Kenzie Martin
<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Kenzie Martin</default></title>
<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>
<label>Status</label><format> <label>Location</label>
<label>Teams</label>
<label>Previous Team(s)</label>
<label>Base of Operations</label></group>
<group><header>First Appearance</header>
<label>Worm Debut</label>
<label>Ward Debut</label></group>
</infobox>Kenzie Martin,<ref>AvenG: ?
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: Hi Aven. It’s Kenzie
AvenG: Oh. Kenzie M?
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: That me. - Glow-worm P.7</ref><ref>Glare 3.2</ref>, also spelled, as "Kanzi",<ref>“Kanzi?”
“My name. I never liked having to explain it. I’d always have to spell it out.” - Torch 7.10</ref> is a hero known publicly as Lookout and formerly as Looksee. On Parahumans Online she uses the name Heart_Shaped_Pupil.<ref name="HSP" />
Personality
For better or, often, the worse Kenzie is a people person. She likes making connections and helping people, to the point that a former teammate of hers called it a "people addiction".<ref>Houndstooth looked toward me and Tristan. “There was a time, about a year back, where I was talking to a teammate. He said a food addiction was the only addiction that you couldn’t go cold turkey on. You can’t not eat, and that’s hard, when the addiction makes dealing with food in moderation next to impossible. Immediately, I thought of Kenzie. I thought, within a second or two of him saying that, he was wrong, there was another addiction like that. You say she’s human, but she’s a people addict. She’s addicted to humans. You can’t expect a young girl to not interact with people, and you can’t expect her to deal with people in moderation.”
“And you think the way to solve that is to… minimize that interaction to the barest bones?” I asked.
“Over months and years, gradually loosen that belt. If the therapist okays it.”
I sighed.
“She’s doing exceptionally well,” Tristan said.
“You could hold a gun to my head, and I wouldn’t say she lacked a work ethic,” Houndstooth said. “She’s brilliant for her age, she’s good-hearted in her way, and she doesn’t deserve a thousandth of what she’s gone through. It’s heartbreaking and worrying.”
[...]
“Powers and agents don’t even really play into this,” Houndstooth said. “If you took away her powers and the influence of her agent today, I’d give you all the same warnings tomorrow.” - Excerpt from Shade 4.4</ref>
Kenzie tended to think everybody and everything was "pretty neat", which could devalue her compliments somewhat.<ref name="II2.7">Flare 2.7</ref><ref name="II2.6"/> She was almost always ebullient and enthusiastic, even painfully so, but when discussing her fears she spoke more slowly and deliberately and tended to talk passively or passive-aggressively.<ref name="II2.6"/>
She felt that she tended to drive almost everyone away as a result of a lack of boundaries.<ref name="II2.6"/> She would go to extreme lengths to please others and receive positive reactions while often endangering herself in the process, to the point of losing hair and vomiting from stress. Examples of this include devoting all her spare time to watch camera feeds, pulling consecutive all nighters to work on school projects, and at one point volunteering to be a replacement for a woman's dead daughter after seeing it online. <ref>Kenzie sat in her chair at the table-turned desk, the projector showing the camera’s image of Cedar Point. “Did you skip class to get here as quick as you did?” I asked. “No,” Kenzie said, not turning around. “I went to class, I stopped in at study hall at the start of lunch and asked if I could go early. They said okay. You can call if you need to check.” “I don’t need to check,” I said. “You’re honest.” “Sorry for all the emails. Sveta yelled at me. Well, she didn’t yell, but she came close. I sent her almost as many as I sent you.” “Did you eat lunch?” “It’s in my bag, in case I get hungry.” “Too nervous?” I asked. She turned around in her computer chair and smiled. “Yeah.” “Houndstooth wanted to make sure you were okay first. Making sure you weren’t getting too much homework,” I said. “He had some tips about how we should make sure you aren’t tinkering yourself to the bone after hours.” “It helps sometimes. Distracting myself with it.” “We should figure out a balance. He was suspicious you were staying up late, watching and rewatching camera feeds.” “When I can’t sleep it’s nice to be able to watch that stuff with my laptop beside me in the dark room. I doze off.” I nodded. “Did he say the embarrassing stuff?” “I don’t know what qualifies as embarrassing,” I said. “Problems with teachers, school. Tristan and Ashley defended you pretty fiercely.” “And you?” “I just want to figure out what needs to be figured out,” I said. “So everyone’s happy and healthy, and the team stays together and positive overall. I shared some of the good stuff I know of.” “Did he mention the old lady?” “I’m not sure.” “She was on the internet and she wanted a replacement for her dead daughter and I almost went with her, and then later we started thinking she killed her daughter. Embarrassing.” - Excerpt from Shade 4.4</ref>
Heart_Shaped_Pupil's typing style was unusually sloppy,<ref name="P.3e1">Heart_Shaped_Pupil: so x-ited to b working with u.
