LOVED your response to the ichihime ask about ichigo's feelings, and i guess i wanted to add to it by asking how you would envision ichigo's crush on her, what kind of thoughts he would think, because he's very hard to read in the romance department lol
i got another ask similar to this one about ichigo's feelings, but my inbox seems to have eaten it up because i don't see it here anymore (even though the number of unread asks it says i have still hasn't changed...), so i guess i'll answer them both here
i mean, we know their first meeting had a big impact on ichigo, even if orihime herself doesn't remember the encounter, and we also know based on what he says to rukia that he'd kind of been keeping an eye on her ever since their paths crossed in high school, so i'd say it began as a kindred soul thing: she lost someone close to her, he lost someone close to him, he knows what it's like, so he can't help but keep an eye out for her, worry about her, etc. he notes that she gets hurt every day, so i'm guessing it was a kind of situation where he'd be minding his own business or going his own way and then out of the corner of his eye, he hears/catches sight of her getting into something clumsy as usual. a dropped book here, a loud crash there.
i'd say his feelings at this time are pretty similar to orihime's feelings in the 'one way sympathies' chapter. he begins to understand her or feel closer to her because of this loss, but they're not necessarily close friends so he can't explain why he feels close to her. he mostly just ignores it all as background noise unless she's directly in front of him. we also know that she told him about her brother and her hairpins some time pre-canon, so maybe she brought it up in casual conversation once ("i never go anywhere without them" etc etc) and ichigo remembered it because he remembers seeing her and sora at the clinic and he knows how much sora meant to her. it's not unreasonable to guess that, having sisters of his own, he could kind of put himself in that situation and feel vehement about that happening to his own sisters. who would take care of them if he died? little sisters need big brothers, and having lost hers, ichigo probably couldn't help but really feel for her.
i think it's important to remember that ichigo ends up caring about people deeply very easily. after orihime encourages him to save rukia, and after she accompanies him with his other friends to help him fight a battle that has nothing to do with her, i think it's safe to say he's touched and he considers her a friend–and a cherished one at that, since she ends the arc by telling him she's sorry she couldn't protect him. ichigo doesn't get to hear people say things like that to him often, because he's....usually the one saying them. so his face in that moment speaks of fondness, tenderness, maybe even a little gratitude as orihime cries about his well-being.
ichihime really gets its push in the HM arc, though, i mean it's no surprise that the amount of ichihime fanfics probably tripled in number after the arc began. and for good reason! it's kind of incredible how many times orihime gets singled out this arc even before she gets kidnapped, like the time ichigo promised to protect her, even though chad and tatsuki were also there and also injured. it's clear that he feels like he's got something to prove in front of her, and i think, at the time, he justifies it to himself as needing to make it up to her because he let his own insecurities about his hollow get in the way of protecting her from yammy. and i don't think he's even lying to himself about it. ichigo was very, very occupied with his own trauma and the plot constantly happening all the time so i think he was satisfied with surface-level reasons of, "she's a pacifist, she has trauma with her brother and THAT'S why i've got to personally make it up to her."
but i do think, deep down, he has this tendency to only ever want to look good and strong and kind in orihime's eyes, because he likes the way she looks at him when she lets some of that love and admiration shine through. he's seen it before and i think he's a little addicted to it, because when he later remembers moments where he was proud to be a shinigami, orihime shows up there twice, both times crying about how much she cares about him lol. he clearly loves it whenever she expresses her feelings for him, though i don't think he's examining it as anything deeper than the simple joy of making his friends happy.
the repeated hand motif is another thing that i think is an important indicator of how ichigo feels at the time. here's a post i made about it a while ago that never came out of the drafts:
all this to say, i think ichigo has a feeling all throughout the HM arc that orihime left her heart with him when she said goodbye. he doesn't know how to justify this feeling, just that it exists and it's strong and he needs to prove to her that he won't be letting her down. the anime surprisingly rounds this out nicely by having ichigo hold her hand after the grimmjow fight, but so much of ichigo's behavior this arc feels like the narrative's response to orihime's insecurities about their bond in chapter 199. ichigo does some pretty balls-to-the-walls crazy things this arc for orihime, so it's kind of like he's responding to her confession with magnanimous action of his own (though he doesn't know that's what he's doing; it's subconscious behavior, coming from the part of him that heard her even when he himself was asleep—his heart. this repeats for a second time when he dies at the tower but his heart hears her again. not the physical, beating thing of course, but the metaphysical thing that transcends physical form). what does orihime mean to him at this point in the story? he would say she's his friend, of course, but to us it's clear that their bond continually reminds him of what he's fighting for. he sealed his promise to her with the kanji that makes up his name. his life's purpose lies in protecting people, and as long as there's someone to protect, someone he promised to protect, he'll never die.
