The First Barbarian Pacifist
Doesn’t believe in violence, but enforces pacifism with swift, brutal acts of violence. When fighting, aims to maim/cripple so that opponents can’t continue fighting.

“You still have most of your fingers. You can’t wield a sword, but you can feed yourself… you can still hug a child. Or you can go for that knife and lose even more.”

—

The Conspiracy Wizard
Every tome and scroll they find is linked… somehow. But how… and WHY?!

“In every spell book, we see the same components, the same words of power, repeated again and again. It can’t be a coincidence. When I cast a fireball… who really benefits? There’s something going on here.”

[Want to browse more of our characters, free to a good home?]

When I had pet cats, I would frequently mimic their meows back at them, sometimes longer and louder– you know, to make fun of them– but they didn’t understand irony and so instead learned also to drag out their cries ’til we were equally obnoxious.

If I ever end up in a haunted house, I’m just going to make things worse, going “no, bOOOoooOOOooooOOOOO!” back at some dumb ghost.

Writing “spooky” on the wall with my own blood and a backward ‘s’ to clown on the unquiet dead.

(looking a ghost in its deep black eyes while throwing my own dishes on the floor) Yeah, that’s right, I can poltergeist too! WHAT.”

What my coworkers think I do
[an illustration of a robed figure shrouded in lightning, flame-limned fingertips channeling terrifying power]

What my coven thinks I do
[an… image… but… of such inky depth… it’s hard to… there’s an endless depth here, a vertiginous plummeting distance. What’s down there? What’s coming UP AT US?!?]

What my kids think I do
[A person in a plastic 2D witch’s mask hands out candy at Halloween]

Thanks for booking your travel with us. Here are 1,922 “travel points”, redeemable for magazines about people who travel more than you OR for a collection of 8 leaves of various autumnal hues.

[ ] Fill my mailbox with envy

[ ] With enough leaves I can become a mulch, carefree and quiet

“We’ve painted ivy and birds on all the rusty farm implements that came with the place,” said millennial Austin. “Sure, the old guy at the gas station keeps telling us we’re doomed every time we bike by, but you know, isn’t everyone?”

The local disfigured giant in stained overalls and identity-obscuring facewear was unavailable for comment.

Thanks for tuning into WBOG – “Voice of the Swamp”, coming at you with non-stop swamp sounds ever since the levee failed, all the people left, and there was that one government program that bought radios for frogs.

Thanks for listening, frog buddies!

WBOG Programming Schedule: Wed. Evenings

5-6   A Sinking Galumph with Moist David
7-8   Sounds Get Wet with Joanie
8-9   SPONSORED: The Mosquito Abatement Power Hour Call-In Show
9-10   A Low Hum and the Sound of Your Own Breathing
10-11   Just the Low Hum
11-12   Just the Low Hum

FRAMED … for a crime she didn’t commit!

MUMMIFIED … by a prison gang of rogue Egyptologists!

EXPLODED … into freedom by an overturned dynamite truck accident near the prison!

It’s… ESCAPE OF THE INNOCENT MUMMY

She’s wrapped in rags and looking to find the REAL killer… the TRIVIA KING of WEST RAPIDS, who’s on a winning streak and headed to the NATIONALS!

There’s nothing TRIVIAL about REVENGE in… ESCAPE OF THE INNOCENT MUMMY … in 3D!

Rated R

The way the cord on land lines used to curl, twisted up from all the pacing, dangling from the phone’s wall mount in strange loops.

The extending and pivoting of “rabbit ears” on the TV, hisses rising and falling in static, never quite resolving into clarity. The heavy “chunk” of a changed channel, the dial settling heavy into place, resistant to any further change without steady pressure.

The rubber-band tension holding an action figure together, no matter how you twist their legs. The fixed grimace of the hero, freed from a blister pack prison, a slim comic falling out behind them as they fall free. The cut-here dotted line on the cardboard backing with a three sentence backstory. Enough to fuel worlds of imagination.

The wide freedom of a parking lot at night, every adult and their car long gone, carving wide circles on bikes, pedaling under the curved humming lamps. Tires on gravel, tires on grass. Bunny hops off the curb that go nowhere.

The one kid that has pegs on the back wheel, but they leave their little brother at home when night falls, so there’s no one to stand on the pegs, hands on the kid’s shoulders, the front wheel swinging hard to pick up speed with the extra weight.

The strange country that is a girl’s room when you’ve only known boys’ rooms. A cousin, maybe, and the parents have shooed you out of the room where the wine bottles are opening. The dolls with the colored hair, smelling like fruit, smelling like candy. Tiny plastic combs. Books about girl detectives.

A girl who knows girl games and has no idea how you fit into them, so you look at dolls and learn their names and from the other room, the laughter of adults.

There’s a pool. Swimming later.

Cassette tapes came without cases, packed vertically in a plastic sleeve, bright red stickers saying Made in China. Two fingers resting on the Play button, the Record button, waiting for the DJ to shut up before pressing down hard, the chunking click of the head hitting tape as you get /most/ of your favorite song off the radio.

Later, the ballpoint wiggles, not wanting to commit ink to the tape’s label, the slick sticker repelling the name: SUMMER 88 JAMS

So many tracks where the DJ comes back before the song’s over, before you can punch the Stop button.

You tried the trick where you press Pause, then Play/Record, but coming off pause causes a spinning-up distortion, like the song’s a cartoon coyote revving up to catch a cartoon roadrunner, bowls with brightly colored breakfast cereal turning the milk colors, Saturday morning and the pajamas stay on ’til noon when the cartoons finally run out.

Tired of paying name brand exorcists to stop by your haunted house with their fancy holy symbols, arcane texts and pale eyes, knowing you’re just helping pay for another sage-scented yacht or diamond-encrusted tomb ward?

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