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Week 237: Reed Noboru

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PeaCe

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Hey guys, I RP'd here for a few weeks a long time ago and remembering the forum and in need of good RP fix I decided to look the place up again. Took a bit of searching seeing as how this runs on a different forum now, but I managed it in the end :D

I did some reading and it seems like older players could get a stat transfer so I didn't have to start completely off from scratch:
http://www.mangaden.net/forum/showthread.php?15517-Noboru-Sho

But also that you needed a fresh app to see if I could still actually cut it :D (plus a fresh character to write is always a plus) So here I go:

Name: Noboru, Reed

Contact Info: AIM: TestVirus101

Age: Looks to be in his early twenties. His actual age is 127

Physical Stature: Reed is quite large, reaching around six feet tall, and has an average frame. While not overly muscular, he is fairly toned despite being slender. While he wears the standard shihakusho like so many others around him and his hair is nondescript (light brown, short and unkempt), his distinctive bright blue-tinted, circular glasses more than make up for this, and he isn’t too hard to pick out of a crowd. His zanpakutou sits sheathed at his right hip for easy access, as he is left-handed.

Persona: Possessing a mind that can’t help but try and connect the dots, he will often obsess for days over a ‘mystery’ he encounters that piques his interest and that he can’t solve. His keen senses often allow him to pick up on things others don’t and this extends to his skill in combat.

Finding this a problem in his everyday life, he would rather avoid asking any questions altogether. He goes out of his way to avoid anything that seems suspicious unless expressly ordered to or otherwise forced to look into it due to the insistence of a friend.

As a result he seems lazy to many, while it seems as though his reluctance to do anything outside of his normal routine is simply a lack of motivation on his part, the truth is that he knows if he encounters anything particularly interesting, he'd have the desire to look further and further into the situation.

As such he spends a lot of time sitting around and keeping to himself, while he isn't anti-social, he often spends his time discussing mundane topics and making small talk, or engaging in relaxing hobbies such as reading, building models, or playing card and board games.

Biography:
Reed lived in the western portion of Rukongai’s District Twenty-four. Living a relatively comfortable life, he often went exploring and adventuring with a group of his friends, although the frequency with which these trips took place lessened as the years went by.

As time went on, a small number of his friends left one by one for the Soul Reaper Academy and he often thought about joining them, having shown some promise whenever his group had run into trouble over the years.

Fancying himself as something of an amateur detective, he often found missing items for people in his district, or tracked down items in the nearby landscape that they had requested.

Seeking an even greater challenge, he moved on to stage investigations. Whenever he and the friends who still remained with the group had free time, they would take turns organising elaborate cases using props and then challenging those who weren’t responsible for creating the cases with solving them.

One day several of his friends vanished without a trace, and while he spent weeks intensively searching for them, he was frustrated to find that he was gaining no traction in this investigation.

Despite this, he must have aroused some concern, because a group of thugs attacked him one night and left him for dead. Narrowly surviving thanks to the aid of a passerby, Reed entered the Soul Reaper Academy with the hopes of becoming strong enough to return and finally bring closure to the entire situation.

Division: 5th, Unseated

Zanpakutou: Reed’s zanpakutou is unremarkable, having no distinguishable features native to the blade itself. The guard however is more elaborate than a standard weapon and comparable to a sabre, curving down and covering his fingers as he holds the blade.

Stats:
Reiatsu: 100
Zanjutsu: 30
Hakuda: 10
Hohou: 35
Kidou: 25

Sample Chapter:

Nothing But Time

1,169
Despite all the blood, sweat and tears he’d overcome to graduate from the academy, it was as if no time had passed at all. This wasn’t true, of course, in fact he’d been a student for eight years. In spite of this, the buildings he now stood among had barely aged a day. Had he succeeded? It depended on what perspective he chose. If his goal was to simply graduate from the academy and become stronger, then it was true that he had achieved a great deal in those eight years. If he had hoped to find some sort of closure, then he had not inched any further towards his goal at all.

While his feet had carried him here almost instinctively as soon as he’d graduated and been assigned to the Fifth, he wasn’t quite sure why he had bothered to return. He’d promised himself he would one day – when he believed he could do what he’d failed to do previously – but had that time really come? Whether or not he could now stand and fight the thugs who had tried to take his life was irrelevant, he’d need to find them first. That was essentially the problem all along.

He’d never needed force to get to the bottom of a problem before that day, so having acquired the means to fight back wasn’t some magical key to success. The truth, was that his failure eight years ago wasn't just a result of five men beating him into the ground. The cruel reality was that he just wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Needing eight years to pass through the academy was proof enough of this. Being inquisitive didn't make you intelligent, just more prone to learning from your mistakes, and he had suffered through many over the past eight years.

“You’ve trained your body, Reed,” he remembered a friend at the academy telling him when he recounted this very same story, “but, have you trained your mind?” It was a fair question, for all he had gone through, had this amateur detective finally gone pro?

