[Shinigami] Senka Himaru

Name: Senka Himaru

Age: 302

Visual Age: 37

Gender: Male

Division: 3rd division, Captain

Personality: Himaru is a calm and patient man. Much like a rock unto the world, he bides his time patiently and takes care of matters one at a time in an orderly fashion. In stark contrast to his deep voice, he is soft-spoken and insightful, and he carefully considers the words of others before answering. His age and experience has given him an ability to see things in a grander perspective, and he usually considers the passage of time to be an important factor in any decision. He rarely minds letting things run their natural course in order to reach an outcome, only to interfere when things go out of hand. As a captain, he is reliable and has a dedication to duty and respect for his superiours and comrades.


Appearance: As a tall, well-built man, Himaru makes an imposing figure. He is broad-shouldered and strong, but with a solid constitution rather than visible bulging muscles. His skin is toned from years of sunlight, and his hands are large and rough from work and swordplay. His forearms are covered in scars, though in stark contrast, the rest of his body is remarkably clear of such. His once-blond hair falls down to just below his chin, and while it is mostly unkempt, he always keeps it out of his face. In recent years, it has started losing colour, and is taking on white streaks to form a rye shade. He keeps a short beard on his chin, that too in brighter once-golden shades, though now with more than one shade of grey tainting the colour. His eyes are bright blue, and give off a positive and friendly impression. It is not uncommon to see a smile on his face.

History/Background: Born just a few years before Tokugawa Yoshimune came to power in Japan, and as such, he was born into a peaceful era. However, when war is far away, the dreams of splendor in youth grow larger, and the youths themselves grows restless. Eager to find honor and make a name for himself by the sword, Himaru left home at a young age to enlist to the standing forces of whatever lord would take him. He was drilled in swordplay, in the use of the spear and in military exercises, but he never actually got to put those skills to a test. Instead, he was assigned to guard-keeping in the gardens of the mans home. It was dreadfully boring, a true disappointment to his ideals, but there is no use for warriors when there is no war to be had. At most, he was involved in skirmishes towards bands of rouges and criminals, or minor conflicts of land. And even with this, he always ended back up at the gardens. With little to nothing to pass the time, the movements of the gardener began to catch his eye, and before he knew it, he was keeping attentive detail to what the man was doing. The outmost care which he put into his work intruiged Himaru, who had never before worked in matters that required either patience or delicacy. Before he knew it, he and the gardener were holding short chats about the work and the plants. Chats which grew to talks, and grew longer and longer as the weeks passed.

A year passed, and in one of the skirmishes, he took a nasty hit on the arm. The slash cut through muscle with ease, and left a gashing wound in his flesh. It was cared for without delay, but with his sword-arm damaged, there was no way he could continue to act as he had before. Without enough experience under his belt to retire as a military advisor or an instructor, he was excused and departed homeward. Finding both his parents alive and well, he settled there for quite some time, before realizing that he had a new passion to pursue. He used what money he had to get ahold of a hovel in the nearby forest, and began to restore it. He dug up the ground outside to begin forming a garden, and transformed the hovel into a cottage by use of wood from the surrounding forest. Knowing full well that he could not make his living on a garden alone, he began moving deeper and deeper into the woods. Using the tracking skills he had learned as an enlisted man, he made a few attempts at hunting to sell the meat and hides. However, despite his earlier military ambitions, cutting into soft flesh held no appeal to him. Instead, he settled as a lumberman, and began to sell wood and woodwork to the townspeople. He carried his life out in solitude, for quite a few years, before he encountered his first truly major hishap.

He fell. He slipped on a wet rock and broke his ankle, quite deep into the forest. Unable to return at a quick enough pace, darkness soon fell and forced him to stop. With the rain, the night was quite cold, and Himaru was not equipped to handle such. Thus, he froze to death that night, and entered the afterlife. An afterlife which would prove to have quite an increase in military matters compared to his life.

