Twine Encyclopaedia: Weft

Weft would like to be seen as a lone, mysterious bladesman and hunter. Unfortunately for him, his behaviour tends to earn him a reputation as a psychotic ditz. To preempt any grossly untrue rumours from spreading, Weft would like to assure everybody that he is not a kitty.

Monks don't have real names. 'Weft' is a noun, meaning the thread woven in between other ('warp') threads to make cloth. It has cultural connotations, possibly including being "manipulable and unimaginative" [1]. When Weft gives his name, he translates it into the listener's language.

Within his order, Weft has a role described by him as "surveillance/assassination unit", nicknamed 'slasher'. His training includes stealth, spying, assassination and general combat with an emphasis on stealth attacks. He is proficient with many hand-to-hand weapons, a few projectile weapons and his bare hands.

Weft is cloth-minded, which means that he thinks very oddly and understands string better than he understands anything else. He is talented and semi-trained in Offwhite City's major forms of textilework (tailoring, embroidery, decorative weaving and knit/crochet, all primarily using silks), but does not often use these skills in missions.

He is shockingly ignorant of everything outside his specialities. He is observant but not very bright and he is a lousy actor. He is either extremely gullible or vastly cynical, depending entirely on whether he trusts or dislikes the person telling him things.

2. Appearance

2.1. General

Weft is an Instarrian and his appearance should be understood as a variation on that template. He is around 5'4", 1.6-and-a-bit metres, which is not an abnormal adult male height.

Weft's build is sleek, lithe and narrow-hipped, very much a martial artist. A human would view him as rather feminine. Among his species this body shape would be seen as fit, masculine, attractive (if he wasn't a monk) and a bit stereotypical of 'dumb muscle'. Age-wise, he resembles an Earth human in its thirties.

2.2. Face

Weft's face is broad in terms of bone structure but carries no extra fat. He has an unremarkable, not-particularly-attractive face for a middle-aged male of his species. His eyes are pale green and shaped typically. Compared to a human, he's enormously wide-headed and huge-eyed.

[Weft eye reference, current on 24 Nov 08]

Weft has naturally grey hair (not caused by age, not unusual for his species) which is cut reasonably short, always in a practical style that won't obscure his vision. He doesn't wear makeup. Weft's skin is smooth and unwrinkled, of a typical texture for a middle-aged working male. He has no major marks or scarring visible, though he does have a mesh of very fine, practically invisible lines on his palms.

Facial expressions can be hard for offworlders to interpret at first (see species article). Weft doesn't show fear in danger or combat situations, though being cornered by amorous angels or curious people is another matter. When he forgets himself he can be animated and friendly.

2.3. Movement

Field agents like Weft are trained to move very quickly and cleanly. No movement is wasted. When standing, he is very still: he doesn't do the fidgeting around, shifting weight and so on that most people do unconsciously. It has an unnerving effect, even if the observer isn't sure why or what's 'wrong' about him. Weft moves with unconscious grace and never seems unsure what to do with his body, having had deportment and stance thrashed into him very thoroughly as a trainee. Aesthetics are very important to these monks, who are also taught to become background ornamentation when not required.

2.4. Voice

Weft's voice, which is high in pitch (he can hit soprano range [2], which is not usual in an Instarrian man), usually sounds tense and even whiny. It's smoother and a little lower if he's relaxed. To a human, Weft will very often seem tense overall.

2.5. Concealed marks

Weft has a series of scars across his abdomen that are usually concealed by clothing. He has two short linear marks on the bottom of each foot, usually concealed by shoes.

2.6. Dress

Weft is always clean and neat, generally cleaning himself up as soon as possible after a fight or training session. He dresses according to modesty rules, which means his clothing always covers, at the very least, his torso completely, his arms down to mid-forearm, legs down to the top of the ankle and chest up to the base of the neck. The openings/fastenings of his shirt collars are always about an inch left of centre, by convention.

He favours bright colours when not on the job: he likes deep pinks and dark reds, doesn't wear much yellow or green, and in obedience to the law he never wears white. While on a stealth mission he wears the usual blacks and dark greys.

2.7. Accessories

Weft does not own anything. He carries weapons described [here]; he also typically has at least a needle and thread about his person.

3. Abilities

3.1. Assassin

Though he introduces his job in various ways to people he meets, Weft is correctly defined as a combat-trained field agent (colloquially referred to as a 'slasher'). Field agents are monks that work in the outside world rather than within the monastery/HQ. There are different kinds. Slashers aren't very valuable and are low in the overall hierarchy.

