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soldiarity) wrote2014-05-02 11:58 pm
soldiarity) wrote2014-05-02 11:58 pm
INFO.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Reiner Braun
CHARACTER AGE: Approximately 15/16
SERIES: Attack on Titan
CHRONOLOGY: In the forest, after he and Bertholdt kidnap Eren and Ymir ( chapter 47 )
CHARACTER HEIGHT: 6'1"
HAIR/EYES: Short and blond; light brown, almost amber in appearance.
SPOILERS BELOW.
BACKGROUND: plot wiki | reiner's wiki
Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover are childhood friends, coming from the same unnamed hometown in the mountains where they were, from some point in their youth to when they enlist in the Survey Corps at the age of eleven, trained as "warriors." They, along with Annie Leonhart, are a special class of human known as "Titan shifters," with a directive otherwise unknown besides to tear down the Walls protecting humanity from the titans, infiltrate ordinary humans, and locate something specific that'll later appear to be Eren, or something within Eren.
It would appear their hometown was indeed outside the walls, because when they were very young a friend of theirs was eaten by a titan who would later be revealed to be another Shifter named Ymir, who was able to enter the Walls only after Reiner and Bert broke them down.
For 100 years the Walls protecting what remained of humankind from the man-eating giants known as titans had stood, until one day a titan the likes of which had never been seem before -- hereafter known as the Colossal Titan due to its massive size -- appeared over the Wall and kicked a hole in it, letting titans in and killing many from debris alone. Although many were able to successfully evacuate deeper into the inner Walls, another titan -- the Armored Titan, covered with thick impenetrable skin -- broke through the gate separating the initial breach site from the inside of the outermost Wall proper. 1/3 of the remaining population of humanity died that day.
The Armored Titan and Colossal Titan were of course Reiner and Bert respectively, and once inside the Walls they went on to join and infiltrate the military years after the breach, when they were about eleven or twelve, along with Annie. Despite coming from the same village and presumably being sent on roughly the same mission -- likely with differing objectives -- Reiner didn't seem particularly close with Annie, although they did clearly coordinate at times to share information.
Of the three, arguably it's Reiner that "infiltrates" the most effectively because of his sincere nature and natural skill, gaining the squad's trust and becoming friends with them. There is more than just deception at work here, though, which becomes clear later. After the group of trainees graduates, the Colossal Titan appears again and lets titans into the town they were stationed in, forcing the barely minted soldiers into battle right away and killing many of them. Eren, the manga's protagonist, is revealed to be a Titan Shifter after being devoured by another titan, and identifies himself as someone Reiner, Bert, and Annie should be paying closer attention to.
Annie is the first of their group, after Eren, to be seen and identified as a Titan Shifter herself, after she engages the Survey Corps while they're on a mission outside the Walls and kills Captain Levi's special squad in an effort to collect Eren. She is subdued but only later identified, and it is at that time Reiner and Bert are identified as possible accomplices due to the three of them coming from the same village. Even though Reiner by all appearances had been fighting to protect his squadmates, Armin Arlert -- someone Reiner had saved in particular -- comes to the conclusion that Reiner had told Annie Eren's location by carving it into her titan form's hand with his sword after Armin had given Reiner the information, suspecting nothing.
After that, Commander Erwin sent a group from the 104th division off on a fake mission, isolating them from the others because he suspected more traitors might be among them. In this group was Reiner, Bertholdt, Sasha Braus, Connie Springer, Ymir, Christa Lenz, and a few superior officers, all of whom are forced to relocate when Sasha hears titans approaching. They pass, on the way to safer grounds, Connie's home village, which is in ruins despite no signs of carnage. They see only one titan on Connie's house, which speaks to him… a fact that he stresses over at length to Reiner, who tells him it was just his imagination in efforts to calm Connie down. They end up taking refuge in an abandoned castle for the night that it appears, though surrounded by titans, more or less safe from them getting inside.
Reiner discovers there is more to Ymir than meets the eye (and to be fair, she is a transformer) when, while searching for food, she passes him a can of what she identifies as herring despite the characters written on it being too archaic for Reiner to read. He mentions this, but does not accuse her of anything further because a titan breaches the castle and they all have to scramble. Reiner sets off to scout the place to see if any others have gotten in, and encounters one hiding in the basement; he's momentarily paralyzed with fear for his life, but Bert comes to his rescue and the two of them subdue it. Immediately after, he's injured saving Connie from a titan, which bites down on his arm and refuses to let go of him to the point Reiner nearly jumps out the window to kill it because there seems to be no other option, but Connie attacks the titan with a knife and forces it to let Reiner go.