Five people just up and vanish in the middle of the night without warning, he thought to himself, it’s not normal. The obvious answer would be a kidnapping, but by whom and for what purpose?

Looking up he noticed that he’d arrived at his destination. In front of him stood a large, two-story building which had been the home of most of his friends when they were growing up. The people that you lived with when in Rukongai were as close to family as you were going to get. He couldn’t have asked for better when he’d been invited to live in this building all those years ago. Over time as they all began to move on, the numbers had dwindled, but that sense of family had not faltered. However as it was now, only one person still lived there.

Reed knocked on the door and waited for an answer. A few seconds passed by and the door slid open. He looked down and noticed that a small girl was standing in front of him, grinning from ear to ear.

“Welcome, mister... what can I do for you?”

He laughed and knelt down so that he was only slightly above her eye-level. “I’m looking for Mieko,” the newly-inducted shinigami answered, “does she still live here?”

Taking the time to get a better look at what he was wearing, the little girl took a step back and seemed a little hesitant, but Reed continued smiling until finally she grinned. “Yeah, Miss Mieko takes care of us. She’s upstairs, I’ll go find her.”

Reed stepped into the building and took off his sandals. The little girl turned and ran towards the stairs, leaping up them with surprising speed. Taking a look around, he noticed that very little had changed, there was but one simultaneously large and small difference. Everyone living inside had shrunk – or to be more accurate - the new inhabitants were all young children. He barely had time to take a seat on a nearby chair when a woman that looked around his age ran down the stairs with a bright smile on her face.

“Finally!” she shouted, “it’s about time Reed. How long has it been?”

Reed stood up and hugged her, letting out a small laugh. “Around eight years I think. How have you been?”

“Me? How about you? Look at what you’re wearing! You’ve finally graduated then?”

Reed nodded, but deflected most of the question by dropping eye contact and looking around the room at all the children. “What happened to this place?”

“Ah... well after you left, I was the only one left, so I decided I needed some company. Most of these kids didn’t have a home, and those that did were usually being taken care of by people who couldn’t really afford to continue sparing the help. I took them in, the neighbours usually lend a hand in taking care of them and making sure we’re all doing fine.”

Reed turned his head back to look at Mieko. “You’re still the same then,” he noted with a smile, “you always were the first to help... even when you had no idea who you were helping,” he added with a light chuckle.

“What brings you back here? Shouldn’t you be in Seireitei? I can’t imagine you making a good first impression if you’re just going to slack off and come all the way out here.”

“Relax,” Reed said with a roll of his eyes, “I have some time off. I thought I’d come and pay you a visit, to see how you’ve been...”

“I’m fine,” Mieko replied plainly, “but I don’t think you’re only here to see me. You still haven’t given up, have you?”

“...Of course not, but I don’t have the time to get into all that now. Like I said, I have some time off, but not enough to really bother with all of that yet. But if we’re being honest, when I do have the time, you can be sure I’ll be here.”

One of the children approached with a tray that held two cups of tea on it, both Mieko and Reed graciously accepted and grabbed a cup each. Mieko bent down and ran her hand through the boy’s hair.

“Thanks Dai, go and play with the others,” she said, pointing outdoors where all the rest of the children had run off.

When Dai had made his way outside, Mieko turned her head and looked sternly at Reed. “I don’t want you to get involved with all of that again,” she said honestly, “we just have to accept what happened and move on... I know it’s hard, but I don’t want to lose somebody else to this. You almost didn’t make it last time.”

“That was then, this is now,” he replied, “I wasn’t able to get to the bottom of it then, but I have the advantage here. I’m stronger now and I’ve had eight years to think about this. Trust me, it doesn’t matter how far I have to look, or who I have to go through to get answers, I have one thing on my side... I have nothing but time.”
 
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Peace.

Anyway, I'm Rob and I'll be handling your application.

First things first, and before I go into detail, for the love of all that is handled by our awesome writing skills please give your writing paragraphs and not walls of text.

Also known as: please make sure you actually press enter when you begin a new paragraph.

And, yes, you do get to keep your old stats but it'll be given to you in increments of 10% per week - this also means you do not get newbie bonus.
 
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Sorry about the formatting, looks as if it didn't translate well from Microsoft Word.

I've gone and chucked in some spacing here and there now and it should be a lot easier on the eyes.

As for the process of entering the academy, is this HD-specific? Because I had taken a look around on one of the bleach wikis and seen something to the effect of "anyone can enter the academy providing they pass an entrance exam" although for all I know, they could have that wrong.
 
I'd like to refer you to my boss speaking below this post.

One more thing, though your spacing is much, much better... you still have a lot of faulty... spacing.

Try looking it over once more with this thought: every speaker has its own, separate line of dialogue.

