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[jawdacity]

Applicant Info

◎ Name: rie
◎ Journal: rie
◎ Contact: nicknamed lunacy @ AIM, pm this journal

Character Info

◎ Character's Name: Rin Matsuoka
◎ Character's Canon: Free!
◎ Character's Age: 17
◎ Canon Point: post-OVA
◎ Background/History: WIKIA.
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? Nope.

◎ Personality:

"For the team" is the message that Rin chooses to write on his commemorative brick at middle school graduation. A curious choice of words to characterize a sport rooted in individualism. Swimming is about overcoming one's own physical limitations time and again. And yet a twelve-year-old Rin chose to emphasize teamwork when the relay is a singular event amongst a wheatfield of different courses.

That fact can be used as groundwork to unpack what Rin is. What Rin is trying to be. He can come off as a confusing mishmash of opposites, sharp and soft, sakura blossoms and shark teeth, when taken as a whole.

He's driven on a personal level; exceptionally so. The entirety of season one is Rin's journey from depressed hopelessness in the shadow of his father's dreams - his father, who had wanted to be an Olympian and had given it all up when Rin was born. He'd seen himself as a failure after moving to Australia and hitting a wall. And yet he throws off his father's shadow, finding new meaning for himself in the sport, in the relay, in his friends. Not every teenager Rin's age could orient himself towards the international athletic stage from as early as he did. It had always been his goal. It started with his father and ended with himself. It's a grueling lifestyle that even the series doesn't quite encapsulate: training, training, training, and more training. Physically as well as mentally exhausting. And yet Rin takes on the challenge without bravado -- he does it cheerfully, sensibly. It's a goal that he knows he can achieve. His drive is augmented by his love of competition, sometimes to the point of idiocy. Rin and Sousuke compete endlessly over everything: cans of coke, who can count sharks in a more compelling manner, over bunks, etc. That extends to the pool, of course. Losing always stings, even when he takes it graciously -- as in the night-time race that he loses to Sousuke, and the prefectural free race that he loses to Haru.

That level of ambition comes with no small amount of self-discipline. He works out religiously, both in the pool and in the gym. He wakes up before the sun every morning to go running. He studies so hard that he's in the top ten of all subjects at his prestigious private school. He's careful about what he eats. Rin at first glance may appear sloppy with his emotions, easily wrought, but this is a kid who knows what he wants and knows exactly what he has to sacrifice to get there. And he doesn't complain. He does it all because he wants to do it, and he takes pride in his own accomplishments. As Rin places a great amount of emphasis on hard work over natural talent (it's a theme to which the series returns often with the dichotomy of Haru's talent versus Rin's hard work), I would argue that his success in school isn't necessarily due to a natural affinity for schoolwork. He brute forces it: he organizes his time carefully, making sure that he balances his studying time with his practicing time. He keeps a diary, and catalogs everything. He's organized and detail-oriented, sometimes to a fault; he can start to micromanage those around him if not held in check.

That applies to his swimming as well. That said, though Rin has read up on swimming theory and applies what he's learned, he's also a very instinctive, emotional person. If something doesn't feel right to him, he won't apply it.

That emotionalism is another example of the dichotomy of the manifestation of Rin's external behavior vs. his internal machinations. He may control his schedule down to the minute but he can't control himself with the same finesse: when emotions grip him, he can do little but to follow where they lead. When he's angry, he externalizes it -- he slams Sousuke up against a tree during an argument, kicks a trashcan across the room, corners Haru against the lockers. His temper burns bright and hot, but it doesn't last long.

He cries easily, whether in happiness or in sadness: when his friends from Iwatobi High reveal a pool full of cherry blossom petals to him, in which he'd wanted to swim since he'd been a child, he bursts out into tears. As he does when he learns of Sousuke's broken shoulder. His happiness, too, makes itself known in wide, wild grins. He can be dramatic - his reaction to said sakura pool, the drama CD interlude where he tries and fails to get a stray kitten to like him, his various arguments with Haru - and he can be mature, as in his handling of the Samezuka team. Sousuke calls him a "romantic swimming maniac". There's no better descriptor: Rin's romance is a well-explored area in the series, starting with his desire to create a time-capsule with the relay trophy he wins with the Iwatobi kids as a child, moving on to his love of fairy tales, his inability to stop the water works during romantic movies, and the fact that he openly admits to reading Gou's romance novels. "Gou's". Right.

His dreams of rising to the top of the swimming world is also hugely romantic in and of itself. This is a kid who is kicked down by the Australian team he'd attempted to join, and he turns around and rejoins it after high school, just to get his revenge. That's what life is, to Rin. If he doesn't overcome an obstacle, then he'll just get stronger, work on himself, and then turn right back around to knock down everything that comes in his way. An idealist, a romanticist, that's Rin Matsuoka for you.