Ultimately it's Ymir who comes to their rescue of Christa's sake, revealing she is a Titan Shifter and jumping down into the crowd of titans. It's around this time, too, that they first see the titan known as the Ape Titan, a large monkey-like giant that is also capable of speech. Reiner and Bert look on at it in amazement, but the extent of their involvement with or knowledge of it -- if there is any -- is still unknown. They also identify Ymir as the titan that ate their friend Berik back when they were children. They are saved by Hange Zoe and other higher ranking Survey Corps -- the superiors who had been with them were already devoured. Christa reveals that her real name is "Historia" and she's been living as another person for her own safety up to now; she is actually from a family very highly regarded within the Walls, especially among the people known as Wall Cultists, but it's more than that. She is from the royal family, and apparently the rightful queen.
Reiner is shaken from the attack and his injury, and suffers a minor mental collapse which prompts him to confess to Eren that he and Bert are the Armored and Colossal Titans, and that their mission is no longer necessary -- they simply want to return home and they will leave the Walls alone, but Eren has to come with them. Eren refuses and a fight takes place, Eren and Reiner transforming into their titan forms and Bert transforming partially -- ultimately Reiner and Bertholdt succeed in kidnapping Eren along with Ymir, who is critically injured from her fight before. When they later stop to rest and Reiner explains that Eren -- and Historia, apparently -- is needed for Reiner and Bert to return home, it's also revealed then when he goes off on a tangent about promotions and their previous mission, that Reiner had in fact forgotten -- or repressed the knowledge of -- his status as a "warrior" almost entirely for most of the time he'd spent as a soldier. His behavior as a friend and a comrade to the other soldiers in the 104th division was sincerely rooted in the belief that he was who he was pretending to be, whereas Bertholdt -- though conflicted -- appears to have been aware of their situation, but perhaps not Reiner's, all along. Bert brings Reiner back to reality, and the two of them suggest to Ymir that they ally together since they share a goal in needing to protect Historia.
This is his canon point!
PERSONALITY:
The most presiding, consistent aspects of Reiner's personality are his determination and his sincerity; no matter his mission or the task he's doing, he commits to it above and beyond. Bertholdt has described this, in fact, as Reiner's bad habit, and it's obvious why: Reiner's dedication is so strong that it created in him a dissociation that allowed him to commit to both his missions despite them working in opposition. He operates primary in absolutes, allowing himself to compartmentalize however necessary to protect himself or believe what he would like to believe.
Among the comrades in the 104th division, Reiner came in #2 after Mikasa Ackerman because of his aptitude of combat, his teamwork skills, and his strength. His "trustworthiness" was also noted upon, his nature to earn the trust of his comrades which of course is ultimately used to their detriment, due to his willing and unhesitating nature to help and protect his teammates. Ymir speculates that part of the reason for Reiner's dissociative split is out of guilt for what he did in destroying the Wall and the desire to make up for it, manifesting with his sincere nature into a personality that truly was the soldier meant to protect humanity and the Walls from the titans and who was willing to risk his own life again and again for his friends, like the team's "big brother"; he's sympathetic to Connie when they discover his village has been destroyed, expresses frequent admiration for Christa and helps Armin multiple times when he is struggling or injured. There is evidence of his "warrior" side that spans back to their earlier days of training and of course the encounter with the Female titan, but how long these separate sides of himself have been conflicting is unknown.
If said life-risking is in any way a suicidal response, Reiner is not aware of it; when he is aware of his "warrior" side and mission, he is serious and on task. Whatever the real nature of their mission is, Reiner seems predominately concerned with protecting Bertholdt and returning to their hometown together, whatever that takes -- Bertholdt is very important to him, even if Reiner's personality incongruities causes some dislocation in their relationship; Bertholdt also is the only one seemingly able to "center" Reiner and ground his identity, even if in normal social situations and combat Reiner appears to be the one between them to take the lead. Bertholdt is an anchor to him, and especially following chapters 46 and 47 we see how central he is to Reiner's motivation to keep fighting and carrying out their mission.
