Ken

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   <default>Ken</default>
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   <label>First Appearance</label>
 

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Ken is the spirit of the town of Kennet made corporeal.

He has four "children", parts of himself that are the spirits of various parts of the town:

• Nettie, the commercial downtown area
• K.T., the tourist part of Kennet
• 'Annette O., the residential area
• K. McKeller Steel, the industrial side of town

Personality

Ken's personality reflects the people that makes him, therefore he is a mixture of all their strength and flaws. As a result he tends to be somewhat lazy and parts of him have problems with drugs and alcohol, at times he has been casually racists.<ref name=":1" />

Ken has been badly hurt by the murder of the the Carmine Beast.<ref>“I don’t know enough to say.  I don’t think so.  It’s doing a number on me, you know.” -Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.9</ref>

Relationships

Ken is grateful for everything that Lucy, Avery, and Verona has done for him.<ref>“We didn’t expect gifts,” Avery said.  “We’re supposed to do something for you in exchange, Guilherme said.”

They ventured closer to Ken, Avery still watching her step for any traps or sharp things left in the grass.  One broken bottle.

“You are.  You forget, I’m Kennet.  I’m grateful for what you do.  I want to be square with you.  If there’s something you wanted to ask for while you were here, you hinted at that, you can ask.”- Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.3</ref>

Lucy has a major problem with Ken and his many failings and wouldn't have voted to incorporealise him if she had the chance to<ref>“Ken was brought on with the three practitioners in mind,” Matthew said.  He looked at Edith, “Right?”

“He explicitly was, to connect to the human element of Kennet.”

“Yeah, uhhhh, no?” Lucy raised her voice, rising up a little taller.  “Because you didn’t ask.  You assumed, and that, Matthew, Edith, is one of the big ways in which you didn’t treat us as equal or involve us in a fair way.  You assumed and you jumped to it and I can tell you right now that I was way less than impressed the moment I read the email summarizing the Ken situation.”

“What?  Why?” Matthew asked.

“Because the spirit of Kennet as a whole is as much a problem as anything.  Now I’ve tried to be open minded and cool but dude, Kennet is kinda a bit racist.  It has, like you admitted, a drinking and drug problem.  Kennet is really awful at looking after itself and standing up for its rights.  I could have and would have told you all of that, but I didn’t get a vote so it doesn’t count.  No.”- Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.3</ref> but their are some aspects of Ken that she does like.<ref name=":2" />

Appearance

Ken appearance is that of someone a little over middle age, slightly overweight and with badly kept hair. To Verona's sight he looked like an individual made up of thousands of wriggling creatures slightering around concrete structures.<ref>“It’s fine, give me a second,” Ken replied in a vaguely aggrieved tone of voice.  He tied with Charles at appearing the oldest in the room, had a bit of a beer gut, and wore a plaid, summerweight work shirt and jeans.  His expression reminded her of her dad, but it was baked in by another decade or so of aging, framed in hair that had settled into locks with sweat and the kind of vague oiliness that came with insufficient or poorly chosen shampoo and conditioner.  The effort was there but misapplied.

To her Sight, he was a silhouette of a man crammed with five thousand wriggling meaty things, slithering up, down, and around a core of not human bones, but sprawling tracks connecting geometric chunks of concrete.  If she stood closer to him, she imagined she could interpret some of the arrangements.- Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.2</ref>

His four sub sections also have their own unique appearance

• Nettie is an older, tired looking women with in shorts and a t-shirt tied in a knot at the bottom.<ref>The woman was wearing a t-shirt, tied in a knot at the bottom, set off to the side, exposing her belly, and she had shorts on.  She looked like one of the women who they’d seen near the motel while surveilling it for Brie, except in the ‘daytime’ clothes, and maybe a bit older.  Retired?  She was a weird mix of tired and agitated.  It made Avery think of talking to her parents after coming back from school.  Where she’d been ready to collapse into her bed and sleep off the two weeks of anxiety, but in the before and after of that conversation she’d been too amped up about coming out and overthinking every exchange that she hadn’t been able to sleep easy.

The woman was like that, brown hair tied back in a ponytail, t-shirt tied off to the side, nervous-tired.  Her clothes could have been the nicest clothes of the poorest end of downtown, or the ‘taking it easy’ clothes of the nicer end of downtown. - Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.11</ref> She represents the downtown area of Kennet and has a drug and alcohol problem.<ref name=":2">“I like her, kinda,” Lucy said.  “More than Ken.”

“She’s the downtown slice of Ken?”