He's easily embarrassed. That goes hand-in-hand with said romanticism, because Rin is - at first glance - the epitome of a cocky young man, sharp-edged and full-bodied with ego. "Better watch out, or you're going to get bitten!" But he has a soft heart. Call him out on it - which his friends often do - and he'll respond with gnashing teeth. When he was forced to wear a maid uniform as a part of the team's cultural festival booth, he spends the entirety of the (drama CD) episode getting angry with everyone who comments on how the outfit suits him. He's very self-reflective about his own capabilities, which can be seen as insecurity. This is made self-evident by the sheer amount of effort that he puts into everything that he does. He can be a poor sleeper, despite his strict fitness regime, which further cements the previous point that he's not as cocky as he likes to make himself out to be.

His soft heart carries further: he cares about his friends to compelling lengths. Much of season two is an exploration of how much Rin cares, a throwback to a young Rin's focus on teamwork in an individual sport. He notices Ai practicing late at night, and slips into the natatorium to leave him a bottle of water and an energy bar. He spends a great deal of time agonizing about who should be placed on the relay team, because he knows he'll end up hurting those that he excludes. He works diligently to include Sousuke into his circle of friends, and he feels Sousuke's loss of swimming as if it were his own. He takes Haru to Australia to help him make up his mind about his future. He's the only one of the group of friends to sit Makoto down and speak with him seriously about his future. He helps Rei for weeks after practice to master all of his strokes. Rin cares very deeply, and no amount of his bluster is enough to hide that fact.

He does his best to come off as the typical unaffected cool guy, but that front couldn't be any further from the truth. Rin puts a great deal of emphasis on how other people view him. This manifests in a number of ways: on a shallow level, it means that Rin pays a great deal of attention to trends. He puts effort into his appearance, wearing what he believes to be the cutting edge of fashion. He wears his hair long, despite its impracticality in the pool. His visceral reactions to the way others perceive him also speaks for itself -- Ai and Momo looking up to him and how much he values their respect, for one. His reaction to Sousuke's confession about the shoulder injury (and the fact that he let Sousuke swim in the relay despite the damage that could have been done). Rin trying to cheer Momo up when Pyunsuke - Momo's stag beetle - is assumed to be dead.

The most telling example, however, is when Seijurou passes on the captainship. Rin agonizes over his new responsibilities, because he doesn't believe himself capable. He ultimately takes on the mantle because there is no other choice, but it's clear that Seijurou's belief in him - and Ai's as well - help him past his early and lingering insecurities.

Rin as a leader is another slew of contradictions. He isn't a typical leader: that is to say, though he puts in all the legwork to develop relevant training menus, he offers all his team members his undivided attention, he can be stern and sharp, Rin also doesn't believe himself to be better than his team on any fundamental level. That's made obvious by the tone that he uses when he addresses them; he constantly mentions that he's not sure whether he's doing the right thing, but that he spent a great deal of time thinking about it and that in his heart he feels x and y and z is the best way to proceed. He's very much a leader by example. He might be confident in his own swimming prowess, but he's not confident in his ability to inspire greatness in others.

At the same time, though Rin is sensitive to minute personal emotional shifts in the winds, he isn't particularly attuned to the emotional needs of his friends. That's not to say that he doesn't care; he simply isn't observant enough to notice what others - like Sousuke or Makoto or Haru - would have. Everything that he feels, he feels down to the marrow; he wears blinders when he's in pain. But with Haru, with Sousuke, he believes he understands them and yet they both unravel in ways that he would have never predicted. He's getting better at this, as is shown by his treatment of Haru and Sousuke in the latter episodes of season 2, but he's still a work in progress. Gou, too, suffers from Rin's lack of insight. He loves her, that much is obvious, but he doesn't reach out to her as he does his friends. Even though it's self-evident that she would be overjoyed if he would.

Rin's treatment of Gou is singular in that it doesn't change much over the course of the two seasons. He's carefully hands-off. They don't interact to any significant degree; even when they do, he tends to be quieter than he is with the guys. They're close in the way that adult siblings are close: it's not effusive, it's not overt, it is what it is. In fact, Sousuke is more overtly brotherly towards Gou than Rin is, which leads me to believe that Rin has some deep-seated issues with himself in regards to Gou. IE, he's cast himself as a substitute father figure rather than taking on the more relaxed role of a brother - who isn't even a full year older! That's venturing in the realm of headcanon, so I'll leave it at that.

Sensitive, driven, passionate: all of these traits inspire Rin to keep reaching higher and further. He jets off to Australia without knowing English as a twelve-year-old; even when he struggles, he does his damnedest to keep his pain hidden from his host parents. Adventurous, independent, and surprisingly self-contained when he needs to be -- Rin might be grinning and cocksure, but he's always had a kind of maturity that underlined it all.

In closing -- his canon spirit animal is a shark. It's fitting. Just look at his teeth.

◎ Powers/Abilities:

If we're talking about the entire multisphere with super-powered ninjas and Gundams and Son Goku, Rin wouldn't stand a chance. He's a teenager who's deadly in the water, wherein "deadly" only refers to crushing time records of any competitors. His specialty stroke is the butterfly, though he's nearly as quick in freestyle.

He's played/enjoys soccer, as well.

He's neat to a fault. He keeps a daily diary of what's happening in his life.

He's also a good leader, though he may not seem so at first. Patient when he wants to be, detail-oriented, dedicated, quick-witted; he can manage a team of unruly teenagers without being overly intimidating physically, that should be accounted for.

