knights of legend } { application

[generaldavideus]

Player Name: Emily
Player E-mail: iluvroadrunner6@gmail.com
Instant message contact (AIM/MSN/etc): AIM – iluvroadrunner6
Plurk (if applicable): iluvroadrunner6
Is the player at least 18 years of age? Yes.

Character's Full Name: David Levin
Canon Everworld
PB/Actor: Ryan Reynolds
Character's Starting Level: N/A for right now
Character Age: 28
Physical Description:

David is a big guy, meant to be imposing just by his existence. He used to be more clean cut, but twelve years in a world without a barber shop and his hair is getting a little on the shaggy side. He keeps it cut short enough to keep out of his way, but doesn’t give much care to it than that, and he has a full beard. When it comes to dressing he’s usually in the garb of whatever civilization he happens to be hanging with, usually Vikings. Oh, and he’s always carrying a sword.

Once he’s has steady employment, he’ll probably clean up a bit, to blend in a little more. When he does, it’s mostly solid colored shirts, jeans, and sturdy shoes.

Character's Species/Race (aka human, elf, dragonblood human, etc): Human

Character History (Pre-Veil):
For reference, here is the lone wiki article on Everworld. I’m writing out David’s history + my AU here myself, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a general overview of the world so that I don’t have to explain every little thing? Also, I’m sorry, but I can’t take history sections seriously. It’s a character flaw.

Once upon a time, there was a nice boy named David Levin.

He was a rather mild mannered boy, and while he had dreams of greatness and escaping, he was mostly just trying to blend in with the rest of his high school, so that he could bide his time until he turned eighteen and could run away to join the military. That scheme worked well, up until he met Senna Wales. Senna was psycho batshit crazy a woman of very particular tastes, and not only did he find himself on the bad side of Christopher Hitchcock, the local popular boy, he managed to get himself ostracized by everyone Christopher considered a friend. David quickly became the least popular person at their high school, but he frankly didn’t care because he was just counting down the months until he got the hell out of there, away from Christopher and away from his mother.

And then he got his wish. Sort of. Kinda.

One morning, while he was out on a run after having a really creepy dream about said girlfriend, he found his way to the local lake. There he was surprised to find Christopher (the bane of his existence), Jalil Sherman (the know it all), April O’Brien (Senna’s half-sister) and Senna herself. He had all of two minutes to try and figure it out before the world splits open everything in David’s world changes. When he wakes up, he’s chained to a wall outside of Loki’s castle, down is up, left is right, and you might even be able to say that the sky is green and have it actually happen.

Welcome to Everworld.

According to the locals, Everworld was created when the gods got sick of their subjects abandoning them for Christ. So instead of working on their people skills, and maybe demanding less on the human sacrifice front, they decided to create their own pocket universe where there would never be a shortage of virgins to go around. All the gods could live in peace together, so long as everyone stuck to their little niche of followers and so long as people stuck to not eating gods, then it was all good. After all, you’re only as powerful as your own ego. They also happened to take all of the magic with them, with the exception of one very powerful magical being who would be able to control the space between the two worlds, and allow the gods to pass through it, should they ever need to: the gateway witch. They mostly ignored her for hundreds of years. In fact, they even went so far as to share their little pocket of paradise with gods from other universes and alien worlds. It was all good, one giant party with tons of power abuse to go around.

Then someone decided to feed up the food chain.

See, the thing about gods is they like to think they’re invincible until someone decides to prove otherwise. In all the sharing is caring that the Earth-created gods were doing, they didn’t think of what would happen if a god who actually wanted to take over and could take them down came into the picture. Ka Anor (giant swarm of flesh eating bugs) and his Hetwan (giant bug people) crash landed in Everworld, and decided pretty quickly that people weren’t as tasty and he wanted to eat gods instead. Given that that wasn’t one of the approved dietary choices—and more to the point, he could actually do it—the gods, naturally, started to panic. And when gods start to panic, for lack of a better phrase, bad shit happens.

