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[unstiff]

Player Info

Name: Kristi
Age: Old enough
Contact: rageblackouts @ plurk
Characters Already in Teleios: Alex Millar | unlaces
Peeta Mellark | withbread
Sawyer Thomas | johnnystorm
Parker | whatarewestealing
Augustus Waters | itsametaphor
Reserve:here

Character Basics:

Character Name: Tobias Eaton AKA Four
Journal: unstiff
Age: 18
Fandom: Divergent
Canon Point: End of book 1
Debt:

Class A: 67 years
Class B: 127 years
Class C: 164 years 10 months

Act of selfishness, Permanently marking one's body (tattoo), Vanity, Acts of self indulgence

GRAND TOTAL: 358 years 10 months

Canon Character Section:

History:

Here

Personality:

“My name is Four,” I say. “Call me ‘Stiff’ again and you and I will have a problem.”


Tobias, more commonly known as Four because he only has four fears (in canon, the average person has 10 to fifteen fears), is an example of duality. There is a side of himself that he shows the world and a side of himself that he keeps secret.

The side of Four that he shows the world, the side that will never be known as anything but Four, is self-possessed and intimidating. He chooses his friends carefully and even among them rarely relaxes entirely. He is a coiled spring, ready to react to whatever the situation may present. He appears to be confident and fearless, as well as independent. He can be cold, sarcastic and stern. His sense of humor tends to be dry and many people who only know him peripherally would say that he had no sense of humor at all. He is exacting and has high expectations for people. He is also protective and defensive of people in general. He is shown in canon protecting those that aren’t necessarily good people because he feels he can and he should.

He can be an incredibly dangerous person because he is intelligent, brave and strong. He is confident (sometimes even arrogant) and he’s aware of what he’s capable of, of his own limitations and strengths. He’s able to block out the things that scare him and move beyond them. This is seen most notably when he climbs the ferris wheel to the very highest point with Tris. He’s not happy about it, in fact, he’s terrified, but he continues moving because he is stubborn and refuses to allow his fear to beat him. Part of this is his competitive edge. He was first in his class (Dauntless using a ranking system for initiates that follow them the rest of their lives). Some of that he can attribute to life he lived with Marcus. Violence and pain were such a part of his life in Abnegation with Marcus that Dauntless training seemed an extension of that. Living with Marcus had also taught him to think on his feet, to think several moves ahead, all in the interest of attempting to avoid a beating. He has fewer fears than anyone in the history of Dauntless. Competition pushes him through when fear would hold him back. Confronting his fears, pushing himself also makes him feel powerful; it takes away the vulnerability and helplessness that he felt living with his father.

“How have I never realized before that for all the strong, kind parts of him, there are also hurting, broken parts?”


The side of Four that he doesn’t show the world, Tobias Eaton, is a broken man. As a child, he was abused by his father, an upstanding member of the community, so he learned very early how important it was to put on a façade. His father was generally careful to leave belt marks only on Tobias’ back and legs so that his clothing would hide them. He was told ‘this is for your own good’. He tells Tris at one point “Don’t worry about me handling the pain. I’ve had a lot of practice” because even with his back and legs a criss-crossed mess of wounds, he had to stand straight, smile, nod , be selfless and act as if he wasn’t in agony because the punishment would have been so much worse if he’d ever spoken out against his father.

Because of his father, because of the abuse he suffered at his hands, Four shies away from leadership positions. He doesn’t want to have to make decisions for others. He is afraid that the power a leader wields will go to his head the way it so obviously did with his father. There is a part of him that is afraid of turning into the man his father is and he bases the choices he makes in his life on that. Canonically, one of his fears is his capacity to kill, his capacity (and ability) to hurt people. This fear stems from watching his father and knowing that is a part of him. At least choosing Dauntless allows him to turn this ability into something good, into protecting people.

In his world, people divide into factions based on personality traits. Dauntless is brave; Erudite is intelligent; Amity is peaceful; Abnegation is kind (selfless) and Candor is honest. Rather than be one of those things, Four strives to be all of them. He tells Tris that he is still working on being kind and in some respect, he is right. However, he was raised Abnegation; he’s had a great deal of practice at being selfless and kind. When it counts, when he needs to be, he is kind and sometimes he is kind in ways that don’t make sense at the time(for example, clipping Tris’ ear with the knife. Eric would have never let her step away from being target practice if Four hadn’t done that and eventually, he might have taken over the knife throwing which could have easily ended up in serious injury or death).


“I do like to hit people-I like the explosion of power and energy, and the feeling that I am untouchable because I can hurt people. But I hate that part of myself, because it is the part of me that is the most broken”



Four is observant and manipulative. He watches people and figures out which buttons to push in order to make them do or feel the things he needs them to feel. He manipulates Tris repeatedly in his canon in order to help her. He manipulates other leaders in Dauntless as well in order to guide them towards some behavior or action that he wants or needs.

