[X] Hurry back to the gate, where if you're quick enough you can catch the spider-hollow before it gets too far. Riding it, you'll get to your destination much faster (and hopefully back faster as well).
- [x] Give him some proper curtains to keep the sand out. Sand in one's hole is not comfortable. [X]Indifferent. The powerful of this world are akin to passing storms than persons. Whoever rules, rules, and small fries like you simply have to try and make a living under them. The personal character of different rulers do not make them better or worse, but simply different flavors of hurricanes. [x]You did in fact serve under Barragan. For years you were a scout in his army. You left because you feared the devotion of the others. You never expected him to think well of you, but he doesn't even remember your name or your mask, and that stings.
[X] Hurry back to the gate, where if you're quick enough you can catch the spider-hollow before it gets too far. Riding it, you'll get to your destination much faster (and hopefully back faster as well). [X] Indifferent. The powerful of this world are akin to passing storms than persons. Whoever rules, rules, and small fries like you simply have to try and make a living under them. The personal character of different rulers do not make them better or worse, but simply different flavors of hurricanes. [X] You had a friend once, a rarity among Menos. Someone you trusted not to try and eat you and who returned that trust. Then one day, he crossed the wrong line. He offended Barragan somehow, and you saw him aged to dust before your eyes.
Let me bust out the big guns and by big guns I mean six years of character development.
There's a lot of information in here that won't be relevant to you, but is good for understanding the characters. Things like their statuses during the Vandenreich arc and Magdalena's whole living in the human world thing she does after everything is over doesn't matter to you, I don't think, but it should give a good snapshot of who they are as individuals?
Moira:
+++ Reiatsu Manipulation (she's a weird case, I don't remember if you gave Arrancar this)
- Sonido
I honestly -- going off Maugen Ra's system -- would give them Champion in their strengths while making everything else low as heck. It's their gimmicks that make them even vaguely any sort of threat. Magdalena isn't much of a combatant, anyway. She's a meat shield.
Estigma: Markings down cheeks reminisent of blood trails
Appearance: Pale, but not deathly so. Eyes neatly and cleanly sown shut, the stitches often bleed when she gets stressed, adding to the already present estigma. Her black hair is kept in a neat, tapered bob. Her waist is inhumanly thin, caused by the long-term effects of corsets and the unique traits of her anatomy. She has stitches and scars all over her body, but they change from time to time.
Her outfit and overall wardrobe is notable in that she is rarely seen wearing the same thing twice. Used like a dress-up doll by La Costurera, Magdalena's outfits are increasingly frilly and intricate.
After Moira's death and Magdalena's resultant defection from the the Vandenreich, she constructs a puppet. A large, life-sized Bunraku puppet with eyes and a fully moveable face. She gives it long, beautiful black hair and colorless glass eyes. The final piece – her mask fragment, slides free from her head and her body's last action is to place it upon the puppet's head.
The body that had been mutilated repeatedly by Moira over the years dissolves without a soul to sustain it. Magdalena's soul now resides within the animated ball-jointed doll, visible to mortals.
Abilities: To compensate for her lack of eyes, Magdalena's spiritual senses are heightened. Along with this, she has some ability to utilize echolocation and is known to chirp. Her most notable ability is dubbed "Puppet Construction" and relies entirely on Moira or others with similar capabilities. Removed limbs must be reattached or salvaged from other bodies. Basically, Magdalena is a doll. As long as her mask fragment is intact, she does not need the rest of her body to maintain function. In order to sustain existence under stressful conditions, she has little to no high-speed regeneration.
It is a well kept secret that her circlet – if removed – can be placed on nearly any humanoid stucture to transfer Magdalena's consciousness to it. The object needs to lack a soul, however, in order for hers to assert dominance. A corpse or a mannequin would suffice. She can also assert her will upon low-level, non-sapient Hollows and make them do her bidding. She has a preference for vultures.