“Something like that.  I think she’s got a drug and alcohol problem, but I still like her just fine.”- Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.11</ref>

• K.T. is a teenager with long unkempt hair that looks like a a snowboarder in the off season.<ref>A teenager sat down next to her, a couple years older than her.  The vibe was a bit similar to Nibble.  One of the cubes of the bracelet stopped turning, but others were wriggling.

She had to think for a bit, deciding who it was.  Faerie?  No, Faerie liked to show off.  Lis was scared.

“Ken?” Verona asked.

“K.T.”

Verona craned her head around to give K.T. a more serious look.  K.T. looked like one of the snowboarders enduring the off-season.  Basketball shorts, skater shoes worn without socks, and a ‘Greensey Hills’ t-shirt.  K.T. had hair longer than most boys and more unkempt than most girls.- Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.9</ref>

• K. McKeller Steel is an old man that looks run down and behind the times.<ref>K. McKeller Steel was an old, old fashioned guy, behind the times, run down.  Lucy had mentioned having clothes that looked nice and she’d been offended at being assumed poor.  This was… McKeller had had money once, a long time ago, and the wear and tear to face, body, and clothing, hair loss and evidence of drinking had done a number on him.  He carried himself like someone willing to pick a fight, someone with pride.  Another facet of Ken, who slouched his way away from where Ken stood.  He took the south corner of the rooftop, then knocked back a hit from his flask.  He looked like the human equivalent of a room that had been smoked in for a lifetime without the walls getting a scrub.  Like a sepia image filter on the phone, but from tobacco, not some color palette invented by the designers of a phone app.- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.7</ref>
• Annette O. who dresses in brightly coloured cloths.<ref>Leaving Annette O., who dressed in brighter colors.  Her clothes weren’t new or high fashion, or maybe a few articles were, but it was through careful budgeting, careful choices.  Annette had a family, in abstract.  Annette worked.  Annette juggled fifty things in a town that was… not helping with the juggling.
  
  Annette was closer to Avery’s parents.  Except, like, Avery’s mom had left for greener pastures.  Closer to Lucy’s mom.  To Verona’s dad.  Maybe Ms. Hardy, a bit.- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.7</ref>

Abilities

He is capable of dividing himself into four separate people each representing a different area of the town and with the same. The four different aspects of Ken are evenly split in terms of gender and age.<ref>If Lis is the average of a small group then Ken is that stretched out to Kennet as a whole.  The dynamics and effects are similar but reversed: Lis extends herself out and Ken can (if he wants) divide himself down into rough regions.  After our initial experiments doing this however we have agreed this isn’t for the best:

1)  The industrial corner of Kennet is badly cared for and malnourished with a lot of latent frustration (and so is the ‘split’ of Ken that represents it).

2)  The commercial downtown area has a rampant drug problem that is evident if you spend even fifteen minutes there (& so does the ‘split’– spend fifteen minutes in her company…)

3)  The residential area is the most active & present but is primarily focused on getting by and doing what needs to be done.

4)  The tourist end is a bit scattered & eternally hopeful but anyone who lives here will acknowledge it is only useful or awake a portion of the year.

The extra hands simply aren’t worth the hassle of finding oneself face to face with the other aspects.  Split they tend to share out the demographics of Kennet: two female and two male.  One old (usually #1 above)/two roughly middle aged (2 & 3)/one younger (usually #4).  Undivided we get Ken: a man a little older than me and ambiguously blue/white collar.  Somewhat more median/mode than mean.- [8.7 Spoilers] New Other Correspondance #2</ref>

• The industrial side of town represented by K. McKeller Steel
• The commercial downtown area represented by Nettie
• The residential area represented by Annette O.
• The tourist parts of Kennet represented by K.T.

If something happens to him it also happens to the town itself, because of this he is always kept guarded by goblins.<ref>“Are the bodyguards that necessary?” Verona asked.

“I’m Kennet,” Ken said.  “If anything happens to me, it happens to the town.  With some limits, some interpretations. ”- Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.3</ref> It's also possible for enemies to call on him and summon him but the guards around him make that harder and more costly.<ref name=":0" />

He is able to gather information about what's happening inside Kennet<ref>“I remember hearing about that.  Was the horror-story-slash-gossip of the day among the Kennet moms.  You’d have to ask another one of Ken’s offspring for the full story.  Talk lasted for a few days and then Marilyn MacLymont left her kid in a hot car and it became taboo to discuss bad parenting.  If you’re a mom and you cross Mrs. MacLymont, you get iced out of the Hot Trotters walking group, the Thursday cocktails event that happens more as a daily thing than a Thursday thing, and swimming lessons.  That’s another huge social event.”

