Shearwind
Apr 21, 2012 13:34:30 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2012 13:34:30 GMT -5
-Character Info-
Name: Shearwind
Age (or human equivalent): Early 20’s
Gender (or human equivalent): Androgyne. (zie/hir)
Species: Cybertronian
Faction: Ex-Decepticon, currently undecided.
Occupation/Specialization: Aerialist/scout
Appearance/Altmode:
Shearwind’s overall build is somewhat akin to Soundwave’s, tallish, lean and leggy with a distinctly digitigrade stance, but from there all similarities end. While Soundwave’s top-heavy build forces his center of gravity forward, Shearwind’s relatively-balanced weight distribution allows hir to stand comparatively straight. Narrower shoulders, thicker legs and back-mounted, downward-angling wings certainly help, of course, but zie’ll never admit that. Shear’s plates are considerably sturdier than hir twin’s and seem loosely affixed to hir frame, flaring out or tightening flush to hir frame in accordance with hir moods. Colorwise zie’s a patchy mixture of firebrick-red and graphite-grey; hir limbs are predominantly red, gradually fading to grey across hir chassis and upper legs. Shear’s default expression seems to be ‘curious’, an impression hir pumpkin-orange optics and angled, vaguely avian facial features do nothing to counteract.
Alt-mode is an F/A-18 Hornet.
History:
Shearwind came online with Primus’ own luck. The dominant half of an uneven and nearly-disastrous spark-split, zie survived simply because hir creator- one Excellon, head of an Iacon research and development unit- had the credits to blow on stabilizing an unexpected set of twins. Shearwind and Stormbreaker’s earliest orns were spent under intense medical- and occasionally scientific- scrutiny. The two were an anomaly, a scientific and statistical oddity to be studied and learned from, whether they wanted to be studied or not.
Physically stronger than hir twin, Shear was the first to be sent home to hir cohort, a cohort bemused by the entire idea of caring for a newspark who wanted nothing to do with them and everything to do with hir twin. Apathy became the name of the game, especially where Excellon was concerned. The majority of the Twisters’ care and education was left to Ion and Anion, the company’s seconds-in-command and designated nannybots. Under their tutelage the twins grew into proper, upstanding Cybertronian citizens, obedient to their cohort’s wishes and primed to take their place in the company’s hierarchy-
-or they would have, anyway, had everything not gone to hell in a handbasket. Excellon was too deeply invested in Megatron’s rebellion to back out when the rebellion boiled over into outright war. The cohort at large, Shearwind and Stormbreaker among them, followed Excellon into the Decepticon’s ranks. Though neither of the Twisters particularly believed in the cause, they’d never known anything else; following their creator out of the frying pan and into the fire seemed like the most natural thing to do. Modded up, retrained and made useful, they were assigned to a reconnaissance unit and turned loose to gather whatever information they could.
For vorns the cohort served faithfully, an ever-shrinking handful of cogs in the Decepticon war machine, until happenstance and pure bad luck tore them apart. Shearwind and Stormbreaker’s unit was decimated on one of Eta-3’s unnamed moons, the sisters themselves surviving by the skin of their dente. Storm’s quick action- and willingness to accept help from a ragtag bunch of neutralists who, thank Primus, happened to be in the same general area- saved Shear’s lfe. Taken aboard the neutralist vessel Tellius and gradually nursed back to health, the Twisters finally- finally- had some much-needed time and space in which to figure out just who they really were. Neither thought of themselves as a Decepticon, nor did either view the war as something they wanted to bring home with them. By the time they struck out on their own again, outfitted with the best (franken)shuttle their hosts could cobble together, Shear and Storm were neutralists in all but name.
Whether that status will become official now that they’ve arrived on Earth, the first site of Cybertronian activity they’ve seen in orns, is still up for debate.
Personality:
Easygoing, carefree and free-spirited, Shearwind’s a relic of peaceful times now long-gone. Zie seems to live by the trite old truism ‘We’re all down in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars’- though zie feels loss and pain as keenly as anyone else, zie bounces back quick enough to make rubber balls look twice. ‘Curious’ defines hir the way ‘insubordinate’ defines Starscream; every strange action zie takes or apparently-random question zie asks somehow traces back to hir need to know, do and see everything. Accustomed to making split-klik decisions for hirself and hir twin alike, Shear’s learned to take in and process vast volumes of information on the fly. Though not the most ‘booksmart’ mech in existence, zie’s perceptive, quick-thinking and almost eerily good at drawing accurate conclusions from the barest scraps of information. Combine that observant streak with a nigh-overwhelming amount of energy, however, and you have a recipe for pranking and/or disaster on a grand scale. Shear’s playful and mischievous when given the opportunity, gleefully involving all comers in hir never-ending prank wars. Yes, wars. Plural. Tactile by nature and cuddly by choice, zie delights in close contact. If you befriend hir- and you most likely will- prepare to be hugged on an hourly basis.