Resurrección: After releasing her zanpakuto, Magdalena gains the ability to separate her consciousness over multiple inanimate objects. There is no upward limit other than range, which is about a city block. When she had a spiritual body, this would have given her armor that imitated a ball-jointed doll and the ability to extrude blades from the seams. After transferring over to the physical doll body, she forfeited any cosmetic effects.
Personality: Extensive self-hatred issues made her quiet and meek. Atonement is the mantra she lives by, constantly seeking to make up for the horrible thing that she doesn't remember doing, doesn't remember what it was, but she knows she did it. She bows quickly to power and worships the ground Moira walks on. She is soft-spoken but oddly quick-tempered. After so many years, so many centuries, Magdalena sees her state as a cage. She looks up to the unfettered and wants to be like them, yearning for the courage to break her own status quo. Occasionally, she lashes out at anyone that isn't Moira, doing her damned best to verbally roast them.
Even after having her face slammed through multiple walls and getting the crap beat out of her numerous times, she still keeps at it. A masochist and bit of a tsundere by nature, her more vicious tongue lashings are more her way of flirting than anything else.
Once someone gains her full trust, Magdalena is quick to form romantic attachment and is heterosexual, panromantic.
After Moira's death and Magdalena's subsequent mental break, she becomes petty and sadistic, believing she's finally free from her chains. Her worldview becomes warped and she breaks all ties to Moira. A bit of a despair event horizon, if you will.
HISTORY: She was once one of the emperor's many wives, but she became jealous of one the other wives that Moira, then known as Kayo, was creating a beautiful dress for. She had been one of the emperor's wives for years, and along had come this young, pretty girl who usurped her from her spot as favorite. Magdalena, then known as Sachiko, destroyed the dress and lied about it being complete to the emperor, painting Kayo as a liar and indirectly causing the tailor's untimely and dishonorable death. Afterward, she regretted her actions. She had intended Kayo to be punished, not killed. In hindsight, she realized how pointless it really had been, as destroying the first dress had not stopped the emperor from hiring a new tailor and commissioning another one.
Distraught by the consequences of her actions, Sachiko secluded herself for a long time. Finally, when confronted by the vengeful Hollow, Seamstress, Sachiko threw herself at the monster's feet and begged for forgiveness. Anything, anything for atonement. The Hollow gouged out the girl's eyes and sewed them shut.
Over the centuries, Seamstress treated Magdalena with a mixture of cruelty and kindness, inadvertently causing Magdalena to glean a form of Stockholm Syndrome towards Moira. Moira would often share her kills with her, as she was her only companion, and Moira would also protect her from threats, even one time facing off against a Hollow more powerful than herself to keep the smaller hollow from harm. She thinks of Moira as a mother figure, and would do nearly anything for her. Once Magdalena became an Adjuchas, the afterlife was fine until one day when the Adjuchas Seamstress decided it was time to reach the next level.
She suddenly felt Seamstress's claws scratching at her mask. "Seamstress…? What are you-" Seamstress's claws gripped her mask… and pulled. No, she tore. Mercilessly, the higher Hollow ripped piece after agonizing piece from her face. Magdalena's shrieks of pain could be heard for miles. When the Vasto Lorde had torn off all but a band on her forehead, she dropped the now traumatized Arrancar and took to her own mask, an act which Magdalena could hear with a grotesque clarity. She could discern the sickening crack of each bone-like fragment, her mistress's grunts of pain, and the occasional slight yelp, as if she'd partially torn through her stitches in an attempt to scream.
After a few moments, she heard a snap, and something was being pressed into her hand. Magdalena inspected the object with her hands and discovered the thing to be a long branch from a tree-like reishi formation. A cane perhaps? Well, she'd use it until she got better at sense reiatsu.
A long fingered, delicate hand wrapped around hers and tugged gently, coaxing her to follow.
NAME: Moira Desmarais
TITLES/ALIASES: The Spider, La Costurera, The Seamstress.
AGE: 450
RACE: Arrancar
GENDER: Female
RANK: Wandenreich: Soldat/Jagdarmee ||| Aizen's Army: Arrancar 79, the Costurera.
HEIGHT: 6'2''
WEIGHT: 142 lbs.