Enter: Loki. Loki found out he was next on Ka Anor’s hit list and being the quick thinking Trickster that he is, decided that getting eaten wasn’t such a good thing for him. So he decided to offer Ka Anor something better—the gateway witch. The lead in to a whole new world of people to eat who aren’t gods, but the world would be much easier for him to control. Loki just needed to borrow a little bit of power to do it, and conned Ka Anor into giving it to him. Really, what Loki wanted was to use Senna to get himself out of Everworld—as far as he was concerned the rest of the dimension could go screw itself—and he sent Fenrir, his giant wolf son, to fetch her so that he could get the hell out of dodge. There were a few things he didn’t consider.

One, Senna Wales is batshit super crazy, and doesn’t like the idea of being used as a puppet.

Two, while her power in the Old World is considerably muted, she did have enough to lure some rescuers to her aid, and once she was in Everworld, her powers went from minimal to badass in three point five. This was not a good life choice.

This is how we wound up with David, Christopher, Jalil and April chained to the wall of Loki’s castle, and him demanding to know where his gateway witch is. Did we also mention Loki is pee-your-pants terrifying and has a giant snake as a son? Well, there’s that too.

Through a moment of frantic panic by David and clever acting by April, our quartet of heroes manages to escape the castle and down to one of the Viking villages below, unwittingly getting swept up into a great battle between the Vikings and the Aztecs by virtue of their being minstrels and being able to manipulate “Battle Hymn of the Republic” into a song glorifying the wrath of the Vikings. Apparently, they’re easy—sing songs to their glory, and they’ll take you anywhere. They haven’t the faintest clue where Senna is, but David is determined not to leave without her, especially considering Loki wants her and David really doesn’t like him much. It’s also during this trip to the Everworld version of Mexico (note: the Cancun here? Not as much fun) that they realize that they’re not missing from home. They’re somehow straddling the line between the two. Whenever they go to sleep in Everworld, they wake up back home.

That’s not brain-breaking, at all.

Regardless, they pick up and keep shuffling forward, managing to survive the battle against Huitzilopoctli by none other than the exact thing that they were looking for: Senna. She used their magic to get them out of there, and then promptly disappeared again, because she’s helpful like that. Regardless, they had their lives, and David’s just as determined to find her as he was before. They continue on their journey eventually running into a group of aliens also stranded in Everworld called the Coo-Hatch. There they trade their chemistry book for one of their blades that can cut through anything like butter. They later find this to be a major mistake, but they don’t have time to dwell on that. They have a weapon. Life is even better than it was before. They continue to search for Senna, because David will not leave this realm without them, occasionally crossing over along the way, and they find what they’re looking for.

And with that, they find a dragon. No, really, it’s a dragon.

The dragon was sent by Merlin because he’s not an idiot and knows that having Senna in Everworld is a very bad idea. This doesn’t make him David’s favorite person, especially considering at this point, she’s realized he’s the weakest link and most loyal to her, so he’s the one that’s going to be easiest to control. She also has a bit of a hold on Christopher, but it’s obvious that David is her champion and the one she needs to defend her. Regardless, she tries to use them to fight the dragon, which is a little useless because they don’t know how to fight a dragon. They are completely getting their butts kicked when Galahad, Knight of the Round Table, comes to their rescue. He wards off the dragon, and takes the four of them back to his castle in Camelot. He offers them sanctuary, and they stay for dinner. Granted that dinner also included visits by both Loki and Merlin, things got very complicated very quickly. Both of the grumpy old men went to war over who was supposed to get the witch, and somewhere in the reanimating of their dinner and the troll invasion, our heroes tried to escape, and Senna disappeared. As they were trying to escape, Merlin’s dragon reappeared, and Galahad was killed trying to protect them. He gave David his sword shortly before he died, and after burying him, they moved on to keep finding Senna.

This becomes a game of ‘Senna or no Senna.’ She makes an appearance every once in a while to remind them that she’s still alive and still has the power to get them out of there, but never really sticks around long enough to actually follow through. In the process of this journey, they visit the realm of Hel, bargain with a dragon, give Fairy Land their own telegraph system, and narrowly avoid being eaten by Ka Anor a number of times. It is an adventure, to say the least.

Eventually they make their way to Mount Olympus, the most powerful seat in Everworld. This is the moment that cements David’s conviction that ninety-five percent of the gods are idiots. They had called a great summit to try and determine what to do about Ka Anor, but refuse to work together for the common good. It’s all about their own glory and not about the fact that Ka Anor is going to eat them which means they need to get their shit together. Thankfully for David, however, not all of the gods are idiots. Despite Senna’s hold on him, which is causing his friends to start to distrust him, Athena appoints him her champion, which is a great big giant step up from being Senna’s champion. She calls him her general, and becomes one of the few gods that David actually trusts.

