[info] application / headcanon
Player
Name: Cyn
Livejournal Username: vacivity
E-mail: howblueisthesea[at]gmail[dot]com
AIM/MSN: aim - howblueisthesea
Timezone: Pacific US; -8 GMT
Current Characters in Route: N/A
Character
Name: Renji Yanagi
Series: Prince of Tennis
Timeline: Post-Nationals/Pre U-17 Camp
Canon Resource Links:
Prince of Tennis:
@ Wiki
@ FET
Renji Yanagi-specific:
@ FET
@ wikia
20.5 Profile
40.5 profile
PERSONALITY:
Professor. Master. The nicknames given to him by an old childhood friend and by his classmates respectively, they emphasize Yanagi’s biggest trait: his reliance on data, on the cool, methodical logic of numbers and the ability to extrapolate information from them. Don’t let his love of literature fool you: Yanagi knows data, sometimes inside and out. He has perfected the use of “data tennis” - that is, the use of data to predict an opponent and therefore plan ahead in his own movements. He’s taken it to extreme measures: Yanagi often knows his friends well enough to predict exactly what they are going to say. Life, and tennis, is a smooth ride with no hills for this teenager.
Well, it would be, if life worked that way. For Yanagi, data is all encompassing; he relies so much on data and his wide array of knowledge that it is hard for him to look past it and take into stride outliers - such as those messy things known as emotions. Yanagi is aware of them but his understanding of the emotional nature of humanity is still at odds with the rest of his mind.
Aware of the impermanence of life, Yanagi is not the type to get attached to anything, to anyone. People will change, events will happen, and he too will move on. This is the boy who left his best friend and doubles partner behind while in elementary school, without a word. Armed with that knowledge, he fails to see the power of emotion and how something like desire, or anger, or need can change a person, move them from one plane to the next. When people stop fitting into their data, he isn't entirely sure how to handle them and if he is facing someone who understands his methods, he can be played for a fool. It’s one reason why he is never able to predict - or defeat - certain players, especially his captain, and why he has to acknowledge that the team’s ace would one day surpass him.
Since Yanagi is always aware that one day he and his teammates will part, as will his classmates, he tends to hold back in expressing things to people. There are friendships he treasures, especially his bonds with people on his team; Sanada and Yukimura are his closest friends, replacing the gap that had been created when he walked away from Inui. He can be sharp, at times, testing the limits of his friends and teammates; but even his ruthlessness, at least toward his teammates, is never malicious (it’s a different matter when it comes to other people or when playing tennis). But he knows that one day it will end and eventually everyone will go off in their own direction, and despite promises of keeping in touch, they won’t. Yanagi enjoys his time with his friends as things to enjoy for the moment, rather than something lasting and eternal. It can make him seem somewhat uncaring and cold-hearted at times.
STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES:
+ Memorization - he is considered a walking dictionary around Rikkai
+ Reading - he speed reads, averaging roughly 600 an impossible amount of books each year.
+ Learning - thanks to his skills in reading and in memorization, Yanagi is quite good at learning and grasping new concepts quickly.
+ Quick thinking - he’s able to think quickly on his feet and make predictions about his opponents movements, at least in tennis.
+ Tennis - he’s considered one of the top three players of Rikkai.
- Repression - He might think he understands humanity, but he is still a 14 year old boy with emotions. One he doesn’t acknowledge, which is probably pretty damaging to his mental state.
- Lack of awareness - There are times when, so comfortable with his knowledge, Yanagi can’t see past the boundaries of his own data. It’s why he can’t predict certain players and why people surpass him.
- Emotional distance - Yanagi keeps his distance from people and it is the biggest downfall he has, since he can’t entirely understand them.
- Trust - Combined with the emotional distance he feels toward most people, there is a certain lack of trust he isn’t even aware of.
Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Abra
Password: Taco Bell
Samples
FIRST PERSON SAMPLE:
[The screen on the PokeGear flickers on, showing an expanse of grass, but no one is there. A voice is heard.] So there is some technology here. I was wondering. [A tall, thoughtful looking boy appears on screen; he is holding the PokéGear an arm length’s away, although not really paying attention to it, too busy looking around at the town around him. There is a yellow, fox-like creature near his feet.] It seems to be civilized, this... world of Pokémon. [His lips twitch as he says that, either out of confusion or amusement.] Thanks to Akaya and a few of my media-obsessed classmates, I know of Pokémon, but ending up here is somewhat unsettling. However, since I am here and this doesn’t seem to be a dream, the first thing I must do is secure lodging and try to figure out what to do..
[He shrugs finally looking at the screen.] On second thought... according to the rosters I saw earlier, it appears there are quite a few people I know already here. Perhaps the correct thing to do would be to find them, then plan accordingly.
THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:
The music was going to drive him insane. Yanagi knew it. Not just slightly insane, something to be triggered in special circumstances with some psychological damage, but a full-blown mental incapacity that would leave him a drooling, stammering idiot.
The thought made him shudder. It might not seem like much, just a low, constant music in the background; indeed, most of the people around him didn't seem affected by it in the least. They weren't good examples, though. The townspeople were mindless, stuck in an endless loop of welcoming him to the town or relaying gossip; no one offered anything useful. They probably didn't even notice the constant music playing in the background. The small creature at his feet wasn't affected, either; the music wasn't disrupting his sleep. But then, nothing seemed to disrupt his sleep, not even moving from one place to another - he disappeared and magically reappeared wherever Yanagi was headed.
Perhaps it was the music that made them all mindless, made the little creature following him sleep constantly. Maybe everyone was already insane and Yanagi was just on course to follow them. Or perhaps he was the only one who heard the music, indicating this was a weird hallucination of his.
"I have fallen asleep in the locker rooms and Akaya's left behind one his Pokémon games," Yanagi said aloud. At his feet, the creature blinked up at him, murmuring a soft "Abra" then falling back to sleep. "But that isn't a logical explanation for all of this."
He'd already pinched himself to make sure he wasn't sleeping, searched for any signs that might indicate a dreamworld - recognizable faces (even of the actors in movies he'd seen) or a familiar sign or something - and there was nothing. While not impossible that this was a dream, the chances of it being one were rapidly diminishing.
That left the music-turning-them-all-into-mindless-idiots (zombies? music-insane ones, perhaps?). Which was possible - music could do odd things to people. Induce trances, cause kids to go wandering off cliffs. But it seemed a little too far-fetched; they weren't in a nursery tale or an oppressed society where occultism was common.
Perhaps - perhaps they had just gotten used it and continued down along their normal, mindless paths, and Yanagi was just going to have to adjust to life in this... world of Pokémon. Annoying music included.