Surreal Orange

The Mechanic. He’s a direct nod to Scruffy from Futurama. I’m a car guy and I’ve always loved working on cars and such and so I had to have a mechanic. Plus they’ve got some cool ships- gotta have a cool mechanic. Although sadly the perpetually on break joke won’t work because there’s no money or jobs or any of that crap in Thorn. But hopefully a little of Scruffy can live on in Old Joe.

No ideas about casting here. If I could I would cast Harry Dean Stanton but I’m sure the right person will show up.

The Captain. He’s the silent type until he knows you and even then he’s not much for talk. He’s all about being a pilot. His ship is The Swift. He’s a music lover and, like Tish, very fond of exotic drink and smokey treats. They’re actually related. Or- they think anyway. Feels right and we’re gonna run with it. Like most true Captains he’s married to his ship and doesn’t much care where they go as long as its somewhere new. He’s all about the horizon.

This character I definitely want to expand but I really want to give whatever actor does his voice the chance to build the character and make him their own. Finding the right person will take a bit but I won’t actually need him to speak for a while so there’s time.

And of course we have to have a mad scientist character! In the proud tradition of Doc Brown, Doctor Strange and Doctor Who I give unto thee- Doc Terry! D.T. for short. Named after three Terry’s that had a huge impact on my life: Terry Pratchet, Terry Gilliam and Terrance McKenna. He’s a bit of a party animal. But then- aren’t all scientists?
Oh and in case you’re wondering, his brain being outside of a body is part of his recovery from being a “Loose”.
A Loose is condition related to the installation of technology that allows you to directly change your appearance in any way you want by thought alone. Someone who has changed their appearance too much can loose control of the ability resulting in a constantly shifting appearance. In extreme cases the person looses all control and even shifts in and out of reality or moves spontaneously forward or backwards in time. Once it gets that far there’s no coming back but D.T. caught it early. You see the tech merges completely with your body and the condition is the result of a feedback loop as you might guess. The only cure is to remove your brain from your body forcing it to reestablish a stable connection with reality. Once you do that you can easily get a new body but D.T. is in no rush. There’s a variety of psychedelics that only work when your brain is outside the body and he’s having fun.
He’ll be voiced by my very good friend Eric Giles who will bring his own brand of dry wit to my mystical meanderings.

And I’ll follow suit here and get the obvious out of the way. We all can guess who Tish is named after. I’ve always been a huge Addams Family fan- every iteration. So I had to have a Tish for my Floyd. Plus I’ve always though hippies and goth girls make cute couples but maybe that’s just me. But this Tish will be a little different. Mostly she’s the silent type but always there to help and occasionally a bit on the wild side. She spends her time using a magic of sorts to search the vast expanses of wild untamed Thought to find new worlds to contact and explore. It is an infinite city. Always something new to discover. Always. She’s big into pool as well and occasionally plays keyboards and flute. She’s a full on natural witch and, like Floyd, she has a past. They don’t know their ages because even though you live forever in Thorn, you can only remember about the last 100 years or so. Its hard to say because time passes very differently in Thorn. But eventually you reach a point where you loose the connection to your origin. You can’t remember who you started off as. Its just too much to remember. But there are ways to keep hold of the important memories. Tish also has the ability to help others see distant memories more clearly and during orgasm occasionally accurately predicts the future of her partner.
As I said- time works differently there. Both physically because there are no planets in Thorn. Just city. No suns. At least not in this part. All the light is artificial. No day or night. No months or years. Thorn constantly changes in tons of ways. But there are no set cycles within it to measure time by. And also mentally time works different here because people aren’t chained to the cycles of eating and sleeping. You do those things if you want to- but hunger or fatigue will never slow you down so things have a tendency to happen very fast sometimes and other times slow to a crawl. Its all about mood in Thorn.
People get lost in many ways. Tish likes helping. She also likes exotic drinks and smokey treats. Oh and she’s madly in love with Floyd.

Annnd there’s no point in beating around the bush here. He’s me. Well- I’ll be playing him at least. I’d really love to give you all a huge write-up on his background stories and such but I don’t want to give away too much. But here’s what you’ll learn right away. He’s a wizard of sorts. With a past. But he spends his days exploring music and playing pool mostly. When he’s not trying to avoid people that want use of his talents anyway. Be he’s super picky about what he’ll do and who he’ll do it for. Mostly he’s just along for the ride.

Floyd is madly in love with Tish but their relationship goes much deeper than that. They’ve been together for, well, lets say more than a few life-times. Time is very different in Thorn so its not even so much about how long they’ve been together- more that they really are soul-mates. Its hard to explain because relationships work very differently in Thorn. But all you need to know is they’re all about art, music, fine food, exotic psychedelics and shooting pool.

Floyd and Tish have a long history of helping the lost and the lonely. Call it a hobby. Call it compassion. They think of it as just being nice and its something to do. New people are always interesting and Lucy is a mystery to boot!