[Application] Kazuki

Man of Japanese origin was brought to the world with laughter, just minutes later, the laughter turned hollow and hours beyond, he had forgotten why it was funny: It was the first and last time he had laughed. His smile was replaced with indifference, not that it should bother you.

Loitered in Sabitsura, he didn't spend too much time living among the villagers for he found himself on the trodden path towards Seireitei. In the Academy where he named himself Kazuki and refused to provide a family name. Sword-play, Kidou, Hakuda all of which he did not excel at. 'A perfectly plain individual,' a teacher remarked. Though his ability to soak in information at a frightening pace merit a hushed comment.

Never mind. Graduated seven years later, soon he'll partake in a baptism of fire. The Great Famine awashed the Northern Europe, snuffing humanity's life, drip by drip and with it, a feast of souls. He had made friends, but not by his own doing. 'Keep your expectations low and you'll never be disappointed,' he remarked. Shame he was right all the time. Began in the eleventh squad as a faceless goon, but his comrades slowly noticed him as he returned to the same spot, quietly eating his rightful meal.

It was later discovered that it was his ability to soak in information that kept him alive. Endless stream of resources wafed into his ears like hot steam from rice as he ate. At the end of the Great Famine in Northern Europe, all of his friends perished. He had forgotten their faces, but remembered their names.

His former teacher asked him how he survived when his friends did not? 'Ambition,' he immediately rebut.

A decade before present day, Kazuki was discovered by twelveth squad for his resourcefulness and ability to craft crude yet effective traps during his time in the living world. He accepted, discovering that their roles in Research and Development placed him further away from conflict and demanded less of his physical prowess.

Now a newly fifth seated member of division twelve, Kazuki leads the way in attempting to keep freshly graduated shinigami to their death with a simple booklet of hollows and improved tools to supplement their survival on their trip to the cold world.

He is a man with low expectations but high ambitions. He waltzed into the academy, failed to impress the teachers, made friends and graduated. Now his friends perished during the Great Famine, teachers questioning ability to survive and transferred to twelveth division for his intelligence.

Kazuki liked to think of himself as a good listener, granted the dialogue kept him interested but he's a quick man to scowl and berate if he doesn't like what he's hearing. He doesn't care much for others, he felt it was an obligation and duty to maintain their best chances of survival. Friendship was largely in his mind, a kindred spirit was hard to come by and with the face of soul society constantly shifting every passing day, loneliness took root within him.

While he had been providing perishable tools like flash, smoke bombs and traps on top of releasing a book called 'surviving under grave circumstances'. Kazuki had driven himself to create something that could no longer send fresh faced shinigami to their uncertain death.


I wanted to write his small snippet to give you some idea of what he is:

Barely a century in service for the Seireitei, Kazuki considers himself a veteran. The ambitious man, driven to live ever since he found himself in the wilderness of Sabitsura. He joined Seireitei and with his charisma, he became a popular man. With poor combative skills, his leadership, strategic mind and wily use of traps and tools he crafted, Kazuki was ready to brave the living world.

If only. The Great Famine took a lot of him, most of which irreparable. Despite his improved combative skills and wily use of traps, he could only save himself and watched his friends die. Refusing to break, he shelves his grief and soldiers on.

The use of his invention caught the eyes of 12th division and successfully persuaded him to transfer, but continued to help the 11th and other divisions with opportunities to increase their survivability during dire times - even as far as resorting to using his new found knowledge to provide them experimental drugs - anything to quell the death rate of Shinigami.


Kazuki is a shadow of his former self. Traumatised from the events of The Great Famine, he chose to lock away his grief and loss and focus to combat any further loss of life. He is ambitious, wanting his comrades to not only live, but succeed rather than allowing himself to succeed.

His famed stoiciness and honesty hides as much of his unethical and immoral behaviour, going as far to be evasive with his words while injecting untested drugs: 'you must survive,' his words. Uncertain how the drugs react until they return or they don't.

His relationship with his Zanpakutou spirit is one sided at best, Kazuki made little attempt to make any response, focusing only on his work. 'Stop, listen,' were the unknown spirit's first words.


Pls lay it on to me. I want to improve!
 
