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Application - Midnight Syndicate
PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Callie
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER?: Yes!
CONTACT: FyreflyzBlaze @ AIM/lymmea @ Plurk
CURRENT CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Rin Matsuoka
CANON: Free!
CANON POINT: Post-season 2
CHARACTER AGE: 19
HISTORY: Rin's father, a fisherman, died in a storm at sea when Rin was very young. This had a profound impact on Rin, who felt the loss keenly - all the more so because his father spent so much time at sea that Rin was left with few memories of him. Rin was also aware that his father, who loved swimming, had once harbored dreams of being an Olympic swimmer, but gave those dreams up to start (and support) a family - something Rin seems to feel a measure of responsibility for. So, from quite a young age, Rin made up his mind to become an Olympic swimmer himself - at least partly to fulfill his father's dream for him, but also because he believed it would bring him closer to the father he remembers so little of. (As he puts it, he thought it would let him see his father's face.)
It wasn't really a cruel obligation for Rin; he loved the water, and very much enjoyed swimming. But being driven by his father's dream made him extremely stubborn and persistent in chasing it, especially in accomplishing things his father had. Not only would he eventually leave Japan to train at a prestigious swimming school in Australia, he actually managed to switch elementary schools (meaning he talked his mother into it) from Sano to Iwatobi. He did this largely because Iwatobi was where his father had won a swimming relay as a child, and Rin wanted to follow exactly in his footsteps. (Though there are hints, as well, that he hadn't been able to make a good relay team at Sano.) Once at Iwatobi, he got together a relay team consisting of himself, Makoto Tachibana, and Nagisa Hazuki. Then, with incredible persistence, he cajoled Haruka Nanase into the team as their fourth member, despite Haru's initial disinterest. The day before Rin had to leave Japan for Australia, he and his friends won the same relay his father had, leaving Rin elated and all four boys close friends.
Although Rin didn't know it, however, that was to be the highest point in his life for a long time. Despite his efforts in Australia, he hit a wall there - he wasn't performing well and he couldn't seem to improve. This would have been frustrating under any circumstances, but with Rin's performance being aimed toward fulfilling his dad's dream it was brutal.
Unsure what the problem was, he started to blame his poor performance on his focus on relays in Japan; he started to think he'd 'ruined himself' due to his obsession with relays. Maybe relays had made him soft, made him think of and rely too much on his teammates when he should have been focusing on himself. So focus solely on his own training is exactly what he did, even going so far as to refuse to contact his friends on his occasional visits to Japan; after all, following his father's dream was what mattered most. (That, and he didn't want to tell his friends about how badly he'd been doing.)
However, on one visit home he ran into Haru, entirely by accident. Rin challenged him to a private race, observed only by their old swim coach. However, despite all of Rin's training, Haru - who didn't even care about winning or posting fast times - beat him handily. Rin was devastated; not at the loss itself, but because losing to Haru seemed like the final nail in the coffin of his father's dream. He couldn't see a way to overcome the wall he'd hit. When Haru attempted to comfort him after the loss, Rin brushed him off, swearing he was going to quit swimming for good.
It's not really known what Rin did in Australia after this; it doesn't seem that he quit swimming entirely, since he wasn't at all rusty upon his transfer back to Japan as a second-year high school student. However, at first he didn't even bother joining the Samezuka Academy swim club when he transferred into said school on his return(in fact it took a specific catalyst to make him change his mind on this point), and he makes reference to what made him start swimming again - so to some degree he must have stopped. What's most likely is that he quit any sort of organized or competitive swimming after his loss to Haru, but continued swimming either for individual training or recreation. But his pain over his failure, at his inability to even get close to achieving his father's dream, filled him with self-loathing, turning him bitter and angry. By the time he returned to Japan for good, he was almost unrecognizable as the friendly boy who'd left it.
Upon meeting Haru again after transferring back to Japan, Rin found himself suddenly inspired to challenge him to another race - to swim competitively again in general, in fact, as he only bothered to join the Samezuka swim team after that race with Haru. (Makoto slyly informed Rin that Iwatobi would be competing if Rin wanted the chance to face off with them, but Rin had already joined before this news was passed on - meaning his desire to race Haru specifically wasn't his only reason.) Rin actually managed to beat Haru in that first race, but he disgustedly disregarded the victory; Haru hadn't been swimming all winter, and so he hadn't been in proper shape for the race to count in Rin's mind.
