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[dirtdevil]

PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Alison
18+?: Yup
CONTACT: clickboom
CHARACTERS IN GAME: N/A
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CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Levi Ackerman
AGE: Early 30s
CANON: Attack on Titan

CANON HISTORY: Here!
CANON PERSONALITY:

There are a number of things one could assume about a person with the lofty title of "humanity's strongest." Levi is basically none of them.

From the beginning, it's easy to see he's not your typical "hero" character. First, there's the immediately obvious: he's small. He looks disgruntled and sleep-deprived almost all the time. It took almost 70 chapters before we finally saw him crack a smile. He has a difficult personality as well: he speaks brusquely and often makes rude remarks—he curses frequently and tends to use informal/disrespectful speech. However, it's quite a bit easier to understand his personality when you learn where he came from. He lived most of his life in what is essentially a giant garbage can. Born to an impoverished prostitute who loved him but fell ill and died and then "raised" for a time by her brother (a sociopath, of course), Levi's childhood was spent either starving or being schooled on how to survive (read: knife people) in their bleak environment by his murderous uncle. The chances that he would emerge from such a pitifully unfortunate backstory as a normal, upstanding individual are pretty low.

Perhaps due to growing up in an underground slum, he's very neurotic when it comes to cleanliness: he's the very definition of a neat-freak. In fact, this is one of the first things we learn about him when he is introduced: after dispatching a titan or two, Levi notices he has blood on his hand and blade and immediately stops to wipe it off with a handkerchief, despite the fact that titan blood evaporates after a short time. Later in the story, when his squad arrives at the old Survey Corps headquarters, Levi wastes no time giving his first order: the place is filthy and he won't be having any of that, and immediately divides up responsibility for whipping it back into shape.

He places a very high priority on the chain of command and expects his subordinates to be competent and obedient (though he does acknowledge personal choice at certain times). If he's being a dick to someone below his rank, it's probably not because of that, but rather because that's just his default disposition. The strict nature with which he commands his current squad is for their own good and not because of any bloated sense of power. Even having that power, it's just not in his character to flaunt or abuse it. As for those who outrank him, he holds himself to the same standard: while he sometimes protests at first, he always follows orders from the commander of the Survey Corps, Erwin Smith, whom he trusts implicitly despite a very tumultuous beginning between the two of them. Levi does not have any particular talent for strategy, and he fully acknowledges this—of his decision to stay and fight with the Corps, he states that Erwin "sees something that he can't see" (insert short joke), and he never knows how things will turn out in the end. In this way, he's more of a follower than a leader

With that said, despite his 2/10 official "teamwork" score (see abilities section), Levi is not that terrible of a leader. His original squad respected him immensely, and it wasn't just because of his reputation. He's not a lenient squad leader by any means, but neither is he flippant or disrespectful towards those he outranks. My interpretation of this score is that it's more representative of him actually working in a team, as opposed to leading one—unlike his first squad who worked together quite well, Levi tends to veer off and deal with things on his own. He does this even when he is leading a team, but only if he knows the others can handle it and/or he has no other choice; abandoning his squad is never a preferred course of action.

Mentally, his greatest strength is keeping a cool head in sticky situations, which is good since he's pretty much always in a sticky situation. The flip side of that is a perpetual state of emotional constipation, which lends itself heavily to him being an unpleasant person. He's not 100% ice queen all the time, but if you're looking for a shoulder to cry on, you might want to look elsewhere. Essentially, his personality is his greatest weakness—he has very few desirable traits and he isn't in any rush to change that. I mean, what's the point of being a friendly person when most of your friends end up dead, right?

Add all these things up and it looks like a recipe for a fairly unpleasant person. It's true that he is tough to be around, and that he seems like an asshole on the surface. However, while he may seem to dislike people in general, he does not undervalue human life. While he's stated himself that he's willing to be the bad guy if it's for the sake of humanity, Levi gets no satisfaction from having to hurt or kill people or watch soldiers essentially being sent off to die, even if they’ve consciously joined the Survey Corps and thus “dedicated their hearts” to humanity. It’s for the same reason that he doesn’t act recklessly—he has lost countless comrades to titans, after all. Despite the hefty title of humanity's strongest, it's important to note that he isn’t prideful about it. He's perfectly aware of his own capability, but he isn't cocky.

This is a complex character who isn't always painted in a complex way. He's not just the stoic warrior guy, or the potty-mouthed bad boy, or the strict disciplinarian captain. Under a prickly (but squeaky-clean!) exterior, there is a genuinely good guy—sometimes you just have to squint to see him.