Mission aside, his personality itself doesn't change much regardless of what or who he believes himself to be: he is noble, strong-willed, selfless, and reckless in accomplishing his goals. His recklessness, as mentioned before, is a bad habit of his and one of his greater personality flaws -- aside from the whole titan thing, of course -- but another is his erratic emotions. While most often he is agreeable, friendly, and a little bit crude and playful in that teenage boy kind of way, he has a temper that flares very suddenly but very aggressively, mostly in times of confusion. He isn't unintelligent, and in fact is quite capable of clear thinking and effective strategy, but of the three sent to infiltrate the Walls he is definitely more emotionally driven rather than logic driven; too often, he leaps without looking. With his skills and personality being what they are, he doesn't like showing weakness or having said weakness pointed out, and uncertainty unsettles him even more -- normally he's confident, brash, and competent, all things he deliberately pushes himself to be so he can better protect Bertholdt, for whom he cares very deeply, and accomplish their mutual goal of going home; above all, this is what's most important to him.
POWER:
FINAL NOTES: Reiner will be arriving with his 3D maneuvering gear -- technically, it's Eren's -- and a normal shirt and pants, as pictured here. Additionally, due to the inconsistent nature of the translations, I am running with the spelling "Bertholdt Hoover" for the purposes of this application but will alter such should a future applicant spell the name differently (same with any other name that may have alternating spellings).
CHARACTER NAME: Reiner Braun
CHARACTER AGE: Approximately 15/16
SERIES: Attack on Titan
CHRONOLOGY: In the forest, after he and Bertholdt kidnap Eren and Ymir ( chapter 47 )
CHARACTER HEIGHT: 6'1"
HAIR/EYES: Short and blond; light brown, almost amber in appearance.
BACKGROUND: plot wiki | reiner's wiki
Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover are childhood friends, coming from the same unnamed hometown in the mountains where they were, from some point in their youth to when they enlist in the Survey Corps at the age of eleven, trained as "warriors." They, along with Annie Leonhart, are a special class of human known as "Titan shifters," with a directive otherwise unknown besides to tear down the Walls protecting humanity from the titans, infiltrate ordinary humans, and locate something specific that'll later appear to be Eren, or something within Eren.
It would appear their hometown was indeed outside the walls, because when they were very young a friend of theirs was eaten by a titan who would later be revealed to be another Shifter named Ymir, who was able to enter the Walls only after Reiner and Bert broke them down.
For 100 years the Walls protecting what remained of humankind from the man-eating giants known as titans had stood, until one day a titan the likes of which had never been seem before -- hereafter known as the Colossal Titan due to its massive size -- appeared over the Wall and kicked a hole in it, letting titans in and killing many from debris alone. Although many were able to successfully evacuate deeper into the inner Walls, another titan -- the Armored Titan, covered with thick impenetrable skin -- broke through the gate separating the initial breach site from the inside of the outermost Wall proper. 1/3 of the remaining population of humanity died that day.
The Armored Titan and Colossal Titan were of course Reiner and Bert respectively, and once inside the Walls they went on to join and infiltrate the military years after the breach, when they were about eleven or twelve, along with Annie. Despite coming from the same village and presumably being sent on roughly the same mission -- likely with differing objectives -- Reiner didn't seem particularly close with Annie, although they did clearly coordinate at times to share information.
Of the three, arguably it's Reiner that "infiltrates" the most effectively because of his sincere nature and natural skill, gaining the squad's trust and becoming friends with them. There is more than just deception at work here, though, which becomes clear later. After the group of trainees graduates, the Colossal Titan appears again and lets titans into the town they were stationed in, forcing the barely minted soldiers into battle right away and killing many of them. Eren, the manga's protagonist, is revealed to be a Titan Shifter after being devoured by another titan, and identifies himself as someone Reiner, Bert, and Annie should be paying closer attention to.
Annie is the first of their group, after Eren, to be seen and identified as a Titan Shifter herself, after she engages the Survey Corps while they're on a mission outside the Walls and kills Captain Levi's special squad in an effort to collect Eren. She is subdued but only later identified, and it is at that time Reiner and Bert are identified as possible accomplices due to the three of them coming from the same village. Even though Reiner by all appearances had been fighting to protect his squadmates, Armin Arlert -- someone Reiner had saved in particular -- comes to the conclusion that Reiner had told Annie Eren's location by carving it into her titan form's hand with his sword after Armin had given Reiner the information, suspecting nothing.