Gou, Rin's little sister, was intensely worried about her brother; she'd observed the way he'd changed over the years, and she missed the way he'd been when he'd been swimming with his friends. To that end, she volunteered to be the captain of the Iwatobi swim club, partially to help her brother's old friends but just as much to arrange meetings to try and get the boys to make up. Between her and Makoto's subtle (and not-so-subtle) manipulations, Rin and the Iwatobi team found themselves running into each other a lot.
Racing Haru quickly changed from a whim into an obsession for Rin, and after some time, Rin finally told Haru why: he needed Haru to get in shape and compete with him on a level playing field so that Rin could 'move on'. To Rin, Haru had become a mental and emotional obstacle - if he could prove he'd overcome the wall he'd run into, by beating Haru when he hadn't been able to before, then it would stop holding him back. And on top of that, surpassing Haru once and for all would let Rin finally sever his last ties to his old friend, so he could leave him behind for good. Rin considered both of those things necessary before he could continue chasing his dad's dream - which no longer felt out of his reach.
Finally, at a prefectural competition, Rin got his wish - he defeated Haru (who was in perfect condition by then) soundly in the freestyle race, coming in first. Jubilant and cocky, he informed Haru that since he'd won, he'd never swim with Haru again; he didn't need to anymore. A giant weight was lifted from his shoulders, and perhaps it might have ended at that...
...but Haru's friends (meaning Rin's old friends, who he'd been all but ignoring the existence of in favor of Haru) met up with Rin after his victory. They were looking for Haru, who was deeply upset at the thought of never swimming with Rin again; Rin brushed off their concern, however, thinking Haru was just taking the loss hard despite his insistence he didn't care about winning or improving his speed. At this, however, Rei - the newest member of the Iwatobi team - realized that it wasn't losing that had upset Haru. This startled Rin, as he insisted nothing mattered other than winning. Makoto countered that not only was there something else, but it was Rin who had shown Haru what that something else was, back when they'd swum their first relay; that was why Haru had wanted to swim with Rin more than anything. Rin angrily cut him off and left, but the words got under his skin regardless; suddenly his victory didn't feel so complete anymore, and he no longer felt as free from his ties as he'd wished to.
Rin then got a nasty shock when he discovered that the Iwatobi swim team had entered the relay in the second day of the prefectural competition - the first relay any of them had done since elementary school, when Rin had won the competition with them. Rin watched them compete and win(which qualified them to proceed to the regional competition alongside Samezuka), in something like agony - the memories of his own relay with them inescapably came back, along with the memory of how happy he'd been, how much fun he'd had with them. To say nothing of his resentment when he saw Rei replacing him, who was still amateurish and sloppy.
After watching Iwatobi's relay, Rin began to crumble emotionally. Rei, Rin's replacement as the butterfly swimmer on Iwatobi's relay team, got a front row seat to Rin's returning to Iwatobi Elementary, reliving memories in his mind until he nearly had a breakdown. Immediately following this, Rin went to the Samezuka swim captain and insisted on dropping his 100 meter crawl event at the regional competition to switch to the relay team instead.
Rei, becoming increasingly agitated by not understanding the rift between Rin and the others(especially as he was the one trying to fill Rin's shoes), finally went to confront Rin himself, demanding to know why Rin had switched to competing in the relay and what he wanted from Haru - especially since Haru had given up competitive swimming after beating Rin when they were younger, due to feeling so guilty at having hurt him. This was news to Rin, and aside from refusing to justify his actions to Rei he didn't have much of a comeback to anything. It left Rin in an even more disordered state of mind than before, however, and his swimming practice at Samezuka began to visibly suffer.
On the night before regionals, Rin got Gou to give him Rei's number, calling the other boy out for a chat. Having had time to calm down a bit and think over the things Rei said, he was finally prepared to answer the other boy. He explained how he hadn't threatened to quit swimming because of losing to Haru, but that it was because he'd already been doing poorly in Australia. In fact, the opposite was true; rather than wanting to stop swimming because of Haru, meeting him and racing with him again had let Rin put his past failures behind him, made him want to swim and compete again. Finally, he instructed Rei not to let down his team at the competition before leaving.