Accustomed to sharing headspace with hir twin, Shear isn’t the best communicator ever sparked. Zie relies heavily on subvocals, often-unconventional glyph combinations and minute changes in body language to get across the point hir words can’t. Shear’s apparent inability to grasp the concept of gender shows through most clearly in hir speech; zie refers to those around hir as ‘he’ or ‘him’ until corrected and often flubs it long thereafter. Though naturally -perhaps foolishly- optimistic, Shear hasn’t quite shaken the fatalistic streak zie picked up whilst under Decepticon command. Zie’s convinced zie’s going to die young- so convinced that zie’s lost hir overwhelming fear of death. Everybot dies someday, after all, and if Shear’s day comes sooner than other’s, so be it.
Though not sparked a guardian, Shearwind’s status as ‘alpha’ has made hir overzealously protective of hir twin. If you mess with Stormbreaker- and any number of mundane, nonthreatening activities fall into the ‘messing with’ category- Shear will do everything in hir power to make sure you never do it again. Though physically hardier than Storm, zie’s a sight less coordinated. Shear suffers from what a human might term dyspraxia, a condition that compromises hir hand-optic coordination, motor control and depth perception. Though not a crippling disability, it makes hir about ten times more likely to smack into things zie isn’t looking directly at- and given hir overabundance of energy, you can be sure zie isn’t looking at a hell of a lot more things than zie is.
Likes: Stormbreaker, flying, freedom,snuggling close contact, storms, tricky air currents, learning, exploring, culture
Dislikes: Threats to hir twin, dead air, being isolated or denied contact, high-grade, rust sticks.
Strengths/Weapons:
Two Halves, One Whole - Shearwind and Stormbreaker share a spark-deep empathic bond. They ‘feel’ one another’s presence, emotions and, to a lesser extent, physical states.
Death from Above - Zie’s got wings for a reason, folks, and abuses the hell out of hir ability to fight in three dimensions.
Hit and Run - Shearwind’s fighting style heavily emphasizes speed, agility and flat-out not being there when whatever zie just tackled out of the air gets around to retaliating.
You Can’t See Me! - Sparked, modded and trained for long-distance scouting operations in hostile environments, Shear’s learned to take advantage of hir surroundings. Sticking to cloudbanks, ambushing unobservant fliers from near-ground-level and diving directly out of the sun are amongst hir favorite tricks.
Weapons:
Talons - Shear’s pedes and servos are both tipped with high-density alloy claws more than capable of cutting through standard-to-high-grade armor. They’re hir go-to weapon for grappling, slashing and pouncing attacks.
M-61 Vulcan Cannon - Nose-mounted in hir alt-mode and forearm-mounted in root-mode, Shear’s cannon does fairly well against lighter armor classes, especially when fired in short, intense bursts. (Poor heat dispersion systems prevent hir from firing continually for more than a minute or two at a time.)
FIRE ZE MISSILES! - Hornets come equipped with air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles of the heat- and radar-seeking variety. So does Shear.
Short-range EMP Generator - A last-ditch defensive ‘panic button’, this device allows Shear to channel the positive charge built up along hir wings in flight into a blast capable of jarring, but not offlining, systems.
Weaknesses:
Two Halves, One Whole - The downside of sharing headspace with someone is that you feel it when said someone gets walloped.
Alpha Twin - As the dominant half of the split Shearwind has a spark-deep need to keep hir twin out of harm’s way. In combat situations this need eclipses all else, orders, self-preservation and common sense be damned. Even minute fluxes in Stormbreaker’s spark energy- those caused by moderate, nonlethal damage, for instance- effectively offline Shearwind’s higher reasoning capabilities. While the resultant glitch-out can do significant damage to whoever caused it, it can’t be reliably controlled, nor can anyone but Storm bring Shear back down to earth.
Fragile - Speed and agility are really all Shearwind has when push comes to shove. Zie’s a scout-build at spark, not meant to stand up to the abuse of close combat for long, and is effectively disabled when grounded. Add large, vulnerable wings to the equation and you’ve got a bot easily grappled to death.
Special skills (that are not weapon related): Shearwind has weather-sense good enough to make human meteorologists cry.
Extra Info:
Shear's known for playing fast and loose with others' gender pronouns. Don't be too offended when zie calls somebot 'she'.