So:

Spacing said:
"Hello," said random bystander A as she looked upon the carnage that was faulty spacing. "You've got... some problems here, don't you?"

Random bystander B shrugged softly as he turned around and slapped the girl in the face. "You have no idea, girl," he said, sighing softly.

Though he just slapped her, the girl was right in some way. He did have a problem, and it wasn't just his lack of proper social skills. His spacing was not going anywhere he wanted it too and he just didn't know what to do anymore.

"I just don't know what to do anymore, you know?"
 
As for the process of entering the academy, is this HD-specific? Because I had taken a look around on one of the bleach wikis and seen something to the effect of "anyone can enter the academy providing they pass an entrance exam" although for all I know, they could have that wrong.

This is correct, and actually the way that most people would have entered. Particularly, individuals from noble families, who have a greater chance of having measurable reiatsu, are likely to try the entrance exams as a matter of prestige.

The ones who get drafted are usually the ones in outer districts who never really understood what their budding power meant or even that they had it.
 
Ok I've thrown a space in everytime the person speaking changes
One of the adjustments I'll need to make when writing on a forum as opposed to Word :) I can see now that it's just a lot easier to read, it really doesn't take the transition from Word well :P


As for getting drafted / entering of your own free will, am I right in reading that I've gotten the all clear on that now?
 
Go ahead, also one last thing before I get back into reviewing: the spacing issues aren't just in your sample chapter, they are also prevalent in your biography.

So, whilst reading over your persona I'm kind of obligated to say this: despite the fact that your character 'connects the dots' faster than most people, that kind of only holds true for your own personal story, because trust me this treat is pretty much every other Halcyon Days character. So, just be aware of that.

Also, you wrote him obsessing over every little mundane thing that tickles his mind... unless you actually plan on doing that for everything you may want to reconsider this OCD treat - but that's just me.

- Anyway, the review:

First things first: why eight years? What's so special about that eight year of academy? Normal students take six years, why did Reed take eight?

Second, when your dialogue goes like this: “You’ve trained your body Reed,” you should place a comma between body and Reed as such: “You’ve trained your body, Reed,".

Otherwise it sounds like you said bodyreed.

Next part, again a comma mishap:
“but have you trained your mind?” should be: “but, have you trained your mind?”

Five people just up and vanish in the middle of the night without warning he thought to himself, it’s not normal

You're also missing a comma after 'warning' and before 'he'.

He barely had time to take a seat on a nearby chair when a woman that looked around his age ran down the stairs with a bright smile on her face.
“Finally!” she shouted, “it’s about time Reed. How long has it been?”

Spacing.

He barely had time to take a seat on a nearby chair when a woman that looked around his age ran down the stairs with a bright smile on her face.

“Finally!” she shouted, “it’s about time Reed. How long has it been?”

Reed turned his head back to look at Mieko, “you’re still the same then,” he noted with a smile, “you always were the first to help; even when you had no idea who you were helping.”

Should be a period after Mieko and a capital Y for You're.

When Dai had made his way outside, Mieko turned her head and looked sternly at Reed, “I don’t want you to get involved with all of that again,” she said honestly, “we just have to accept what happened and move on... I know it’s hard, but I don’t want to lose somebody else to this. You almost didn’t make it the last time.”

Same here there should be a period after Reed.

Reason for this is because you only do a comma when you write things as She said, "blabla".

Furthermore, one last thing: please get rid of as many ;'s as you possibly can, because they are all over the place and I'm afraid to say most of them are used incorrectly.
Your safest bet is to either just use a period, or use (insert words here) or - insert words here -.

Do that, check it over once more for any comma mistakes, misspellings, spacing issues et all and check in back with me here.
 
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Alright, went over it once again. Made the changes you pointed out, plus any others I could think of. The eight years thing I've made some slight tweaks too, referencing the oddity within the text and will probably use it for a personal chapter or two later.

As well as that, changed the persona a little bit, to be less all-encompassing. Added more of a specific-side habit to it. It was never supposed to be some sort of key combat characteristic, so I've left that as is.
 
So, a few more things that I forgot to mention: one is that we always write out numbers unless they're unreasonably high - and even then some of us still try and write them out (me) - as a result district 24 should be twenty-four.

Or should it? See, it's the name of the place: District Twenty-four.

Capital D, Capital T.

Also, in your appearance you wrote: He is quite tall, reaching six feet tall.

That's two talls in one sentence, that's redundancy at its finest. Might I suggest: "He is quite tall, reaching about six feet in height."

Just keep that in mind, nothing breaks of a reader's flow as much as word redundancies do.

Fix that, post back here and I'll do one final look over before sending you off to final drafts.
 
Hey, I remember that Wario signature.

You are approved.

Request to join the HD permission group from My Settings, My Account, Permission Groups. And then you can post in the proper sections. Post stats, chapter, profile, all that good stuff.

Huzzah, apps.
 
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