After that, Commander Erwin sent a group from the 104th division off on a fake mission, isolating them from the others because he suspected more traitors might be among them. In this group was Reiner, Bertholdt, Sasha Braus, Connie Springer, Ymir, Christa Lenz, and a few superior officers, all of whom are forced to relocate when Sasha hears titans approaching. They pass, on the way to safer grounds, Connie's home village, which is in ruins despite no signs of carnage. They see only one titan on Connie's house, which speaks to him… a fact that he stresses over at length to Reiner, who tells him it was just his imagination in efforts to calm Connie down. They end up taking refuge in an abandoned castle for the night that it appears, though surrounded by titans, more or less safe from them getting inside.
Reiner discovers there is more to Ymir than meets the eye (and to be fair, she is a transformer) when, while searching for food, she passes him a can of what she identifies as herring despite the characters written on it being too archaic for Reiner to read. He mentions this, but does not accuse her of anything further because a titan breaches the castle and they all have to scramble. Reiner sets off to scout the place to see if any others have gotten in, and encounters one hiding in the basement; he's momentarily paralyzed with fear for his life, but Bert comes to his rescue and the two of them subdue it. Immediately after, he's injured saving Connie from a titan, which bites down on his arm and refuses to let go of him to the point Reiner nearly jumps out the window to kill it because there seems to be no other option, but Connie attacks the titan with a knife and forces it to let Reiner go.
Ultimately it's Ymir who comes to their rescue of Christa's sake, revealing she is a Titan Shifter and jumping down into the crowd of titans. It's around this time, too, that they first see the titan known as the Ape Titan, a large monkey-like giant that is also capable of speech. Reiner and Bert look on at it in amazement, but the extent of their involvement with or knowledge of it -- if there is any -- is still unknown. They also identify Ymir as the titan that ate their friend Berik back when they were children. They are saved by Hange Zoe and other higher ranking Survey Corps -- the superiors who had been with them were already devoured. Christa reveals that her real name is "Historia" and she's been living as another person for her own safety up to now; she is actually from a family very highly regarded within the Walls, especially among the people known as Wall Cultists, but it's more than that. She is from the royal family, and apparently the rightful queen.
Reiner is shaken from the attack and his injury, and suffers a minor mental collapse which prompts him to confess to Eren that he and Bert are the Armored and Colossal Titans, and that their mission is no longer necessary -- they simply want to return home and they will leave the Walls alone, but Eren has to come with them. Eren refuses and a fight takes place, Eren and Reiner transforming into their titan forms and Bert transforming partially -- ultimately Reiner and Bertholdt succeed in kidnapping Eren along with Ymir, who is critically injured from her fight before. When they later stop to rest and Reiner explains that Eren -- and Historia, apparently -- is needed for Reiner and Bert to return home, it's also revealed then when he goes off on a tangent about promotions and their previous mission, that Reiner had in fact forgotten -- or repressed the knowledge of -- his status as a "warrior" almost entirely for most of the time he'd spent as a soldier. His behavior as a friend and a comrade to the other soldiers in the 104th division was sincerely rooted in the belief that he was who he was pretending to be, whereas Bertholdt -- though conflicted -- appears to have been aware of their situation, but perhaps not Reiner's, all along. Bert brings Reiner back to reality, and the two of them suggest to Ymir that they ally together since they share a goal in needing to protect Historia.
This is his canon point!
PERSONALITY:
The most presiding, consistent aspects of Reiner's personality are his determination and his sincerity; no matter his mission or the task he's doing, he commits to it above and beyond. Bertholdt has described this, in fact, as Reiner's bad habit, and it's obvious why: Reiner's dedication is so strong that it created in him a dissociation that allowed him to commit to both his missions despite them working in opposition. He operates primary in absolutes, allowing himself to compartmentalize however necessary to protect himself or believe what he would like to believe.