A slasher's main skills come under the categories of stealth, observation and murder, including surveillance, close quarters combat and assassination from a distance. Weft's typical missions involve one or more of those. He is often required to assassinate people. Sometimes he goes undercover for a mission and he has occasionally been embedded ('deep cover') for months in a civilian job when a plan called for it.

He can be expected to be alert and very difficult to ambush, unless otherwise stated. He sleeps very lightly indeed. He moves practically silently and stands extremely still.

He has no superpowers and has not trained his minor magical aptitude, which is of no practical use. (See Magic below) He has a broad knowledge of poisons, which may not translate to other species.

Members of his monastic order have access to a knowledge web, from which they can gain information when in a trance-like meditation state.

For a fuller list of training given to field agents, see Expressors of Agape with Compassion.

3.2. Physical condition

Weft is at the peak of fitness for a male of his species who has been trained from a pre-school age. He's extremely lithe and flexible with very good balance and so on. He's very resistant to pain and will keep going even if severely injured.

Weft is built for bursts of speed and activity, not endurance. He uses stealth and surprise. He fights unfairly. If things came to a prolonged confrontation with someone skilled that he couldn't dispatch instantly, he would be likely to lose. Similarly, his escapes usually rely on a sprint for cover or a lightning-fast climb to higher ground.

3.3. Textiles

Weft has always had an aptitude for cloth and fabric. That name didn't happen by chance. One might consider it rather sad that he hardly ever has a chance to use or extend his tailoring and weaving skills. Weft himself sees his gift as a temptation to dereliction of duty and thus a major source of guilt.

The most enjoyable mission of his life was when he passed for a tailor's apprentice (during which he almost managed to qualify as an approved master, which would have been unheard-of in such a short time). Although he should have forgotten these skills when they were no longer required, something went wrong and he retains a lot of them.

He has been seen knitting things to give away in charity. [3]

: It was something few people had truly understood about the monk. It wasn't that he was clothes-obsessed, or enamoured of weave-and-thread metaphor, or even an amateur tailor*.
: [footnote] Banded journeyman, second level, thanks to a long undercover assignment in Trill a few years back.
: --from Schemers' Corner

3.4. Miscellaneous

In terms of skills and knowledge, a lot of what Weft has known over the years has not been kept, owing to the unusual nature of the order's research methods.

Weft retains some basic cooking knowledge from his times working undercover as a chef and as a kitchen assistant in a fried food restaurant.

3.5. Magic

Weft has only slight magic talent. His employer does not train its employees in magic. Expect him to be completely open to magical attack, although this depends on whether the people around him are protecting him. He is both heavily disdainful and fearful towards magicians.

Weft's material-mindedness will affect his magic use if he should ever use any. He is usually resistant and occasionally amenable to Suitov's attempts to teach him. The cap on his magic talent means that even if he is patiently taught, it will likely never be of any practical use. (The Offwhite City laws concerning magic apply; Instarrians may only use workings and not spells.)

4. Religion

Weft believes what he's told to believe.

His order's entry gives more general details about their religion and the religious vows followed by the various monks. See also Weft's pantheon.

5. History

Details of Weft's birth name and parents are not forthcoming from his employer. He has served his order all his life and knows nothing else.

: I've worked fast food and retail
: Been beaten, crushed and cursed,
: But out of every me-tale -
: Of each traumatic detail -
: This has to be the worst.
: --from Pro's Discussion in Poetry

As the quotation above implies, Weft's history has included a lot of different work.

We know he must have done all of this while a member of the order, because the age cutoff for recruitment is very low (pre-school age, in Earth terms).

Childhood

Weft hates children and claims to be relived that he doesn't remember being one.

The main thing to surmise about Weft's childhood is that he didn't have much of one. Order training is exhaustive and exhausting, without any concept of 'me' time.

Weft's earliest memory is of sitting watching a nest of chullics in the sunlight. This was about the same age that he was surrendered to the order.

Work for the order

Weft doesn't have much of a life outside his work. Supposedly a monk's life IS his order. In his free time, what he has of it, he meditates or maintains his equipment. He has been known to hang around with Sebastian a bit, but feels guilty for doing so. In downtime while he's embedded with Suitov's organisation Weft may be found skulking around the camp, practising weapons training on his own, messing with cloth or occasionally even talking to Suitov.