PERSONALITY: She doesn't talk, except in Ressureccion when her mouth stitches rip open, and even then, it is raspy and she tries to avoid speaking. She's a very introverted person, and the only company that she willingly keeps it that of her former-subordinate, Magdalena. She's sadistic, but only because of the pain she is near constantly in, she doesn't take into account the fact that others don't have as high a pain tolerance as her. Her continuous chore was to repair the Arrancars' uniforms after battle, many times remaking the outfits altogether. She was sometimes seen sewing in fresh stitches once the old ones get too frayed and irritating. She has a soft spot for her former-subordinate. She's somewhat envious of Magdalena's beauty, and she also wishes to punish her forever for things she did while she was alive that neither of them remember all too well.
Nowadays, in the Vandenreich, Moira serves silently once more, but now there is blood to be spilled and she loves it. Given back the privilege to shed blood mindlessly has brought new life to Moira, and while she isn't loyal to Yhwach, it doesn't matter because she'd rather kill Shinigami for him than be disposed of. She has proven to be a fierce and sadistic fighter.
Her relationship with Magdalena is a complicated one. Moira has taken care of her for all these years and Magdalena has become a bit of a daughter figure to her. Maggie is really the only one who could ever stand a chance of calming her down when she's angry, and even though Moira does things like tearing Magdalena's limbs off, she always makes sure that they are put back where they belong and in perfect condition eventually.
She despises liars, this is due to the circumstances surrounding her death as a human and the reasons why her spirit became a Hollow. Due to this hate, she has established a belief that the only way to be completely truthful is to never speak at all. When Moira becomes attached to a person, she will often fantasize sewing their mouths or eyes shut, believing this act to be the ultimate form of affection and making them closer to her ideals.
Once someone has earned her complete respect, if she believes she can dominate them and is attracted to them, she may pursue a sexual relationship. However, she does not readily form any sort of romantic attachment.
She's a reasonable person who takes pride in her work. Her work is always the most important thing.
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE:
Moira is extremely pale to the point where one would say her skin were made of paper. Her mauve hair is windswept and falls to her shoulders, and a couple of whimsical strands fall in front of her eyes. She's a D-cup. Her mouth is stitched shut due to an event that occurred while she was alive. Useless stitching extends from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating an odd, macabre grin. Sometimes, blood seeps from the stitching, usually after strain. Her Hollow hole is through her Larynx, which is bisected by more stitching where her head had been cut off and she sewed it back on (as a recently dead spirit). She has a scars on her leg from where she'd once sewn her number into her skin.
She has once had to tear off her left arm, but reattached it using puppet construction.
~MASK FRAGMENT: Sharp needles that jut out from behind her ears. There are three on each ear, each about 10 cm. long.
HISTORY: Moira lived in the 1700s, by the name of Kuzunoha Kayo. She was the royal tailor, and made clothes for the Emperor. She loved her job, as sewing had always been her passion. One day, the Emperor commissioned a grand Juunihitoe (twelve-piece kimono) to be made for his favorite wife. Kayo was presented with the most precious of silks and cottons with which to create the outfit. She was nearly finished when another one of the wives came to view the kimono. She became jealous that such a garment was not being made for her. Late in the night, the jealous wife sabotaged the kimono.
The next morning, Kayo awoke to see the dress completely ruined, and it was the day she was to present the Kimono to the emperor's wife. She was brought before the emperor, empty-handed. The emperor demanded to know what had happened to the gift and Kayo answered truthfully, but the jealous wife had other things in mind.
"She lies. I visited her quarters yesterday to see how her work was coming along, and it was far from finished. The woman lies to hide her own laziness."
The emperor was enraged at this news, and ordered a punishment fit for liars. He had Kayo sew her own mouth shut, right there and in front of them, and then ordered her execution for her laziness. She was beheaded, a dishonorable death.
Her hate and rage towards the emperor and the jealous wife quickened her spirit's hollowfication process. She became a hollow and killed the jealous wife and the emperor, but instead of consuming the jealous wife's soul, she took a needle and sewed the wife's eyes shut. She kept the spirit around until she hollowfied as well.