But when Rin returned to the hotel his team was staying at, he received devastating news; the Samezuka captain, Mikoshiba, had taken him off the relay team for poor performance, putting him back into the 100 meter crawl event. Rin was stunned, having no recourse to fight the decision - but internally, it destroyed him.
At the competition the next day, Rin was visibly listless and exhausted, seemingly in no shape to compete in any event. When he went into his race, he got an uncharacteristic late start and didn't come close to making it up, placing dead last and struggling even to get out of the pool. Confronted afterwards by his teammate Nitori trying to comfort him(with the exchange, unknown to Rin, being witnessed by the Iwatobi team), Rin lost all composure, kicking over a trash can and screaming about how he was no good as a swimmer, worthless to the point that he'd been pulled from the relay team. Swearing that he was going to quit swimming, he stormed out of the competition.
Making his way to a tree some little way from the stadium, Rin spent some time brooding before a breathless Haru caught up with him. Angrily, Rin accused him of being there to laugh at him, just like everyone else must be. Haru denied it, explaining that he knew how Rin felt, because Rin was the one who taught him - how good it felt to swim with friends, and to be part of a relay. Rin angrily tried to shut him up, but Haru persisted, telling Rin that he'd finally figured out why he swam, and who he was swimming for.
By this point, Rin was so emotionally unstable he actually tried to punch Haru; while Haru intercepted it, they both fell over. It would have turned into a one-sided fight, except that Rin was suddenly frozen spotting something written on the ground: the English phrase 'for the team'. He'd written the same phrase in elementary school; before regionals, Haru had written Rin's same phrase in the dirt, in front of a tree that reminded them of one that had been in their elementary schoolyard.
Seeing that, Rin finally broke down completely. Dropping all pretense, he tearfully agonized that he couldn't be free - all he wanted was to swim in a relay with Haru and the others again, but with having been kicked off Samezuka's relay team it wasn't possible anymore. It was at this point that the other Iwatobi members arrived, and they revealed why they'd tracked Rin down - it was because Rei had decided to give up his place in the relay to Rin. This was blatantly against the rules, and would get Iwatobi disqualified and Rin likely kicked off the Samezuka swim team...but no one hesitated. Finally, Rin was free to swim with his friends again.
As they had in elementary school, Haru, Rin, Makoto and Nagisa competed in a relay, and won first place. Unlike elementary school, they were disqualified from the competition for an unannounced substitute from a completely different swim team. Rin apologized to Mikoshiba, Nitori, and the rest of the Samezuka swim team, asking - and expecting - to be kicked out; however, Mikoshiba instead instructed him to 'swim the way you just did for our team', and kept him on.
From that point on, Rin relaxed considerably. He remained fiery and often short-tempered and grumpy, but became much happier and more emotionally stable. He started spending time hanging out with his friends again, and acknowledging the others besides just Haru - and, finally, he gave up on chasing his father's dream, opting instead to pursue his own dream and the things he wants for himself.
Over time, Mikoshiba - who'd been in his third year at Samezuka - graduated, while Rin moved up to his third year and Nitori entered his second. Since Mikoshiba was leaving the swim team, he appointed a new captain - who, to his own immense surprise and uncertainty, turned out to be Rin. However, Rin showed himself to be a very able captain - keeping discipline, rewarding hard work, and inspiring his teammates. Further, when Rin's old friend Sousuke transferred into Samezuka and joined the swim team, Rin made him pass the same test as everyone else before letting him onto the relay team - even after some extremely emotional pleas. The one real hiccup during his time as captain was when he discovered that Sousuke had a serious shoulder injury (brought on by overwork) that was going to put him back so much that Sousuke had chosen to give up on swimming competitively at all. While he was initially distraught at his friend's declaration, and by Sousuke's insistence to keep competing despite his injury because he wanted to swim with Rin, he soon rallied and refused to accept Sousuke's giving up on his dream. He insisted that Sousuke do everything he could to get his shoulder to fully recover and then catch up to Rin, no matter how far behind the recovery might put him. By that point, Rin knew quite a bit about running into setbacks in pursuit of one's dreams, and he wasn't going to let Sousuke throw his away just because he'd hit a wall of his own.
