into a forest that wasn't there
About the website.
Ever since I first began reading Bleach years ago in middle school, I wanted to create a fansite to something or someone from the series. With so many characters in Bleach, I had to get attached to at least one person, right? At first I was going to make a site for Kuchiki Rukia; then one for Inoue Orihime. But even more characters appeared after the Soul Society arc, and I just—I had no clue anymore. Because I couldn’t decide on one person, I just ended up not creating anything.
Once I registered my first domain, I found myself returning to the idea of creating something for Bleach. Although my interest in it has dropped severely because of questionable writing and OMG-WHEN-IS-THE-FINAL-ARC-GOING-TO-END syndrome, Bleach is very much an important series to me. It was The Icebreaker back in the day, and I’ve established and cultivated wonderful friendships because of it. Thus, I wanted to commemorate that experience by building something.
While I do like many of the series’ characters, there’s only one or two that make me excited when they appear. One of them is Gin. From the moment he was introduced, his unpredictable and complex personality drew me in. Since then, whenever he appears, I find myself always waiting for something to happen. With Gin, you never know what he is fully capable of, and the way he just injects suspense into the story with his mere presence is something that not many characters—in and out of Bleach—can do.
Although he appears sporadically throughout the series, Gin is given a surprising amount of depth. There are times when he can be sarcastic and cruel, but there are other times when he shows himself to be vulnerable and humane as well. And maybe—just maybe I’m a sucker for tragic unsung heroes who keep their distance and who do the things they do in the name of love, or what amounts to it.
All of these thoughts and ideas were awoken by an impromptu visit to Anime Fanlistings. When I discovered that a ton of Bleach characters were lacking a fanlisting, I told myself to choose one person. And that person was Gin. I received the approval notice on April 22, 2016, but I began construction on the site earlier than that. Even before I got the approval message, I was sure: I was going to make this site no matter what.
Title
For the longest time, I struggled to find an adequate name for the site. One day, I happened to be rereading Richard Siken’s poetry collection, War of the Foxes, and stumbled across “The Worm King’s Lullaby.” The different images and elements used throughout the poem—”the black coat,” “snow,” “ghosts” and farewells—reminded me of Gin so much that I knew I had to use it for the site somehow. Much of the site’s structure was inspired by the poem, along with Kubo Tite’s poem in Volume 47.A few snippets of the poem are used throughout the site, but it can be read here in its entirety. If you enjoy it, please consider purchasing Siken’s War of the Foxes (available on Amazon) or Crush, the first of his collections (also available on Amazon). You can also find out more about him and his work at his official website, richardsiken.com. Siken is one of my favorite poets and has produced fantastic work; you won't be disappointed!
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