Kayo's Hollow name was the Seamstress, and eventually she and the jealous wife (Henceforth known as Magdalena Yuex) became Menos. They had a fairly uneventful hollow life, until they both became Adjuchas.
Seamstress had seen those with the broken masks, and decided it was time for her and Magdalena to join their ranks. Without a word, she grabbed Magdalena and tore off her companion's mask, disregarding the lesser hollow's screams of pain. She then clawed off her own, unable to express how much the action had hurt her. It is because of this manner of transformation that neither of them really retained a lot of their powerful battle capabilities.
They joined Aizen's army as a separate faction like the Exequias, except their main jobs were maintenance of the citadel and the making uniforms. It was a thankless and unseen job but both Moira and Magdalena liked the quiet of it for a time. Moira soon grew restless. It wasn't until Aizen's defeat and the near destruction of Las Noches that Moira felt some sort of freedom, but even then, Tier Harribel ran the show for the most part and Moira kept quiet. When the Vandenreich invaded, first she fought against them, but when she heard about their cause, she was eager and nearly desperate to join. Such a desire of her mistress was unfamiliar to Magdalena and the girl kept misinterpreting her gestures to the point where Moira threw her aside and tore open her mouth stitches, the first words ever coming from her mouth became her truth.
"We will fight for you."
POWERS/ ABILITIES:
Zanpaktou Call: Weave, Toile d'Araignée
Zanpaktou Name: Toile d'Araignée (Spider's Web)
Zanpaktou Description: A Wakizashi, only about 2 shaku long. The Tsuba is in the shape of spider, its "legs" extending down towards the Tsuka to resemble the hilt of a rapier. The Tsuka is wrapped with a white and red Tsuki-ito. The sheath is a dark grey.
Pre-released powers:
Spinneret: From her fingers she can create a strong, cable-like reishi formation that functions like thread. It has the strength of steel wire, and she can choose whether or not to have it sticky like spider web or normal like thread. She's very quick at spinning webs. She also uses this ability to weave fabric and spin thread for sewing. Freshly spun fabric or thread is still malleable and if not handled correctly can fuse with someone's skin. While it may seem that this could be useful for rough battlefield first-aid, the fabric would need to be freshly woven to fuse with flesh and thus it would be impractical as a first-aid procedure.
Puppet Construction: In place of high speed regeneration, she has Puppet Construction, which basically allows her to reattach any body part that may have been removed from her person. She can also take other people's arms or legs and use them in case her original limbs have been damaged beyond repair. She still has regeneration, it's just not high-speed. It would take perhaps a week for her to completely regrow a limb. Magdalena basically serves as her spare. If she loses something in battle, she takes something of Magdalena's and attaches it to herself.
Resurrection Appearance: She rips open her mouth stitches and says the release command. Her voice is raspy from lack of use and she must take a breath every few words when speaking. From her waist burst eight needle-like appendages that carry her. Her hair gets a bit longer, and the spikes on her ears multiply and spread down to her wrists. She grows small fangs. (Basically, she's a spider)
Resurrection powers:
Web: She can spin webs that are nearly invisible to her opponent. Magdalena often gets caught in them, but Moira really doesn't care. It is possible to escape with shear reiatsu.
Needles: Her eight needle legs sink into the ground, rooting her in place. She has control over where these needles surface, and how many. Basically, it's a booby trap kind of thing. As long as she knows where they are, she can just stab them… or trap them. She can remove them from the ground to continue moving again in a relatively short amount of time. It takes about a half a second to retract everything.
Venom: Her bite is venomous, and slows down an opponent. Can also work as a powerful sedative.
Everything below is art.
(I swear I made Magdalena years before I'd ever heard of Blind Mag)
Anyway. Even if you can't use them, it's no skin off my back. It's not like I sat here typing up 1.5K+ words of background and character description. I had it all saved elsewhere. It was just a matter of formatting it for SV.