Further examples of some of his more unusual missions:

: He's done time in a fried food restaurant, stolen religious relics (er, different religion) from heavily guarded temples, played a very efficient accountant, performed numerous seemingly random but religiously significant assassinations, driven a cab, and even held a conversation with Suitov. Poor devil.
: --from information posted by Herm in 'Characters, Worlds, Languages, Races' on the old boards

6. Attitudes

Weft has an attitude problem around some women. He doesn't hate them and isn't chauvinistic to them (see Instarrian Gender); rather, he's nervous of them and bad at relating to them, as you might expect from a sheltered single-sex upbringing, and also thinks they're completely nuts. Weft dislikes men who act like women or women who act like men. This is a cultural prejudice. Less so is his attitude to non-heterosexuality, which is pretty medieval.

Weft hates rebels. He has gibbering terror fits if forced to imagine leaving or being expelled by his own order and he treats everyone else accordingly. (Note that he always blames the individual; the system cannot be at fault.)

Weft doesn't fully trust any species but his own. The same goes for animals, workmanship etc from anywhere other than his world. They are necessarily and irrevocably inferior and it's humiliating for anyone from Offwhite to go among offworlders. (This one is a cultural thing, not just Weft being hateful.)

He has some strange attitudes to animals, partly religious and partly societal in origin. Put simply: there are some animals Weft will strenuously avoid, and he regards all non-humanoids (and some humanoid aliens!) as soulless things.

7. Relationships

Weft's social skills are affected by upbringing and by the face that he isn't very nice. He's notably, almost pathologically uncurious unless it's about a mission or textilework. Explaining things to him can result in blank looks or outright resentment.

Weft is whiny, insecure and incredibly high-maintenance in general, not really knowing how to deal with friends. His heart may be in the right place, but he seems to cock things up as soon as he lets his brain have a say.

According to training, when he doesn't have anything useful to say or do he'll keep still and quiet. People can forget he's there. He prefers it that way - but hates being ignored otherwise.

7.1. People Weft hates

Weft puts people into two categories: "all right" and "horrible". These are the people who have been transferred onto the horrible list, or started out on it by virtue of being badly-dressed or a foreigner or something.

7.1.1. Why he hates Iceheart

Iceheart first encountered Weft briefly and by chance.

During the Twine Wars, Weft is assigned to more-or-less constant surveillance duty in order to keep proper tabs on Iceheart and his associates. This causes Weft no end of frustration at having to put up with Suitov's various annoying traits, such as being friendly, trying to teach Weft magic, spotting the monk when he doesn't want to be spotted, listening to and remembering things Weft says, being cheerful, failing to show appropriate deference to Weft's order and similar acts of despicable evil.

They have been observed cooperating very effectively together on several occasions and apparently enjoying it, but in his more hostile moods Weft will vigorously deny this. Proximity to Suitov does seem to bring out the worst in Weft at times, and the monk maintains that his feelings for Iceheart are simple hatred and disdain.

7.1.2. Why he hates Basaltine

If you've met Iceheart, you'll probably know Basaltine. Suitov's familiar gets on Weft's nerves on an instinctual level, coming as Weft does from Offwhite City where dogs are vermin. That's quite apart from all the irritating stuff Basaltine does.

7.1.3. Why he hates Jaina

Weft knows Jaina through her association with Suitov. He isn't much impressed with her. The two have argued on several occasions, at least once getting physical. [4]

Weft's vows include killing vampires and related possession cases, yet he does not approve of Jaina's vampire hunting (slipshod and sporadic in his eyes). A major point of contention is Jaina's romantic association with Iceheart, which Weft considers a complete mismatch on several levels.

Something to be noted on Jaina's side is that the huntress believes Weft once stabbed her friend Lance, though in fact Weft did not. Bear in mind that Weft would probably be happy to stab Lance, so he isn't all that deserving of sympathy for the wrong accusation.

7.1.4. Why he hates Pasht

Pasht and Weft have exchanged harsh words, threats and even a slap or two.

As a vampire, Pasht is automatically, completely and irrevocably disgusting in Weft's eyes. Weft sees her as an unthinking monster.

7.1.5. Why he hates Lance

Weft met Lance at one of the Cross'd Roads inns and got talking to him. Off in a side room unobserved, Lance became unconscious through a series of mishaps and Weft was wrongly accused by Jaina of attacking him. (Herm won't link to the pages just now because early-Weft didn't behave in accordance with his later personality and abilities.) Since then, Weft has been accosted several times by the extremely friendly Lance, who bears no grudge.