Beginning his life anew in Rukongai, the ex-soldier found himself in quite a different position. In a society like this, there was no longer any solitude, nor any peace and quiet to be found. Ironically enough, the eternal rest proved to be rather stressful compared to life. With the abundance of souls around the massive complex that was Rukongai, each and every one of them moving on their daily "lives" without much purpose or clear goals. In an attempt to find a place to claim as his own, he began to wander outwards, as far away from the buzzling streets of the inner districts as he could get. Of course, there was an immense flaw this plan, which soon became evident as his journey brought him only deeper into areas of poverty, criminal activities and chaos. It did not take long, however, for a man of his posture to get noticed by the influential powers in the outer areas. Forced into a position of either submitting or fighting against them, the choice was exceedingly simple for Himaru. He submitted.

In a slightly more comfortable position now that he had a roof over his head, Himaru went along with the wishes of one Taka Seijuro, and followed most of his wishes with mellow enthusiasm. For the most part, he simply walked where he was needed in order to add to numbers and looks of the rest of the Taka gang. Over the course of his stay there, he was astounded to realize that in the entire gang, he was the only one who got hungry. To the rest of them, food seemed a banality; a nonissue. As such, he was met with surprised exclamations when he raised the issue. Naturally, he could not stay in a place where no one ate, and packed all (none) of this belongings to leave. Of course, no one simply leaves the Taka gang. To do so would be an insult to Taka himself, and would be dealt with accordingly. Despite knowing this, Himaru rose to his feet and wandered away, leaving behind a first confused, then infuriated gang. Rukongai, however, is an immensively great place, and it wasn't all that hard to vanish into the masses.

It proved more difficult than he originally envisioned, however, to find something to eat in a place where hunger does not exist. In his search, he found little food and fewer answers, as he once more entered the inner districts of the land of the dead. He made do with what food people made for the sake of satisfying those with a sweet tooth, and continued trying to find out why it was that he was the only one hungering.

Eventually, however, Taka Seijuro caught up with him. Clubbing him down in the middle of the street in Rukongai 7 and then vanishing, the man took his revenge, and left Himaru bleeding in the street. Since the incident took place in the inner areas, it came to the attention of the peacekeeping forces, and Himaru's life was eventually saved from both starvation and blunt trauma. With the attention of the authorities now on unmistakenably on him, Himaru managed to get a few of the answers he was looking for. This way, he entered the Shinigami Academy.

His way through the academy was brief, since he already had a great deal of military training. He was assigned to the 13th division, and worked there for three decades as an unseated officer. He was strong, sure, but a man without ambition rarely catches the eye of the higher seats. He continued to master his craft, and lived on in a rather dull fashion. It wasn't until a specific incident in the real world happened that his actual career started taking off; during an attempt to take care of a particularly hollow-infested area in a small town, he was not only the only survivor of the grim combat that followed. He also managed to dispatch all of the hollows who had taken down his fellows on his own. Such a feat certainly started talks and rumors within the Gotei 13 ranks, and before he knew it, he was serving as fourth seat in the 13th division. Himaru didn't particularly enjoy the busy lifestyle that was required of a seated officer, but he was also far too strict in his thinking to neglect the responsibilities he had been given. Performing them to the best of his abilities, it soon became clear that his true level was higher still. Time passed, and he became third seat, then was taken up as Lieutenant to captain of the third division. When the captain retired from his duties, far too many expectant eyes fell on Himaru, and he applied to the position. Yet again, his position forced him to take on more responsibilities and mature as a person. At present, he is amongst the longer-seated captains of the force, which is evident in both his age and demeanor.

no u

1. Table of contents

1. Table of Contents
2. Introduction
3. Background
3.1 Roleplaying
3.2 Bleach Reborn
3.3 The Author
3.4 The Subjects
4. Adressal
5. Conclusion

2. Introduction
With the recent revival of a particular website bearing the name of "Bleach Reborn", a process of admission for new and old members alike was started anew. During this particular process, an issue of differentiating standards amongst varying members of the community arose. Since the role-playing game that the site seeks to emulate works primarily through a literary medium, it is of course very important that there are no misconceptions around what standards are applicable. In this brief paper, I will adress the issue of one "Dai Ryuujin no Omega", henceforth referred to as "the author", in both the critique he seeks to provide to his fellow members and his position in providing it.

