you love me, but not enough to save me

and i hate you, but not enough to leave you