A True Gentle Man

Character Info

Character's Name: IV
Character's Canon: Yu-gi-oh! ZEXAL
Character's Age: 17
Canon Point: post his defeat at the WDC, when he collapses next to his brother's body and knows that when he loses conscience it will be for death or worse
Background/History: Wiki link! note: warning that the wikia tends to concentrate on the English Dub version of the series which shows in the use of some changed names and the harmless-talking of some events in the series that happened in the English version of it.

Strengths:

* Loyalty: IV's devotion to the few people he actually deems worthy of his attention and respect goes all the way to self-sacrifice and suicide (emotional and literal) for their sakes. He was willing to let his father drive him into being an even worse person than IV already had shaped up to be while fully aware of how much both his family as a whole and he in particular were being used by Tron. IV also chose to stay behind to keep Ryouga from chasing down the others both to buy the remaining humans (including his brothers) time and get a last shot at keeping Ryouga from making exactly the same mistake IV did, despite knowing how little his chances of surviving this fight were.

* Passionate: Buying into the above IV doesn't do anything in halves. In fact he doesn't even seem to be either capable nor willing not to pull out all the stops 110% and more once he has set his mind onto something, be it putting up the fake persona of the Asia Champion, restoring his family, venting his emotions on his victims or trying to kill or befriend Ryouga. Once IV has set himself a goal he will fight hell and high water to get there and gladly sacrifice anything that's in his way, including even himself. The only real reason that this is a strength of his is that it keeps him from ever giving up without a fight and because he is smart about it. Restoring his father doesn't mean that he doesn't see or hate the shit Tron is pulling right now.

* Good Entertainer: In general IV possesses all those traits that make him an excellent professional duelist who often participates in big events. His fame makes him double as something of a popular idol, and he possesses enough charisma, acting skills and the necessary knack to be generally good at guessing what others want so that IV can woo and sway masses easily. The downside to this is that IV's perceptive streak not only helps him to figure out people's real motivations and motives, but also enables him to live out his bullying streak to the worst extents.



Weaknesses:


* Temper: IV has been shown to have always been a temperamental wild child, but growing up as he did turned his temper outright nasty. It's hot, it makes him petty and cranks his sadism up to 1000, it makes him take crazy risks just because he feels like it and it regularly leads him to let his passion burn so hard that it devours himself and anybody close in his vicinity. When IV shows his real self there are very few people who'd want to put up with him which in turn makes his temper even nastier. The same passion that makes IV strong also sabotages him with each step he takes.

* Egoism. IV is an egoist par excellence, bordering on the line to sociopathy at his worst moments. While his worst violent outings began and pretty much ended with Tron's influence over the Arclight siblings IV never really showed any real remorse for any of his deeds past admitting that he is aware that he has long since crossed the point of no return on the moral event horizon. Any care IV shows toward his crimes is centered on how it falls back on him, same with his loyalty to people. Michael is the little brother who never betrayed IV. Chris sees the same things IV sees and does nothing. Tron is messing up their family and grooming IV into a monster for his personal gains but is also the key toward getting their true father back. Ryouga advances from a rival for his father’s approval who needs to be crushed to the one non-family person who knows IV's real self and still heeded his desperate plea to safe his family, and IV’s idea of repaying him is to become his No.1 fan, transferring his attachment from his father to Ryouga. IV is the center of his world, being both victim and perpetrator, independent avenger and yet needing help to save himself, and everybody else are as much props to him as the puppets that make up the theme of his deck. Sure, he loves some of those puppets, but he'd never think to apologize to them for accidentally dropping them or knocking them over. In the end it's always about IV.

* So many issues. Middle Child Syndrome. Inferiority Complex. Abandonment Issues. Daddy Issues. Violent outbursts that drive him to torment people who look up to him as brutally as he can to make up for the abuse and inability to fight back against what is going on with his family. Serious case of Sadism. No clue how not to be an egoist and connect with people. IV is a boy who is messed up beyond belief and who has a knack to hide this fact pretty well until he gets poked. Then all the nasty things that make him up have a bad habit of jumping out of the cracks of his pretty veneer and bite you in the face.



Powers/Abilities:

The Arclight family uses two particular modes of manifesting and using their abilities. The first is a Crest given to them by their father and the second is a bracelet developed by Chris in order to help and strengthen the use of their crests while also lessening the risk of their use. The crest is usually hidden but appears on its user's body when they use it. IV's crest is purple, has a striking shape and is located on his right hand. His crest manifest across the left half of his face. Under certain conditions losing a fight while using their crest will kill the crest's user.

Skills the crest gives are:
- teleportation
- opening portals to either travel through them or to use them for easier communication (just transmitting sound while the portal is open)
- medium-strength soul/mind manipulation. Manifests mainly as the ability to resist it, but some crest users can use it for offensive purposes as well if the right conditions are met.
- hovering/flight
- catching glimpses of things you normally wouldn't (coughGhosts)
- creating dome-like force fields to either keep something in or something out. Locally limited as they can't be moved without deactivating them. Strength and size of it depends on the number of users bundling their powers.

Bracelet - helps stabilize and upgrade the use of the creats. The bracelets of the siblings are linked to each other and can also be used as tracking devices and monitors for vital signs. In the series the bracelets are able to trace the Barian's movements as well, which could translate as them being able to trace extraterrestrial/-dimensional life forms in the game if the players affected give their okay for it.


- enhanced physical fitness and strength. IV once climbed on a towers just so that he could jump down from it for a heroic entrance. That probably says something about the strength of his legs and a whole lot about IV's personality and priorities as a whole.

- basic knowledge of how to use weapons (nothing over-complicated, but how to use a gun, a sword,... The Arclight family has been shown to be pretty pragmatic when it comes to fighting, show about card games be damned.)

- driving a car

- driving a submarine

- Duel skills - being good at calculating numbers and chances swiftly in his head, good at tactics, doesn't get scared easily and can take a physical hit or two, good at analyzing his opponents moves, keeping focused during dire situations,... I don't think that anything related to the card game itself is going to ever become really relevant in the game unless you guys allow him to summon some of his monsters like temporary persona or FF summons with the help of his D-Pad and home technology.

- idol skills - putting on a fake persona and keeping it up convincingly, swaying the masses and all the other things that come along with being something of a celebrity with a pristine rep. Also Fanservice. (of the not-skimpy kind)




Other Noteworthy Traits:

1. Unlike his siblings IV seems to have accepted his numeral name (it's read as "Four", while III/Michael is "Three" and V/Chris is "Quarte") replacing his real one the most out of his family. This goes to the point where he uses it with everybody he interacts with - during the whole show he is only called by his birth-name Thomas once, and it seems to be more of a favor toward the one who is calling him it that IV reacts and lets them get away with it. His identification with being IV reaches the point where he gets upset when anybody else has something four-themed on them because excuse you, that's his number!

2. IV is obsessed with fanservice. While he has build up a reputation to be really good to his fans as Asia Champion spoiling them with his "service" he also uses the term 'fanservice' whenever he starts to really want to hurt a person. Generally it's a red flad hearing him using it.


Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
- Clothes (on person)
- D-pad (on person)
- His deck (on person)
- His bracelet??? (canon point crossing? Should I take it?)
- Michael’s sword (extra)


Color: #ffffcc or #ffff4d. Red is Michael's color and blue is Chris', which leaves only yellow for IV.

Sample: Links to threads from within the last 6 months with at least 5 replies from you -- enough to get a sense of the character. TDM threads are easiest but not required.

[ OPTIONAL ] World Aspect: N/A