dirtdevil

Player Information
Name: Alison
Age: 25+
Contact:

clickboom, alison#4118, PM
Other Characters: N/A

Character Information
Name: Levi
Canon: Attack on Titan
Canon Point: Chapter 72
Age: 30-something
History: Here!

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.)

Abilities & Skills: Levi’s stats are a bit ridiculous. 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.

Inventory/Companions: 1 3DMG set (if this is not allowed it's fine), 1 small switchblade

Choice: Witch
Reason: To be completely honest, this is just an OOC preference - I'm fairly squeamish when it comes to body horror aspects, so I'd rather avoid it if possible. I don't know if I'd say he's well-suited for it, but he's definitely the kind of person who would scoff at the idea of magic, so I think it could be interesting to play out.

Sample: Ongoing fourth wall thread + thread from previous run in aef (can provide more if needed!)