ariel app

[reviling]

□ Name: Levi

□ Journal: reviling.dreamwidth.org

□ Series: Attack on Titan

□ Canon point: Chapter 64

□ History: http://shingekinokyojin.wikia.com/wiki/Levi_Ackerman

□ Personality:

Petra Ral provides us one of the best descriptions of Levi in canon: “The real Captain Levi is shorter than you’d expect, temperamental, crude, and unsociable.”

It’s telling when someone who looks up to Levi as much as Petra describes him with so many negative words. Indeed, the easiest characteristics to point out about him are definitely his worst; Levi is unfriendly, blunt, disrespectful, violent, and almost entirely without a sense of humor. Yet despite the rather frosty way he interacts with most people, Levi holds a great deal of compassion within him.

Stoic by nature, he rarely shows much emotion both as a defense mechanism and for practical reasons. As a leader, he is relied upon to make decisions in difficult situations with little information that could impact the survival of his team and others. If he were to become visibly hysterical or uncertain, he would lose not only control, but the trust and faith of those who depend on him.

Those who follow him do so not just because of his strength, but because he genuinely cares for the people around him. It is a quality he possessed even before his entrance into the Survey Corps, and indeed is an important aspect of his personality as it informs a great deal of what he believes and the actions he takes.

This manifests primarily in his concern for people who are used and abused by those in positions of power and authority. Having spent the majority of his life in the underground slums beneath the capital city where people suffered and died because they were denied access and citizenship to the city above, Levi witnessed and experienced a great deal of suffering due to oppression. He eventually becomes the leader of a gang that steals from the corrupt, wealthy citizens who control access to the underground.

After joining the Survey Corps (through no small amount of extortion and coercion), Levi continues to show concern for human suffering. In Eren’s trial, he is the sole person to criticize the plan of a rich merchant to seal all of the gates for good because it will inflict even more suffering on the general populace struggling to survive off the limited resources due to loss of safe territory to the titans, and is pointedly the only person to notice and be affected by a starving woman and her baby in the streets of the decimated Trost district.

While the way that Levi chooses to express himself makes for a less than ideal bedside manner, he nevertheless is surprisingly sensitive when it comes to comforting dying soldiers or comrades of the dead. The way in which he shows his compassion is what speaks volumes because he often does it at the expense of his own personal comfort or grief, such as clasping fiercely to the bloodied hand of a dying soldier despite his aversion to uncleanliness or comforting Dieter whose poor decision to recover a fallen comrade’s body caused more casualties and forced Levi to order abandoning the corpses of his squad so the survivors could make it home safely.

In a world where mere survival is often a challenge, Levi has learned his fair share of difficult lessons which have affected his character over time. In his background story we see Levi as even moodier, quicker to resort to violence, and extremely prideful. His pride causes him to be distrustful of Farlan’s judgment, and only grudgingly accepts it on occasion. Most significantly it causes Farlan and Isabel’s deaths on their first expedition outside the walls as he abandons them to carry out an assassination attempt on Erwin. As a result, in the current timeline Levi has learned to put faith in others, trust Erwin’s decisions, and owns up to the fact that his actions may not always be the right ones. It also exacerbates his hatred for needless suffering and loss of life as a soldier in the Survey Corps. While Levi recognizes that sacrifices often have to be made to achieve a greater goal, he is quick to revile someone (like Hange) for needlessly endangering the lives of others.

Additionally, in an environment where the vast majority of those you fight beside are likely to die in brutal and horrifying ways, sometimes the only way to protect yourself is to be selective about the people you care for, and Levi is no exception. Though he is careful to keep in mind all of the deaths that occur with every mission of the Survey Corps, he is also careful about the people in which he chooses to trust and invest any kind of emotional attachment.

Despite holding a rather high regard for human life, it’s important to recognize that this is tempered by practicality and survival instinct. As a result, Levi will unflinchingly kill someone if it’s for his own survival or the survival of his soldiers, or if that person’s death will somehow further his and Erwin’s goal of freeing humanity. While Levi can be incredibly violent (to the point that it shocks and horrifies others), he is very rarely violent without reason or provocation.

In fact, many times when he is most violent is when he is acting on Erwin’s orders – such as the brutal beating he gives Eren during his trial and the torture of the Interior MPs for information. Interestingly enough, while he seems to be fairly blasé about torture and intimidation to get information, Levi is clearly bothered enough that he asks Eren if he resents him for what he does to him, although he also recognizes the fact that he needs a fair amount of Eren’s trust if he is to effectively keep him under control.

Levi's practicality also enables him to keep a clear and level perspective in most situations. He's a keen observer with a great amount of situational awareness and sensitivity to the behavior of other people and his own emotions. As a result, he's able to quickly adapt to rapid changes on the battlefield in ways that can prevent others from getting killed (such as keeping Mikasa from attempting to kill the Female Titan as she would likely have ended up dead, though he ends up injuring himself in the process) or keep dangerous situations from escalating. Levi is decisive and does nothing without a reason, even if that reason could be seen as controversial or misunderstood by most people. He recognizes that he is constantly making decisions without complete information, and that those decisions could fatefully impact those that he leads.

Being sensitive to the thoughts and actions of others also enables him to be an effective coach and mentor, even if the way he passes on his advice can be abrasive. His brutal honesty often takes the place of coddling praise, but he nonetheless offers his guidance without judgment and encourages Eren and others to come to their own conclusions, even if they disagree with him or his methods. Instead of attempting to use orders to keep Eren on track while being pursued by the Female Titan, Levi encourages Eren to think for himself and to do what feels right - whether that be fighting her one on one or putting his faith in the decisions and abilities of those around him.