After their final competition, where Rin's team came in second to Iwatobi, Rin left Japan again to return to Australia, attending college and pursuing swimming further there. This is about the time he'll be pulled from.
(I'M SORRY FOR THE SUPER LONG HISTORY BREAKDOWN ;w; But the first season of Free! is basically all about Rin's emotional state and development, SO I HAD TO OUTLINE IT ALL TO EXPLAIN WHERE HE STANDS...)
PERSONALITY: Rin is a highly emotional person; that has perhaps been the one constant in a life where his focus and behaviors have changed dramatically. Even without knowing his father very well, he strongly felt the pain of the dream his dad never got to pursue, and wanted to make that up to him - and know him better - so badly that he was willing to dedicate his life to it, including forfeiting things that he personally wanted. It wasn't the changeable resolve of a child, either; he carried that decision with him for years, until it had turned into something that was actively eating him alive and warping his whole personality. And the reason it came to pain him so much was due to how deeply he cared for his friends, and how badly he wanted to be with them and swim with them. (Specifically, that combined with the fact that either circumstances or his strict adherence to pursuing his father's dream prevented him from doing so.)
A lot of Rin's problems stem from the fact that he's burdened with the one-two punch of having unreasonable expectations for himself, and being highly self-critical for any perceived failures to meet his own standards. This means he's usually not where he thinks he should be, and he beats himself up for it. It was especially bad for him while he was chasing his father's dream of being an Olympic swimmer; it's calmed down since he let that go in favor of pursuing the things he wants, but he still doesn't think that highly of himself. This is particularly evident in how he didn't consider himself worthy of becoming Samezuka's new swim team captain; despite the fact that he went on to do an amazing job, he didn't seem to have any confidence in his leadership skills when offered the position. He deemed himself further unfit due to his poor performance for, and betrayal of, Samezuka in the regional competition.
Unfortunately, Rin's sensitivity means that his emotions tend to affect his capabilities. When truly upset, Rin can fail miserably even at his greatest skills. But likewise, when happy, Rin performs far better than under any other circumstances, even neutral ones. But he's almost completely incapable of any kind of performance in a vacuum, separate from his feelings; when Rin feels something strongly, the whole world can tell. He's learned to be deceptive about what he's feeling (read: super tsun) over the years, but he's not that convincing to anyone who knows him well or who can catch a hint.
This emotional sensitivity does have its upsides, however; even if Rin's gone to lengths to conceal it over the years, the fact is that he's a deeply caring and loyal person. Even when denying it to himself, Rin's friends are pretty much the most important thing in the world to him, and he can't not think of and worry about them to some degree. It may also be his emotions that give him the insight he has that allows him to be a good teacher and mentor - not only is this seen in his duties as Samezuka swim captain, it's also evident one-on-one with his gruff admonishments for Nitori to focus on his own strengths rather than obsessing over Rin's, and his managing to teach Rei how to swim other strokes besides the butterfly where everyone on the Iwatobi team had failed. At the end of the day, Rin is probably the most emotionally perceptive and open character in his series next to Makoto; he just hides a lot of it.
ABILITIES: Rin doesn't have any special abilities beyond what any top-notch competitive swimmer in the real world would. (Which is to say he's an incredibly fast swimmer, should that ever come up, and he's got the build and strength of a professional athlete.) He does have unusually sharpened teeth, however. There aren't visible in him as a child, but are prominent as a teenager. This could be anime creative license, or it could be an unspoken cosmetic job he had done in Australia(probably during a fit of teen rebellious angst over his swimming failures). I go with the latter interpretation, mostly because it feels weird to handwave away a significant visual element of his character - even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
SINS & VIRTUES: Rin is pretty short-tempered and tends to explode over things, not to mention directs a lot of anger internally on himself. And he just tends to have an overabundance of emotions in general. I don't think any sin suits him better than Wrath.
SAMPLES
MS test drive: http://graveyardshift.dreamwidth.org/1070.html?thread=397614#cmt397614
Thread from a (AU) game a few months back: http://auslosen.dreamwidth.org/3703.html?thread=76919#cmt76919
(Despite the fact that the latter sample is from an AU game, Rin is extremely - and deliberately - similar to canon in that game, so it should still be acceptable as a reference)
NAME: Callie
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER?: Yes!
