Spanner

Co-captain of a Tackety locomotive alongside their bestie/adoptive twin brother Kerry. Actually a shapeshifting being of glass and metal and liquid cosmogone in the guise of a human.

-- One half of the duo running a little Tackety engine and a small crew of revolutionaries. Spanner is usually the one at the wheel, and they usually manage to avoid running the train into debris. They try to be responsible and practical but they pick up on rowdy energy really easy and they Will make bad decisions at even the slightest push from Kerry.

-- Will fuck around and find out. And then make slightly different mistakes to see what happens the next time.

-- Easy to get along with, if you intend to get along with them; they’ll match the energy they get. Made easier for them to do so given their inherent ability to Absorb Ambient Vibes. They can usually tell which ones aren’t their own, but if they pick up on an emotion they’re also feeling it intensifies and they can get caught up in it. Too many strong emotions in one place gives them a migraine. Plants and animals can also put out vibes but more vague and more simple usually.

-- They're a fairly personable sort, most of the time. Kerry's the one to take charge in leadership and representing the crew, but Spanner'll banter playfully with friend and foe alike. They're not a pacifist, and are capable of fighting fiercely, though they don't like to harm any person who doesn't have it coming. But Kerry's wellbeing is always their first priority, followed by their own, and anything or anyone else simply isn't as important.

-- Usually they just passively intake surface-level emotions without any direct accompanying thoughts. But beyond that Spanner does have the ability to delve deeper into a specific target’s feelings/emotions/senses (they’re not strong enough to go as far as reading thoughts), and mostly they do this to communicate with plants. They don’t have a lot of practice outside of plants and it is very risky because the target will probably notice that someone is trying to get into their head, and Spanner is more connected to & easily overwhelmed by whatever they’re getting into. Also most people have a strong enough will to just like, deny them entry upon figuring out somethings up and being forcefully shoved out is jarring for Spanner and leaves them kind of dazed.

-- In a similar vein, places and objects can have emotions attached to them. They can pick up on residual vibes about things that happened that a lot of people felt strongly about. Usually places where something bad happened, which acts as a really vague warning.

-- Spanner is naturally inclined to mimic people. They can alter their ‘voice’ and produce sounds beyond human capabilities, like those of birds and machines. They will subconsciously and automatically copy others’ body language and repeat some speech/sounds they hear (echopraxia & echolalia), traits they have tried to stifle in the past, but at this stage in their life they now feel more confident and secure and they let themself enjoy stimming. Consciously they could superficially copy someone’s physical appearance which would probably be helpful for Tackety missions, but they can’t 100% pin down every aspect of a specific person’s behaviour/speech patterns/vocal inflections. There’s also a little quirk in the way they speak that just doesn’t quite line up with the way most people sound, almost a metallic edge like a starling’s mimicry or an almost convincing text to speech program.

-- Spanner likes plants & fungi a lot! Plants and fungi like them too, or at least their light. The cosmogone Spanner radiates vastly enhances the growth rate of flora, and can be felt even when not visible. The Reach’s flora is especially volatile and flourish aggressively— in Spanner’s hands a verdant seed is a bomb. Reach plants are a lot more intense when it comes to communication, too.

-- They are marginally aware of the fact that their existence is like, several blasphemies wrapped up into a single package, so as much as they’ve come i to their own in the High Wilderness they are genuinely afraid of catching the Judgements’ attention. Currently they are beneath the stars’ notice and they are trying not to change that.

-- Though human shaped, Spanner is distinctly inhuman. They were 'born' in the Is-Not, Parabola, from a dying fingerking and a crumbling false sun. They left as a child, after catching undesired attention from the fingerkings.

-- Upon leaving Parabola, Spanner fell in with one of London's urchin gangs, the Regiment. That's where they met Kerry, who defended them in a conflict when the two first met.

-- Anyone who lives long enough ages out of the urchin gangs in time. Kerry and Spanner left the Regiment behind, and together took some work at zea. This later put them in a position to follow this crew through the Avid Horizon and into the stars.

-- Joining the Tacketies didn't require much discussion between the two; it seemed like just the sort of fun they missed from their Regiment days. It didn't take long before the duo earned themselves a reputation as adaptable and effective, if unpredictable, which in turn earned them an engine of their own to captain.

• Their body runs a little hotter than a human’s. If they get worked up, it runs a lot hotter, and their cosmogone internals may shift from a liquid state to a gaseous one. It’s harder for them to cool down once they get there, but they do make a pretty good space heater.
• Spanner has an uncanny aim that they use primarily for shenanigans. They can reliably make some extremely improbable and ridiculous shots. Spanner and Kerry use this to convince people not in the know to make some really stupid bets. which the duo consistently win.
• Spanner does sleep, though they need less than a human. When they sleep one of two things occurs: either they have absolutely 0 brain activity and no consciousness while they sleep, or they dream lucidly and ‘wake up’ in Parabola’s Viric Jungle. In either case they are effectively dead to the world and cannot be roused until they’ve completed their rest.
• Cats hate Spanner. Cats can sense the snake in them although Spanner has no allegiance to the fingerkings, and no amount of negotiation seems to convince them otherwise.
• Spanner would be be able to use Correspondence and Discordance more reliably than most humans, if they knew the languages. It would still come with risks, Spanner’s body isn’t built to handle temperatures so extreme.