#szayel compedium
The Szayel Compendium (Part 2 - Speech)
VOICECLAIM: [For those without faceclaims - do you have a voiceclaim for your character?]
I’m not really a fan of the English dub. While I get that it’s an accessibility thing—to me it’s not ‘canon’ in most cases, given that due to the history of the way that anime is changed to suit a western audience, they often don’t do a good job at finding a true equivalent. This is beginning to change as anime becomes more mainstream, but the Bleach dub I find gets it right about 50% of the time, since its one of the first mainstream, less altered anime to be dubbed.
Ad actually…with Szayel they do get it very close. The VA understands very much that he’s supposed to impersonating a manwhore…and it’s greatly appreciated. Sooo, truly, I feel as if Kousuke Toriumi is the de facto voice. But Benjamin Diskin did pretty well. Thanks to Szayel’s release scene, I know how both sound when they orgasm. Nice. Double nice.
Here’s the comparison of 3 different language versions of the voices of Szayel, Uryuu, and Renji.
ACCENT: [Do they have an accent?]
He doesn’t have an accent per se, or rather he has a standard accent, but he speaks in a manner that tends to highlight that he’s a young and beautiful man, with hints of submissive tendencies. Like…if you want to know who his speech is most like among the shinigami…consider a character like Yumichika. Same deal.
VERBAL TICS: [Any verbal ticks? Such as a tendency to stutter, repeat themselves, stumble over their words, etc.]
Uhhh…Szayel likes to hear himself speak. So, he sometimes will repeat himself if he’s enamored with the way he’s phrased something or likes the topic of. He’s very theatrical in general, but it’s more in feel rather than verbal tics so much.
LANGUAGE: [What language(s) do they speak? If more than one, are they fluent in all these languages?]
Well, fluently, he speaks the Common Hollow Tongue (Spanish), English, Japanese, German, French, and (reads) Latin. He finds languages very interesting, so he does have little bits of other languages that he’s picked up as well…but it’s not fluency. Just fun.
ARTICULATION: [Do they tend to be good at explaining things, or can they be clumsy with words when trying to explain something?]
Szayel tries very hard to explain things in a manner that people can easily understand. But he can’t stand being asked to repeat himself, as he is more likely to feel that they weren’t listening. Sometimes he doesn’t notice when someone isn’t following his train of thought, so this can be a problem, if they ask questions that he doesn’t deem intelligent. He can be a bit longwinded and grandiose. But he doesn’t really trip over words or lack the ability to express his thoughts verbally. Whether or not he’s fully processed what he says in his brain is another story…soooo that’s that.
EDUCATION: [Do they tend to use a lot of long words? Do they ever show off about how many big words they use? Or do they prefer to use short, simple language?]
Szayel is a highly educated man and has no qualms in showing it off. Big words, rare words, jargon, poetry, alliteration…Szayel just enjoys being grandiose, and even when he’s not trying to. It’s his default state. He doesn’t care if his conversation partners are short and simple speakers though. Szayel just kind of accepts that many hollows that are more fighting oriented often are of fewer and simpler words. And that’s fine by him—they are what they were meant to be.
LAUGHTER: [What is their laugh like? Do they laugh a lot, or not very often?]
Oh man. Szayel’s laugh can get downright maniacal. But he is a mad scientist after all. Though he does have a soft chuckle for when he’s in lighthearted situations. But Szayel tries his hardest to seek joy. He laughs a lot and wants very much to enjoy being alive. But sometimes, his life doesn’t exactly line up with what he’d want, and his sense of humor is bleaker.
GRUMP: [Do they ever grumble, sneer, or grunt about things?]
Yes, of course, given that he’s a drama queen sometimes. Well…a lot of the time. But I suppose what he does the most when he’s dissatisfied with something, is to whine and throw tantrums. Real mature. Haha. If he’s unhappy—he will let you know whether you want to know or not.
BREATHING: [Do they tend to gasp, sigh, humph or sniff at things?]
Szayel is nothing if not dramatic. He’ll exhale with disdain. He’ll gasp in surprise. He’ll sniff at things he considers not worth his time. He’ll huff when he’s angry. He’ll sigh with relief. In general, he’s not difficult to read at his emotional extremes.