CONTACT: FyreflyzBlaze @ AIM/lymmea @ Plurk
CURRENT CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Rin Matsuoka
CANON: Free!
CANON POINT: Post-season 2
CHARACTER AGE: 19
HISTORY: Rin's father, a fisherman, died in a storm at sea when Rin was very young. This had a profound impact on Rin, who felt the loss keenly - all the more so because his father spent so much time at sea that Rin was left with few memories of him. Rin was also aware that his father, who loved swimming, had once harbored dreams of being an Olympic swimmer, but gave those dreams up to start (and support) a family - something Rin seems to feel a measure of responsibility for. So, from quite a young age, Rin made up his mind to become an Olympic swimmer himself - at least partly to fulfill his father's dream for him, but also because he believed it would bring him closer to the father he remembers so little of. (As he puts it, he thought it would let him see his father's face.)
It wasn't really a cruel obligation for Rin; he loved the water, and very much enjoyed swimming. But being driven by his father's dream made him extremely stubborn and persistent in chasing it, especially in accomplishing things his father had. Not only would he eventually leave Japan to train at a prestigious swimming school in Australia, he actually managed to switch elementary schools (meaning he talked his mother into it) from Sano to Iwatobi. He did this largely because Iwatobi was where his father had won a swimming relay as a child, and Rin wanted to follow exactly in his footsteps. (Though there are hints, as well, that he hadn't been able to make a good relay team at Sano.) Once at Iwatobi, he got together a relay team consisting of himself, Makoto Tachibana, and Nagisa Hazuki. Then, with incredible persistence, he cajoled Haruka Nanase into the team as their fourth member, despite Haru's initial disinterest. The day before Rin had to leave Japan for Australia, he and his friends won the same relay his father had, leaving Rin elated and all four boys close friends.
Although Rin didn't know it, however, that was to be the highest point in his life for a long time. Despite his efforts in Australia, he hit a wall there - he wasn't performing well and he couldn't seem to improve. This would have been frustrating under any circumstances, but with Rin's performance being aimed toward fulfilling his dad's dream it was brutal.
Unsure what the problem was, he started to blame his poor performance on his focus on relays in Japan; he started to think he'd 'ruined himself' due to his obsession with relays. Maybe relays had made him soft, made him think of and rely too much on his teammates when he should have been focusing on himself. So focus solely on his own training is exactly what he did, even going so far as to refuse to contact his friends on his occasional visits to Japan; after all, following his father's dream was what mattered most. (That, and he didn't want to tell his friends about how badly he'd been doing.)
However, on one visit home he ran into Haru, entirely by accident. Rin challenged him to a private race, observed only by their old swim coach. However, despite all of Rin's training, Haru - who didn't even care about winning or posting fast times - beat him handily. Rin was devastated; not at the loss itself, but because losing to Haru seemed like the final nail in the coffin of his father's dream. He couldn't see a way to overcome the wall he'd hit. When Haru attempted to comfort him after the loss, Rin brushed him off, swearing he was going to quit swimming for good.
It's not really known what Rin did in Australia after this; it doesn't seem that he quit swimming entirely, since he wasn't at all rusty upon his transfer back to Japan as a second-year high school student. However, at first he didn't even bother joining the Samezuka Academy swim club when he transferred into said school on his return(in fact it took a specific catalyst to make him change his mind on this point), and he makes reference to what made him start swimming again - so to some degree he must have stopped. What's most likely is that he quit any sort of organized or competitive swimming after his loss to Haru, but continued swimming either for individual training or recreation. But his pain over his failure, at his inability to even get close to achieving his father's dream, filled him with self-loathing, turning him bitter and angry. By the time he returned to Japan for good, he was almost unrecognizable as the friendly boy who'd left it.
Upon meeting Haru again after transferring back to Japan, Rin found himself suddenly inspired to challenge him to another race - to swim competitively again in general, in fact, as he only bothered to join the Samezuka swim team after that race with Haru. (Makoto slyly informed Rin that Iwatobi would be competing if Rin wanted the chance to face off with them, but Rin had already joined before this news was passed on - meaning his desire to race Haru specifically wasn't his only reason.) Rin actually managed to beat Haru in that first race, but he disgustedly disregarded the victory; Haru hadn't been swimming all winter, and so he hadn't been in proper shape for the race to count in Rin's mind.