3. Background
In this section, I will elaborate slightly on the background of those involved that the reader might better understand the situation in which this particular issue was created. I will touch at least briefly upon each of those involved and be slightly more thorough where my research permits me to be.

3.1. Roleplaying
Roleplaying is essentially a form of recreation, where the participants take on any kind of "role" and act out these roles in accordance to specific rulesets. There are very many kinds of roleplaying, and while some forms can come quite close to the world of computer games, there are also some kinds that are improvisational theatre performances, without an audience. The specific kind of roleplaying that takes place on the Bleach Reborn website is a forum-based literary roleplaying ideal. Out of these sites, there are a great deal of varying details and ideals. Some contains a great deal of numbers, and the progression of power for the characters are the primary concern of the members. Others contain no such system at all, but instead focus on the progression of the personalities of various characters, as well as their interaction. While they all have in common that they frown upon "munching" and "godmodding", which are terms denoting cheating within the game, there is usually not that much else various sites have in common. These forms are cheating are primarily the performance of actions which the characters should be incapable of, such as incredible feats of strength or having knowledge they logically could not have obtained.

The important part to remember about roleplaying, is that there is always a primary goal and a secondary goal. The primary goal is always the same, and while childishly trivial, it bears repeating: "To have fun". The secondary goal, however, is usually more complex. The secondary goal is not always recognized by the participants; it is, in fact, quite possible that the creators of the setting themselves do not realize what their secondary goal is. The secondary goal, however it is detailed, always pertains to "The kind of fun you are having". In essence, it pertains to what aspects of roleplaying you wish to focus on, and what kind of in-character as well as out-of-character setting one wishes to create. The secondary goal of the classical game Dungeons & Dragons is most commonly to allow people to act as plot-driving heroes of above-average strength, as though they were the protagonists of a fantasy novel. There are a great deal of roleplaying communities who consider the abstract concept of "RP skill" to be very important. Most often, this refers to the literary skills of the players, and their ability to write long, eloquent posts with great variety in their language and choice of words.

Other communities consider such thoughts to be elitist, and holds the ideal that the staff should not decrease the experience of the players by trying to judge them. They also do not wish to establish a hierarchy beyond that which is naturally established by the presence of staff positions. A third kind might focus all their roleplaying on combat, or love, or even erotica. A very common form of issue on these sites is the lack of objective standards to govern the staff, as well as that they are prone to an issue named by the grotesque term "circle-jerking". Essentially, this means that either the staff or the entire staff itself is made up out of a small group of people who get along very well personally, and often knows eachother in real life. This means that they are likely to act mainly within their closed circle, and very often show preference and bias towards members of their group. It is also common that these sites would rather keep their closed community with old members they know and trust rather than attempt to open more publicly and include outsiders.

3.2. Bleach Reborn
Bleach Reborn is, as mentioned above, a forum-based roleplaying site. It takes place in an alternate universe setting copied from the japanese manga Bleach. Many different races are playable, and there is a heavy focus on player-versus-player action. The site contains no objective measurement system for strength or abilities, and the players are forced to assume varying levels of strength or skill in accordance to the positions their characters hold. There is no particular system for approval in terms of who recieves a position of strength or importance in the in-character world, though it is likely subject to the subjective judgment of the main admin named memel. My research has as of yet not revealed any objective system of guidelines for the staff to adhere by, and as such, there is nothing that officially lays down a bar of measurement for the standards they are supposed to keep. Instead, the staff uses subjective judgment to guide their decisions in each particular case. However, the ideals and thoughts of the staff vary very greatly, and as such, the nature of the response a member recieves will depend heavily on which staff member he or she is dealing with. The site is a remake of a series of previous bleach-based forums, very similar to the current one, and a great deal of information in my research has been derived from them.