The Szayel Compendium (Part 1 - Physical Appearance)
FULL NAME
Szayelaporro Granz
PREFERRED NAME/NICKNAME
Szayel as a nickname at most times. The Octava works too in formal situations.
APPEARANCE.
Because he’s the pink gremlin who lives in my head, I constantly forget how attractive he is.
He looks so sweet and helpful (They always use this pose for him in BBS)
FACECLAIM: [Do you have a faceclaim for your character?]
We already know what he looks like. Szayel is obsessed with what he looks like. Gods I have the most vain muses ever.
SEX: [Is their anatomy male, female, or other? Was this always the case?]
(Before anyone gets upset—gender identity is talked about in a different post. This day is just talking about his physical body rather than his identities.)
He’s phenotypically ‘male’ for the most part in his unreleased form, but as a hollow soul that is by its very nature compound, he’s a mix of male and female hollows, with a great deal more female hollows within him than male. In his released forms it gets complicated, however, and there are universes and situations where he has auxiliary organs that function as male and female reproductive organs, and some where he literally has both sets of reproductive organs and not just the ability to do certain things in spirit. I’ll describe certain parts of this later in this post, that are based on canonical and supplementary materials.
His plus/human self is AMAB, without any ambiguity that would suggest being intersex, and no coercive or voluntary surgeries were ever done in his human life. Szayel’s hollow forms likewise are difficult to explain that way, but the arrancar have never been placed on a binary interpretation for phenotypes of apparent sex. He’s just Szayel, and it’s not really relevant as he’s not human. The one thing we do know is that he does have a penis, lol, regardless of anything else he might have but Kubo hasn’t told us. :)
HEIGHT: [how tall/short are they?]
Szayel is 6’1’’
WEIGHT: [how heavy/light are they?]
He’s roughly 147 lbs…though it will fluctuate to as low as 140 when he’s researching and not paying attention to whether he’s hungry or not.
BUILD: [Thin? Fat? Bulky? Muscular? Toned? etc]
He’s very thin and light-boned, but he’s not devoid of muscle. Instead, he has a lean look to him, more like a male catwalk model. He tends to look a bit fragile, though this is not exactly true. He’s just like any other arrancar in that department, having superhuman strength, agility, and energy.
HAIR: [describe their hair, is it long or short? Soft or course? Do they style it a certain way? Do they dye it?]
His hair is longish for a man, brushing his shoulders, but it’s pink and very soft. Mostly he just styles it in the parts he puts in and uses a very light hold mousse to keep it in place. As a human though, I HC that his hair was red.
SKIN: [What colour is their skin? Is it rough or smooth? Is it soft or hard?]
His skin is relatively pale, with a bit of a cooler neutral cast. In release, he has his estigma which go over his eye, and color his lips. But, he *does*also have some extra colors below the belt in release too.
But one of the more interesting HC’s I have about his skin deals with his hierro. Szayel’s hierro works as a non-Newtonian fluid. If you strike it with a hard force, it hardens in return. But if you touch him gently, it’s very soft and pliable. Hence the very long, slow, soft way that Mayuri impaled him…was essentially the only way to do it. He’s a fighter who dies with a lover’s touch, which suits him well.
EYES: [What colour are their eyes? Do they have a distinctive sparkle or do they look kind of dull and tired? Long or short eyelashes? Eye bags? Wrinkles? Hooded lids?]
He has golden, somewhat amber eyes, much like you see in wildtype hollows. It seems to be rare for those evolved into Arrancar, so I’ve always HC’d that because he wasn’t formed with the hougyoku, his feralness ended up dictating his final color, rather than fully reverting back to how he looked as a plus. His eyes are deeply expressive, and its easy to see how he feels. They sparkle with joy, flash with anger, and dull with regret. He wears mascara to darken his already somewhat long lashes, and wears just a barest bit of makeup to enhance rather than cover, though there are times that he enjoys putting on a full face of makeup. I HC that when he was human/a plus, his eyes were actually green.
MOUTH: [Big mouth or small? Plump lips or thin lips? Perfect white teeth or crooked, gappy ones?]
His mouth is on the larger side, but his lips are rather thin compared to it. He has perfect white teeth that are actually quite sharp. His tongue is long and somewhat prehensile, though not quite as much as most animals formed that way.