Gou, Rin's little sister, was intensely worried about her brother; she'd observed the way he'd changed over the years, and she missed the way he'd been when he'd been swimming with his friends. To that end, she volunteered to be the captain of the Iwatobi swim club, partially to help her brother's old friends but just as much to arrange meetings to try and get the boys to make up. Between her and Makoto's subtle (and not-so-subtle) manipulations, Rin and the Iwatobi team found themselves running into each other a lot.
Racing Haru quickly changed from a whim into an obsession for Rin, and after some time, Rin finally told Haru why: he needed Haru to get in shape and compete with him on a level playing field so that Rin could 'move on'. To Rin, Haru had become a mental and emotional obstacle - if he could prove he'd overcome the wall he'd run into, by beating Haru when he hadn't been able to before, then it would stop holding him back. And on top of that, surpassing Haru once and for all would let Rin finally sever his last ties to his old friend, so he could leave him behind for good. Rin considered both of those things necessary before he could continue chasing his dad's dream - which no longer felt out of his reach.
Finally, at a prefectural competition, Rin got his wish - he defeated Haru (who was in perfect condition by then) soundly in the freestyle race, coming in first. Jubilant and cocky, he informed Haru that since he'd won, he'd never swim with Haru again; he didn't need to anymore. A giant weight was lifted from his shoulders, and perhaps it might have ended at that...
...but Haru's friends (meaning Rin's old friends, who he'd been all but ignoring the existence of in favor of Haru) met up with Rin after his victory. They were looking for Haru, who was deeply upset at the thought of never swimming with Rin again; Rin brushed off their concern, however, thinking Haru was just taking the loss hard despite his insistence he didn't care about winning or improving his speed. At this, however, Rei - the newest member of the Iwatobi team - realized that it wasn't losing that had upset Haru. This startled Rin, as he insisted nothing mattered other than winning. Makoto countered that not only was there something else, but it was Rin who had shown Haru what that something else was, back when they'd swum their first relay; that was why Haru had wanted to swim with Rin more than anything. Rin angrily cut him off and left, but the words got under his skin regardless; suddenly his victory didn't feel so complete anymore, and he no longer felt as free from his ties as he'd wished to.
Rin then got a nasty shock when he discovered that the Iwatobi swim team had entered the relay in the second day of the prefectural competition - the first relay any of them had done since elementary school, when Rin had won the competition with them. Rin watched them compete and win(which qualified them to proceed to the regional competition alongside Samezuka), in something like agony - the memories of his own relay with them inescapably came back, along with the memory of how happy he'd been, how much fun he'd had with them. To say nothing of his resentment when he saw Rei replacing him, who was still amateurish and sloppy.
After watching Iwatobi's relay, Rin began to crumble emotionally. Rei, Rin's replacement as the butterfly swimmer on Iwatobi's relay team, got a front row seat to Rin's returning to Iwatobi Elementary, reliving memories in his mind until he nearly had a breakdown. Immediately following this, Rin went to the Samezuka swim captain and insisted on dropping his 100 meter crawl event at the regional competition to switch to the relay team instead.
Rei, becoming increasingly agitated by not understanding the rift between Rin and the others(especially as he was the one trying to fill Rin's shoes), finally went to confront Rin himself, demanding to know why Rin had switched to competing in the relay and what he wanted from Haru - especially since Haru had given up competitive swimming after beating Rin when they were younger, due to feeling so guilty at having hurt him. This was news to Rin, and aside from refusing to justify his actions to Rei he didn't have much of a comeback to anything. It left Rin in an even more disordered state of mind than before, however, and his swimming practice at Samezuka began to visibly suffer.
On the night before regionals, Rin got Gou to give him Rei's number, calling the other boy out for a chat. Having had time to calm down a bit and think over the things Rei said, he was finally prepared to answer the other boy. He explained how he hadn't threatened to quit swimming because of losing to Haru, but that it was because he'd already been doing poorly in Australia. In fact, the opposite was true; rather than wanting to stop swimming because of Haru, meeting him and racing with him again had let Rin put his past failures behind him, made him want to swim and compete again. Finally, he instructed Rei not to let down his team at the competition before leaving.