They leave Olympus and continue to travel, narrowly avoiding death and war along the way, and eventually manage to pick up and keep Senna. They are betrayed by the Coo-Hatch, visit Egypt as well as the submerged city of Atlantis, and eventually they manage to find their way to Eire. Christopher is nearly eaten by a Cyclops. It’s the highlight of David’s day.

They are taken in by King Camulous and Queen Goewynne who allow them to stay in their castle, even though the pressure is building. Merlin and Loki are closing in on them, they still want Senna, and David still wants to punch them in the face. At this point, Senna has near absolute control over him, and is starting to make some moves of her own. Just as everyone is about to converge on the castle in Eire, she opens the gateway, and lets loose a team of Neo-Nazis that she’s been wooing ever since she had been dragged into the fight. They come through with a slew of modern weaponry, up to and including automatic weapons, and she claims control of the castle for herself. She kills Camulous, as well as Fenrir, and is well prepared to launch her evil plan of taking over the world (see: Senna being batshit psycho crazy), when one of the druids breaks away and stabs Senna in the chest.

Only it’s not a druid. It’s April.

Senna dies almost instantly, and with her death, the remaining members of her merry band need to make a choice. The transitioning they’ve been doing over the course of their time in Everworld starts to go a little haywire, indicating that they need to make a choice between one dimension or the other. David makes the choice the fastest, choosing Everworld over the Old World, and disappearing from Chicago completely. With the Sennites (the group-designated nickname for the Neo-Nazis) as well as Ka Anor, he feels like this mess is their responsibility to clean up. Eventually the rest of the group follows him, and they band together to keep the world moving forward.

--END CANON, START AU—

With their decision to stay in Everworld, their mission becomes a little different. This isn’t about finding Senna and getting home anymore, this is about making friends instead of enemies so that they could have support, and they certainly have a lot of enemies. Loki wants April’s head on a platter, they’re responsible for the near complete destruction of Eire, and add to the fact that they were betrayed by the Coo-Hatch, gods are idiots, and they had angered a good chunk of the native people by their mere existence, it’s a slow process. But once the Sennites start going to town on every village they cross, they realize that their understanding of modern technology and weaponry is what they have to their advantage, and the people start to rally around them.

They also know to start with the few friends they do have—Vikings who aren’t in service to Loki, as well as some of the remaining knights in Camelot, the members of Fairy Land, and slowly the word begins to spread through word of mouth. They’re still just kids, and don’t know a lot if anything about battle, but they learn to make it up as they go along, and do just enough to survive. Then eventually they start to get good at it.

David takes to it like a fish to water—military is in his blood, and he doesn’t even bother to shy away from it. They learn to use the tools of the world at their disposal, create their own legends and myths about General Davideus and the people eventually learn to rally around that. They lose—in fact, they lose miserably a lot of the time because they’re outmatched in every way, but they’re still fighting and they’re surviving. That can be a victory in and of itself. The years pass, and eventually they lose track of how many and just focus on living through the day to day. They also exchange what they know about modern technology so that the towns are better able to protect themselves from groups of Sennites as they roam through the area, destroying anything they can find.

David will be falling through the veil mid-battle, covered in blood and sword in hand. It’s not how he went into Everworld, but it’s definitely how he would prefer to go out. But obviously he’s not going to be all that thrilled to be here.

Post Veil History: N/A

Chosen Canon Point: 12 years post-end of the series.

Personality and Psychology:

David Levin is a pretty simple guy, all things considered.

He’s actually simple to the point where he’s a little boring. KA Applegate’s novel series stick to several basic character archetypes, and David definitely falls into the “leader” role—responsible, reliable, intelligent and loyal. It doesn’t really make for the most interesting guy. But in a way, that’s what’s endearing about him. He’s not the character with the witty dialogue or the questionable motives. He’s the guy who makes the same call every time, and it’s always the right one, because that’s who he needs to be.

