Name: Rin ShepardAge: 24
Gender: Female
Height: 5'7"
Body type: Adult
Facial expression: Smiling
Hair: Short black hair
Eye color: light blue
Skin color: White, has scars on her neck from clawing at it (may be underneath the turtleneck - if so, don't worry about em)
Profession: Engineer
Military outfit: Standard with a Turtleneck
Personality: Rin is a kind, caring woman who is very protective of others. Despite being perhaps too quick to forgive other people, she is especially hard on herself for her failures, and tries her hardest to not mess up. While this may make her come off as a perfectionist, she's not really aiming for anything perfect, as she doesn't feel worthy of such a title.
Rin is often curious about how things work, and in her spare time likes to come up with ways to improve things, even if just by a little. She's also fairly handy at repairing things, a skill she has honed over the years of employment while her father was drinking.
While other people fear the titans more than anything, due to the circumstances of her mother's death, Rin is of the opinion that the true monsters are some of her fellow humans. Even if the Walls keep the titans out for a hundred more years, how many people will die due to humans? It is because of this that she doesn't see Maria, Rose, and Sina as worthy of worship like some people. If they can't even protect one girl's mother, then are they truly great protectors?
It is because of those beliefs that she dreams of joining the Military Police - people sworn to the protection of others. Failing that, however, she'd still be interested in joining the Garrison, as when they aren't patrolling the walls, they occasionally serve as the protectors in place of the Military Police. She feels that if she could just protect people from the sadness that befell her, that would be enough.
History: Hailing from Shiganshina, Rin was born to John and Hanabi Shepard, former members of the Garrison. Her parents taught her to be a kindhearted girl, and she took these lessons to heart. Her mother taught her how to fold origami, while her father, who spent most of his time working as a repairman but still had time for the family, instilled in her a curiosity for how things work. It was an idyllic life, but everything changed when Rin was eight years old. While she and her father were out shopping, her mother was killed in a burglary.
John Shepard turned to drinking and grew more and more violent, a far cry from the loving father he had been. Suffering through tremendous amounts of verbal abuse from her father, Rin began to believe a lot of the words he was saying. Maybe she should have died instead of her mother. She passed the time by honing the craft her mother had taught her, thinking she could perhaps grow as good as her mother had been. Maybe then her father would be happy.
When her father quit his job, Rin begged his former employer to hire her in his place. She proved quite handy around the shop, making repairs on things people brought in with relative ease, but not as good as her father had been. She tried as hard as she could, and steadily grew better and better. By the time she was fifteen, the owner commented that she was nearly as good as her father was before he developed his alcoholism.
When she was sixteen, Rin fell gravely ill, and her father, despite his shortcomings, was able to nurse her back to health. Seeing what he had almost lost, he gave up his drinking and pleaded with her to forgive him for his actions the last eight years. She did almost immediately, the lessons from her youth still deeply ingrained in her. However, almost as omnipresent as that were the emotional wounds inflicted on her by her father and herself. In a way, she forgave him because she didn't feel it was her right not to.
As the years passed, John Shepard reverted more and more back into the caring father he had been. He got a new job to support his remaining family, determined to make up for his transgressions anyway possible. However, age had taken its toll on him, and he was unable to work as hard as he had before his alcoholism. Seeing her father working himself so hard, Rin told him one night of her dream to join the Military Police, leaving out that she didn't want him to work so hard for her. He supported her decision and sent her off with a smile.
