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PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Nix
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Yes
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: salroka; PM
CHARACTERS PLAYED: Magnus (rubricatus)

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Rin Tohsaka
CANON: Fate/EXTRA
CANON REFERENCE: Here
AGE: 21. Rin's age in canon is somewhat unclear, but she's probably in her late teens.
GENDER: Female
CHARACTER TYPE: Meta-human
APPEARANCE: she's Rin Tohsaka but except she's blond

PERSONALITY:
Rin Tohsaka is, first and foremost, a mercenary and terrorist; in the alternate universe cyberpunk future, she's a wanted woman for her actions against a government body with a stranglehold on 60% of the world's GDP and the global flow of information. That fact alone speaks volumes about her character—both good and bad.

Superficially, the impression Rin tends to give off to others around herself is that of an ideal young woman: composed, quick-witted, and attractive. However, in the words of the protagonist themselves, that impression goes out the window the moment she opens her mouth. Certainly, she possesses all three of those qualities, but they come together in a way that is hardly ideal; that is to say, Rin is really, really rude. While the other Masters in Fate/EXTRA's Grail War seem to regard her with respect for her poise and skill, there's also a certain amount of enmity between herself and others due to the way she treats them in simple conversation. One Master refers to her as being "a real queen B," and the protagonist notes how skewed the "ratio of put-down to advice" is more than once upon talking to her.

However, there's no real hostility behind Rin's sharp tongue—unless you've done something to earn hostility, anyway. It would even be wrong to refer to her speech as being scathing, as she doesn't go out of her way to be particularly witty when she's giving someone their dressing down. She simply doesn't care to waste her time on tact. If Rin Tohsaka deigns to give you her opinion, you'll receive her opinion without her dulling its edges, and she doesn't care if that happens to hurt your feelings. This is especially true in the context of the Grail War, where everyone around her is an enemy; by the same token, though, it isn't untrue outside of it. In her line of work, she doesn't have time to beat around the bush, after all. She doesn't make a habit of mincing words.

On that note, Rin is pragmatic—or maybe even a little bit cutthroat. While she isn't cruel, that doesn't make her kind. She will do whatever is necessary to successfully complete her mission, whether that mission is striking a blow against the Harway plutocracy, disseminating information about the Grail War, or winning the Holy Grail herself. And, while she prefers "whatever is necessary" not to bring harm to other people, she has long since accepted that this isn't always a possibility. Over the course of the Grail War, she kills two to four people without batting an eyelash, and when she is defeated by the protagonist in Rani's route, the reason she gives for her loss isn't that she was unable to kill someone she had come to care for; it was that she had let her guard down, because she believed the protagonist could finish her mission for her even if she lost.

Along with that pragmatism comes opportunism. Early in the game, Rin outright states that she is taking advantage of the protagonist by giving them advice on how to deal with their first round opponent; after all, if allowed to win, Shinji has the potential to be dangerous later on, so it's better that he be taken out right out of the gate. Similarly, when the protagonist is in need of material to alchemize, she agrees to give them what they need—but only if they get her something she's unable to obtain on her own, as she isn't a "charity organization." (By the way, when you make the trade, it's made clear that she didn't actually expect you to succeed, but nonetheless upholds her end of the bargain because "a deal's a deal.") Altogether, she has no problem taking advantage of the circumstances surrounding her for her own benefit.

All of this—her quick thinking, her resourcefulness, and her determination—come together to create a person who is industrious and quick to get back on her feet. When she fails, she doesn't allow that failure to stop her, but instead reassesses the situation and finds the best way to proceed. For example, if the protagonist chooses to rescue her from her fight with Rani, she becomes an anomaly in the system, stripped of her Servant but still in possession of her Command Spells; once she's done berating the protagonist for being an idiot, she immediately begins going over the facts of the situation, deciding on how to proceed from her new position within a matter of minutes. She isn't the type of person to give up or stop working.

With all that said, Rin isn't completely hardened. If anything, her morals are what drives her—and at their core, they're the morals of someone who cares about other people. She can't stand the sight of injustice, and she wants the world to be a better place for the people that live there. She just knows that in order for her to succeed, she can't allow her empathy to rule her, and that she needs to put her ultimate goal first. This can be seen in the ways she provides assistance to the protagonist throughout the game; unless they're explicitly working together, she restricts her help to providing advice and basic information, and even then, she calls herself an idiot for doing so. The only exception is cases that would provide some benefit to her as well, of course.

