Xavier Institute ☆ Application

[tsunderthighs]

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Moo
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Yes.
CONTACT: PMing the journal is fine, or you can PP me at bacsojin
CHARACTERS PLAYED: None ATM, also sending an application for Waver Velvet.

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Rin Tohsaka (not to be confused with Rin Tousaka!)
CANON: Fate/Stay Night
CANON REFERENCE: Wiki page! Some things on there should be taken with a grain of salt, but it's mostly solid.
AGE: 18 de-aged down to 17.
GENDER: Female all the way.
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: Grade 11
APPEARANCE:


Please note: While Rin Tohsaka and Rin Tousaka are separate characters, any similarities or references to the other Rin in the game are intentional and done with the permission of that Rin's player.
PERSONALITY: You think you know about Rin Tousaka, but let me tell you about Rin Tohsaka. Think of her like a gourmet candy; the outside is a delicate, refined shell that almost looks too beautiful to eat, but once you bite it you think what the hell is this nasty flavor?! It's pretty much just like that.

The “shell” that Rin has created for herself is one of the perfect Honor Student. She's the best in her entire grade academically as well as athletically, she's incredibly pretty, she's generous with her wealth, and she's kind to others. But, this perfect princess is also distant-- though certainly not in a cold way. Despite her impressive achievements, she has refused to join any clubs or sit on the student counsel, and she often turns down invitations to spend time with others. Those she does choose to hang out with still don't get so much of a glimpse of her private life. Boys who confess to her are rejected. That's simply how it is with the perfect, distant-but-friendly Tohsaka.

If the shell could be called sweet, the filling could only be considered bitter and sour. Rin's natural excellence in academia and athletics are a product of her intense perfectionist attitude and competitive nature; she has to be the best because quite frankly, she refuses to settle for anything less. Yet at the same time, Rin is ridiculously lazy, and part of the reason for her refusal to join clubs is because she just doesn't want to wake up that early. When her polite front isn't in place, Rin is blunt, rude, sarcastic, and kind of a dick. She loves to tease others and will openly laugh at their expense, and doesn't care if it's unseemly to complain, whine, or remind those around her that she's better. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she's also kind of a casual pervert, devious, calculating, and a greedy, stingy money-grubber besides. If she can use something or someone to her advantage? She will shamelessly do it. Then there's the fact that she can be surprisingly violent and temperamental, especially when she doesn't get her way or during mornings. To top it all off, she's a cocky braggart who boldly admits that she's only trying to win the War for the sake of winning, and truly doesn't have a wish. When asked why she doesn't wish to have the world, Rin claims with a serious expression that she already owns it. There can be no doubt that this princess is spoiled rotten.

She's not so flawless when it comes to things other than that rotten personality, either. Because of her stubborness and short temper, Rin is very prone to mistakes. It's her belief that this is a curse upon the Tohsaka family, as she's pretty sure it happened to her father as well; in her mind, Tohsakas are doomed to mess up at the precise moment when it would be the worst possible time to do so. Whether this is really a curse or not is unclear, but it does seem to be hereditary. Another “hereditary trait” would be her “allergy” to modern technology. That is, as a magus, Rin stubbornly refuses to become familiar with it, and so she is the absolute worst person to leave around your electronics. She makes many more blunders than she's like to admit in general, and gets flustered when called on it. Worse yet, Rin is prone to jumping to conclusions too quickly, especially when it comes to forming opinions on other people, and she changes her mind just as quickly. So as if she wasn't bratty enough, she's contrary as well.

But if you can tolerate that taste enough to get to the core of the metaphorical candy, there's a different flavor in the very center as well. The other, greater reason Rin keeps others at a distance is that she doesn't want them to get hurt. She is a magus, and her drive to be the very best she can in every arena including this one stems from a deep need to uphold the Tohsaka pride in a way that would please her father. Rin keenly understands the dangers in her secret life, and so she keeps others away to prevent them from learning her secret. Mindful of the life she's supposed to lead, she's decided to rely on cold logic rather than risk growing affectionate toward others, and as a result tries to be very level-headed and focus on results and methods and strategy and work rather than making friends or other lasting relationships. Not only that, but Rin devotes so much of her time to becoming a magus worthy of the Tohsaka name that it's no wonder she wouldn't have time for others while also keeping her school record impeccable.

