#was he discharged after the immortal army plan blew up?

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I hope people know that when I say I really like Mori, I don't mean that I actually like him, I mean that I want to dissect his brain under a microscope.

Creepy mafia doctor man who has committed war crimes and would do so again without any compunction, but only for the sake of a goal. Why are you the way that you are.

[ancient-trees]

So, tell me about your fictional children! I like hearing about people's characters! ^^

Thank you for asking! Putting this under a cut because it’s really long. Includes minor spoilers, especially for Tamuran, but nothing earth-shatteringly major unless you haven’t read the comic.

tl;dr:Varony: monster nerdEffire: snarky cobra nerdMath: grumpy old man nerdEmmie: +10 EPIC NERD also the best grandma

Versinthenet: dragon nerdRathe: swordie nerdPerrath: overly helpful nerd (w/ bonus cool doggo)Sukah: Gandalf is on strikeAleoth: the angstiest nerd

and Artreias: mostly an asshole (secretly a huge nerd on the inside, don’t tell anybody)

NERDS ALL NERDS.okay, read on:

I’ll start with Tamuran - I assume that’s what most people are following me for:

Varony you know if you read the comic - he’s the guy in my Tumblr icon. He belongs to a race of big arboreal predators that live deep in very dangerous forests, but for now he’s (sort of but not quite voluntarily) bound in the form of a big gangly human. For the most part he is okay with this arrangement (all except for the new “possibly permanent” aspect - see recent events in the comic). He’s endlessly curious, and he thinks humans are the weirdest, most bewilderingly fascinating things he’s ever encountered. He’s been human-shaped for (most of) about six years at this point - shortly after he was changed, he was found and taken in by a clan of traveling merchants, who taught him language and basically How To Human. They became a second family to him, as have the Ragtag Band of Adventurers he’s currently found his lot thrown in with, but sometimes he misses the trees.

Uh, stuff that I don’t think has been covered in the comic already: Back home, Varony (or Hhr'skhygh - approximation of his *growly-noises* real name) lived with his pack, which included his mother and three older siblings. His sister’s pretty cool, his brothers are jerks. He’s a good hunter, but his pack always saw him as something of a weirdo - asks too many pointless questions, wants to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING. When he was little he used to love listening to his grandfather tell his people’s folktales, and legends about the outside world. And yes, he’s officially ace/aro, species notwithstanding. Humans just complicate it even more - his people’s mating rituals are pretty straightforward, while humans’ involve all sorts of flirting and bizarre games that catch him off-guard (and have gotten him into a few ..uncomfortable situations in the past, if you want to know what the deal was with him freaking out on poor Jadsira in chapter 14).

Effire is a Morphus - one of the magical, long-lived Tu Naul race who was born with shapeshifting abilities. All Morphyx get bound into a single animal form and magically bonded to a “worthy” human (for the duration of the human partner’s life) as a sort of cultural exchange/community service. Effire was never too keen on that idea, especially after he found out his partner would be a Zharus Guardsman, and ESPECIALLY after his own bonded form turned out to be a cobra. But after getting used to one another, Effire found that his partner Morgen was a dreamer and idealist with a brain that never stopped - far from the meatheaded soldier-for-hire he was expecting. After their Zharus Academy training was complete, they were hired by the Patriarch of Tamuran to work palace intelligence and security and to keep an eye on the Patriarch’s elder sons as part of their personal guard (much to Prince Johlan’s irritation).

Effire tends to be cynical and sharp-tempered, but he means well. He would do anything for Morgen, whom he loves fiercely. He’s always liked exploring, especially poking around in places he’s not supposed to be. His favorite animals to turn into before he was bound were falcons, swallows, and other quick, agile birds - it was a pretty big blow to be stuck in a form that doesn’t even have limbs. Being part of a prince’s royal guard at least means he’s gotten to travel from time to time, and between Morgen and palace goings-on his life is seldom boring… though the way things have gone lately, he’s starting to really wish for boring…

Mathim hasn’t shown up in the comic yet - the Atriand-side plotline follows his story. He’s a former colonel in the Atriand army who was discharged early for an injury that never healed right, and at this point he’s retired to a town out in the wilderness, a cantankerous old bastard who spends his time drinking too much and cussing out the neighbor kids. His troublemaking teenaged grandson - the only living family he isn’t estranged from - disappeared about a year ago without a trace, though Math’s suspicions lean toward sorceric activity. When strangers pass through town bringing odd rumors, it might finally be the key Math needs to find the kidnappers. But Math has secrets - he was born with a forbidden form of magic, a dangerous, volatile power that has terrified him all his life. The same power that he passed on to his grandson, the power that made the boy a target of sorcerers in the first place. And now Math is going to need to unlock that power if he wants to have any hope of saving his boy…