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Eighth Seat,
Eighth Division
Reiatsu
90
Strength
40
Defense
10
Speed
30
Spirit
10
what i think is important for characters -- especially shinigami, where inner character conflicts are hyper formalized/structured in the form of You vs Inner Spirit -- is having some idea of the central tension or idea that's going to define where you take the character. that tension can and should change while you're playing, but having a good idea of what you're going for at first is still really important.

you have this description of this guy: former grunt gone twelfth division, grizzly, scarred by war but still involved in it from a distance. that's a fine surface to start from: what's going on below? what's keeping him going day to day? what ideals/flaws define his interactions with people (beyond snapping at them; if our characters got into a conversation about "the meaning of life" or some shit, what would happen?) what do you think their inner spirit might be like, and thus represent about Kazkuki? how are all of these basic personality traits going to result in tendencies that make interacting with your character interesting?

to best answer those questions, my suggestion is to kind of back up from the specifics for a bit and think about the character you want to play at a kind of archetypal, trope-y level. like think about your character at the level of "grizzled headstrong veteran" or "shifty street-smart inventor" -- the "vibe" they give off. then think about why playing that character appeals to you. what is it about this kind of person that's really distinctive, or meshes with the current setting of BG/meshes with other characters really well, or just attracts you? is there something you want to explore by writing? let those questions percolate for a bit. [example: for me, i really wanted to play a kidou scholar with his head in the clouds, kind of rolling through the years. i realized what i really wanted to explore was ambition, especially in the weird case of being a very powerful immortal being. what do you aim towards when you know life just goes on and on? what's the end of this power?]

there's nothing wrong with the details that you've put down here: i think having a "trap" specialist in the twelfth is a really fun idea, and depending on how you play it you could get in some fun situations! just want to get a sense of concrete, unique motivation for the character
 
I'm no pro writer (a lot of this is just advice I've been given), nor do I make a lot of in-depth comments on pitches but I want to be of some help. I already mentioned this in the discord, but I'd suggest sticking to one tense as it makes things flow better.

Beyond that, I have a hard time getting a good idea of who Kazuki is, which might sound confusing as you've listed a bunch about him in your OP. There's the problem, though, it's listed. I can say Kane is cold, paranoid, in 8th, and likes to smoke but it doesn't give you a good grasp of who she is beyond maybe some stereotypes that come to mind. I find I tend to resort to a list-y style of writing when I'm frustrated and struggling with my writing. An example would be instead of just saying Kane has a dark sense of humour and smokes, tie these things in to another trait that explains why. In her case, both are coping mechanisms.

Hopefully that makes sense.
 
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Fifth Seat,
First Division
Reiatsu
125
Strength
50
Defense
40
Speed
20
Spirit
15
Why is this character a member of our "cast"? What role does a 12th division officer who writes a survival handbook for fresh graduate shinigami play in this arc (or any other arc)?

Put simply, what separates this character from a background NPC?

These are questions that should be addressed, as currently I'm not really seeing anything to indicate a difference.
 
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I've updated the pitch. So far I've made an outline, but it just screams something is missing. Creating pitches is a new experience for me.
 
Okay. Time to do this again. When your dumb self tells you that something is missing, something is missing. So rather than doing it all over via editing the opening page like a bong, I decided to go against my sensibility and dump this information in the new post like a champ.

Kazuki's life before death? Fuck that. He knows nothing and let's be honest, not knowing your past life is a blessing rather than a curse, like imagine remembering all the cringe and poor math answers one had made. Though, old habits die hard.

Ascended and crashed into Rukongai, he found himself in some area further away from Seiretiei, something like Rukongai 70-80, where Shinigami rarely police the area but also hollows uncommonly roam. So his humble origin goes something like this: settled in some bumtown and developed a knack for growing plants, both "medical" and vanity. From this he became popular among the unruly, though he was convinced that his optimistic charm and eccentric rambling had gotten their attention. (but he's not too eccentric, he's more like a nerd)

He's a man that decides on his needs. He had a weird dream that always left with a weird taste in his mouth. After a few weeks, he wanted to experience the taste of meat. He went out into the green wilderness, a short distance from the town and laid a myriad of traps of varying sizes. After a week, none had been snared. He had almost given up until he found out that his trap was snared. He was salivating until he discovered to his horror that he snared a hollow.

Nope! He booked it, dashing back to the town but he took his time. The trapped hollow was killed and the patrolling shinigami was among the irate crowd. It all blew up when he admitted that he was the one laying the trap and the horde was trying to kill him for not only bringing Hollow but also Shinigami into the mess. Pelted with stones, he fled.

He later got caught by shinigami and dragged into service. He didn't object to it, thinking that it would give him a second chance of living.

I haven't decided on the time span of his background and decided to downgrade the seated role to unseated. I've also got rid of the morose, gloomy and damaged mindset of the character, opting for a positive, optimistic and trying to be everyone friend - I think it would be interesting.

I am still keeping his ambitious and honesty trait, fueling himself in giving everyone a little helping hands if they need it. He's stubborn, immature and impulsive.

That's the most I can think of so far.