EDIT: Feel free to adjust their powers/power levels as you need to. I honestly don't care what you do with them as long as their spirit of their characters is preserved. They kinda mean a lot to me.
[X] Hurry back to the gate, where if you're quick enough you can catch the spider-hollow before it gets too far. Riding it, you'll get to your destination much faster (and hopefully back faster as well).
[X]Faithful. Aizen freed you from the hunger, and for this you will forever be grateful. Not only do you owe him loyalty, he's also proven himself to be infinitely resourceful and clever, and the best chance for Hollows like you is under his direction.
Yes. I could go into a lot of the background and self-introspective/reflective symbolism in them but I don't want to derail the thread or disturb anyone with my family drama.
... I also really like that eye trauma aesthetic. Most of it is just estigma, like Nel's pink face stripe. They only seep a little sometimes, when she's hit hard with like, that knee-bending kind of spiritual pressure.
I also don't mind if Omicron changes that part of her design if it's too disturbing or, like, edgy? I don't want to be that person.
[x]Make a detour by Esmeralda's "office" before setting out. She always has her hands on some interesting supplies, and could provide you with useful items for your trip.
[x]Bitter. All your life, you feared to set foot in the mortal world where the shinigami roamed. They have killed your kind for millennia, and now one of them rules over your world. You might not have been devoted to Barragan's rule, but there is something deeply wrong with a shinigami commanding Hollows.
[x]You did in fact serve under Barragan. For years you were a scout in his army. You left because you feared the devotion of the others. You never expected him to think well of you, but he doesn't even remember your name or your mask, and that stings.
[X]Hurry back to the gate, where if you're quick enough you can catch the spider-hollow before it gets too far. Riding it, you'll get to your destination much faster (and hopefully back faster as well). [X]Bitter. All your life, you feared to set foot in the mortal world where the shinigami roamed. They have killed your kind for millennia, and now one of them rules over your world. You might not have been devoted to Barragan's rule, but there is something deeply wrong with a shinigami commanding Hollows. [X]You were once part of an organized settlement, Hollows foolish enough to think the desert was large enough for them to live independently. One day Barragan heard of you, and the next his armies were swarming your village. You've been a nomad ever since.
[X]Bitter. All your life, you feared to set foot in the mortal world where the shinigami roamed. They have killed your kind for millennia, and now one of them rules over your world. You might not have been devoted to Barragan's rule, but there is something deeply wrong with a shinigami commanding Hollows. [X]You were once part of an organized settlement, Hollows foolish enough to think the desert was large enough for them to live independently. One day Barragan heard of you, and the next his armies were swarming your village. You've been a nomad ever since. The desert is vast, and yet it has little room for freedom.
You fled here... how long ago? Flying from light and fear and the reaper's steel. You found an open sky of endless night, where the wind howled forever... and a flock, of those who thought similarly, who felt they were now free, to roost and fly and sup on mindless Menos Grande, without fear of the cage or the blade or the law.
What fools you were. Wings clipped, hovels burned, friends eaten. The law found you, even here, wielding its black iron gavel and claiming kingship.
You fled again, across white sand and blackened sky, until the news came. The law had bent its knee, proved itself empty, and now reapers ruled.
Nothing changed. The purges simply became more comprehensive.
And so you came in from the cold yourself, bowed your head and tore off your mask.
Findor was right. You have no loyalty. There is no ruler worth pledging loyalty to. There is only freedom, and this path allows you to eke out what little of it that you can.
[X]Bitter. All your life, you feared to set foot in the mortal world where the shinigami roamed. They have killed your kind for millennia, and now one of them rules over your world. You might not have been devoted to Barragan's rule, but there is something deeply wrong with a shinigami commanding Hollows.
We already have the 'other' view of Aizen via We Stand In Awe; I'd rather see a more antagonistic view just for variety.
[X]Bitter. All your life, you feared to set foot in the mortal world where the shinigami roamed. They have killed your kind for millennia, and now one of them rules over your world. You might not have been devoted to Barragan's rule, but there is something deeply wrong with a shinigami commanding Hollows. [X]You were once part of an organized settlement, Hollows foolish enough to think the desert was large enough for them to live independently. One day Barragan heard of you, and the next his armies were swarming your village. You've been a nomad ever since.