David is the kind of guy who always needs to be moving. He was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder as a kid, and it took him a long time to learn how to channel into something productive, but he doesn’t really do well with sitting still. It’s why he never took to school the way Jalil did. But David does know people. He reads the little things they do, and that hyperactivity has made him a little hyper-observant. Even with the gods, he tries to us what he knows to guess their motives and figure out how they operate, and most of the time he’s right. The only person he’s never been able to read is Senna, and it’s unclear if it’s because she’s just that good at masking her feelings, or she used her magic to help distract him, but he always had trouble figuring out what she was thinking.

Growing up, David felt that he was very close to his father, to the point where he idolized him. His father was a military man, which only led to David aiming to pursue the same career. It wasn’t something he ever questioned. He saw it as a world where he would finally fit. There was order, rules and he could really achieve something with his life. As far as he was concerned, the military would give him purpose. He could go into battle and do something with honor and valor. Something that his father would be proud of. Which is probably because his father wasn’t really in his life. In the twelve books of the series, David’s father only makes appearances as mentions and memories. It seemed that after his parents divorced, his father disappeared, only reappearing once in a while for weekend trips. Add to the fact that once the divorce was final, there was a string of unwanted boyfriends on the part of his mother, all who probably tried to connect with him, but failed due to the fact that David was a stubborn brat of a sixteen year-old. This isn’t to say that David didn’t love his mother or want her to be happy, he just couldn’t connect with her. She left his father, and that wasn’t the kind of person that David wanted to be.

In addition to that, David hates being a coward. It took one particularly bad week at summer camp where he failed at standing up for a boy who was being molested by one of the counselors, and he never wanted to feel that helpless again. There is probably a part of his brain that knows that he was just looking out for himself, but the fact that he failed at helping the people who were being oppressed is something he took to heart very strongly, and probably why he thrives as much as he does in Everworld. He doesn’t back down, doesn’t stop, and doesn’t ever want to put find himself as a coward ever again. It’s why he gravitates to groups like the Vikings, or the Celts, or even the Knights of the Round Table. They have their gods, but they don’t blindly follow them, and they always charge forward to fight rather than allowing themselves to be submissive to someone who doesn’t deserve it. It’s why he fights for the people rather than seeking the favor of the gods, and in some instances, that earns him the gods favor. (See: Athena)

In a way, this only fueled his sense of loyalty. David does not leave anyone, for any reason. (Unless they’re dead, of course.) Once he’s decided you’re one of his “unit,” he won’t abandon them for any reason. This was mostly a problem when Senna was using him as her personal lap dog through a bit of mind control/magic/whatever you want to call it. She became his purpose, for a short period of time, not only because he was determined to not leave Everworld without her, but also because he suddenly had something that he could prove himself with. When they finally rescued Senna, this purpose turns into protecting her, which he honestly would have done even without her using her magic on him. The magic took away his ability to question her motives, which made him nothing more than a puppet. Despite this experience, even after her death, he stays with Everworld because it’s a world that’s falling apart. It can still give him that sense of purpose he’s lacking in the Old World. In fact, he’s the first person of their group to choose Everworld over the Old World, and he would have kept fighting until it eventually killed him. And given the volatile nature of the world, odds are that it would.

Senna’s manipulation of him is the part that really took the most toll on him after her death, and affected him the most. It wasn’t so much that he lost Senna, who had been his guiding light for as long as he had been in Everworld, was a megalomaniac who wanted to claim the world for her own, it was the fact that she a) didn’t trust his loyalty enough to let him make the choice for himself, and b) took away his choice in the first place. In a way, he was trapped in his own head, which over the course of his twelve years post her death, he does his best to make his own decision. He doesn’t swear allegiance to anyone for extended periods of time (especially gods), and the only people he is devotedly loyal to, no matter what, is April, Christopher and Jalil—the four people he originally landed in Everworld with. He doesn’t always get along with all of them, but he knows that he can trust them, because they went through the same thing with Senna. They’re the ones that he knows don’t have an ulterior motive. It also doesn’t help matters that David doesn’t really have much to say. He’s generally pretty laconic as a rule, and when he does choose to speak, his words have purpose. They don’t always have weight, but he’s the kind of guy who’s always paying attention, always aware, and always manages to get the important information, even if it’s been lead through a series of smoke and mirrors. When he does speak, it usually ends in him not having the popular opinion, but it’s the one that needs to be acknowledged, one way or another.