Shear’s themesong is Rob Thomas’ ‘Little Wonders’. Clickity.
Name: Shearwind
Age (or human equivalent): Early 20’s
Gender (or human equivalent): Androgyne. (zie/hir)
Species: Cybertronian
Faction: Ex-Decepticon, currently undecided.
Occupation/Specialization: Aerialist/scout
Appearance/Altmode:
Shearwind’s overall build is somewhat akin to Soundwave’s, tallish, lean and leggy with a distinctly digitigrade stance, but from there all similarities end. While Soundwave’s top-heavy build forces his center of gravity forward, Shearwind’s relatively-balanced weight distribution allows hir to stand comparatively straight. Narrower shoulders, thicker legs and back-mounted, downward-angling wings certainly help, of course, but zie’ll never admit that. Shear’s plates are considerably sturdier than hir twin’s and seem loosely affixed to hir frame, flaring out or tightening flush to hir frame in accordance with hir moods. Colorwise zie’s a patchy mixture of firebrick-red and graphite-grey; hir limbs are predominantly red, gradually fading to grey across hir chassis and upper legs. Shear’s default expression seems to be ‘curious’, an impression hir pumpkin-orange optics and angled, vaguely avian facial features do nothing to counteract.
Alt-mode is an F/A-18 Hornet.
History:
Shearwind came online with Primus’ own luck. The dominant half of an uneven and nearly-disastrous spark-split, zie survived simply because hir creator- one Excellon, head of an Iacon research and development unit- had the credits to blow on stabilizing an unexpected set of twins. Shearwind and Stormbreaker’s earliest orns were spent under intense medical- and occasionally scientific- scrutiny. The two were an anomaly, a scientific and statistical oddity to be studied and learned from, whether they wanted to be studied or not.
Physically stronger than hir twin, Shear was the first to be sent home to hir cohort, a cohort bemused by the entire idea of caring for a newspark who wanted nothing to do with them and everything to do with hir twin. Apathy became the name of the game, especially where Excellon was concerned. The majority of the Twisters’ care and education was left to Ion and Anion, the company’s seconds-in-command and designated nannybots. Under their tutelage the twins grew into proper, upstanding Cybertronian citizens, obedient to their cohort’s wishes and primed to take their place in the company’s hierarchy-
-or they would have, anyway, had everything not gone to hell in a handbasket. Excellon was too deeply invested in Megatron’s rebellion to back out when the rebellion boiled over into outright war. The cohort at large, Shearwind and Stormbreaker among them, followed Excellon into the Decepticon’s ranks. Though neither of the Twisters particularly believed in the cause, they’d never known anything else; following their creator out of the frying pan and into the fire seemed like the most natural thing to do. Modded up, retrained and made useful, they were assigned to a reconnaissance unit and turned loose to gather whatever information they could.
For vorns the cohort served faithfully, an ever-shrinking handful of cogs in the Decepticon war machine, until happenstance and pure bad luck tore them apart. Shearwind and Stormbreaker’s unit was decimated on one of Eta-3’s unnamed moons, the sisters themselves surviving by the skin of their dente. Storm’s quick action- and willingness to accept help from a ragtag bunch of neutralists who, thank Primus, happened to be in the same general area- saved Shear’s lfe. Taken aboard the neutralist vessel Tellius and gradually nursed back to health, the Twisters finally- finally- had some much-needed time and space in which to figure out just who they really were. Neither thought of themselves as a Decepticon, nor did either view the war as something they wanted to bring home with them. By the time they struck out on their own again, outfitted with the best (franken)shuttle their hosts could cobble together, Shear and Storm were neutralists in all but name.
Whether that status will become official now that they’ve arrived on Earth, the first site of Cybertronian activity they’ve seen in orns, is still up for debate.
Personality:
Easygoing, carefree and free-spirited, Shearwind’s a relic of peaceful times now long-gone. Zie seems to live by the trite old truism ‘We’re all down in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars’- though zie feels loss and pain as keenly as anyone else, zie bounces back quick enough to make rubber balls look twice. ‘Curious’ defines hir the way ‘insubordinate’ defines Starscream; every strange action zie takes or apparently-random question zie asks somehow traces back to hir need to know, do and see everything. Accustomed to making split-klik decisions for hirself and hir twin alike, Shear’s learned to take in and process vast volumes of information on the fly. Though not the most ‘booksmart’ mech in existence, zie’s perceptive, quick-thinking and almost eerily good at drawing accurate conclusions from the barest scraps of information. Combine that observant streak with a nigh-overwhelming amount of energy, however, and you have a recipe for pranking and/or disaster on a grand scale. Shear’s playful and mischievous when given the opportunity, gleefully involving all comers in hir never-ending prank wars. Yes, wars. Plural. Tactile by nature and cuddly by choice, zie delights in close contact. If you befriend hir- and you most likely will- prepare to be hugged on an hourly basis.