I must caution against handing out a Legendary so willy-nilly like that. Remember that Segunda Etapa is supposed to be a Bankai equivalent, so it should be possible to achieve at Master Resurreccion if you know about it and you work at it. For discovering that it exists, Champion, a theory, and a long experimentation phase should be necessary. Legendary should be saved for something truly grand, and not something that has yet been achieved in the short time that the Arrancars have existed. No one ever talked about Ulquiorra's Resurreccion and from what we see of it it really wasn't anything special.
[X]Indifferent. The powerful of this world are more akin to passing storms than persons. Whoever rules, rules, and small fries like you simply have to try and make a living under them. The personal character of different rulers do not make them better or worse, but simply different flavors of hurricanes.
No-one ever talked about it because no-one knew it existed. Not even Aizen had seen Segunda Etapa, and according to Ulquiorra himself, he's the only one among the Espada who even has that ability.
[X] Indifferent. The powerful of this world are akin to passing storms than persons. Whoever rules, rules, and small fries like you simply have to try and make a living under them. The personal character of different rulers do not make them better or worse, but simply different flavors of hurricanes. [X] You had a friend once, a rarity among Menos. Someone you trusted not to try and eat you and who returned that trust. Then oneday, he crossed the wrong line. He offended Barragan somehow, andyou saw him aged to dust beforeyour eyes.
Kubo was shit at this kind of thing. When it comes to Bleach you have to piece together what some of the stuff in his setting means. Soul Reapers have Shikai and Bankai, Arrancars - who have powers similar to Soul Reapers and keep them in a zanpakuto - have Resurreccion and Segunda Etapa. It's not a big leap in reasoning.
I was talking about his Resurreccion, not Segunda Etapa. They didn't talk about SE because no one knew about it, but they didn't talk about his Resurreccion either.
I must caution against handing out a Legendary so willy-nilly like that. Remember that Segunda Etapa is supposed to be a Bankai equivalent, so it should be possible to achieve at Master Resurreccion if you know about it and you work at it. For discovering that it exists, Champion, a theory, and a long experimentation phase should be necessary. Legendary should be saved for something truly grand, and not something that has yet been achieved in the short time that the Arrancars have existed. No one ever talked about Ulquiorra's Resurreccion and from what we see of it it really wasn't anything special.
[X]Indifferent. The powerful of this world are more akin to passing storms than persons. Whoever rules, rules, and small fries like you simply have to try and make a living under them. The personal character of different rulers do not make them better or worse, but simply different flavors of hurricanes.
In the context which I'm talking about, Segunda Etapa would be the Legendary Resurreccion. Ulquiorra's own baseline Resurreccion is relatively unremarkable, but his Segunda Etapa is more or less "the same, but better and vastly cooler-looking."
Certainly it seems odd to treat Segunda Etapa as a Bankai equivalent and give it an entire skill of its own. Bankai is a logical progression of a Zanpakuto's release, well-known in Soul Society and treated as a teachable, repeatable feat that is more or less the gateway to Captain-level power. Segunda Etapa is a singular feat displayed by only one character in the entire manga.
Indeed, even assuming Nemo gains enough xp to achieve Legendary skills, I wouldn't consider you entitled to Segunda as a natural follow-up. It's something that could be achieved or unlocked through certain paths of progression, but which could also simply not.
[X]Hurry back to the gate, where if you're quick enough you can catch the spider-hollow before it gets too far. Riding it, you'll get to your destination much faster (and hopefully back faster as well).
- [X] Give him some proper curtains to keep the sand out. Sand in one's hole is not comfortable.
[X]Faithful. Aizen freed you from the hunger, and for this you will forever be grateful. Not only do you owe him loyalty, he's also proven himself to be infinitely resourceful and clever, and the best chance for Hollows like you is under his direction.