Strange_Mammal: @ K / Heart_Shaped_Pupil…
Strange_Mammal: …type like a grown up…
Strange_Mammal: …my eyes are already bleeding - Glow-worm P.3</ref> with lots of typos and extensive use of emojis and abbreviations.<ref name="P.4e1"/> She displayed some familiarity with PHO's search function, but seemingly less than Strange Mammal's.<ref name="P.4e1">of5: Wanted k actually.
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: yuss! \♥/
of5: you know this site. I want search terms to find some people. Articles, anything else. Would need to cover a lot of bases. Normal site search limits # of terms.
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: uh. that hard. you want packaged search string
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: i can try
Questionable_Mammal: you’re looking for others in your set?
of5: yes
Questionable_Mammal: I can make attempt. gimme time. you might want to fine tune after. - Glow-worm P.4</ref> Strange_Mammal claimed that K would almost certainly check how long Mangled_Wings had been online and catch her in a minor lie.<ref>Strange_Mammal: for your information…
Strange_Mammal: …others can see time you spend online on your profile. you spent longer than one hour…
Strange_Mammal: …you’ve been online all day.
Mangled_Wings: I am at the library. Something to do with that, I’d think.
Strange_Mammal: it doesn’t work that way. I am 95% sure.
Strange_Mammal: there is no need to lie, A
Strange_Mammal: the reason for this project is supposed to be we know each other
Strange_Mammal: K will find out if she does not already know. she pays attention to those things - Glow-worm P.3</ref>
Kenzie was familiar with details regarding the true nature of passengers.<ref>Heart_Shaped_Pupil: If you think about it, with powers and all, the center of your being could include the vast monster in another dimension that’s all hooked up into you. Passenger stuff. The center of mass could be in the middle of an alien god monster the size of a mountain or moon. I imagine it has the energy of a small star stored in it. - Glow-worm P.7</ref>
Due to her young age she has a hard time grasping that others.<ref name=":5">Kid Win mentions, when modifying the earbud with Armsmaster’s lie detector, that anything he does will naturally be less elegant and the work will suffer for it. The same applies for anything in regular use with non-tinkers. - comment by Wildbow on Scourge 19.6.</ref> would have a hard time using her tinker technology.<ref name="II3.3 e7">Tristan was still fiddling with Kenzie’s remote for the projector box.
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why isn’t it easier to move forward and back in time?”
“Because the box doesn’t perceive time, you dummy. It perceives images.”
“Why not have it perceive things like time, so you can go backward and forward in time without doing… whatever arcane thing you’re doing right now?”
“Because if it perceived time,” Kenzie said, patiently, her focus on the smartphone remote, “Then it wouldn’t perceive images. And that would be a dumb thing for a projector box that works with images. Dummy.”
“You can stop calling me a dummy now.”
“I will if you stop being dumb. This stuff is obvious.” - Excerpt from Glare 3.3</ref>
Relationships
Baltimore Wards
Kenzie had largely alienated the members of her old Wards team, a fact she regretted. However, she did discuss the possibility of one day working with her old leader again.<ref name="P.7"/>
Treefort
Heart_Shaped_Pupil was a member of the Treefort_Lookout chatroom on Parahumans Online, a room for discussing current events and searching for info. She seemed friendly with the users there, who provided them with information.
She was also a member of the connected chatrooms Pillowfort_Lazytalk (where they discussed their personal life) and Snowfort_Mission.
