Ok, I've been wondering about this for quite some time now, but what Talent did Tom Rotwell have? It's heavily implied that he DIDN'T have Listening:
" “Tom was slow and held me back,” Marissa went on. “He could not listen to Ezekiel, could not understand the deeper truths... "
I mean, this may be metaphorical, in a "he just failed to understand" way, but I think it does mean he literally couldn't hear whatever Ezekiel was spouting (which is a VERY fun idea). All kids tend to have at least some amount of each Talent, albeit in varying degrees and strengths. So far the most popular notion in the fandom seems to be that Tom had Sight, which makes sense from a drawing-parallels point of view, and also makes sense because hey. someone had to first experience, record and name death glows and the visual forms of spectres etc. (we don't know if Marissa herself had enough Sight for that, though).
Point is, this is just a whole lot of beating around the bush to ask, what do you think?
because in my head i've been turning over idea of a tom rotwell who has Touch and a marissa who doesn't, especially in regard to that damn bracelet she always wears and how this difference might affect their respective connections to and perception of ezekiel because can you IMAGINE the POTENTIAL of a marissa who wears the bracelet but doesn't have touch and a tom who is denied physical and psychic contact with the ghost but DOES have touch and can effectively see anything he may choose to conceal or not divulge about his own past
wait. WAIT. We know Rupert Gale's dad worked with Marissa, right? (yeah i'm not sure at what point exactly that may have occurred - it may well have been after the split of fittes and rotwell).
And we also know that Sir Rupert has exceptionally strong Sight. He can still see ghosts, after all, despite being an adult. (it's debatable if that's because he was dabbling in ectoplasm) (i don't think he was, though, for multiple reasons i'll not go into here).
What if rupert's dad was the one on the team in the early days of the Problem who had Sight?
Hold on. Hold tf on. In my eyes, this actually explains... quite a few things. All of Tom's ludicrous methods to try and create "warning systems" for ghosts. Why Sir Rupert is just that good at swordfighting.
This headcanon also makes that one anecdote about Tom using a snapped railing as a makeshift sword that much funnier. Buddy what are you fighting