That's not to say that Rin is as cold as she'd like to think she is. Despite the nature of the Holy Grail War, and the knowledge that the best course of action is to kill other Masters, Rin repeatedly helps Shirou though there's truly little benefit in it for her. Before the war even starts, she gives up her one amazing trump card to save the boy's life because she can't stand the thought that his death would make Sakura cry. In at least one route, she displays a willingness to sacrifice her own chance to win the war to save the people around her. In fact, when it comes to those close to her, laying her life on the line isn't something too difficult for her to do either. This is especially true in the case of Sakura; Rin has such a deep affection for her sister that there's very little she wouldn't do to ensure Sakura's happiness, and there's also a lot of guilt boiling away inside of her over Sakura's situation.

In fact, Rin hides a lot of insecurities and unhappiness away under that thick layer of overwhelming confidence. Her guilt over the horrors that Sakura lived through are only a part of this, and is also proof that the unflappable Rin Tohsaka can be afraid of something. Rin never asks too deeply about Sakura's life because it is easier for her to assume that Sakura is happy. And there's another big lie she hides as well; in truth, Rin is not personally very interested in the Holy Grail War or being a proper magus. She does so out of intense loyalty to her father, wishing that even after death he could be proud of her. Rin idolizes him to a great extent, if only because she was too young when he died to understand the dark side of his personality. To Rin, his approval was something she'd do anything to earn, and even after his death she strives for such a thing. She pretends that her memories and momentos mean little, but in truth she misses her family dearly.

Rin is also a very lonely person. Her mother's brain damage ten years prior caused her to believe that Tokiomi and Sakura were still with them, but of course her hallucinations never grew older. As Rin did, Aoi began to view her as a stranger living in their house and isolated the very daughter who cared for her alone. Kirei, despite being Rin's legal guardian, was often away and outright neglectful when he wasn't, and Rin never cared for or trusted the priest regardless, blaming him for her father's death without realizing he truly did murder Tokiomi. Her childhood was also difficult because Kirei lost a large part of the Tohsaka fortune, and when he did pay attention to her, it was to tutor her in magecraft or martial arts. As such, Rin grew up being close to no one in particular, and resented that being a magus in a town with no other prominent magi meant she had to keep herself closed off from others. Her unpleasant personality can certainly be explained by her unfortunate upbringing, as can her attachment to Shirou and the Servants despite knowing she shouldn't help them. Despite her unshakeable determination, for the first time Rin is finally in a situation where she can have friends without having to hide who she truly is.

So, perhaps it's more accurate to say that if Rin Tohsaka was a candy, she'd be a jawbreaker; a candy with many layers that's difficult to handle and would certainly not hesitate to choke you if you did it wrong.

Very little about the recipe for the Rin Tohsaka candy changes to make the Institute version. While her reasons for trying to keep herself distanced from others are from a different root, it is still something she struggles with. Mostly, any changes are in how she feels about her own family. Because the Holy Grail War is not a part of Rin's history, she instead tried to live up to goals that she sort of pasted over her father's to better deal with the fact that she could not understand what he truly expected of her. Learning the truth came as a crushing blow, and one that she will have to come to terms with on her own time. She also bears a bitterness over her past, and has not yet had the chance to confront Kotomine Kirei about his role in her father's agenda as well as his demise.

POWERS/ABILITIES: Rin's mutant ability is a precise form of energy manipulation that she can channel through crystalline structures. In particular, she can use such structures as conductors for her own energy. The more energy she's able to place into these “storehouses”, the more powerful they will be down the line. For example, a gemstone she has been touching every time she passes it on a daily basis will be much, much stronger than one she has only just picked up an hour ago.

Rin favors gemstones in particular, though this is mostly due to personal taste. Some applications of her power involve creating small bombs or extremely sharp projectiles, heat sources, changing the form of the structure, and so on, though she must be in close proximity for her power to work. The closer she is to the crystal in question, the more control she will have; while physical contact is not necessary, it is ideal. However, filling such structures with this energy does not mean she cannot reclaim it just as easily. Rin uses her gemstones as a sort of power boost when necessary; storing great amounts of energy in one stone over time means that she can draw all of that energy out of the stone as needed, almost like a battery. When using the energy within herself, Rin is able to make modifications to her own body, such as improving her own strength or speed. However, because she is taking in more energy than her body normally possesses at any given time, these bursts often leave her exhausted after the fact. Were she to overdo it, she could cause serious damage to her own body. Likewise, if she charges more energy than her crystalline conductor can handle, it may well fracture or explode. Once Rin removes all of the energy that has been stored into a gem, she has “emptied” it; she must begin the process all over.