However, in reality the chatrooms ware filled entirely with chat-bots Kenzie had constructed herself, that acquired their information from automated PHO searches.<ref name="P.7"/> She was in the process of constructing chatbots that would mimic her teammates' conversation styles when she was forced to disable the system.<ref>Executioner404: /Kill Goatfish
Goatfish: WIP_Capbot is disconnecting…
Goatfish has left the conversation.
Executioner404: /kill Shameful_Manatee
Shameful_Manatee: WIP_Chrisbot is disconnecting…
Shameful_Manatee has left the conversation. - Glow-worm P.7</ref><ref>*HSP goes idle again. She returns to chat and an 'Executioner' joins chat, doing the rest of the /Kill work. HSP changes the channel name and deletes the text from the topic, then leaves while the executioner continues its work with her gone. - Synopsis by Wildbow</ref>
Chatroom Group
Heart_Shaped_Pupil is a member of a group of parahumans that primarily communicate via PHO.
HSP's writing style irritated their teammate Strange_Mammal.<ref name="P.3e1"/>
She professed to be an admirer of Mangled_Wings,<ref name="P.3">Glow-worm P.3</ref> and had agreed to work with them as an independent villain at a later date, although she was initially unsure if Mangled-Wings was serious about this. Mangled_Wings considered them one of the few people worthy of her attention and investment.<ref name="P.7"/>
She claimed possible romantic interest in Strange_Mammal.<ref name="P.6">Glow-worm P.6</ref> In conversation with Strange_Mammal, HSP revealed that she had been observing Mammal's private conversations with other users. Mammal had known they were being watched for some time, noting that their stalker was too skilled not to be watching their activities on PHO.<ref name="P.6">Glow-worm P.6</ref>
Parents
An okay if emotionally distant relationship with her father Julien<ref>“Hi, Mr…” I extended a hand.
“Julien Martin,” he said. He shook my hand. Both handshake and his tone were stiff, but it was a different kind of stiffness than I was used to seeing in Dean’s family. I was well aware of how easily I’d slotted him onto that same mental shelf. - Excerpt from Glare 3.2</ref> Martin,<ref name="II3.2 e5">As I landed, her dad pulled away. Kenzie raised a hand in a wave.
I was aware of the lack of a wave in response. From the way she lowered her hand and glanced at me, Kenzie was too. - Excerpt from Glare 3.2</ref> and a combative relationship with her mother Irene Martin.<ref>Shadow 5.7</ref>
Interestingly she was not in their custody in the time leading up to Golden Morning.
Appearance
Civilian
Kenzie was a young black "tween" with long skinny limbs and large eyes, proportionately to her size. She had "kinky", glossy black hair. She was the same height as Chris.<ref name="II2.7"/> When she was happy, she would bounce one foot, like a dog wagging it's tail,<ref name="II2.6">Flare 2.6</ref> as well as other types of fidgeting.
On one occasion, she wore her hair in two buns at the back and with a star-shaped hairpin to keep it in place, with a blue corduroy dress and sequinned shirt. Her general appearance was immaculate, with carefully-chosen clothes that were freshly ironed, fashionable and matching (in colour and with a running "star" theme throughout), and hair that looked like it had taken at least half an hour. She noted that she wanted to look good because she was meeting Victoria for the first time.<ref name="II2.7"/>
Cape
Originally she wore a type of optical camouflage as Optics along with a high tech mask.<ref>Glare 3.2</ref> Later after taking the identify of Looksee Kenzie wore a green jumpsuit and helmet which also had various settings.<ref>Shade 4.5</ref>
Abilities and Powers
Looksee is a tinker<ref name="P.7"/><ref name="II2.5e1"/> who has stated she specializes in cameras and immobile terminals, with little ability for offense or defense.<ref name="II2.7 e7">“Are you hiding a jetpack inside that raincoat, or are those rocket boots?” I asked.
“I wish,” Kenzie said. “I can’t do that stuff. I make cameras and inconveniently big boxes. My best stuff is inconveniently big, box-shaped cameras.”
“Big boxes?” I asked.
“The term in my file is emplacements. Terminals, tech, and computers big enough they’re hard to move around. Like turrets, but I can’t really make good weapons or defensive things.” - Excerpt from Flare 2.7</ref>
Her former team leader Houndstooth, however, described her as a (counter)surveillance tinker.