(Get it? It's another short joke.)

SKILLS/ABILITIES: Levi’s stats are a bit ridiculous, as you can see. The combat rating is based primarily on proficiency with the Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear (3DMG), which is the somewhat complicated contraption used to fight titans. See this handy illustrated diagram!

The main thing to report here is that Levi is pretty much universally considered to be the best at using the 3DMG, and thus the best at killing titans. He's very quick, and his small stature lends itself well to this particular kind of combat. Beyond being exceptionally skilled at this (and quite proficient at using knives and hand-to-hand combat as well, though this is not a very valuable skill in fighting giant, regenerating meat-monsters), Levi does not have any extra-human abilities. He’s just really good at killing stuff.

CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Levi Ackerman
AU AGE: 23
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: With the exception of being significantly less shredded than his predecessor, there's nothing to note.

AU HISTORY:

Born to a woman who got very ill and died when he was very young and raised by his grandparents, Levi's lived a relatively normal life (so far). As a child he was mostly well-behaved, if reserved and not very affectionate. In school he didn't have a lot of friends—it wasn't so much that he was unpopular, but more that he was quiet and quite difficult to get to know. While his grandparents were mostly accepting of this aspect of his personality, they did make a few efforts to get him "out" more, and thus he was signed up for soccer. Not being a huge fan of working in teams, Levi was initially a bit disgruntled by this, but as it turned out, he was a really good at it. Small and very quick, he was credited with many of his team's victories, making him more popular than he would have preferred with his teammates. Though the attention was mostly unwanted, he had a good relationship with all of them, and even made friends with a few he was able to play with through the years.

In high school he did fairly well academically, and continued to play soccer. Other extra-curricular activities involved a little more socializing than he wanted to deal with, so he was rarely spotted at football games and never at dances. Life went on as usual until the summer before his senior year, when his grandfather suffered a heart attack while working in their garden and passed away. Understandably, this rattled the remaining family badly—his grandmother lost her beloved husband, and Levi had never experienced the loss of someone close before. As someone who wasn't exactly adept at talking about feelings, he internalized most of the grief, further isolating himself from others. Still mourning, Levi started his final year of high school, this time not performing as well. At his first game of the year he overdid it, and midway through he slipped and completely wrecked his ankle, pulling him out of that game as well as most games for the foreseeable future.

Having now lost some mobility as well, he spent the vast majority of his free time at home getting more closely acquainted with his computer. Out of sheer boredom he picked up a copy of a game strikingly similar to, but certainly not called World of Warcraft—I think we all know how this part of the story goes, don't we? While not stupid enough to shirk homework and taking care of his grandma (which was occupying more and more of his time as she advanced in age), he invested a somewhat ridiculous amount of time playing, becoming quite good as a result. Eventually he was picked up by a raiding guild, where he consistently topped the damage charts. You might even say he was the guild's strongest warrior—except he played a rogue.

After graduating high school, the fog of grief was finally beginning to lift, but Levi was left unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. Rather than starting college with no real direction, he opted to take a year off and work. Crappy mall job though it may have been, it allowed him to bring in some money while making plans for the next year. A year later he started classes at the university with a planned major in computer science. In his third year, his grandmother fell, and soon after decided to move into an assisted living facility. The two of them reluctantly sold the house he had lived in his entire life, and Levi moved into a student apartment for his last year in school.

Feeling too lonely in her new living space, his grandmother decided she wanted a dog. Levi took her to a shelter, where she happily adopted an elderly lhasa apso named Bubbles. Somehow, this trip also netted Levi an irritable but sometimes-sweet black cat named Reginald. The cat had been there for many months due to his attitude, and Levi couldn't help but feel bad for him—possibly because he, too, had a bit of an attitude.

And so, Levi and his cranky cat went home to their little apartment, and life was a delightful mix of classes, regular trips to the old folks' home, and sometimes even vague attempts at a social life.

AU PERSONALITY: The major difference between this Levi and his predecessor is that this Levi's life isn't drenched in death and despair. Conversely to the original who had experienced countless deaths, his reincarnation has only experienced it once, and did not deal with it well. It's as if, subconsciously, there's some knowledge that his past life was plagued by constant death, and he's dead-set on staying as far away from it as possible this time. The flip-side of that is that his world view (and thus his general attitude) is not quite as bleak, and you may even see him crack a small smile every once in awhile. While still quite responsible, he's not as strict with rules and structure as the original, because he hasn't seen the horrible things that can (and have) happened when they aren't abided by. In general, his personality isn't as severe, but he's still far from being someone others would call "friendly" or "sociable."