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[dirtdevil]

OOC Information:
Name: Alison
Are you over 15? Old as the hills.
Contact: firstofme at gmail, solarhalfbreed
IC Information:
Name: Levi (Amsel)
Canon and medium: Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)
Age: Early thirties? (canon) / 23 (reincarnation)
Preincarnation Species: Human
Preincarnation Appearance: Manga / Anime
Any differences: Presumably his reincarnation will not be as ripped as the original for obvious reasons.

Preincarnated History: Obligatory wikia link
For the most part, Levi's origins remain shrouded in mystery—you'll have to excuse me for not having much to write about, as like many others I'm waiting for the, uh, shoujo manga spinoff to elaborate. What I can tell you is that prior to the start of the primary manga canon, Levi was a thief in the underground capital. He and his two yet-unnamed thief buddies managed to get ahold of the 3D maneuver gear essential to fighting titans and used it to enhance their thievery. Or something. Bear with me, there are only like ten pages of this thing out right now.

Anyway, that stuff all allegedly happened, and that puts us in the main canon. Levi has a somewhat vague position of authority in the Survey Corps (sometimes translated as Scouting Legion) and is recognized as mankind's strongest soldier. The Corps' business is killing titans, and business is... well, it sucks, actually. He's very good at it, but on the whole they suffer huge losses every time they set out beyond the walls. In any case, it's all business as usual until some kid shows up who can turn into a titan. This, understandably, sets off some alarms with the general public and also the military, but a plan is hatched to ensure the Survey Corps gains custody of him. Levi's part in this plan happens to be kicking the hell out of him, but at least it's for a good cause, right?

The aforementioned "titan shifter" kid, Eren, then becomes part of Levi's squad, which consists of the two of them plus four others. The main purpose of the squad is a weird combination of protecting Eren (because his ability is extremely valuable) and acting as a failsafe in case he loses control in titan form (in which case they are obligated to kill him). Awkward. Anyway, after awhile being together the group learns to trust each other and it's very heartwarming, but then an expedition outside the walls ends up leading them into a forest and everything goes to hell in a handbasket thanks to the appearance of another (female) titan shifter. All of Levi's handpicked squad ends up dead, Eren is taken by the female titan, and Levi is injured taking him back. The expedition is a huge disaster.

Now essentially benched due to his injury, Levi is left to pick up the pieces. Instead of babysitting a titan shifter kid, he's currently babysitting a religious old nut who knows things but won't answer anyone's questions. Oh, what fun.


Reincarnated History:
Born to a woman he never really met 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.


First Echo:
Shortly before starting his last year of college, Levi attended a graduating class orientation (because it was mandatory), and that night there was a barbecue. Finally almost to the front of the hot dog line, the guy in front of him vastly underestimated the ketchup bottle he was using, and ended up getting it all over his hand. He then turned behind him to Levi and asked him to grab a paper towel, holding out his ketchup-covered hand as explanation.

Of course, Levi's first thoughts were a) "gross" and b) "what an idiot." However, as he held a paper towel out to the other guy, he was greeted by a brief but strange and unfamiliar vision. A man lay on the ground, bleeding and dying, his hand outstretched but covered in his own blood. He was looking directly at him... and then he was gone, just as quickly.

While certainly weirded out, Levi was a skeptic, and never thought much into it. I mean, it's not like anything like that would probably ever happen again, right?


Preincarnation Personality:
There are a lot of things one could assume about a character dubbed "humanity's strongest soldier": Levi is basically none of those things. From the very beginning, it's easy to see he's not your typical "hero" character. First, there's the immediately obvious: he's small. He looks grumpy almost all the time. We have literally never seen him 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 (but it's worth mentioning that he's also perfectly capable of having conversations not littered with vulgarities).

He's also a bit neurotic when it comes to cleanliness: he's definitely a neat-freak and possibly a germaphobe as well. In fact, this is one of the first things we learn about him when he is introduced, and soon after we get to see how it manifests itself: 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). 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. Levi does not have any particular talent for strategy, and he fully acknowledges this.

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 and does not 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 does not flaunt this at all. He's perfectly aware of his own capability, but he isn't cocky.

To sum things up, 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 good person - one just has to look closely.

Any differences:
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."


Abilities:
The 3D maneuver gear used to fight titans is hard to describe without sounding like an idiot, but the main thing to report here is that Levi is pretty much universally considered to be the best at using it, 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 likely hand-to-hand combat as well, to a lesser extent), Levi does not have any sort of extra-human abilities.


Roleplay Sample - Third Person:
Thinking about it, it wasn't really so strange that Levi often preferred the company of animals over other people. There was something to say for sharing a space with someone who doesn't do all the annoying things that people do. A cat wouldn't spend an entire evening yapping about her latest science project. A bird wouldn't need to ask a million stupid questions up to and including whether he had permission to go take a leak. Dogs… well, dogs were a little too friendly and dependent, but still preferable to quite a number of people he'd met. (Plus, there was all the licking - no thanks.)

He owed a lot to his horse. Horses, too, asked zero questions, which was especially nice considering the "adventures" this one had been on, and would likely keep going on. It didn't even sign up for this. It didn't "offer its heart to humanity." Still, even though his specialty usually required him to dismount first, Levi knew there had probably been numerous times when he would have been in trouble if it weren't for having such a good horse. He'd even told his squad, back in the forest after switching to the maneuver gear but before everything went to hell - "take care of my horse."

The horse made it back. The others didn't.

He thought about them whenever he saw their horses, too. Of course, they were all ridden by other people now, but that wasn't so strange, either, was it? How many times had this happened before? Sometimes even the horses themselves didn't make it back. Sometimes nothing came back at all, and it was like the person never even existed. Somehow it made it all worse, having nothing to return to their families. Times like those, he would put his vague dislike of people in general aside. If there was one thing they all had in common, it was this. Everyone knew someone like that: eaten, crushed, buried in the rubble. Times like those, he remembered that despite how insufferable people could be, and how terrible they often treated each other, it was still humanity he always fought for in the end. He had offered his heart to humanity. It's just that, as of yet, he'd always been one of the lucky ones who got away while it was still beating.

The horse snorted, and the present came back into view. He'd been lost in thought, absent-mindedly patting his horse's head. It didn't happen often. He told himself he was probably just overly tired. Yeah, that must have been it. A good night's sleep would clear his mind, surely.

It was then that he received a grim reminder of one key advantage humans had over horses, and that was that horses shit wherever they want. And this one just had.

Gross.


Roleplay Sample - Network:
you know, i kinda assumed the completely random "vision" could be chalked up to a contact high. with all the smelly potheads that hang out on campus, i wouldn't be surprised. and yet here i am, connected to some kind of super internet, where i now have the opportunity to talk to other people who have also had non-drug-induced brain spasms, and presumably have also seen some weird shit followed by a long number. i'm hoping the people on this "internet" are at least a little more intelligent than the ones on the regular internet. (cats are still ok.)

anyway, i'd appreciate if someone brought me up to speed on this stuff. did i really see an image from a past life? because it looks like it must have sucked ass. and i can only assume it's gonna keep happening. i can take it, but it would be nice if it didn't keep happening at inopportune times, like during exams or while i'm taking my grandma to bingo. christ, i was just trying to get a hot dog last time. i couldn't even eat it afterwards because all i could see was blood all over it. fucking gross.

thanks for the invite to the secret club, i guess. i don't have to come to any meetings, do i?


Any Questions? Nope!