Another side effect of Senna’s hold on him is how David approaches romantic relationships. David is straight and monogamous. When he commits to someone, just like when he commits to anything else, he is with them, for better or worse, and he doesn’t sleep around. In theory, when he’s having it, he enjoys sex.

In theory.

The problem is, David isn’t committing to anyone right now as he is currently celibate. His last girlfriend did a number on his head, and often used sex to keep him under her thumb. (She had the ability to brainwash people through physical contact.) So it put him off sex as a general rule, and he’s a dedicated kind of guy. Once he decides he’s off something, he’s off it, and it takes a force of nature to change his mind.

Everyone else is welcome to have all the sex they want. He won’t judge. It’s just not for him.

David has a very low opinion of a lot of the “major players” as far as Everworld is concerned, mainly the gods. Aside from a select few that he either respects (ie. Athena) or fears (ie. Hel), he finds most of them to be waste of space cowards who don’t know how to fight their own battles. The one he has come to blows with the most is Loki, who brought him to Everworld in the first place and continues to make their lives a living hell why he tried to get a hold of Senna. She was his escape plan, and despite the fact that Senna turned out to be the greater enemy, he thinks that Loki has lived too much of his life in fear, trying to run away. He also thinks the gods are stupid for not being able to work together, because of their own internal squabbles. No one wants to put their necks on the line, but no one wants to be eaten by Ka Anor either. If they all worked together, they probably could have banished the threat a long time ago, but they refuse to do that because of their own pride. The fact that they created another universe because they didn’t want to compete with Christ is a big sign of how highly they value their own egos. They’re incapable of working together and fighting for themselves, and their subjects are the ones who suffer as a result. The people of Everworld, the ones who do the actual fighting, are the ones who have his respect, and he does his best to command them when they let him. At the moment, he’s the one fighting for Everworld, fighting to stop Ka Anor, and the people rally around him for that. He finally becomes the leader that he always wanted to be.

After falling through the Veil, that’s going to be his biggest problem. He’s losing not only his purpose, but also his support. David isn’t really that good with people, so making friends is going to be a big step for him, let alone finding people he can truly trust. Add to the fact that the rules in this world are a bit more civilized than what he’s used to, and he’s definitely going to need some time to adjust. He’s going to be coming from a world that was technologically deficient, a tad more barbaric, and where most things were given to him in exchange for him protecting the world from monsters. The idea of cell phones, the law, and actually having to work for a living are going to come slowly, and take some time for him to get used to.

Memories Retained or Lost:

David is going to be losing memories of April, Jalil and Christopher—essentially his obligations back in Everworld. He’ll remember that there were people there who did certain things for him, but he can’t remember who they were or why they meant something to him. He’ll also be losing his specific bonds with his warriors –he’ll remember being with the Vikings, but his loyalty to them and the reasons why will be a bit muddled.

He will be retaining his experiences with magic, and may be wary of icy blonds in his future, but Senna, specifically, is also going to go because the boy needs stop completely isolating himself. Basically, he’s losing all of his strong emotional connections, which will force him to make new ones and give him motivation to move forward and not worry about the people he’s leaving behind. He’s also keeping his experiences with the gods and battles both won and lost, so that he retains his general’s mind, so to speak.

Powers and Abilities: None. He’s proficient with a myriad of weapons, including a sword, his favorite, but he doesn’t have any special powers.

Roleplay Samples

Link to a sample of your character in action: Here, I think.

Link to a sample of your prose writing style: Here, have something absolutely ridiculous.

Any other important information (including special inventory items in their possession): David canonically carries the Everworld version of the Sword of Galahad. I’ll leave whether or not he gets to keep it up to the GM?

Why do you think this character would join/work with the Knights?

For a sense of purpose more than anything else. As I said in his personality section, David has spent the better part of his adult life thus far pillaging and plundering and in the name of the Vikings and protecting those people that he could. While it may take him some time to adjust to the idea of currency and normal social skills, the Knights are really the best area for his skill set in a modernized world , and stand the best chance of helping him readjust and regroup.

Plus it’ll provide some interesting conflict when he has to learn to take direction again.

Do you have a preference for which NPC brought in your character? Nope!