“For someone who’s saying they aren’t the offspring with the scoop, you’re pretty on top of this.”

“It’s dull when it’s not winter, I pick up on stuff.  What I just told you is the result of hours and hours of tracking side conversations.  That minute of me talking about mom drama and being mildly entertained?  That’s all I’ve got.  There is nothing more to unpack, I don’t know any stories about the mom drama I could share, I could speculate with you but I really don’t care.”
-Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.9</ref> but is only aware of what the town as a whole is aware of, conversely telling Ken something doesn't mean that everyone living in Kennet shares that knowledge as normal people are protected by innocence.<ref>“Don’t you know this stuff?”

Ken shook his head.  “What I’m aware of is what the town’s aware of.  By definition.”

“So if we clue you into something, does that clue everyone in Kennet in?” Verona asked.

“Not quite that simple,” Ken said.  “Old accords protect innocence.  Some things get filtered out to prevent undue influence.  I may even forget things, if it helps that process.”- Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.3</ref>

He can transport people around Kennet almost instantaneously,<ref>“Pretty big downside,” Verona said.  “What’s the upside?”

“Awareness,” he said.  “And because I am the city and the city is me… will you give me permission?  A trip?  It’s safe enough.”

“Sure,” Avery said.

Verona frowned, then nodded.

He touched their shoulders.

Nearby houses moved, sliding into new positions, fences rising, falling.  A road turned, a hillside moved.  Trees crowded in.  Wood stripped away from one short fence, revealing the diamond pattern of a taller wire fence instead.  Things blurred, and faces appeared in the blur.  Faces like Ken’s.

The trees continued to crowd around, branches overhead sprouting trunks that stabbed down, spread, and tore up pavement, revealing dirt beneath.  The chunks of cracked pavement sank beneath the dirt, and plants sprouted.

Everything came to a halt like a car that had been going 70 and stopped at the last possible moment before reaching a stop sign.  Branches shook in wind, grass swayed.

They were at the edge of town, on a hillside.- Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.3</ref> the cost varies depending on how important the trip is and the situation surrounding it.<ref name=":0">“Is it costly?  As a power?”

“In one way, no more than moving you from one hand to the other.  Moving you from one end of Kennet to another.”

“And in the other way?” Verona asked.

“The more it matters, the more it costs.  If people aren’t expecting you, if it’s a surprise attack, or a priority situation.  That changes the cost.  This is nothing, only a demonstration.”

“So do you even need the bodyguards?” Avery asked.  “If you can just run?”

“I’m everywhere.  Even enemies can call for me, if they know how, and it’s hard to resist that call.  Same as before, that gets harder the more tied down I am.  If I’m with you, for example.”

“So we’re not just bodyguards,” Avery noted, “we’re anchors?”

“If you want to call it that.  I can help others move through the town, I can slow threats down.  If they realize they’re being ensnared they may start to expect a response.  If they do, it gets easier for me to send someone like John or Edith to them, to deal with them.”- Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.3</ref>

He is also able to alter the town itself such as changing the layout of the city<ref>“Follow the yellow line!” Ken called out after them.

They stepped out onto the road.  Verona found herself looking up to see if Rook had somehow moved to the streetlight, but she hadn’t.

Sure enough, a yellow line was struck through the road, faded as if it had been painted long ago and worn down by weather and tire treads.  It was the kind of thing that could have been there all along, just never seen in the right light or noticed by non-drivers like them.

It led east, not north, but they followed it. 

[...]

The yellow line led to a path between two fenced in yards that Verona was pretty sure hadn’t been there before.  The trees of each yard crowded in overhead and bins of garbage or compost were reeking from the warmth of summer.  It was sensory assault and maybe that assault made it easier for them to slip between locations.  When they escaped the overhanging branches, the taller buildings and signs of the west end of town were around them.-Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.5</ref> or making it easier for goblins to travel<ref>Ken was altering flows and giving them his blessing for the time being.  The goblins had access to the more active, living parts of the city, where water, electricity, and heat flowed inside the walls and beneath the roads.-Excerpt from One After Another 10.e</ref> or changing the weather.<ref name=":1">They pulled Ken over into the shade by the fence, and then went to get a fan from indoors, bringing it over and putting it on the table, the cord stretched taut on its way through the kitchen.

