As promised, further updates to the cast list of our chain story. This post will just feature the highlights, but the whole cast has been spruced up. You might want to head over there and check it out so that you’re fully in the know.

Let’s start with our protagonist.

Nope, he still doesn’t have a name.

Our Protagonist: Though we have yet to learn this man’s name, we now know that it is five syllables long. As per family tradition, he was born at the North Pole. He is not English, but he is part-Indian, immune to jellyfish stings, and spent at least part of his childhood in a cult. One summer when he was a child, his mother pitted him and his twin brother Jason in daily wrestling matches. He is a graduate of the Hopscotch Academy, with a degree in Advanced Duplicity. While at the Academy he learned how to defend himself against ninjas, how to control the minds of others through an odd vocal technique he calls “hypnotoading,” and also how to break through most hypnotic trances. He learned everything he knows about stealth during his time as a stowaway on a tramp steamer in the South China Sea. He has excellent hearing, and is allergic to seagull feathers. Our hero, who wound up in a career involving both crime and espionage, refers to his intuition as “The Ladies.” He sometimes uses the codename Ludovico, sometimes Winifred. He has the layout of at least one Hall of Mirrors memorized, and can imitate any kind of bird or beast. Unlike his twin, he can sleep anywhere. Thanks to his many prophetic dreams, he knows that his death will not come from being sacrificed by, or to, clowns, nor will it involve clowns at all. He has blue-gray eyes and a super hairy chest. There is a tattoo hidden under his chest hair, given to him by Tessa. It contains, naturally, a hidden message. He lives by the river, if his house hasn’t been washed away in the long time since he’s been home. He is suddenly the father of half-a-dozen children, with more on the way. His wife appointed him proxy husband for her sister’s marriage ceremony and wedding night. Shortly after that she made him a general in the Contrarian armed forces. He is in command of the mountain garrisons in the Paradoxica Region, and has a resplendently spiffy new red uniform with small brass squirrels atop his epaulets, and a square black cap with a silver badge that says “General.” His tongue is covered with a golden tattoo, to commemorate the birth of his first children. It’s a Contrarian thing, obviously.

This dude has a large family, getting larger all the time. You can read about his parents, as well as siblings Thor, Freya, Jemma, and Jemima, Aung Züg, and Uncle Jinx over here. We haven’t learned much new about them lately.

But we do have major updates about some people, and some new additions:

• Jason: Our protagonist’s identical twin brother, and America’s #1 wedding rapper. He has a lisp, which is a good way to tell the brothers apart. Was thumb-wrestling champion at the Academy for four years running. Even though he was a terrible student, he seems somewhat adept at codes. He has new wrestling moves involving his elbows, and an unusual sprinting technique that involves “throwing his feet in the air.” Before turning to wedding rap, he was known as El Matador during his underground Cancun hip hop phase. He is in love with Kelly, who does not seem to return his affections proportionately. His clown-mime fertility ritual with Tessa was interrupted by our protagonist not being dead. Perhaps is aligned with Tallulah, Taylor, Tara, and Tanya. May have been inducted into the Pinkie Swears, but does not yet have a tattooed pinkie. Last seen in the temple hut on Jove and Jupiter’s island, having sex with Carla.
• Jim: Our protagonist’s younger brother, and the only twinless sibling in the family. He is a triplet, along with Jemima and Jemma, and they are likely the three of ZsaZsa’s children fathered by the Contrarian Warlord. He has a southern drawl, small feet, and lots of theories about twins. He’s a brunette with a well-defined chin, and very sexy. A hit with all the ladies. Like most of the family he has a grudge against Mother. He claims to never use sex as a distraction while using sex as a distraction. Once worked in a bank with Kelly, the love of Jason’s life, and slept with her. His wife Esmerelda is a Svenborgian Underduchess, so he has Svenborgian diplomatic papers. Even though he’s suspected of murdering his roommates in 9th and 11th grades, and in culinary school, he’s surprisingly good with babies. He’s currently dressing in a blue panda costume to help protect the protagonist’s children.
• Fleur: Our hero’s dark-haired, blue-eyed wife. It was an arranged marriage, designed to tighten bonds between the US and Contraria, and neither of them are particularly happy with the match. That didn’t stop Fleur from insisting that her husband take part in many elaborate fertility rituals, and she has recently delivered twins. Throughout her pregnancy she kept Viscount Arlo as a lover, but had no qualms about blowing up his horrible baby-shaped submarine when he proved himself duplicitous by attacking her personal aircraft carrier. As the firstborn child of the warlord, she’s in line for the throne. She’s one minute older than her half-brother William, and he’s making kind of a big deal about it. She has narrow shoulder blades, and gets really hot watching our protagonist eat grapes. She trained all of the jellyfish in the Contrarian National Aquarium, and is an accomplished zeppelin pilot. Her tongue is covered with golden tattoos, just like our hero’s, to commemorate the birth of her first children.
• Isolde: Fleur’s half-sister (they share a mother), our hero’s sister-in-law. He has long had a crush on her and finally had a chance to bed her when Fleur appointed him proxy to Isolde’s toad-like fiance Harry. He took part in a proxy wedding, and then a proxy wedding night. With the guidance of a Contrarian fertility rite expert, he proxy-impregnated her on their proxy wedding night. Isolde is over the moon about carrying “Harry’s” child, and wears the positive pregnancy test as a pendant. Harry is quite jealous about the whole matter, even though it’s all his fault for getting seasick and missing the wedding. Last seen leaving the restaurant atop the zeppelin docking spire in the Inimical Archipelago with Harry.
• Harry: Isolde’s non-proxy husband. He’s a horrible, toad-like man with a drooping mustache, but Isolde adores him. He is a Junior-Baronet, and rather poor as royalty goes. He is obscenely fond of cheese. Harry was nearly married to someone else in the past, but vomited during the ceremony, which by Contrarian law means that the marriage is annulled and, due to double jeopardy, can never be undertaken again. His seasickness caused him to miss his marriage to Isolde over fear of a repeat performance, so our protagonist stood in as his proxy during the ceremony and wedding night. He will legally be the father of Isolde’s child(ren), but is holding a grudge nonetheless, and is perhaps trying to poison his perceived rival. Last seen leaving the restaurant atop the zeppelin docking spire in the Inimical Archipelago with Isolde.
• Jove: Our protagonist’s brother. Twin to Jupiter, and together with him rules the rocky unnamed island where the TechnoPagans hang out. Jove is “just over” seven-and-a-half feet tall. He dresses as a ringmaster, and toasts marshmallows with his fiery breath. His wife’s name is Carla. She’s a clown, and she carries him around on her back like a horse. His favorite band is The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. According to our protagonist, he and Jupiter used to castrate people “all the time.” Below the shack where they live is a deep shaft leading to the sewer, which has lovely swan pedal-boats for your enjoyment. Last seen in the TechnoPagan temple/hut, kissing an upside down Tessa while Carla had aphrodisiac-fueled sex with Jason.
• Jupiter: Jove’s twin, our protagonist’s brother. Also dresses as a ringmaster and rides around on the back of his own clown wife, although we don’t know her name. His first marriage fell apart when his wife left him at the reception for Uncle Jinx. Last seen in the island shack with his wife.
• Carla: a clown, married to Jove. Sometimes goes by the name April Fools. Last seen having sex with Jason in the temple hut on her husband’s island.
• Troy and Trent: another set of twins in the protagonist’s family. We have yet to meet them. Our protagonist thinks they don’t look much like him because he has a different father.
• William Penn XI: Contrarian Warlord and Supreme Calligrapher. Father of Fleur, step-father of Isolde. Has eleven wives. His sixth wife, Agnes Rose, is Fleur’s mother. His fifth wife, Rose Agnes, is Agnes Rose’s sister, and mother of William XII. She and her bodyguard/lover have formed the Pentagonal Party to try to oust Fleur as heir. William XI is the father of at least three of our protagonist’s siblings, but seemingly not of the protagonist himself.
• Aunt Xylona: another of ZsaZsa’s sisters. She’s the Mizzenpriestess of the TechnoPagans, flies a biplane, and insists on nudity from her passengers. She’s involved in the proposed Fire Eater-TechnoPagan Alliance. She has an as-yet unnamed husband. Last seen on the now-sunken aircraft carrier, but seems to have escaped in her plane with John.
• The Twins: Our protagonist’s firstborn children. Their mother is Fleur. The girl was born first, the boy shortly after. Per Contrarian tradition, they will remain unnamed until Fleur is halfway through her next pregnancy. They are a Duchess and a Duke, but their full titles involve birdsong and are over three minutes long when sung by the vice-chancellor of the exchequer.
• The Quads: Our protagonists quadruplet sons. Their mother is Svetlana. They were born several days after the twins, despite being conceived earlier. They are half-contortionist, which explains how so many of them fit inside their mother’s womb for so long. Svetlana left them with our protagonist, and Fleur was delighted to add them to her royal brood. They are outside the line of succession, and will remain unnamed until after the twins are named, some time in the future.

We’ll finish up with an update on our hero’s many allies and enemies. Some people qualify as both simultaneously! Again, these are just the new characters, and those with major updates.