fullbring arc shakes things up by a) having them get closer as friends who share mundane interests, like reading the same manga or sharing mutual friends (esp tatsuki, who he seems to have made up with) or just chilling and hanging out in his room and b) having him actually acknowledge that orihime wants to protect him, too, and is now actually capable of doing that. before, ichigo could easily brush her under the wing of his protection, but it's here that he's got to contend with the fact that he might have an equal soon—a potential battle partner, which is something he's never had before going into horn of salvation.
which brings us to the 10-year-timeskip. i've said it before, but once the surface-level reason of wanting to protect her, just like he wants to protect everyone, is swept away, i do think he's got time and space to consider the fact that he might actually have a crush on her. AKA, this, to me, is the first time he realizes it for what it is and says it out loud to himself. he's always been able to distract himself or justify his feelings to himself using plot events before, but they're in a period of peace now and that's when i think he realizes that he wants to be with her. i don't think he could have ever had that realization if he was still paranoid about her safety, because duty comes first to him, but now that he's not, i think he realizes that he just likes spending time with her and spending hours in his room, with or without their friends, just talking and relaxing. they grew up together and she's seen every side of him—pre-powers, shinigami, hollow, quincy, powerless, what have you—so i think it moves him, knowing that she's been by his side through it all, seeing him up close in all his forms and versions, and maybe he's ready now for her to see what he's like as a lover too. if she'd love that version of him, just like she did with everything else! he's sensitive and protective of his own feelings, so he'd only make that move once he had a guarantee that it would be accepted. that he would be accepted. and orihime has obviously always tried to accept him for who he is, even when he was at his worst, so he feels safe in giving this side to her too!
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So I originally wrote this back in August when this release was fresh and then!!! APPARENTLY!!! just COMPLETELY forgot to post it!! so you get it now, three months late.
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Some of the dialogue from the Guardian Tower has been living rent free in my head and now I want to yell about it because it’s SO GOOD for background lore
Okay, so, on the first floor, Mindi tells us this:
I really like this because it helps illustrate one of the logistical problems of the Rose. Like, even if you took away everything else that makes them bad (which, admittedly, is most of the organisation and its purpose), the fact that they tend to, by default, present themselves as the only option and drive out competition is bad. On paper, a force of people trained in combat against magical threats, with reasonably easy access to that training, which has garrisons stationed across the land, is actually a pretty good solution to the whole Recurring Evil Magical Threats thing. We know this because the guardians and the paladins and the dragonslayers exist! They do this! The Rose seems to make membership easier to access but, frankly, I suspect that is in part because their training is less thorough.
And when the Rose show up and drive those other groups out (like they’ve done with the Guardians), they don’t actually improve anything. Best case scenario, everything is exactly the way it was before. More likely, things would get worse, because the people with active experience defending a particular area have been driven away and now the Rose members have to play catch-up
(A good example of how on paper a group like the Rose could help an area is Book 3 Amityvale. The local Guardians were long gone, so the Rose were able to help without doing that extra damage and made Amityvale a safer place to live....... but that’s specifically for the human inhabitants. Plus, we know they’re affecting the magic of the area - Amaris’s moon has started having phases - and that’s! probably not good! Also see: Raven having to flee for her own safety after getting bitten by a werewolf. Even where they are ostensibly doing the most good, the Rose are still an active danger to many, even their own in the wrong circumstances)
And, meanwhile, on the ground floor...
......further proof that the Rose actively try to drive competition out of the area. Falconreach has repeatedly made it clear that they want nothing to do with the Rose and they keep picking fights with the patrols.
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