He can skateboard.

He's fluent in both English and Japanese, and he has a knack for mathematics. He's a fairly good student in general.

He's training to be an Olympic swimmer, so he's phenomenally fit.

◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory:

- His swim bag (contains a bottle of water, a couple of protein bars, muscle salve, a couple of swimsuits, two towels, a wristwatch with a timer, a hairband, two pairs of goggles, a swimcap, a Samezuka tracksuit, jogging clothes, and a pair of running shoes.)
- He'll arrive dressed like this.
- Cellphone, wallet, keys (that have a swiss army keychain attached)

CEREALIA-Specific

◎ Element: Fire. (energy, assertiveness, passion, renewal, ambition...)
◎ Sense: I'm going to take the shark metaphor a step further ("scenting blood on the water") and say scent. Scent is also inextricably linked to memory, and Rin places a great deal of emphasis on what he came from (his father's dreams) and what he suffered in order to get to the place of triumph that he believed himself headed.
◎ Seven Character Traits:( + Hard-working, passionate, leadership by example ) | ( - Emotionally tone deaf, insecure, competitive ) + sensitive.

Samples

◎ First-Person Sample:

Haven event thread | Meme thread with Momo.

◎ Third-Person Sample:

Once every three years, the Samezuka swimming club, with the help of smart budgeting and deep parental pockets, puts together a recreational trip for its members. This year, of course, Rin's the one at the helm. It means three days of practice lost whilst he sits with the team manager and the faculty staff in an attempt to perfect the last minutiae required for such a large-scale trip, and three more lost during the actual trip itself.

(Rin tallies the hours in his head and adds it to his nightly training routine. An extra mile on his jogging route, an extra set of reps for each endeavor in the weight room. He lingers after hours in the club pool, swimming with his arms held in tight to his torso, allowing himself the poor form only because any excessive splashing would bring security running. It's enough, just to feel the water around him, the comfort of it, the challenge of it, or whatever — god, he's turning into Haru, isn't he?)

Because winter has clung to Samezuka for longer than it should have, this year. The trees are bare; the sky remains an ominous bone-white well into the afternoon. The swimming club faculty decide on a nearby onsen as a concession to the cold, and Rin, having been subjected to numerous diatribes from his team members about the cold, can't find it in himself to object. Still, in all honesty, he's less-than-pleased at the idea of a few days away from the pool. What's the point of "relaxation" if he can't even swim at the onsen?

Nonetheless, it's out of his hands.

It's half an hour past midnight on the first night of the trip. Rin is curled into a miserable ball in his futon, teeth gnashing, bright-eyed, ready to rip his roommates into shreds. The snoring is like some kind of new-age orchestral exhibition. Nitori is quiet enough, his breath a familiar sibilant whistle on every exhale, but the others (Shiba, Asato, Tanaka, Kubo) ... well, Rin had awoken to an irrational panic that there was a thunderstorm inside the room before he'd realized what was going on.

And then he'd lain awake for an hour, his mind stuttering and but not yet slowing, his brow a deep furrow. It's not just the snoring, though that alone would be enough to drive anyone insane.

It's —

Captain Matsuoka, Rin mouths to himself. The shoji-paper walls, the dim glow of the lamps from the hallway. Muted laughter from the bowels of the inn. The steady beat of night-sounds, drifting in through the open window. Captain Matsuoka.

He gives up after ten minutes. A can of tepid milky coffee from the vending machine keeps his eyelids from drooping, but does little to dispel the whir and rattle of his thoughts. Well? He has one option: the hot springs here are - unusually - open twenty-four hours on Friday and Saturday, and he'd not spent much of his time today taking advantage of them. It has nothing to do with his offbeat concerns about fraternization with the juniors (many of whom still remember the stunt he'd pulled last year at Regionals), it's also that he'd had a shitload of things to deal with today. He'd not had time for the hot springs. Shuttling his team members to their correct rooming assignments, confiscating a whole duffel full of contraband paint-thinner vodka, working out meal tickets for everyone when he'd realized that the club had paid for too few of them...

It's great, the responsibility. He's enjoying it, even though he still can't hear anyone call him captain without wanting to burst out laughing. But it's an egregious amount of shit to deal with, especially when he doesn't have Mikoshiba's easy command of the team. Not yet.

So, at 12:59am in the morning, Rin makes up his mind; without giving himself time to teeter back to indecision, he breaks the rules he himself had set, and sneaks down to the onsen. Five minutes later, he's hitching up the towel slung about his waist and stepping into the bathing rooms.

He makes a quick visual circuit of his surroundings: it's empty, as he'd expected it to be — what sort of nutjob got into an onsen so early in the morning? — or so he thinks, until his gaze snags on an all-too-familiar head of dark hair.

Rin smirks. Of course. If anyone in all of Samezuka had the balls to fuck with the club rules, it had to be Sousuke.

"Oi, Yamazaki. It's past curfew." says Captain Matsuoka, easing himself into the steaming water across from his friend.

◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories? Nope.

Thanks a bunch, mods!