Accustomed to sharing headspace with hir twin, Shear isn’t the best communicator ever sparked. Zie relies heavily on subvocals, often-unconventional glyph combinations and minute changes in body language to get across the point hir words can’t. Shear’s apparent inability to grasp the concept of gender shows through most clearly in hir speech; zie refers to those around hir as ‘he’ or ‘him’ until corrected and often flubs it long thereafter. Though naturally -perhaps foolishly- optimistic, Shear hasn’t quite shaken the fatalistic streak zie picked up whilst under Decepticon command. Zie’s convinced zie’s going to die young- so convinced that zie’s lost hir overwhelming fear of death. Everybot dies someday, after all, and if Shear’s day comes sooner than other’s, so be it.
Though not sparked a guardian, Shearwind’s status as ‘alpha’ has made hir overzealously protective of hir twin. If you mess with Stormbreaker- and any number of mundane, nonthreatening activities fall into the ‘messing with’ category- Shear will do everything in hir power to make sure you never do it again. Though physically hardier than Storm, zie’s a sight less coordinated. Shear suffers from what a human might term dyspraxia, a condition that compromises hir hand-optic coordination, motor control and depth perception. Though not a crippling disability, it makes hir about ten times more likely to smack into things zie isn’t looking directly at- and given hir overabundance of energy, you can be sure zie isn’t looking at a hell of a lot more things than zie is.
Likes: Stormbreaker, flying, freedom,
Dislikes: Threats to hir twin, dead air, being isolated or denied contact, high-grade, rust sticks.
Strengths/Weapons:
Two Halves, One Whole - Shearwind and Stormbreaker share a spark-deep empathic bond. They ‘feel’ one another’s presence, emotions and, to a lesser extent, physical states.
Death from Above - Zie’s got wings for a reason, folks, and abuses the hell out of hir ability to fight in three dimensions.
Hit and Run - Shearwind’s fighting style heavily emphasizes speed, agility and flat-out not being there when whatever zie just tackled out of the air gets around to retaliating.
You Can’t See Me! - Sparked, modded and trained for long-distance scouting operations in hostile environments, Shear’s learned to take advantage of hir surroundings. Sticking to cloudbanks, ambushing unobservant fliers from near-ground-level and diving directly out of the sun are amongst hir favorite tricks.
Weapons:
Talons - Shear’s pedes and servos are both tipped with high-density alloy claws more than capable of cutting through standard-to-high-grade armor. They’re hir go-to weapon for grappling, slashing and pouncing attacks.
M-61 Vulcan Cannon - Nose-mounted in hir alt-mode and forearm-mounted in root-mode, Shear’s cannon does fairly well against lighter armor classes, especially when fired in short, intense bursts. (Poor heat dispersion systems prevent hir from firing continually for more than a minute or two at a time.)
FIRE ZE MISSILES! - Hornets come equipped with air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles of the heat- and radar-seeking variety. So does Shear.
Short-range EMP Generator - A last-ditch defensive ‘panic button’, this device allows Shear to channel the positive charge built up along hir wings in flight into a blast capable of jarring, but not offlining, systems.
Weaknesses:
Two Halves, One Whole - The downside of sharing headspace with someone is that you feel it when said someone gets walloped.
Alpha Twin - As the dominant half of the split Shearwind has a spark-deep need to keep hir twin out of harm’s way. In combat situations this need eclipses all else, orders, self-preservation and common sense be damned. Even minute fluxes in Stormbreaker’s spark energy- those caused by moderate, nonlethal damage, for instance- effectively offline Shearwind’s higher reasoning capabilities. While the resultant glitch-out can do significant damage to whoever caused it, it can’t be reliably controlled, nor can anyone but Storm bring Shear back down to earth.
Fragile - Speed and agility are really all Shearwind has when push comes to shove. Zie’s a scout-build at spark, not meant to stand up to the abuse of close combat for long, and is effectively disabled when grounded. Add large, vulnerable wings to the equation and you’ve got a bot easily grappled to death.
Special skills (that are not weapon related): Shearwind has weather-sense good enough to make human meteorologists cry.
Extra Info:
Shear's known for playing fast and loose with others' gender pronouns. Don't be too offended when zie calls somebot 'she'.
Shear’s themesong is Rob Thomas’ ‘Little Wonders’. Clickity.