Although it’s clear if someone proves themselves to be competent at something he develops confidence in their ability (Hange’s knowledge, his squad’s capabilities and cohesion, Armin’s judgment, to name a few), trust from Levi comes slowly and in varying degrees. In Erwin's case, Levi trusts him so completely that he is willing to follow Erwin's orders almost entirely without question. He understands that Erwin is prepared to sacrifice anything and anyone (including Levi himself) if it will help save humanity from eradication, and knows that Erwin is often thinking so far ahead of everyone else that his decisions may seem strange at the time but often prove to have meaning behind them after the fact.

A discussion of Levi’s personality is incomplete without mention of his obsession with cleanliness. While often it can be portrayed as a humorous quirk, it is also a frequently displayed neuroses that seems to have started during the time he lived in the slums. Even though he was forced to live underground and out of the light, he refused to let that necessarily mean that his living space also had to be filthy. His high standards for cleanliness are such that he requires his subordinates to learn how to clean properly, and if they fall short of his inspection he forces them to do it again. As a result, he can often come off as overly nitpicky when it comes to his living space and even personal hygiene.

At the end of the day, Levi is a brutally honest yet compassionate person with a bad attitude and strange penchant for commenting on other people’s constipation when they keep him waiting. While he is often categorized as rude, violent, and a clean freak, the actions he takes in spite of these “flaws” to uphold what he believes prove that he is so much more than the sum of his parts.

□ Age: 32 (estimated; actual age not stated in canon, but confirmed by Isayama to be “older than 30”)

□ Gender: Male

□ Appearance: Fairly short in stature (160 cm / 5’2”), but solidly built – muscled but not beefy. He keeps his dark hair short with an undercut in the back and a slight amount of fringe around his face, which has sharp features. His eyes are narrow and slate gray in color, and often appears as though he could use at least another 2-3 hours of sleep. He typically dresses in his Survey Corps uniform, although when out of it tends to prefer simpler styles.

Uniform: http://shingekinokyojin.wikia.com/wiki/Levi_Ackerman?file=Chara_detail_rivai.png

Out of Uniform: http://shingekinokyojin.wikia.com/wiki/Levi_Ackerman?file=Levi_ready_for_action.png

□ Abilities/Powers: Known as ‘Humanity’s Strongest’ by many in the Attack on Titan world, Levi has demonstrated that he possesses incredible strength few can match. This enables him to perform incredibly well with the 3D Maneuver Gear and makes him lethal in hand-to-hand combat. While not quite on the same level of ‘super human’ in the sense that there’s a wide gap between him and the general populace (ie not Superman levels of strength), it has recently been hinted in canon that Levi and a handful of others like him experienced an ‘awakening’ in which they suddenly came into this exceptional strength as opposed to developing it naturally over time.

□ Personal Items:

3D Maneuver gear (weapon)

Survey Corps uniform

This outfit (http://sadeeyore.com/anime-screencaps/_data/i/galleries/Attack_On_Titan/ep24/screenshot_0465-me.jpeg, http://sadeeyore.com/anime-screencaps/_data/i/galleries/Attack_On_Titan/ep25/screenshot_0263-me.jpeg)

□ First Person Sample: http://theloonybin.dreamwidth.org/28694.html?thread=16807702#cmt16807702

□ Third Person Sample:

At thirty feet high, the walls around the city seem low and unintimidating to Levi, yet strangely comforting and suspicious all at once. Everything within the walls seemed geared toward peace and personal pleasure on levels Levi could scarcely begin to imagine as reality. Adjusting to the higher level of technology is easier than the idea that this place is entirely devoid of the widespread fear and suffering that have always been so integral to his understanding of the world.

In this city, people don’t have to live in fear of monsters or starvation. Food is plentiful, crime is practically non-existent, and the emphasis on sex (no small amount absurd, in his mind) seems to lull all of the inhabitants toward an easy, carefree life. With all of their desires in many ways quite literally at their fingertips, what more could anyone possibly want?

Yet Levi can’t help but notice that they still live behind walls.

He’s heard the rumors of what lies beyond them, and all accounts amount to essentially nothing that would interest most people. The landscape is apparently barren, uninhabitable. While he has no reason to doubt what he’s been told by multiple people, the urge to see it for himself is one he can’t quite ignore.

Standing at the northern gate, he finds that at first glance things are much as he’d heard; there’s nothing but desolation and emptiness as far as he can see. The sun is high in the sky and bright, forcing him to squint and shield his eyes, but in every direction things look much the same. For a moment he gazes up toward the guard towers as though to see if anyone is actually looking out. From his vantage point, no one is visible.

“Wonder what these creeps are trying to keep out…” he mutters to himself as he takes the first few steps into the dusty world beyond. For now he doesn’t plan to go far – his gear still doesn’t work yet, and there’s more information to be gathered before attempting to explore further – but his curiosity needs to be satisfied, if not the desire to feel what it’s like to simply walk out beyond the wall itself.

Evidence of the fire becomes visible after several minutes of walking, and he comes across the crumbling shell of a building. Little of it remains, but it’s still fairly easy to determine that it had been a home of some kind. Levi kneels next to a weathered ruin of a burnt out wall, and sifts through a pile of debris. Bits of ceramic and small shards of metal are scattered in pieces too small to really determine what their purpose had once been, but make it clear people had lived there once.

He glances back toward the wall, more questions and suspicions piling up in his mind. Walls are generally built for protection or prison, and usually end up serving both functions. While whoever ruled the city didn’t seem to care if the citizens ventured outside, Levi gets the feeling that it’s more about the guise of freedom than actual freedom itself.

Although perhaps there really is just nothing to be found.

His gut tells him otherwise, but only time will tell.