Rin isn't a perfect picture of poise and self-control, either. There are times when her determination can turn to hardheadedness, and her confidence into arrogance. The fact of the matter is that she is set on her own perspective as much as the plutocrats she fights against, and sometimes relying on her preconceived notions or refusing to consider other perspectives can cause her to fumble. Early in the game, she feels the protagonist up from top to bottom, mistakenly believing them to be a simple NPC because, in her own words, only an NPC could possibly be so boring and generic; when she realizes the truth of the matter, she is mortified, continuing to blame the protagonist for being "confusing" rather than accepting she made a mistake based on a faulty assumption. Later, when confronting Leo of the Harway family, she openly says that she would mock anyone who would choose stability at the expense of personal freedom, only to fluster and come up short when asked if she would rather leave people to face adversary unassisted.

Rin also has a tendency to fluster when questioned about actions she has taken solely or primarily out of kindness. In reality, she is extremely self-conscious, in the sense that she is incredibly aware of how she is perceived by others. As such, she feels threatened when someone notices behavior contradictory to the perception of her as a cold, ruthless mercenary that looks out for no one but herself. It's also very easy to tell when she is being honest about her motivations and when she isn't; in the case of the former, she will deliver her explanation with a straight face, while in the case of the latter, she will blush, squeal, and stammer. She didn't do it because she wanted to help you or anything, okay?!

Under it all, though, Rin is—or wants to be—a normal young woman. During Rani's route, when talking to the protagonist prior to their match, she can reveal a few different things about herself, depending on which dialogue options the player selects. If asked about what she would like to do in the event that she wins the Grail War, she admits she would like to go back to Japan and experience something she has never before had an opportunity to: a normal school life. Or, if asked about love, she admits that it would be nice to be around someone who treats her like a normal girl, rather than someone off-limits. Having to constantly stand alone as the strong, perfect Rin Tohsaka is tiring, and no matter how firm her convictions are, the fact of the matter is simply that she would like to be able to depend on others sometimes, or maybe even be pampered a little.

Not that she'll ever admit it. It's not like she likes you, you idiot!

POWERS & ABILITIES:
Rin is able to charge and manipulate crystal structures.

• Crystal manipulation allows Rin to reshape crystal structures, within reason. She isn't capable of growing crystals herself, but she can alter their shape, fracture them, or fuse multiple crystals together. This is accomplished by touch, with Rin able to channel bio-electricity into the structure through contact with her skin. Larger structures may take more time and concentration to manipulate in this way, as the energy doesn't instantly permeate through the whole structure. Once a crystal bond is connected to her, however, she only needs to think to manipulate it.
  
  While she can break and fuse bonds, this is limited by the structure of the crystal she is manipulating — which is to say, the crystal will still abide by whatever cleavage, fracture, etc is inherent to its structure, and she isn't capable of altering the bonds on an atomic level to create a new form of crystal with different properties. She can make crystal structures move, but not autonomously, as she needs to remain in perpetual contact. She's also limited in how much crystal she can connect with at once, and attempting to surpass that limit will make her light-headed or even lose consciousness. This limit is based in volume, rather than distance; given a large enough structure, she might be able to energize a line that runs its perimeter but not manipulate its overall shape. She can affect around 2.5 times the volume of her own body before her concentration becomes impaired; three times the volume will probably cause her to collapse.
  
  
• She is also able to charge crystals with this energy. By channeling bio-electricity directly through a crystal, she can make it glow for light, grow extremely hot, or project a short burst of electricity from it for self-defense. This energy doesn't have to be immediately expended, however, and can be stored for later use. By gradually placing small amounts of energy into a crystal over the course of weeks or months, Rin can create a reserve of energy larger than what she is capable of mustering in a single burst. Crystals that have been charged more extensively can produce a larger, longer-ranged electric beam, or be made to simply explode. The energy in the crystal can also be absorbed from it back into her body, giving her a temporary energy boost and briefly reinforcing her body in much the same way a sudden burst of adrenaline would. The larger or higher quality a crystal is, the more energy it can store.
  
  
• Rin is also capable of using this ability as a sort of bootleg technopathy. By channeling her energy through the silicon in a given device, it becomes similarly connected to her thoughts and will obey commands given by her mind.

Additionally, Rin's personal skills include hacking, self-defense, use of firearms and explosives, survivalist skills, and guerrilla tactics. The rebel group Rin was part of relied frequently on cyberterrorist tactics, and the disruption of vital networks is Rin's favorite tactic for harassing the Douman Zaibatsu!