[X]You did in fact serve under Barragan. For years you were a scout in his army. You left because you feared the devotion of the others. You never expected him to think well of you, but he doesn't even remember your name or your mask, and that stings.
indeed even assuming Nemo gains enough xp to achieve Legendary skills, I wouldn't consider you entitled to Segunda as a natural follow-up. It's something that could be achieved or unlocked through certain paths of progression, but which could also simply not.
So it's less you suddenly know how to do this awesome thing and more you stumble your way to it.
Also assuming we ever get it what would we look like I wonder?
[X]Hurry back to the gate, where if you're quick enough you can catch the spider-hollow before it gets too far.
Why throw away a useful tool or burgeoning loyal servant (or, dare I say it, friend). This may even be the beginnings of our own Fraccion?
[X]Callous
It's not just a hollow's way of thinking, is also a human one, so I don't see it being a setback in growth as an Arrancar.
[X]You had a friend once
In the context which I'm talking about, Segunda Etapa would be the Legendary Resurreccion. Ulquiorra's own baseline Resurreccion is relatively unremarkable, but his Segunda Etapa is more or less "the same, but better and vastly cooler-looking."
Certainly it seems odd to treat Segunda Etapa as a Bankai equivalent and give it an entire skill of its own. Bankai is a logical progression of a Zanpakuto's release, well-known in Soul Society and treated as a teachable, repeatable feat that is more or less the gateway to Captain-level power. Segunda Etapa is a singular feat displayed by only one character in the entire manga.
Indeed, even assuming Nemo gains enough xp to achieve Legendary skills, I wouldn't consider you entitled to Segunda as a natural follow-up. It's something that could be achieved or unlocked through certain paths of progression, but which could also simply not.
Shinigami have Bankai
Visoreds have whatever the fuck Ichigo unlocked against Ulquiorra
And Arrancar have Segunda Etapa
The major (and only real) difference between the three is that Shinigami have history and precedent to fall back on. They know what they are theoretically capable of, whereas Arrancar are rare and Hollows mostly asocial, while Visoreds are a handful of illegal experiments that have to hide lest they get hunted down and murdered.
Obviously the latter two aren't really in conditions enabling research and experimentation to really test the parallels between their growth and a Shinigami's.
But in a void, comparing a Captain's Bankai, Ichigo's "Vasto Lorde form", and Ulquiorra's Segunda Etapa? You can't deny the direct parallels. Enhanced strength by tapping into an inner core that represents growth and a kind of self enlightenment.
And don't Quincies have a similar thing, but they lose their power afterwards?
Tl;dr: Given what we saw up until that point, the background of all given groups, and accounting for Kubo's... flaws, it makes more sense to treat Segunda Etapa as a Bankai that just would not be passed down among Hollows.
Certainly it seems odd to treat Segunda Etapa as a Bankai equivalent and give it an entire skill of its own. Bankai is a logical progression of a Zanpakuto's release, well-known in Soul Society and treated as a teachable, repeatable feat that is more or less the gateway to Captain-level power. Segunda Etapa is a singular feat displayed by only one character in the entire manga.
The Arrancar were around for basically a few months, and Bankai is something that's supposed to take you decades to get. Everybody popping up with Bankai in canon? Ichigo's the only one of those who's been a Soul Reaper for less than multiple digits of years.
It makes perfect sense that Segunda Etapa is a bankai equivalent, because I highly doubt that the vast majority of the Arrancar would have even come up with the idea, much less tried, much less succeeded.
The way I saw it, Segunda Etapa was the second stage of Ressurrcion, but wasn't something different. Compared to Shikai and Bankai, which can vary wildly, Ulquiorra's Segunda Etapa was...just his Ressurrcion*10. No new powers or special abilities. Just a change in form and an increase in stats.
So, while you would get a power increase that mirrors the jump from Shikai to Bankai, it shouldn't be a separate stat because it's not something new you train in. It's just you becoming so intune with your inner soul that you can access previously sealed away power.
It's the Hollow version of Mugetsu or a Quincy's Vollständig. It's not something new, just more of the same but better.