The site claims no particular literary standard, as is evident in the approvals the main administrator gives out. It does contain certain ideals which consider length to be the most important factor in skill, as well as gaining respect across the board. Being a remake, it also has a member base made up of mainly older members. The staff does not seem to make any great attempts to advertise and bring in new blood, so the member base remains roughly the same. There is also no focus on power progression, since the characters can start out on a very high scale of power. There also appears to be little objective standards in what kind of abilities and in-character rules are applicable. For example, one notorious member was accepted with a character who could freely change her shape between adult and child forms, something which does not have a basis in the Bleach manga. There have also been occurances of strange, illogical, out-of-place objects and events within the roleplay, such as a magical mountain made of candy hidden inside a closet within a building.

3.3. The Author
Unfortunately, there is not very much that my research has revealed about the author, and I will save myself from speculation. Primarily, the author is in his teens, and has been active within roleplaying communities for at least one or two of his previous years. He has a firm grasp on the english language on a daily basis, and puts stock and importance in the occurance of grammar. However, his sentence structure reveals an untrained attempt to express himself with more eloquence than he is used to (or capable of). They often reach unneeded lengths as he attempts to present more information than is needed for his argument. He has also fallen victim to the unfortunate popular culture trend of improper use of special characters in his writing, as evident in the case of subject A (see section 3§4). The author currently holds a member position on the Bleach Reborn website, although he has held administrator positions in the past. It appears as if he has a hard time releasing the acknowledged social position that came with the formal administrator spot, and this is most likely what has spawned the issues at hand. He continues to critique the works of his fellows as though he continued to be part of the administration, though he now signs these particular posts with the signature ""-- from your concerned citizen"".

Within the role-playing game of the site, the author has yet to create a character to play. However, his previous record reveals certain traits of significance which may or may not be relevant to the conclusion of this paper. In the previous history of the series of sites that eventually became Bleach Reborn, the author created characters with significant social and physical stature. The most recent one was not only exceedingly powerful, but also physically imposing. He had certain physical traits that seemed unnatural for any human to possess, in terms of skin colour and so forth. The character also had a socially dominant position, both in a pre-determined sense as well as a literary sense. The author put him in positions where he was already not only dominant, but completely in control of the non-player characters in the surroundings. The author also went to great lengths to describe how these particular personas submitted to the will of the character, as well as described in detail the awe and mental respect (and fear) they felt towards the character. Not only that, there were also significant undertones which assumed that the opposing characters of other players should also feel a great sense of respect or caution towards him. Personality-wise, the great number of subclauses to the personality section enabled the author to play out the character in whatever fashion he wished depending on the situation.

As an administrator, the author has not performed very much work that has been visible to the members. Primarily, his work extended to critique of applications the members presented, though he was also involved in clearing up accusations of godmodding (a form of cheating within the game). When the primary administrator left the site in his care, the site rapidly declined in activity until it eventually ceased to have any form of activity at all.

3.4. The Subjects
The subjects themselves, that is, the members that have been on the receiving end of the critique presented by the author, has shown varying responses to this. Subject A, who recieved critique last out of the two subjects, responded with a short, nondescript reply. When asked to elaborate, he continued to write a paper on the subject. The critique that the author presented to subject A was rather nonspecific, and pertained mainly to the "feel" or "potential" of the application than any concrete issues that required solving. Most specifically, it explained how the author felt as though the application had not fulfilled the potential it could have. Subject B, on the other hand, recieved more specific criticism, which mostly pertained to his sentence structure and choice of words. Subject B responded strongly, yelling a refusal and bringing it to the personal attention of the main administrator.