But when Rin returned to the hotel his team was staying at, he received devastating news; the Samezuka captain, Mikoshiba, had taken him off the relay team for poor performance, putting him back into the 100 meter crawl event. Rin was stunned, having no recourse to fight the decision - but internally, it destroyed him.
At the competition the next day, Rin was visibly listless and exhausted, seemingly in no shape to compete in any event. When he went into his race, he got an uncharacteristic late start and didn't come close to making it up, placing dead last and struggling even to get out of the pool. Confronted afterwards by his teammate Nitori trying to comfort him(with the exchange, unknown to Rin, being witnessed by the Iwatobi team), Rin lost all composure, kicking over a trash can and screaming about how he was no good as a swimmer, worthless to the point that he'd been pulled from the relay team. Swearing that he was going to quit swimming, he stormed out of the competition.
Making his way to a tree some little way from the stadium, Rin spent some time brooding before a breathless Haru caught up with him. Angrily, Rin accused him of being there to laugh at him, just like everyone else must be. Haru denied it, explaining that he knew how Rin felt, because Rin was the one who taught him - how good it felt to swim with friends, and to be part of a relay. Rin angrily tried to shut him up, but Haru persisted, telling Rin that he'd finally figured out why he swam, and who he was swimming for.
By this point, Rin was so emotionally unstable he actually tried to punch Haru; while Haru intercepted it, they both fell over. It would have turned into a one-sided fight, except that Rin was suddenly frozen spotting something written on the ground: the English phrase 'for the team'. He'd written the same phrase in elementary school; before regionals, Haru had written Rin's same phrase in the dirt, in front of a tree that reminded them of one that had been in their elementary schoolyard.
Seeing that, Rin finally broke down completely. Dropping all pretense, he tearfully agonized that he couldn't be free - all he wanted was to swim in a relay with Haru and the others again, but with having been kicked off Samezuka's relay team it wasn't possible anymore. It was at this point that the other Iwatobi members arrived, and they revealed why they'd tracked Rin down - it was because Rei had decided to give up his place in the relay to Rin. This was blatantly against the rules, and would get Iwatobi disqualified and Rin likely kicked off the Samezuka swim team...but no one hesitated. Finally, Rin was free to swim with his friends again.
As they had in elementary school, Haru, Rin, Makoto and Nagisa competed in a relay, and won first place. Unlike elementary school, they were disqualified from the competition for an unannounced substitute from a completely different swim team. Rin apologized to Mikoshiba, Nitori, and the rest of the Samezuka swim team, asking - and expecting - to be kicked out; however, Mikoshiba instead instructed him to 'swim the way you just did for our team', and kept him on.
From that point on, Rin relaxed considerably. He remained fiery and often short-tempered and grumpy, but became much happier and more emotionally stable. He started spending time hanging out with his friends again, and acknowledging the others besides just Haru - and, finally, he gave up on chasing his father's dream, opting instead to pursue his own dream and the things he wants for himself.
Over time, Mikoshiba - who'd been in his third year at Samezuka - graduated, while Rin moved up to his third year and Nitori entered his second. Since Mikoshiba was leaving the swim team, he appointed a new captain - who, to his own immense surprise and uncertainty, turned out to be Rin. However, Rin showed himself to be a very able captain - keeping discipline, rewarding hard work, and inspiring his teammates. Further, when Rin's old friend Sousuke transferred into Samezuka and joined the swim team, Rin made him pass the same test as everyone else before letting him onto the relay team - even after some extremely emotional pleas. The one real hiccup during his time as captain was when he discovered that Sousuke had a serious shoulder injury (brought on by overwork) that was going to put him back so much that Sousuke had chosen to give up on swimming competitively at all. While he was initially distraught at his friend's declaration, and by Sousuke's insistence to keep competing despite his injury because he wanted to swim with Rin, he soon rallied and refused to accept Sousuke's giving up on his dream. He insisted that Sousuke do everything he could to get his shoulder to fully recover and then catch up to Rin, no matter how far behind the recovery might put him. By that point, Rin knew quite a bit about running into setbacks in pursuit of one's dreams, and he wasn't going to let Sousuke throw his away just because he'd hit a wall of his own.