He can be cruel, though he tries to temper this. He tells Tris that fear wakes her up and then that sometimes he wants to scare her so he can watch her wake up. He beats a boy unrecognizable for trying to rape and kill Tris. He is self-deprecating, convinced that there is a monster inside of him, something that his father felt the need to control, the need to beat out of him.

With the exception of his fear of heights, Four’s other fears speak very much about his childhood. His claustrophobia comes from his father locking him in a small, hallway closet as punishment. We’ve discussed the fear of his capacity to kill and his fourth and final fear is the fear of his father. When confronted with his father, it takes everything in him not to turn into the timid, cowed boy that he was before he transferred to Dauntless.

His transfer to Dauntless brings another personality trait into sharp relief. Dauntless was by far the most difficult path that he could choose. However, it is the one that would cut his father the deepest. It was a decision made, in part, out of spite. This is a reflection of the rebelliousness and spitefulness that lies within him.

Earning Four’s trust is a difficult thing. His experiences have led him to be naturally distrustful of people. He is closed mouthed and secretive; Again, personality traits that were learned more than anything. He doesn’t share a great deal about himself without a good deal of prodding, and only to those whom he does trust. In canon, that number is limited to Tris.

He is loyal, but his loyalty, like his trust, is hard earned. He does not blindly follow rules or people. He learned at a very early age that people, government and factions aren’t always what they seem to be.

Often, to outsiders, Four appears reckless and fearless. In reality he is neither of these things. Yes, he is an adrenaline junkie and his fears are few and far between, but his risks are calculated and when he takes them, he’s confident of his odds of survival. He is reckless in one regard; his tolerance for pain is incredibly high, so he doesn’t often let the fear of injury or pain dissuade him from doing something he wants to do.

Like Tris, Four is divergent. This makes him incredibly strong willed, well suited to figuring things out and thinking on his feet.

At first, Four will not cope with Teleios well at all. He will assume it is a simulation that he must find his way out of. Once he gets past that part of things, it actually will be a place he likes for the most part. In canon, he desperately wants a world without factions, a world in which he doesn't have to hide his divergency, a world where people don't disappear. So...two out of three ain't bad. I'm not sure he'll ever really like it because the "kidnapping" and the inability to leave will never sit well with him. However, he will adapt and settle in. I imagine he'll become a personal trainer at the gym or possibly work on the police force.

Powers/Abilities:

Extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat as well as weapons combat
Incredibly high pain tolerance
Very little fear of anything , which often looks like fearlessness and comes in handy.

Appearance:

Being bossy

Being confused

knife throwing

The tattoo on his back

Samples:

Actionspam Sample:

[ Perhaps the idea of making a life that doesn’t include factions or the need to carefully consider every, single reaction he has, should be appealing to Four, and it is, but in his relatively short life, he has learned that if it seems too good to be true, then you ought to be looking for the catch. That’s what he’s spent the last several days doing: looking for the catch. He’s listened, researched, explored, watched, and interrogated. He’s considered a great many more invasive things, tactics Dauntless would use to get information, but has ultimately decided that if this really isn’t a simulation, that torturing someone he’ll have to see every day probably isn’t a good idea. It’s certainly not very Abnegation of him, but then he’s always had difficulty with being kind.

A life without factions, a chance to explore all of the sides of himself, a life without fear of someone finding out he’s divergent, a life without Marcus is something that Tobias only dreamed about. It was a dream he gave up when Tris came along because if there was ever a person born to be Dauntless, it’s Tris. He couldn’t leave her, couldn’t take the risk of pursuing a life beyond the wall when she so obviously fit in Dauntless (regardless of her divergent status). He knew from the moment she jumped first that his life would be entirely entwined with hers. He needs her in his life the way he needs chocolate cake shhhh, it’s very good chocolate cake. Now, here, he’s ‘paying’ for the choices he made back home. In his experience, redemption punishment has never come with the opportunity to have everything one ever wanted. It should (or so he thinks) involve a great deal more restriction, hardship beatings and work. Teleios isn’t any of those things and he’s struggling to come to terms with that.

In interest of furthering that struggle, of making some progress, Four has decided to eat in the dining hall (rather than grab something to eat and take it to his room). He grabs a plate, surveys the room, takes a deep breath and heads for one of the more crowded tables. ]

Is this seat taken?

[ It’s not huge and he might not even speak to his table mates, but he’s not avoiding them either. He’s not being an ass and he’s not interrogating torturing them. It’s progress. Maybe tomorrow he’ll actually smile at someone.

Nah. Probably not. ]

Prose Sample:

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