Emianna was supposed to be a minor character, but she insisted on becoming a lot more important than we’d planned (and I’m glad she did). She’s Math’s wife, who died a few years before the comic story but still plays a big role in it. She was a huge nerd and avid naturalist, though poor health kept her working in libraries rather than pursuing science in the field. The daughter of a prominent Atriand military family, she used to pretend to be a bit daft at her family’s social functions, so that ambitious suitors would focus their attention on her sisters and leave her alone. At least until a shy young officer in search of a restroom literally stumbled over her reading in a closet during one of those parties… 

Emmie likes: books, books, and more books, SCIENCE, yaoi. And also being Gramma Emmie to her family - she’ll make you some amazing cookies, but you might have to pry her out of her lab to do it.

Novel characters: From several books, which are intended (if all goes well) to fit together like puzzle pieces and thus are sort-of in development at the same time (in other words, my notes are a mess).  Standard disclaimer that nothing is 100% canon till the books are finished.

Versinthenet is a dragon. In my setting, dragons are features of the landscape - half-physical, half-spirit beings that come into existence in places where intense magic pools and snags, and serve to tie Magic to the physical world. They can’t physically travel far from their magic “nodes,” but they can use the tides of Magic to communicate with other dragons and watch events as they unfold elsewhere in the world and also stupid cat videos.  Most dragons are located far from human settlements, but some of the ones who do live near humans use their influence over local magic to become patron protectors for their area, and in return the humans see to any physical-plane needs they may have. Verse (don’t call him that to his face) was one of these - fairly young as dragons go, he calmed the seas, quelled storms, and ensured good fishing for the people of his island. But centuries of watching human conflicts and atrocities, capped with events involving the death of his closest mentor, have started him questioning whether these people deserve his help after all. Then an idiot wizard shows up with the audacity to try to bind him and use his magic. The binding attempt goes horribly wrong - the wizard dies and Verse finds his consciousness pulled into the wizard’s body, while the rest of his Dragon self, mindless, flies off to wreak havoc, pulling frayed Magic into a hurricane around itself as it goes. Now Verse has to figure out how to set things right, while being blamed for the actions of the wizard who made this mess… before the dragon unleashes its wrath upon the whole island, or the islanders find a way to destroy the revered protector who has betrayed them. (Beyond all that, the consequences of such a tear in the network of magic may be farther-reaching than anyone is prepared for…)

So yeah, he’s not having a very good day.

Rathe is quick, athletic, great with a sword, and wants to be a hero like the ones in the storybooks. Unfortunately, she’s the daughter of a highly-respected family of scholars in a society that abhors all forms of violence and prizes learning and tradition above everything else. Events conspire to lead her away from home and into the life of adventure she’s always craved… but when her wizard traveling companion goes and does something really, really stupid, she’ll find out that heroing is a lot more complicated than she expected… especially when it involves facing personal secrets she thought were buried in the past.

Perrath has had a magical gift since he was a child - the ability to mend things that are broken - and a passion for helping people to go along with it. Unfortunately, one night a mysterious storm blew away all the magic in his village, including his innate talent, and he’s been searching for it ever since, with a sole still-functional(?) finding charm leading the way and his dog at his side (whom he talks to. A lot). He misses his magic, but he’s found that in the meantime he really enjoys a life of wandering - going wherever his finder points him, meeting new people and exploring places he’d never heard of, using his mundane skills to repair people’s things in order to get by. Until he finds himself in a sticky situation out in the uncharted wilds, and learns that promising to fix something for malevolent shadow-demons is maybe not a good idea…

Sukah is a semi-immortal guardian mage, bestowed with certain powers and nobly tasked with the protection of humanity. Only it’s hard to do your job when your partner has long since disappeared, halving your power, and nobody wants your help or even listens to your advice anymore. So he’s watched history unfold from the sidelines, telling himself that if people want to make a huge mess of things that’s their business.  A crisis involving two worlds and the fabric of magic itself, along with the reappearance of someone he’d thought long dead, might be enough to convince him to dust off his old magic and get back in the fight, but by then it might be too late…

Thanks to a valiant sacrifice-beyond-hope made by the parents she’s never known, Aleoth supposedly harbors within her the soul of a great evil… and no one has ever let her forget it. Stifled and stigmatized by those who were supposed to be her protectors, she runs away and takes up with a band of notorious brigands. But whatever she does, she can’t escape the unnerving creature that has haunted her dreams all her life, or the disasters that seem to follow her steps.  When [plot happens] and events begin to come crashing in around her, she’ll have to figure out who and what she is and what she really stands for.