My research has revealed little about subject B. He has a fair grasp of the words and language he is using, however he is still in the process of learning decent sentence structure. His writing lacks eloquence, but rarely has any grammatical or typographical mistakes. Subject A, however, has a notorious background. His experience in forum-based roleplaying games dates back an entire decade, and while he often comes off as arrogant, his experience in creating objective systems as well as skill as an administrator is notorious on a great deal of websites. Currently, he can be most easily found as the owner and main administrator of a site called "One Piece RP", a site boasting over two thousand members with its three years of age, an extensive system of objective guidelines to eliminate bias amongst the staff, as well as being the largest english-speaking One Piece-based roleplaying site on the web. He is also well known for the direct and blunt manner in which he adresses others, and often give off a mean or arrogant impression. In terms of literary skill, it not very hard to find his limitations. While his manner of writing is experienced, he is often prone to using most of his posts to depict the mentality and thought-patterns of the character he is playing. Meanwhile, his depiction of the surroundings is often very brief, as well as ill-defined. As such, it is evident that he mostly commonly values the mental part of roleplaying, and simulating a character as well as personal progression are very important to him. On the particular forum that the issue arose, however, he has taken a different approach. Knowing the heavily combat-accentuated nature of the site, as well as the sites' short lifetime, he has instead used very little effort in creating a character. Rather than creating a character he could enjoy for a long time, the creation which created the issue is short, ill-defined and has a very generic background and personality. Instead, he adapts to the secondary goal (see section 3§2) of PvP-focus by creating a character purely to match a specific fighting style, which will be revealed at a later time.


4. Adressal
While it is apparent that the author feels safe in his position to give critique, my main point of interest in addressing this issue is twofold. Firstly, whether or not his critique (and by extension, his position in giving it) is justified, and also his reasons for providing it. I shall adress the former first.

The author presents in both cases, both against subject A as well as subject B, a social undertone in superiority, thus providing him with the right (and position) to critique the work of others. It is very likely this tone, as well as his security in his position, originates from being in the privileged position of being an administrator. In the case of subject A, he specifically states "Show to me that you are deserving of the role of 'Captain'/.../." I hardly need to point out the hierarchy which is required in order to back up such a claim. Indeed, the author is showing severe difficulties in letting go of his administrative position. Or rather, the status and position which came with it, rather than the actual duties. Since the author no longer holds any administrative position (see section 3§3), such a claim is rendered completely and fully without backing, as there is no need, social nor technical, for any of the subjects to "show him" anything.

It is also important to note that even if he held an administrative position, he has no objective backing for his basis of comparison. There are no rules nor guidelines which dictates the required "feel" in an application (see section 3§2). In the case of subject B, the author was directly overturned by an approval from the main administrator of the site. Such a display makes it very clear that the administration does not share the authors literary ideals, or if they do, they are professional enough not to let it influence them in their position as staff. Not only that, the administration has approved applications with far lower literary qualities, proving that it is a nonissue to them. Instead, it would seem as though the administration wishes for everyone to roleplay as whichever character they wish to define, regardless of their "quality"; a noble, inclusive stance if ever I saw one.

Seeing how all the critique presented to both subjects is rooted within a nonspecific, subjective basis that the author has neglected to define for us, it is irrelevant. Even should one interpret it as constructive feedback, it still contains no useful information in actual improvements, but rather, simply asks for "more". As for how that "more" is defined, it is impossible to tell, though the tone of the author suggests it is a combination of length as well as some immeasurable notion of "feel" or quality.