AU HISTORY:
Rin was born in western European, and lived there for the first several years of her life. Her parents were both politically involved, employed by and having originally met through a charitable organization that operated as a multinational network. Primarily focused on relief efforts to those affected by famine and other disasters in the face of poverty, Rin grew up with an awareness of such concerns as a backdrop to what was itself a not-uncomfortable life.

Those concerns became a little more immediate when her family moved across continents for the sake of her parents' work, her father having been assigned to organize relief efforts in a Middle Eastern megapolis. In a time of both financial and political unrest, the city had little choice but to rely on outside aid. Well-intentioned organizations weren't the only ones with an eye to helping stabilize the area, however; the Douman Zaibatsu also saw it as an opportunity to create a new hub of power in the area, investing some of its own vast resources into the recovery of city.

With its hooks in the city's finances, the Zaibatsu established itself as something of a savior, offering both supplies and stimulating its economy by basing both research and production of some of its technologies there. However, as the months passed, it became more and more obvious that its aid wasn't the panacea it had first seemed to be. The Zaibatsu bought up businesses it deemed profitable and choked out those it didn't; money was funneled into government bodies under the banner of aid, but when it came time to apply it, the distribution of resources was clearly skewed in favor of what benefited the interests of the wealthy and the Zaibatsu in particular. Many areas of the city were left to struggle with poor infrastructure and lack of access to basic resources for years to come, with other aid efforts struggling to make up for the deficit.

Rin saw much of this firsthand. Following in her parents' footsteps, she became a junior intern to the organization they worked for as soon as she was old enough. While her role was mostly to help with bookkeeping, it nonetheless gave her a sense of perspective that allowed her to understand very well how skewed the distribution of resources had become. Despite her youth, she was outspoken about these disparities — as were many others, political tensions that had been temporarily allayed beginning to rise again as it became apparent that less privileged portions of the populace were being forgotten. Some even declared that the government was becoming a mere puppet of the Douman Zaibatsu.

In reply to the mounting unrest, the Douman Zaibatsu offered to volunteer "peacekeeping" forces. They didn't help — unless, of course, the goal from the beginning was to make the inevitable come sooner. A civil war broke out when government officials who objected to the Zaibatsu as a foreign occupation were forced from office. Marginalized communities were attacked by the Zaibatsu for harboring enemy forces, and when relief organizations attempted to supply medicine to what were apparently civilian survivors, they were attacked as well for aiding the rebellion.

Rin was sixteen when her parents were killed, and sixteen when she picked up a gun for the first time. Joining a rebel cell that would be thoroughly branded as terrorists, she was taught how to fight, how to survive, how to put her talent with computers to subversive use — and how to most effectively utilize the Meta-human powers she had just begun to come into a few months earlier. The resistance had been fragmented by the Zaibatsu early, leaving it unable to coordinate as often or easily as would be ideal, but the cell she was a part of fought on with their guerrilla tactics for three years.

That ended with what evidence had led them to believe was a makeshift camp for political dissidents. Only a few guards were posted to its grounds, perhaps in an effort not to draw attention to the area; the rebel group staged an ambush and then forced entry into the building, intending to liberate its prisoners. What they found inside, however, was far worse and far more shocking than anything they had expected. Every one of these "dissidents" was a Meta-human, held apart not for the danger they posed, but so that the Zaibatsu could experiment on their bodies.

Rather than immediately leaving upon discovering that all of the prisoners were beyond help, the rebels attempted to recover anything they could from the lab that might serve as evidence for the Zaibatsu's crimes. That proved to be their undoing; reinforcements arrived before they made their escape, and in far greater number than the handful of guards that had tried to keep them out in the first place. The skirmish that followed was chaotic, but ultimately one-sided. Rin was the only one able to escape from the confrontation with her life, the last of her allies giving up theirs to cover her as she escaped with a series of heavily redacted medical records.

The Zaibatsu had, in essence, taken her family from her twice. By this time, the resistance within the city was all but destroyed, and what few cells were still active would be impossible for her to contact anyway — so Rin took the only road still available to her and smuggled herself and the data her comrades had died for past the megapolis walls. She took a circuitous path, passing through other cities where the Zaibatsu had little presence and making ends meet with mercenary work, but in the end, her ultimate goal was clear: reach New Gate City and take her fight to the man in charge of it all, Richard Magnus.

SAMPLES

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