Her power was useful, so much so that she worried she might be kidnapped by people seeking to exploit it.<ref>Heart_Shaped_Pupil: you’re a smart guy and you were a good leader. you know how these things work. you know my power has its uses. others would kidnap me for it. I am offering myself to you and you would be stupid to turn me down. - Glow-worm P.7</ref> Chris stated that she would make a terrifying villain should she choose to.<ref name="II2.6"/>
Kenzie was able to construct a parallel Parahumans Online server, giving her a faster connection and allowing her to view private information on the site. She also constructed a group of relatively sophisticated chatbots (see Treefort above), although she stated that this was not her specialty, and she was not capable of creating true AI.<ref name="P.7"/> She claimed that she would likely be able to construct immobile teleportation terminals, although they would require regular maintenance.<ref>“Kind of confident,” she said, sounding anything but. “I haven’t done teleportation or breaking movement devices before, but if I made it a series of emplacements and built them big, then if I traveled once a week or so to visit the send-receives and make sure they don’t break down, it might work.” - excerpt from Flare 2.7</ref> She could fix her devices and make them work better<ref> - Excerpt from Torch 7.5</ref> simply by hitting them,<ref name="6.7 e1">I looked at Kenzie.
She hit a button on her camera. When it didn’t boot, she hammered it with her hand a few times.
The projector came on. The two missing members of our group appeared. Ashley was projected, her lower body a static black dress. She’d be sitting on a bus right now, a laptop beside her, to capture her face and anything she said. - Excerpt from Pitch 6.7</ref> likely assisted by her Tinker power.<ref name="R73">If you have a tinker who makes armor/powersuits that have white hot metal as a key feature, yes, he could theoretically equip his teammates, but so much of it is intuitive that it's hard for that tinker to really specify some of the particulars.
There are a lot of little things that go wrong in the field, or things you need to adapt to. Did a cape slime the entire battlefield? Maybe that affects coolant venting, which affects the cremation fist's charge-up rate. That affects the hyperthermal reactor which means the entire suit starts feeling sluggish. Really easy to fix if it's the tinker, but nobody else will have a clue of the big picture. Did something get broken? If it's not the tinker using it, then it's going to be broken until the tinker gets their hands on it again or you might even have to abandon it. If the tinker's in the pilot's seat, then it might be a simple adjustment here or cinching something shut there.
Generally when gear is given out, it's heavily restricted in capability ("Okay, well, it's the suit I usually use, but I had to adjust the dampeners so it's slower, weaker, and you don't have access to the meat hammer or related tech"), it's a oneshot thing ("Press this, then this, aim using this"), or both. - Wildbow on reddit.</ref> She claimed that she could probably defuse a bomb, provided she was there to do it and not over a phone or similar.<ref>Pitch 6.9</ref>
Kenzie took pride in her skill at paperwork when she was with the Wards.<ref name="II2.7"/>
Equipment
Kenzie had a tinker workshop she used to work on her technology, first located in Baltimore and later at her home.<ref name="II2.5e1">“They weren’t a horror story for me. They said I was being moved around too much and I needed to go somewhere to stay. Not going to the fun camps and training sucked, but I went back to Baltimore, and I got to set up my workshop, fi-nuh-ly.”
“Workshop, huh?”
“Kenzie,” Mrs. Yamada spoke up. She still sat at the desk. “You might want to be mindful of what you reveal. I’ll get into that more when things get started, but take a moment and think before revealing things that might tie into your cape identity, or identifying parts of your background.”
“Yes, Mrs. Yamada,” Kenzie said. Then she leaned close to me, whispering, “I took a moment to think and I think I’m safe telling you I’m a tinker.” - excerpt from Flare 2.5</ref><ref name="II2.7e2">“All caught up. Stir fry for dinner, I’m going to pick up broccoli, and my workshop is warming up for later.”
“You’ve got a workshop, like a proper tinker,” I said.