The fact that Lance is an angel is unsettling to Weft, who has specific beliefs about angels. The fact that Lance has made obviously sexual advances fills Weft with fear and loathing. This is invariably funny to onlookers, which has only tended to encourage Lance.

Once he understands Lance's origins, Weft decides Lance is scum that would debase Weft's foot if he kicked him. Although not familiar with the idea of fallen angels, the monk understands what a rebel is (see Attitudes). Weft is especially freaked out to think that if he stabbed Lance, Lance would probably like it.

The thought of a man working as a dancer is in fact quite normal to Weft, but he certainly [doesn't approve of stripping]!

7.2. People Weft doesn't hate

He's willing to give any religious or contemplative character a chance, and he counts hunters of undead as roughly the same thing. He can sympathise with weavers, clothworkers of any description and people in the fast food industry. But his tolerance is conditional on people not doing 'evil' things (by his order's definition of evil) or setting off his prude-o-meter.

Weft will not completely trust anyone who isn't a member of his species (see Attitudes).

7.2.1. Why he doesn't hate Sebastian

: To be truthful, he found Sebastian something of a puzzle wrapped in an enigma topped with a hat.
: --Kit-Fox

Weft met Sebastian Fochs while both were trying to steal the same magic artifact from a wizard named Kell. They subsequently got stranded on a tropical island together, were mistaken for gods, killed a lot of people and managed, through teamwork, threats and dumb luck, to find their way home.

In Weft's view, this makes Sebastian a friend. Weft considers the halfie to have preserved his life and sanity during the events of Kit-Fox, and from then on has tried to keep an eye out for Sebastian's interests in return.

Sebastian has turned out to be good at defusing Weft's prickly moods, which is a very, very useful talent.

7.2.2. Nico

Weft met Nico at a costume party while both were masked and a little giddy, and then again in Roofrats. He is a little overwhelmed by her tendency to ask a lot of questions and finds some of her other attitudes baffling.

7.2.3. Others

Weft loves and trusts the fellow members of his order.
Sylvie looked after Sebastian briefly when he got clocked with a branch, making her all right by Weft. He considers her somewhat inept. (OOCly, Weft jokes about running background checks on Sylvie before letting Sebastian date her.)
Weft and Sebastian met Riccy and Jillis during the Kit-Fox storyboard. Weft has been seen speaking to both, though is disdainful of them otherwise.

OOCly, the Profusion writers ReeToes, Erin, Anke and even Snog seem to like Weft, much to his disgust.

8. Trivia

Favourite colour: Dark red.
Least favourite colour: Doesn't really have one.
Favourite words: "grace", "duty"
Least favourite words: "disobedience", "rebel", "kitty"
Favourite activity: Anything the order tells him to do. Which usually involves killing things prettily.
Favourite activity if you really press him: Messing around with cloth.
Best friend: Er... a monk's best friend is his order?
Best friend if you really press him: This elicits only a wounded injunction to go away.
Role models: Any and all of his superiors. Saints. Deceased monks.
Ambitions: Efficient service, useful death.
Biggest fear: Letting the order down. (The order's demise would be a bigger fear, but he can't imagine that ever happening.)
First love: His job.
First kiss: First what?

9. Appearances at Pro

Kit-Fox, main character alongside Sebastian
Roofrats, main character alongside Nico
Cross'd Roads places
Somebody Else's Shoes
Thought Matters
Twine Wars (supporting character)
They Never Drink Wine (alternative universe)

10. Web links

Weft keeps an irregular journal (IC, non-canon or as stated in entry tags) where you may find his views on...

[Being made to question your beliefs]
[Trade, manufacture and social status]
[Human sexuality]
[The value of human life]
[Fiction]
[Jaina] (with input from Basaltine)
[Jaina. Again.] (with input from Basaltine, Ree and others)
[The perils of obedience]
[Freedom]
[Seductive heresies]
[Typical purification ritual]

Expressors of Agápē with Compassion:

Resources: Knowledge web | Manabar

Beliefs: Religion | Purity | Deities | Example pantheon

Twine Wars allegiance

(Not really. He's with Instar, of course.)

Old snippets removed from this article

Weft is teh kjootest bishy EVAH!!11!1one!

Weft is a kitty and is probably related to Mr Bigglesworth.

: NO HE IS NOT!