{Bonus shoutout to my college D&D character Artreias, a sorcerer/planewalker from Sigil who got stuck in a shit-ton of trouble thanks to his sketchy mage father’s sketchy past and even more sketchy friends. Treias was a minor noble on his mom’s side, well-to-do and highly educated, but he acted like he was from the streets since all the nobles he ever met were twelve kinds of terrible. He’d do just about anything to protect his family, though (blood family and family-of-choice), especially his younger sister, and including Infuriating Sketchy Dad, whom he loved anyway. Unfortunately the rest of the party characters hated him, since (thanks to the mysterious circumstances that got him thrown into the campaign events) he had a “trust no one” attitude and could be kind of a jerk about it.}

[literateape]

Gary Thompson, The Great American Drifter

By David Himmel

WHEN I LEFT LAS VEGAS FOR CHICAGO, I had this incredible plan to drive for two weeks straight. Cut through the country. Find something interesting. First, San Diego, where I’d visit with old friends and their new baby. Then, L.A. for more old friends and new bars. At that point, I’d be on my own for fourteen days as I drove along Highway 1 to San Francisco, then into Oregon, swing by Crater Lake; Ketchum, Idaho where Hemmingway blew his brains out; Big Sky Country; check out the Badlands and Mount Rushmore; grab some cheese in Wisconsin; Chicago, just in time to hit Cubs game day traffic.

I made it as far as a night in San Francisco before I grew bored with my own company and anxious to get to my new home. Rather than continue north, I picked up I-80 and headed straight east.

It was just after I fueled up, not long after dawn somewhere before Lincoln, Nebraska that I met Gary Thompson. I’d been pushing through exhaustion in an effort to park the damn car in Chicago as fast as I could, and my brain had begun to play tricks on me. Hallucinations of demonic 18-wheelers and Dali-like road signs kept my boredom interesting. The fog hanging over the highway was an added perk.

I saw a hint of him on the shoulder maybe half a mile ahead. As I got closer, he seemed to materialize more and more, taking on the different shapes of men I had known — fat ones, skinny ones, tall ones, short ones, old ones, young ones; men who had held me, loved me, punished me, praised me, ignored me, thought little of me, though the world of me — before finally settling on the one I saw clearly when he stuck his head in my passenger window after I pulled over and rolled down the glass.

He was average height. His hair was mostly gray but there were remnants of a more youthful blond. It looked like he hadn’t had a bath in three months. His face was weathered and kind. His eyes looked tired but honest. His voice sounded hoarse but genuine and calm.

“How do you know I’m not going to kill you?” he said to me.

“How do you know I’m not going to kill you?” I said back.

We looked at each other a moment before he said, “Well, hell. Birds of a feather.”

“You want a lift?”

My car was stuffed to the hilt with the necessities for my new Chicago life—books, jeans, blazers socks, shoes and contact lens solution. The hitchhiker peered in. “You sure you got room?”

“We’ll make room. How much you carrying?”

“Just this bag.” A ratty green duffle. Standard U.S. Army issue. It took some feats of engineering and all my skills developed from years of playing Tetris on Game Boy, but we made his bag fit into my crowded Volkswagen Golf.

I asked him where he was headed.

“Not sure. How far you goin’?”

“I’ll eventually end up in Chicago,” I said.

He asked me if I’d ever been to St. Louis. I had. Once. I told him the arch was nice. That must have sold him because he decided that’s where he’d go. I said I’d take him as far as Cedar Rapids. He could catch a ride south from there.

*

GARY THOMPSON'S HITCHHIKING JOURNEY STARTED in Great Falls, Montana where he grew up. He left home the day after he turned eighteen with thirty dollars in birthday money to his name. He used the kindness of strangers and the filth of Greyhound busses to get to Los Angeles where he was determined to become an actor. He became frustrated after a year of attaching self-taken Polaroid headshots to his acting resume, which consisted of two high school productions—Annie and Pippen—and never getting called back from a single audition. He joined the army, spent a few years in Germany before getting his discharge papers, returned to the states—New York this time—and tried his hand at being a writer. Germany, he said, provided him with a million stories to tell. But that didn’t work out either.