After their final competition, where Rin's team came in second to Iwatobi, Rin left Japan again to return to Australia, attending college and pursuing swimming further there. This is about the time he'll be pulled from.
(I'M SORRY FOR THE SUPER LONG HISTORY BREAKDOWN ;w; But the first season of Free! is basically all about Rin's emotional state and development, SO I HAD TO OUTLINE IT ALL TO EXPLAIN WHERE HE STANDS...)
PERSONALITY: Rin is a highly emotional person; that has perhaps been the one constant in a life where his focus and behaviors have changed dramatically. Even without knowing his father very well, he strongly felt the pain of the dream his dad never got to pursue, and wanted to make that up to him - and know him better - so badly that he was willing to dedicate his life to it, including forfeiting things that he personally wanted. It wasn't the changeable resolve of a child, either; he carried that decision with him for years, until it had turned into something that was actively eating him alive and warping his whole personality. And the reason it came to pain him so much was due to how deeply he cared for his friends, and how badly he wanted to be with them and swim with them. (Specifically, that combined with the fact that either circumstances or his strict adherence to pursuing his father's dream prevented him from doing so.)
A lot of Rin's problems stem from the fact that he's burdened with the one-two punch of having unreasonable expectations for himself, and being highly self-critical for any perceived failures to meet his own standards. This means he's usually not where he thinks he should be, and he beats himself up for it. It was especially bad for him while he was chasing his father's dream of being an Olympic swimmer; it's calmed down since he let that go in favor of pursuing the things he wants, but he still doesn't think that highly of himself. This is particularly evident in how he didn't consider himself worthy of becoming Samezuka's new swim team captain; despite the fact that he went on to do an amazing job, he didn't seem to have any confidence in his leadership skills when offered the position. He deemed himself further unfit due to his poor performance for, and betrayal of, Samezuka in the regional competition.
Unfortunately, Rin's sensitivity means that his emotions tend to affect his capabilities. When truly upset, Rin can fail miserably even at his greatest skills. But likewise, when happy, Rin performs far better than under any other circumstances, even neutral ones. But he's almost completely incapable of any kind of performance in a vacuum, separate from his feelings; when Rin feels something strongly, the whole world can tell. He's learned to be deceptive about what he's feeling (read: super tsun) over the years, but he's not that convincing to anyone who knows him well or who can catch a hint.
This emotional sensitivity does have its upsides, however; even if Rin's gone to lengths to conceal it over the years, the fact is that he's a deeply caring and loyal person. Even when denying it to himself, Rin's friends are pretty much the most important thing in the world to him, and he can't not think of and worry about them to some degree. It may also be his emotions that give him the insight he has that allows him to be a good teacher and mentor - not only is this seen in his duties as Samezuka swim captain, it's also evident one-on-one with his gruff admonishments for Nitori to focus on his own strengths rather than obsessing over Rin's, and his managing to teach Rei how to swim other strokes besides the butterfly where everyone on the Iwatobi team had failed. At the end of the day, Rin is probably the most emotionally perceptive and open character in his series next to Makoto; he just hides a lot of it.
ABILITIES: Rin doesn't have any special abilities beyond what any top-notch competitive swimmer in the real world would. (Which is to say he's an incredibly fast swimmer, should that ever come up, and he's got the build and strength of a professional athlete.) He does have unusually sharpened teeth, however. There aren't visible in him as a child, but are prominent as a teenager. This could be anime creative license, or it could be an unspoken cosmetic job he had done in Australia(probably during a fit of teen rebellious angst over his swimming failures). I go with the latter interpretation, mostly because it feels weird to handwave away a significant visual element of his character - even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
SINS & VIRTUES: Rin is pretty short-tempered and tends to explode over things, not to mention directs a lot of anger internally on himself. And he just tends to have an overabundance of emotions in general. I don't think any sin suits him better than Wrath.
SAMPLES
MS test drive: http://graveyardshift.dreamwidth.org/1070.html?thread=397614#cmt397614
Thread from a (AU) game a few months back: http://auslosen.dreamwidth.org/3703.html?thread=76919#cmt76919
(Despite the fact that the latter sample is from an AU game, Rin is extremely - and deliberately - similar to canon in that game, so it should still be acceptable as a reference)