Among the comrades in the 104th division, Reiner came in #2 after Mikasa Ackerman because of his aptitude of combat, his teamwork skills, and his strength. His "trustworthiness" was also noted upon, his nature to earn the trust of his comrades which of course is ultimately used to their detriment, due to his willing and unhesitating nature to help and protect his teammates. Ymir speculates that part of the reason for Reiner's dissociative split is out of guilt for what he did in destroying the Wall and the desire to make up for it, manifesting with his sincere nature into a personality that truly was the soldier meant to protect humanity and the Walls from the titans and who was willing to risk his own life again and again for his friends, like the team's "big brother"; he's sympathetic to Connie when they discover his village has been destroyed, expresses frequent admiration for Christa and helps Armin multiple times when he is struggling or injured. There is evidence of his "warrior" side that spans back to their earlier days of training and of course the encounter with the Female titan, but how long these separate sides of himself have been conflicting is unknown.
If said life-risking is in any way a suicidal response, Reiner is not aware of it; when he is aware of his "warrior" side and mission, he is serious and on task. Whatever the real nature of their mission is, Reiner seems predominately concerned with protecting Bertholdt and returning to their hometown together, whatever that takes -- Bertholdt is very important to him, even if Reiner's personality incongruities causes some dislocation in their relationship; Bertholdt also is the only one seemingly able to "center" Reiner and ground his identity, even if in normal social situations and combat Reiner appears to be the one between them to take the lead. Bertholdt is an anchor to him, and especially following chapters 46 and 47 we see how central he is to Reiner's motivation to keep fighting and carrying out their mission.
Mission aside, his personality itself doesn't change much regardless of what or who he believes himself to be: he is noble, strong-willed, selfless, and reckless in accomplishing his goals. His recklessness, as mentioned before, is a bad habit of his and one of his greater personality flaws -- aside from the whole titan thing, of course -- but another is his erratic emotions. While most often he is agreeable, friendly, and a little bit crude and playful in that teenage boy kind of way, he has a temper that flares very suddenly but very aggressively, mostly in times of confusion. He isn't unintelligent, and in fact is quite capable of clear thinking and effective strategy, but of the three sent to infiltrate the Walls he is definitely more emotionally driven rather than logic driven; too often, he leaps without looking. With his skills and personality being what they are, he doesn't like showing weakness or having said weakness pointed out, and uncertainty unsettles him even more -- normally he's confident, brash, and competent, all things he deliberately pushes himself to be so he can better protect Bertholdt, for whom he cares very deeply, and accomplish their mutual goal of going home; above all, this is what's most important to him.
POWER:
Regeneration → When wounded, Reiner's body will be able to heal or regenerate back to regular health. This extends both to small wounds or severe wounds such as stabbing or limb severance, but the more severe the injury the more time it will take and the more energy he'll expend.
Invulnerability → Reiner will be able to harden his skin and muscles to essentially make it so that he's both incredibly strong (more so than normal) and incredibly durable, essentially "bulletproofing" his skin so that it's like armor. This will not, however, be a passive ability; he will have to invoke it consciously. This will cause no outward physical change in his appearance.
Titan Shifting → As a titan, Reiner is about 50 feet (15 meters) tall and covered with hardened, impenetrable skin that covers his body in armor-like plates. Like so. He has the ability to harden even the parts of his body that the armor does not innately cover, but doing so drains his energy faster and slows down his speed when that extends to his joints and other parts of his body that would impair his movement. The titan bodies themselves are less "transformed into" and rather summoned, because the Shifter does not become the titan but rather controls it from a place within the titan, at the base of the neck.
Other Titan Shifters have shown to have the abilities to call regular titans to them via roaring, and using their skin hardening to encapsulate themselves or create barriers around them, but Reiner himself has not visibly demonstrated either ability. He does, however, retain his normal intelligence, and has enhanced speed, strength, and regeneration while in titan form, as well as relative resistant to extreme heat. This transformation, as with all Titan Shifters, is triggered at will by injury, usually shown via biting down on the hand.
In game, he will not be able to use this ability immediately or to the same sustainability that he can normally. At first he will be able to only shift singular parts of his body at a time -- an arm, a leg, summoning the armor only, etc. -- but the more thorough the transformation the more concentration it will require and the more energy he will drain, so he'll have to adjust to this incongruity and become more discriminate with his transformations.
FINAL NOTES: Reiner will be arriving with his 3D maneuvering gear -- technically, it's Eren's -- and a normal shirt and pants, as pictured here. Additionally, due to the inconsistent nature of the translations, I am running with the spelling "Bertholdt Hoover" for the purposes of this application but will alter such should a future applicant spell the name differently (same with any other name that may have alternating spellings).