“Absolutely,” Kenzie said, dead serious. - excerpt from Flare 2.7</ref> It may have been the same workshop used to maintain Sveta's prosthetics.<ref>Questionable_Mammal: …she will be back I think. We still waiting on S. Technical issues. She’s @ workshop later this week… - Excerpt from Glow-worm P.4</ref> Her workshop needed to "warm up" before she could use it, so she would call ahead to have her parents start the process.<ref name="II2.7e2"/>
| Equipment Features | |
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History
Background
It is known that she bounced around foster homes before and after her trigger. Kenzie stated that her trigger event resulted from the first time in her life when someone acted like they wanted her around.<ref name="II2.6e1">There have only ever been three times in my life where people acted like they wanted me around. Not counting the adults who get paid to look after me, sorry Mrs. Yamada. The first one, it led to my trigger, so you can imagine how well that went. The second one was the couple of months I spent with the Baltimore Wards, and they don’t want anything to do with me anymore. The third is here. These guys. - excerpt from Flare 2.6</ref> She stated that this was not part of a multitrigger group.<ref>Cap: I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with the cluster-trigger clusterfuck
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: Amen.
Mangled_Wings: Agreed. - Excerpt from Glow-worm P.6</ref>
Given her over gregariousness she has been known to get into several very embarrassing incidents with people in both her civilian and cape life.
Despite all of this Kenzie was considered a prospective candidate for a Watchdog project. She was put under strict regiment of camps and exercises with frequent relocations, which brought attention of Youth Guard. Youth Guard forced PRT to stop frequent travels and over-training.<ref>Flare 2.6</ref>
From that moment in the spring of 2013, at ten years old, Kenzie was assigned the Baltimore Wards team alongside capes named Aven (or AvenG), Houndstooth, 10-59 and Pigeonhole. This ended abruptly with Gold Morning.<ref name="P.7"/><ref name="II2.5">Flare 2.5</ref>
Gold Morning
She was stated to have participated in Gold Morning and "actually helped".<ref>Heart_Shaped_Pupil: iv’e grown up some
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: i was there for the end of the world
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: i did stuff. i actually really helped
Houndstooth: Absolutely - Glow-worm P.7</ref> It's safe to assume that, as all involved tinkers, she participated in the building of inter-dimensional cannon, that finished off Zion's true body.
Glow-worm
At some point, she met up with the other members of the Chatroom group.
When she asked to meet Strange_Mammal privately and he refused, Kenzie revealed that she had been surveilling them and asked about details of their power.<ref name="P.6"/>
Kenzie used her Treefort bots to track Tattletale and Weld as assistance for her new teammates (of5 and Strange_Mammal, respectively).
Shortly afterward, Parahumans Online moderators discovered traffic from her Treefort (see above) and asked her to shut the shop down, since it provided undue stress to PHO network. When she volunteered to donate her DYI Parahumans Online server, they requested she shut that down as well because of security reasons.<ref>She asks if they want to use her server, and gets an alarmed response: use of a server the way she describes it could give her a 'man in the middle' view and access to things. No - offer definitely refused. - the PHO staff member leaves. - Synopsis by Wildbow</ref>
Early Ward
Met with a new coach and had a lot of fun practicing.
Was not looking forward to having her story told by someone else.
She was instrumental in the Mathers Compound Assault both poistivly in helping the capture of Mama Mathers, and negativly by cutting off Tattletale when the thinker wouldn't respond to her texts.<ref>Pitch 6.8</ref>
Was able to get victoria to agree to come to dinner with her family.
Post-Fallen Fall
Was instrumental in saving portals.
Tried to use a doctored video to save Ashley from a trial.
Has able to use her past-camera to find a lead on the portal sabotage that acted as impetus for Breakthrough to stay togather.
She changed her cape name at the last minute to Lookout.
Trivia
- Kenzie displays behaviors symptomatic of an attachment disorder known as Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder or DSED. Depending on when her behavior started (i.e before the age of five), she could be reasonably diagnosed, and she could have been given appointments with Dr. Yamada. As a corollary, given Tristan and Ashley defense of Kenzie's behavior and improvement to Houndstooth Kenzie may actually be fine. This could only be their opinion though and the improvement is due to treatment from therapy with Yamada and similar.<ref>Shade 4.4 - This whole chapter alludes to Kenzie's behavior, which shows her intense 'addiction' to people and interactions. It also shows how Tristan and Ashley respond to it.</ref>
Fanart Gallery
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Looksee helmet by Wildbow -
Illustration by MugaSofer
References
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