#lanker

Happy Character Day!! Hello and good afternoon fellow rebels, welcome to another character day. I am a bit behind (mostly because I'm busy with my new job, yay!), but I didn't want to miss an opportunity to speak on one of the most entertaining characters in the Xenon Tech Series. Of course, I mean none other than Lanker "Atlas" Barbosa.

**Fun Fact**

For the longest time I couldn't settle on a place that I wanted Lanker's family to originate from. The top choices were Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and Puerto Rico.

In the end Puerto Rico won out!

Also, Lanker knows three languages; English, French, and Spanish.

***

Name: Lanker Barbosa

Age: 18

Species: Human

Lanker, despite his goofy and immature demeanor, is a well known genius amongst the Seven Seas Crew. What he lacks in basic social queues and CHEM knowledge, he makes up for with his uncanny geological and naturalist expertise. Lanker has also shown skill in both piloting and engineering. Much like many people from the Eastern region, Lanker excels in working with his hands. Anything from tinkering to building falls right up his alley.

Lanker can be described as a charismatic and energetic ladies' man who comes from a broken home. His family is a somewhat rare case - a "split family". Split families have parents that are from two different regions. In Lanker's case - his mother is from the North (working for the census), and his father is from the East (working as a map maker). Despite Lanker's love for mapmaking, Lanker's true passion is traveling and seeing the world in person instead of just on paper. Because of this, Lanker would often travel with his mother to the Northern region. Though this did cause a strain on the relationship between Lanker and his father though.

Not much is know about his father except for the fact that he is an alcoholic (hinted), and that he is borderline obsessed with his work. The relationship between Lanker and his father strained even more when his parents divorced. Despite the fact that Lanker's mother had an affair, Lanker shows no resentment towards her (though he is not fond of his stepfather or stepbrother).

Lanker doesn't like to talk about his past or his home life. Scarlet notes that Lanker is obviously hiding something - and whatever he's hiding must be the reason why he wanted to leave home.

**Fun Fact**

Lanker is one of the only characters to have freckles, which is a personal favorite trait of mine! Lanker's appearance and personality is very loosely inspired by pixie/fairy folklore from Greek mythology. The similarities can be seen in his glossy hair, bright eyes, freckled skin, wide and mischievous grin, and his equally mischievous personality. Not to mention the fact that Lanker is so intuned with nature and the world around him, that he can basically tell exactly where he is no matter where you drop him.

It's canon: in a past life, Lanker was a pixie.

***

You learn much more about Lanker in further books, along with Senna (Lanker's stepbrother). Perhaps next week, it's Senna's turn