Lastly, I would like to adress the signature which the author provided in all of the above mentioned posts (see section 3§3). Although the posts themselves has a severe elitist undertone, he ends them with this concession of humility. If one considers the characters the author has played before, one can easily spot a trend. As roleplaying characters often are idealized characters that the players wish to portray or even exist as, I would like to posit that there is a clear connection between his strong, dominant characters and his inability to release his position in the sites hierarchy. Indeed, the elitist undertones clearly shows an attempt to establish a superior position towards the subjects, something which is mirrored in his characters and roleplaying ideals. Consider also the authors young age and the well-established need for personal acknowledgement during the teenage years, and we are left with an unmistakenable conclusion. These factors all hint towards a subconcious desire within the author to attain a strong, social position and dominate others in varying degrees. While the humility in his recent signatures could be intepreted as good-natured concern, it is far more likely that it is added due to a sense of guilt. This guilt, which obviously accompanies the sense of superiority and dominance he recieves, most likely stems from his knowledge that he is no longer in an official position to put forth such comments, and thus is required to take a step back from his ideal position in order to not anger the administration. In essence, a sense of caution.

5. Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to answer the critique posited by the author. Firstly, he does not observe the standards nor the RP environment of the site. In his own words, he asks subject A: "Is there something wrong with my assessment?". I would like to posit that it does not matter whether or not his assessment was correct or not, since it was made from a faulty position, based in only subjective ideals which he is unable to quantify for the subjects. It may or may not be correct; it matters not, for the corruption it stems from causes the entire observation to become a fallacy. Or rather, as a great man once said:

It seems that you have completely misunderstood or neglected to read my post and instead simply repeated what you said last time, as if saying it again would make it any more relevant.

My point was not at all that my writing was good, nor that you were incorrect in saying I hadn't placed much care in the application. The reasons for your dismissal as staff is also irrelevant.

My point was that it does not at all matter what you think. You have no objective basis for your judgment. You deign lecture me on the "quality" of my application, when all you're really asking for is more content. More length. You are increasing the length standards due to some arbitrary reason. This when the application already adheres by the length standards put forth by the site.

My point was that what you think does not reflect the site's standards. You are imposing standards on this site that no one else shares. You are forcing your elitist ideals on literary standards on other members. Essentially, you are saying they are "not good enough". You sit there and spout bullshit, essentially judging how other people have fun, and saying that it isn't enough, for the sole reason of putting yourself in an assumed superior position and feeling good about yourself. It is elitist, it is morally corrupt, and frankly, it disgusts me.

Now, if memel wishes me to change things in my application, I will certainly do so. Because he has the authority to dictate what kind of RP environment he wishes to have on his site. You do not.

On a secondary note, simply replying does not mean you have in any way countered my argument. You actually have to prove me wrong. And since my argument is based in your subjective basis, the only way for you to do that is to present an objective measurement basis which backs up your claim. One that is also considered official by the site's administration.

Good luck with that.

Irony:

"They often reach unneeded lengths as he attempts to present more information than is needed for his argument. "

Oh, and I'm guessing I'm subject B. When I said "Leave this post" I meant for him to not delete it. Memel just came in by himself.

Good job on the research bit though. Pretty much spot on, describing my writing.

Oh and, Dai's an admin now. You guys are going to come back to this thread and laugh.

Out of curiosity, would this character be applicable if he wasn't applying for a captaincy?

Dai Ryuujin no Omega wrote:

Hm... while you have adequate word count for all of the fields, there is still something lacking in the app.

Please elaborate on your character's history in Seireitei -- from his beginnings to his ascension to his seat as Captain of the 3rd Division. Show to me that you are deserving of the role of 'Captain' and go all-out in your app.

Also, please put more detail in the appearance section. Specifically, on what type of clothing he wears an/or prefers as well as any remarkable physical traits you may have missed. A little more detail in personality would also be appreciated and recommended, but not strictly needed.

-- from your concerned citizen

I agree with Dai that this should have a brief history about your life in seireitei. And about that bold words in the quoted message, that means that you had more in your elite imagination. This is not a declaration that your whole app is all wrong, it is just to add "brief" history in your afterlife until he became a captain.

Done.

Anything else? I can write it with a rhyme scheme, if you wish.

Well done. Approved.