This mutation has existed in Rin's family for generations, and as such each generation has taught the next all of the techniques they've learned when using it, resulting in a very specialized series of skills. The best and most difficult technique in their arsenal are gembond familiars; small creatures that have been created from gemstones of the highest quality and altered in form, then filled with so much manipulable energy that they are able to be controlled to very precise degrees. In Rin's case, she favors the form of a bird, and uses her tiny gembond birds for a variety of subtle tasks. However, this process is not easily accomplished because it takes absurd amounts of time and money. The gemstones capable of handling so much energy are only those of the highest quality money can buy, making them exensive beyond measure, and the amount of energy needed is so much that it takes over a year of dedicated energy transfer to work. Even using what was left to her by her father, in her entire life Rin has only been able to obtain eight; she has since broken two and refuses to ever use more than one at a time.

An unfortunate side effect of Rin's mutation presents itself when she comes into contact with substances such as silicone, which is found in a wide range of electronics. She has a nasty habit of breaking such items in short order, which is really only made worse by the fact that she's a complete dunce in understanding how a lot of these electronics work.

While not supernatural in nature, Rin is also proficient in martial arts, well-educated, and can speak several languages.

AU HISTORY: Rin's mutation has been in her bloodline for the last two centuries; it is a secret that her predecessors have viewed as a special gift from God for over six generations. Her ancestors turned to Christianity during an era when the shogunate was determined to rid Japan of the religion without mercy, and when the mutation first appeared they believed that God was telling them they had chosen the right path. Like their religion, they hid this gift, using it in secrecy to help them survive as they continued to embrace more Western views to entwine with their own traditions.

By the time Rin's father was born, the result was the wealthy and prestigious Tohsaka clan, known for their ownership of both riches and land, respected by both their traditionalist neighbors and the Western church. To the public, they were the example of class and sophistication, especially when Tokiomi's father chose to marry an Italian wife. They had it all, and no one would have suspected that their wealth and credibility were built on decades of creative use of their mutation to steal and otherwise turn situations to their favor. Nor, too, would anyone guess that behind that tolerance and generosity they showed to their normal neighbors, they held to the strict and dark creed of the Mutant Supremacy Movement. Which is to say, the Tohsaka dedication to Christianity and wish to find the bridge between faith and an explanation for why they were different led them right into the arms of a cult.

As a child, Rin was not aware of the crueler aspects of her heritage. From her earliest memories, her father taught her to hone and perfect her gift while simultaneously teaching her the importance of keeping it hidden from those around her. The subtleties of his Supremacist rhetoric were lost on her at so young an age, and all she was able to understand was that she was different than her friends and should hold them at arm's length lest they become hurt. This misunderstanding of her father's ideals only became more pronounced during the year that Rin turned eight. A pair of mutant serial killers swept through Fuyuki City, luring away and brutally murdering hundreds of children. Many of Rin's classmates were among the victims, including a girl she had become close to. When her friend did not come to school one day, Rin ran away to find her, only to be attacked by the serial killers themselves and saved at the last moment by her uncle. The experience was traumatic for Rin, especially because it came so soon after her father's sudden decision to send her younger sister away to be adopted by another family. Rin was not privy to the details, and unaware that this adoption was related to cult politics, she had extreme difficulty in understanding why she had to lose her sister.

Sadly, the losses that year did not end with a sister and a classmate. Rin's own father was the next to go. Tokiomi was involved in a cult ritual and betrayed by his own right-hand man, a sociopath priest who had been sent to Tokiomi to try and understand his own mutation. Kirei Kotomine was the son of an influential priest in the cult who'd had ties to the Tohsaka clan since before Tokiomi was born. Once again Rin was not included in cult politics and had no knowledge of the reason behind her father's death, or even the killer. Her mother was the next loss; a tragic victim of her uncle after he had been driven insane. She was strangled to the point that it caused severe brain damage, binding the woman to a wheelchair and leaving her lost in a hallucination where she could no longer acknowledge that her husband had died and one of her children had been taken from her. Rin's uncle was the final loss of that year, having been overwhelmed by his madness and disappearing entirely a short time later.

And so, at eight years old, Rin became the head of the Tohsaka clan. She was left in the custody of the very man who had murdered her father; Tokiomi had left all of his affairs in Kirei's hands in the event that he should die, never dreaming that it would be his own apprentice to literally stab him in the back. Kirei came to enjoy making the little girl suffer in ways that seemed innocent or absent-minded, but were in truth calculated and cruel. One such way was in the squandering of her inheritance under the pretense that she should know poverty to understand humility. Another cruel reality of young Rin's life was that the woman who was once her mother could no longer recognize her. As Rin grew older, she no longer resembled the eight year old daughter of Aoi's delusions, and as such was treated like a stranger until her mother's eventual death.