NOSE: [Big or little? Pointy or bulbous? Huge, cavernous nostrils or teeny little ones?]
His nose is relatively unobtrusive. The lines are sharp, but the tip and nostril are softly rounded. Nothing very notable, just proportionate to his face, maybe just slightly long…though that may just be the sharpness that gives it that illusion from certain angles/in certain lights.
HANDS: [Big or small? Manicured fingernails? Claws? Wrinkles? Visible veins? Bony knuckles? Or smooth skin and soft features?]
His hands are very long and thin. The fingernails are meticulously manicured, buffed, and varnished in mostly soft nude colors. But he wears gloves the majority of the time, so you do not see them unless he removes them in your presence.
FEET: [Big or small? Bony or plump? Trimmed toenails? Claws?]
They are similar in character to his hands given that they have a long, thin look to them, but they don’t come across as ‘big’. He’s relatively tall, so he needs feet that would support that. He’s a US men’s 10.5. Something always sold in stores and ‘average’, but in the larger end of it.
SCARS: [Any visible scars?]
No. Given that his body, especially in release is based on the concepts of growth, birth, and regeneration…he generally heals all wounds very fast, and scar tissues don’t tend to form. And those that do tend to be cannibalized by his metabolism, as it’s essentially extra protein and not a lean tissue.
CLOTHES: [What is their clothing style?]
Whatisn’this clothing style.
He prefers things that are light in color. He likes clothing pieces that have long lines that accentuate just how lanky his body is. Sometimes he prefers an ultra-modern, minimalist and sharp aesthetic, like you see in his lab coats. But he really likes things that evoke the delicate and intricate nature of his release form/dress. In his free time, he enjoys wearing many kinds of outfits. He dislikes current masculine styles (finds it way too boring/difficult for self-expression, though there are some houses of design that he does love that are flamboyant)..so you’ll see him dressing androgynously most of the time. But as a rule, he prefers the intricacies of men’s clothing found before the 1900’s and women’s clothing after it.
OTHER PHYSICAL FEATURES: [Optional for non-human characters, or human characters with uncommon features]
Well, clearly Szayel is a hollow. So, one of the most asked questions is ‘where it his hole?’ LMAO. His hollow hole, as per official media, is through is glans. (And honestly, I think that the last name of Granz is a pun on this given how Japanese is pronounced with a flap phoneme that makes l’s/r’s appear to switch to an native English speaker.) It runs front to back, the same way that it would with an apadravya piercing and is just big enough to fit an average fingertip through, though it can stretch a bit.
For him, it’s incredibly sensitive to touch…but ironically not in a sexual way. Instead, you’re more likely to put him into more of a trance/relaxed state, given the nature of how a hollow hole is formed. It gives deep bliss in his heart, a feeling of connection and feeling self-worth outside of simple self-objectification and being competent at sexual gratification.
OTHER NOTEABLE FEATURES: [Optional - anything you need to mention that isn’t covered by the above.]
Well…given that he’s an Arrancar, his body changes in release. He has a pair of wings that can synthesize both medicines and poisons in the sacs that hang from them. He can create tentacles that have the ability to inject his DNA into a host, and he has tentacles that can intake genetic material, making him functionally hermaphroditic essentially. And this idea even bears out in some of the official concept art, where one of Szayel’s releases conceptualized him as a succubus. (Yes you read that right a succubus—he actually had a tentacle that essentially doubled as a vagina, and you can see how the idea was used in how he creates his dolls from sucking the host into it, creating the doll, and spitting it back out.)
I also really liked his CFYOW form, as it tied together his manga release form with the idea of him being the ‘phoenix’. I love his clawed bird feet and feathers and his ‘tail’ (Kubo…thank you for sneaking that past the censors–I mean LOOK). And from what I’ve read, the glowing pattern on his lower abdomen is in the shape of a uterus so if he’s got that as well as his uhhh ‘tail’, he’s still hinted at being hermaphroditic as Kubo seems to be fond of this idea for him—and I’m 100% in agreement based on how I’ve had the intuitions of the muse myself. I also kind of like the idea that his tongue is technically prehensile that’s hinted at in some of the concept art.
IDK…he has so many cool features. I could go on forever.
