Your Bleach obsessed おばはん

January 30, 2026

I turned 26 today.

This is the piece I painted for myself, my own reinterpretation of a portrait I first saw by chance, months ago, in the National Museum in Belgrade. I remember stopping in front of it and standing there, frozen, for what felt like twenty minutes.

There was something in his posture. The way he held the cigarette. The sky behind him, the soft and distant city, his expression, the muted color palette.

I didn’t know it yet, but that was the moment my style shifted towards what I wanted to paint. And I knew I would paint this. It wasn't a question of "if", but "when", like the painting was waiting for me.

The man in the painting is Prince Božidar Karađorđević. Born into a royal family already in exile, his dynasty had lost the Serbian throne before he was even born.

There was no court waiting for him. No crown.

So he made himself into something else.

He became an artist, a traveler, a poet. He lived with taste and curiosity. A prince born of rebellion and fueled by a quiet defiance of the world that stole his birthright.

The artist was Marie Bashkirtseff. An extremely talented Russian painter, just 25 years old when she made this. She died of tuberculosis the following year, before she turned 26.

There’s no mention that they were ever lovers, but there’s no world in which this portrait wasn’t painted with deep devotion. You can feel it in the folds of the coat, the angle of the wrist, the softness in the eyes, the cigarette between his fingers.

It’s not about the subject, it’s about the artist. Her emotion is stitched into the fabric of that image like a memory only she could see.

I started this piece at 25, like Marie. I’m 26 now, which she never got to be.

And in my version, I painted someone else, not to replace the prince, but to continue the thread.

A muse of my own.

Someone who’s been with me through every chapter of my art.

Someone who’s more than a character, he’s been a mirror, a rhythm, a constant, a feeling.

Someone who brings me back to myself every time I forget why I paint.

Kenpachi is there to protect her, to defend her no matter what, to bring her anywhere she wants, to bend to all her wishes.

Ikkaku is, after Kenpachi, the one who interact the more with her as what she is: a little girl (more than a vice-captain). He's also the one who learn her how to control her reiatsu. And he's also the one, with Yumichika, who learn her how to read, to write and to count playing games with her (it was the only way for her to learn something).

Yumichika is the more deferent with her, calling her "Kusajishi-sama" all the time (when Ikkaku often calls her Yachiru (Kenpachi doesn't care by the way)). He's the one who's there to comb her hair, to read her stuff (not necessarily fairy tales) and to chat for hours with her.

They won't say it explicitely but they love her (and they are wrapped around her fingers).