Rather than break her spirit, the suffering in Rin's life only served to fuel it. Without her father's guidance, she never understood that he was brainwashing her to follow the creed of his cult, and as such was left with a warped sense of what he expected from her. She strove to meet that expectation tirelessly, training herself in the techniques of her clan and undergoing strict training and tutelage under Kirei's supervision. In school, Rin put on a facade of the perfect student, being friendly toward others while still keeping them well at a distance. She also hid her guilt over her sister's less than fortunate situation, watching from afar while trying to convince herself that Sakura was happy with her adopted family despite knowing it to not be true.

Unfortunately, the practices of Rin's clan were expensive, and Kirei proved a roadblock between herself and most of her family's money. This didn't suit Rin's training, nor did it suit her expensive tastes, so she began to adapt her mutation to serve her in other ways, deciding to view it as simply going back to her roots. She became a proficient burglar, robbing private collections and museums alike of their most precious gems. This proved surprisingly easy for her once she learned how to draw the gems she sought to her as a strong magnet draws a scrap of metal. Rin had to get close for her techniques to work, but with a bit of care, never so close as to trip the alarms. Furthermore, she used her gemstone familiars to act as a warning system so that she would have time to react in the event of an unexpected interruption. And lastly, learning to manipulate the energy inside of her own body to adjust her strength, speed, and agility, coupled with her martial arts, made escape a mere matter of creative thinking.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever. Eventually she was caught, and upon checking into her background, her ties to the Movement were discovered. As Rin's own lack of knowledge about her family's true goals was genuine, she avoided being labeled a terrorist and was instead handed over to the custody of the X-Men in the hopes that with proper handling, she would use her powers to help others. Given that it was a much nicer sounding alternative to prison, Rin was all too happy to agree.

SAMPLES

NETWORK SAMPLE: Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hello...? Ugh, this thing is so stupid! Who's brilliant idea was it to make using these mandatory, anyway? I never wanted one! I hate them! I hope they all break or something!

[Rin is, in fact, extremely close to busting her own phone to pieces when it startles her with a loud BEEP. In that instant, her demeanor changes entirely. The girl who is standing there now is smiling so sweetly, it would be impossible to imagine her as the foul-tempered demon from just a moment ago. Indeed, one would have to pay more attention than is strictly polite to notice how she still grips the device as though it's some animal she is trying to strangle.]

Aha! Hello, everyone; Tohsaka here. I lent my homework for tomorrow's computer lab to a friend and she seems to have misplaced it. That's really a shame, right? So if anyone happens to come across the material just by coincidence, please let me know! I would be extremely grateful. Tohsaka out.

[How sad it is that after all of the effort she just put into sweet-talking any potential suckers into handing over their homework for her to claim, Rin fails to notice two important facts. The first is that her phone is simply in picture mode, so it isn't recording anything at all. The second is that she has the silly thing upside down. Yes, truly a sad development indeed.]

LOG SAMPLE: Rin runs her fingers over the faceted sides of the ruby in her palm, the energy welling up in her and filling it with her inner glow as easily as if she'd breathed on it. The core is cloudy with power, but she has to squint to see it; to others who wouldn't know what to look for, it would simply appear to be a pretty, sparkling thing.

She wants to shove it down Kotomine Kirei's throat and make it explode.

Rin's fingers close around the gem until her knuckles are white as the thought crosses her mind, and it's only with a deep inhale that she's able to let go before she cracks the thing. Stealing while she's a student is probably a bad idea, so she really can't afford to let her temper get the best of her now. Still, the truth that had been revealed to her in what feels like both a day and a lifetime ago simultaneously settles in her stomach like a heavy stone. It's almost laughable. Rin Tohsaka, the girl who had lost so much, a daughter of a proclaimed terrorist all along. How much did Kotomine know? How much of what happened was his fault? As things were now, she probably wouldn't have the answer to those questions for some time.

Rin is forced to put her sour mood away as quickly as she does the gem itself when a knock sounds at her door, and the Rin who answers it is a charming girl who oozes confidence as she tosses a lock of hair behind her shoulder. It's time for another love confession it seems. She lets this one down gently, because he's sweeter and more awkward than the last one was, and she doesn't want a reputation as a tyrant out to stomp on the hearts of unsuspecting boys. Even if it is cute to tease them a little.

Or, a lot. Unable to help the temptation, Rin chooses instead to throw her previous intention out the window and accept his invitation for a date. If she makes herself seem too unobtainable, they'll stop trying, after all.