#if nobody has gotten that yet i genuinely love Aizen

[sisterofoblivion]

So. Many. Conflicting. Feelings.

Gah I love Aizen, too, the evil shithead. Someone in a fic described his eyes as tea water and I'm not getting that out of my head anytime soon-- I realize I have not taken my second dose of meds. Ah. Rambling.

What I ACTUALLY came here to say was like YEAH Aizen nearly took over the entire everything with the Danger Marble ™️ but I'm telling you if someone had fed him an American McDouble, he woulda been heckin' screwed.

[linkspooky]

Am I allowed to ask you who your top five characters are in Bleach?

Bleach is one of my favorite mangas of all time. If you were to track the evolution of my favorite manga growing up it would go Yu Yu Hakusho -> Bleach. The strength of the manga was always its characters, and while there are a lot of characters from Bleach I’m still fond of there are only two that come to mind as standout faves. 

These are lists of my faves and I only put characters on the list if I can come up with a good enough reason why they’re a fave. For me there’s a difference between “Characterse I like from a Series” and a “Fave”. A fave I would like even outside of that series. I have high standards. I’m a picky bitch that’s impossible to please. But anyway, here are my top two faves from Bleach. 

1. Ulquiorra Cifer  - "If this eye cannot see a thing, then it does not exist. That is the assumption under which I have always fought. What is this "heart?" If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there?"

The Lust is my favorite arc in all of Bleach. There are a lot of people that were disatisfied with the way it concluded, but thematically it was perfect to me, especially after the fight with Grimmjow which was a much more straightforward and satisfying way to end a shonen rivalry set up between the main character and the villain on the opposite side. 

The Lust is a meditation of nihilism, Ulquiorra’s entire character revolves around the concept. That’s why by the end of the Lust not a single character has gotten what they wanted. Every single character, Ulquirra, Ichigo, Uryu, and Orihime all fail. Ichigo fails to defeat Ulquiorra with his own strength and instead oges out of control and rampages like a monster. Orihime fails at not being a burden when she breaks down and desperately begs Ichigo for help causing him to awaken. Uryu fails to protect Orirhime when everything starts to go wrong. 

Ulquiorra was a hollow whose mask covered his entire face, and because of that all of his senses were cut off from him except for his sight. He wandered the void of hueco mundo alone unable to feel anything. He’s the exact opposite of Grimmjow someone who managed to make companions even as a heartless hollow. He had no one for company, he felt nothing, he saw nothing. Until Ulquiorra came to believe that nothing was all he would ever feel. He’s a heartless monster, and yet at the same time he’s very tragically driven to suicide by the pure isolation alone.

Ulquiorra’s very nihilistic but you get the sense he’s conflicted with that. There’s a part of him that wants to see value in life, which is why Orihime’s behavior always confuses him so greatly. All of her actions seem pointless, and rather than valuing strength like he and the rest of the arrancar do, she somehow manages to continue on while weak because she has the connections to her companions. 

It’s what Ulquiorra realizes he’s tragically lacking in the end. The invisible heart he wanted to see was just, the connection held in other people’s hands. However the moment he finally accepted it and tried to reach out for it in the one girl who refused to hate him, his hand had already faded away. It begs the question of whether Ulquiorra was capable of love, or if all he felt all along was an empty lust. However given how regretful he was at the very end I want to believe it was the former. 

2. Gin Ichimaru “If tomorrow you became a snake, and began to devour people. Then with that same mouth, you cried out to me that you loved me. Would I still be able to tell you “I Love You” the same way that I can today?” 

Gin is a character who its really impossible to categorize as good or bad even up until the end, he’s elusive like that, slippery like a snake. Usually characters like Gin whose main personality trait is ‘mysterious” turn out to be not that interesting once the truth is revealed, but Gin’s arc turned what was a good character into a great one especially the way it ended. 

There’s a lot of characters willing to burn the world for the sake of the people they loved. I think what makes Gin especially unique is Gin’s level of self awareness. When he went to Aizen’s side to take back what he had been stolen from Rangiku he knew he wasn’t doing a good thing. He knew what he was doing would only hurt Rangiku more in the end. Gin acknowledges that at this point it’s not even about Rangiku anymore, it’s his own feelings that won’t forgive Aizen. 

Gin is aware that he’s a bad person, he even revels in it. He goes out of his way to pick at people’s weaknesses, to be cruel, because the mask of a bad person he’s wearing always has to stay on. By that point Gin’s already stripped himself all the way down to utility. The boy who was friends with Rangiku has been swallowed by a snake. And Gin knows how horrifying it must be for Rangiku, to see a snake killing people in front of her, and then with the same voice claiming he’s doing it for her, that he still loves her. He knows and that’s why he distances himself even further from Rangiku and hurts her more. 

Gin’s love is selfish, but it’s also very real. It’s possible that it’s the only real thing about him that’s even left anymore. The more he tries to deny it, the realer it becomes. I find stories where both characters do genuinely love each other, but they’ll never be able to make that love work because neither of them really know how to love to be compelling in a unique way. Most authors will just make ships work in the end without caring much about whether or not the characters are truly compatible, hence why the endgame ships in shonen are usually lack luster. Gin will really only ever really love Rangiku, and Rangiku only ever opens herself up and acts seriously around Gin and both are irreplacable to one another but they’ll also never truly be together. Because at the core they’re the same, they both are always wearing masks to avoid pain and being so genuine around one another hurts them too much. 

Like with the Lust Arc, my favorite arcs in Bleach are the ones that end with nobody getting what they wanted. Gin wanted to be the one personally to stop Aizen no matter whose throat he had to slit to be near him, Rangiku wanted Gin to come home, in the end no one was happy and all they could do was say goodbye to one another. However, even in empty endings like that I feel like the few moments they were happy shined all the stronger. There was once a time when Gin was just an orphan taking care of his only friend in the world, and even if it all went wrong at the end, he was happy once, and those memories matter.