By the time they were done, clouds had stretched over the sky, giving Kennet a bit of shade.  The wind picked up.

“It’s really that easy, huh?” Verona asked, looking up at Tashlit.  Tashlit shrugged.

“I’m putting in an effort, actually,” Ken said, not opening his eyes.  “Making it apply.”

“Can you do something about the thirty-five degree temperature we’re expecting next week?” Verona asked.

“I should probably save my strength.”

“Ugh!” Verona groaned.  Lucy added her groan to Verona’s for good measure.

He turned his head and opened his eyes.  “I would’ve thought you’d like the heat.”

“Why?” Lucy asked him, eyebrows raising, hands on her hips.

“Because…” he paused, frowning.  “You’re kids?  Swimming?  It’s summer?  I dunno.”

“Sure,” she said.-Excerpt from Shaking Hands 9.7</ref> He used this ability to shorten the distance between key people in the trios lives.<ref>“Does that mean you’re- does that shorten the gaps between us and key people?”

“Liz Driscoll from the Blue Heron talked about this,” Zed said, with a tone like he was excited to have something relevant.  “Mapping out a city you’re visiting so you can find the key hubs, major players, essential people for each thing you need to do.  The guy who knows all the rumors, the person who sells what you need.”- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.7</ref>

He's able to create his own pocket realm.<ref>Small bits of graffiti decorated surfaces, bits of trash were packed into crevices, and the scenery in the distance was only intermittently visible, as they walked around.  Each time it disappeared from view and then reappeared, it took on a slightly different look.

Snowdrop became more spirit than anything, slightly blue-tinted, wispy at the edges.  She became an opossum and perched on Avery’s shoulder, eerily light compared to her usual dense mass.

Like they’d moved to a high place, but the view to the south was of Lake Superior, and that view curved upward, and it became possible to see the lake at the horizon… and where lake became sky was hard to make out.  Bowdler Hill to the east and Greensey to the west loomed upward, curving in like horns.  The highway and trees lined the north, trees and mist becoming sky at some indeterminate point.  The colors of it all were both washed out and vivid, like every location of note had been painted neon bright, neon pink, bright green, then hidden behind inconsistent mist.  The ski hills could, if she squinted, appear as if it were winter.

Past bridges, past railings, past rooftops and concrete archways that allowed passage beneath roads, she could see top-down views of people walking this way and that.

Ken situated himself on the rooftop.  The space was square, but there was a ring painted around it in red.  Tiny arrangements of stone and wood punctuated that ring.- Excerpt from Summer Break 13.7</ref>

Chronology

Before

Arguably Ken has existed as long as kennet has.

Summer School Scuffle

Ken was created or animated by all the Kennet Others except for Snowdrop and Cherrypop going to the spirit world and appealing to the Aurum and Alabaster.<ref>The suggestion on compromise came from Charles.  Representing the people of Kennet is… Kennet.  We’ve gone to the spirit world to make our appeal of necessity and because there is no Lord here & no set system in the spirit world it was the Judges who heard our appeal.  Aurum & Alabaster.  All us Others of Kennet with Cherrypop and Snowdrop excluded attended and this left the perimeter open.  An unfortunate kind of circumstance that results when we turn to ceremony.  Ceremonies are a kind of ritual after all.

When we left that day it was with the added company of Kennet’s Anima Corporeal.  The spirit of the city made flesh.  He was fine shortening his name and even seemed to prefer it. - [8.7 Spoilers] New Other Correspondance #2</ref>

After the first council meeting following the trios return from the Blue Heron Institute he accompanied the girls to the Transient Other's camp site.

Whilst Nettie gave Avery her gift of information about City Shamanism as well as a pin that told her if she's attuned to a place or not. She also told Lucy and Avery that Verona had already claimed her gift but also instructed Ken to forget what it was,.

After Edith was imprisoned Ken was put in charge of regulating the spirits around Kennet.<ref>“It’s supposed to be part of my job to regulate the local spirits, especially now that Edith’s gone,” K.T. said.  “I’m not so good with echoes.”- Excerpt from Dashed to Pieces 11.9</ref>

K.T. helped Verona return the echo of the Car Crash Kid and then gave her advice about improving the shrines.

Lucy, Avery and Verona talked to him about what the conspirators had planned for him but Ken was unable to offer any ideas, they also suggested dematerialising him but he refused.

During the contest for the Carmine's throne Lis managed to usurp his position by turning herself into the average of Kennet's entire population causing Ken to dematerialise.

References

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