Broken and broke, he became the classic American drifter. “If I couldn’t make a living out of acting some great part or writing some great story, I figured I’d be best just to become the part of the story,” he said.

“What’s great about being a drifter?” I asked.

“I don’t have to pay taxes.”

We talked about Germany and he told me about a beautiful fräulein he nearly married. She worked as a waitress in a small café just off the base. However, her father was a soldier during the Second World War and still had a grudge against American military men. Gary suggested they run away, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave her mother behind. He offered to bring the mother with them. In the end, he said, it was for the best. He would have just let her down anyway.

“That’s no way to talk,” I said. “Who knows, maybe she would have been your muse. Maybe she would have inspired you to write the next—”

“What? Great American Novel?” he interrupted me. “My muse was my rent, my grumbling stomach. I’m not being pessimistic; I’m being realistic! I’ve always been better off on my own anyway.”

I felt a kinship to this guy. I, too, had always felt that without the trappings of relationships — the weight of accountability to someone else — I could do much more. Yet, there I was, afraid to be by myself for two weeks on a chicken run to the fray of a new life unknown. Riding shotgun was a guy who also preferred solitude but would still be stuck on a Great Falls road if it weren’t for other people offering up a little bit of their company.

Gary filled the time with more stories of people he’d met along the way. The truckers, the barflies, the hobos, and the cops. Years ago, in Reno, he was nearly arrested for sneaking into a Rolling Stones concert disguised as a roadie then rushing the stage and giving Jagger a hug during Beast of Burden. I didn’t believe that actually happened, but there was no way I could disprove it in the car.

He didn’t strike me as a liar. Gary Thompson struck me as a guy who was one of the Silent Generation’s forgotten children; too young to fight in Korea, too old for Vietnam. He was a victim of the 1950s Americana Marketing Machine. He believed in the American Dream and sought it out without concern for preparedness and talent. Desire was enough for Gary. And even in his failed attempts at being the next Paul Newman or Allan Ginsburg, he still had that strange hope that he’d achieve some kind of immortal legacy that would go on to shape the future of his great country simply by being alive and well, and making his way from car to car and town to town. He would, perhaps, become a living legend.

*

I KEPT TRYING TO GET A GOOD LOOK AT HIS FACE. But when minding the wheel of a hatchback traveling ninety on the interstate, it’s best to keep the eyes on the road. And it just so happened to work out that every time I saw Gary turn toward me from my peripheral, he’d be back in profile the moment I turned my head. I wanted to see his eyes again. I wanted to know if he was smirking as we swapped stories back and forth.

Was he messing with me? Did he appear on the roadside for me to pick up only so he could put my life into perspective? I’d never picked up a hitchhiker before. Why then? Why that day? I, too, was chasing down the American Dream. I was moving to Chicago to advance my career, maybe get married, have a few kids to resent, and retire with money in the bank before being eaten alive by cancer just off the coast of Cuba on a simple sloop. Gary’s stories were making me regret not sticking to my original plan of road tripping home rather than just driving there. Where I thought my dream would be realized by responsibility, Gary was subtly making the case that the best-laid plans were too often stuff of dreams deferred.

Jesus, was he even real? I was tired. Maybe I was hallucinating all of it.

*

WE ARRIVED IN CEDAR RAPIDS and our four-hour friendship was over. I dropped him off at the Greyhound station. I gave him a few bucks so he could grab lunch. It was either that, or give him an awkward hug — I wasn’t clear on the social protocol for bidding friendly drifters farewell.

Before I got back in my car to leave, Gary turned to me and said, “You know, I have been to St. Louis before. But I didn’t get a chance to see the arch up close and personal.”

“It’ll blow your mind,” I said. I got in the car and closed the door. “Take care, Gary.”

“You, too, man. And hey, if you’re going to be a writer in Chicago, maybe you’ll write a story about me. Gary Thompson, The Great American Drifter.”

I laughed and pulled out my digital camera to take a photo of him. “We’ll see about that, Gary. Be safe out there.”

The photo didn’t turn out. His face was blurred. And now every time I’m on the road, I’m keeping an eye out for Gary Thompson, The Great American Drifter.

I plan on completing my tour of the northern states and will begin where I left off in San Francisco. But I’ll get there by retracing the road Gary and I shared. Maybe if I’m hallucinating enough or if he wants to head back to California’s warmer weather, I’ll see him on the shoulder with his old duffle and his mussed blond-to-gray hair. I hope so. Because I’d like to take another photo of him. And I’d like him to tell me that Jagger story again to see if it has any holes I can poke through.