• Svetlana: one of John’s sisters. Svetlana is also a contortionist. She and her sister Lyudmila once had a sideshow act. Their costumes featured decorative bullet holes. Now hate each other due to a kerfuffle over the circus’s Employee of the Month award. She has long pale blond hair, sharp cheekbones, round shoulder blades, narrow hips, a scratchy voice, and a predilection for blowguns. She is the subject of an international manhunt which she eluded for years by using her contortionist skills and a harness to secret herself under the clothing of Heinrich Hunter, masquerading as his rotund belly. It’s unclear what Heinrich gets out of the arrangement. Having misunderstood the assignment to collect a sample of our hero’s semen, this former lover of his recently gave birth to his quadruplets. Last seen under Heinrich’s shirt again after giving birth in a tide pool in the Inimical Archipelago.
• Tesla: one of Tessa’s sisters, with whom she used to pair up against the rest of the brood. She has fair skin and red hair, and spent some time married and living in France but that ended poorly. She vanished when her marriage fell apart, but resurfaced (as it were) aboard the submarine at the Academy’s secret submarine dock. She has small hands, and is less-than-adept at oil painting. Once owned a submarine, but lost it to Captain Jorgensen in a card game. Is involved in the long-rumored Pirate-Mime Brotherhood. After seducing our hero and traversing an underground sewage pipe with him in a swan boat, she is revealed to be the Teslabot, builder of the Tessabot. Unless she’s just pretending, to fool Tessa? Last seen on Jove and Jupiter’s island, at the site of the fire eater/mime massacre.
• Titania: yet another another of Tessa’s sisters. Titania turned her back on her heritage and joined the circus. She became known as the Crystal Clown, the most deadly clown in the world. She wears poison lipstick, and has a price on her head. Her headquarters are on Gratin Ave, and she is in league with Tesla and Tallulah. Apparently she can be quite nice when she wants to be, because our hero had no qualms about getting it on with her on the beach, even though he knew she was only after a sample of his remarkable semen. Last seen riding away atop her steed Nigel, who is two people in a horse costume.
• Olga: youngest sister of John, Svetlana, and Lyudmila. She is not the loveliest of the sisters, but looks great in (and out of) a bikini. She’s as double-jointed as a trained mime, and is a mime sympathizer, but has yet to complete her initiation rites. On the beach, in front of John, Svetlana, Heinrich, and a bunch of mime volleyball players, she obtained a sample of our hero’s famed exotic compound, seemingly in a test tube, unless that was a decoy. Last seen darting down the beach with the sample, possibly heading to Xylona’s biplane, possibly heading to mime territory.
• William Sausage: a reedy-voiced man with a supermodel daughter named Vienna. He was on the submarine with Jason, Tesla, and Jorgensen, and is involved in the Pirate-Mime Brotherhood. Last seen on the sub.
• Aloysius: an Inimical/Contrarian military tailor. Wears monk-like robes and carries around his own miniature metal forge. Makes heavy use of bone needles.
• Unnamed French Circus Spy: wears a sequined bodysuit, claims to have been sent by a Russian female contortionist to collect a sample of the prized semen, but might be lying. His accent suggests he’s from a backwater in the Lorraine region.

While reviewing our chain story, Tune In Next Time, for last week’s post about codes, we realized it’s been more than a year since we updated the cast list. Since we’re closing in on 400 entries, we probably can’t expect new readers to get caught up immediately. To make it easier on both the newcomers and anyone who just doesn’t have the memory to spare for all this absurdity, here is an update to our Dramatis Personae.

We’ll start with the Academy, since that’s where all of last week’s codes originated.

• The Hopscotch Academy  — Seemingly located somewhere in Europe, this elite, private academic institution educates young people in the arts of spycraft and espionage. It boasts a secret submarine dock, and a root cellar with a subbasement. Pharmacological Subterfuge is an elective. While magic is taught, only ultra-dweebs take those classes. Extracurriculars include the Ninja Defense League, choir, and rugby. The choir is not very good, but the members do get to wear astroturf vests, so there’s that. The chess team is called the Anacondas. There has never been a prom. The Academy’s students wear scarlet uniforms; skirts for the girls, kilts for the boys, unless they are wearing wetsuits. There are several rival schools, and their competitions can be deadly. Many obscure kinds of codes are taught, and training exercises can be both x-rated and grueling. Students are often forced to construct weapons under the guise of education, and rigorous physical exams can run long into the night. Alumni include our protagonist and his numerous siblings, Tessa and her sisters, John, Joan, and Setsuko.

Many secretive and warring factions have been encountered through the years, including ninjas, mimes, pirates, and fire eaters. Many backchannel alliances have been sprouting up:

• The Pirate-Ninja Alliance is the longest-standing, though their truce is tenuous
• the long-rumored Pirate-Mime Brotherhood seem to actually exist, with members wearing chalky face paint and stripy nautical outfits. William Sausage, Captain Jorgensen, and Tesla seem to be members
• there are murmurs of a Mime-Fire Eater Treaty, which also seems to involve Captain Jorgensen
• negotiations for the proposed Fire Eater-TechnoPagan Alliance ended badly, with numerous deaths. Xylona is a leader among the TechnoPagans
• TechoPagans: a group of people living in huts constructed of solar panels on an island ruled by Jupiter and Jove. Their village is near the old stone hut/temple where the mudman lives. Their leader/Mizzenpriestess is Xylona, our protagonist’s aunt
• The Pentagonal Party: a group of rebel Contrarians who do not support Fleur as the heir to the Warlordship. They instead support her half-brother William Penn XII. They owned at least one battle dirigible, but it was downed by flying fish. It is unlikely that William was onboard

Wait. Contrarians? Like from a place called Contraria? In a word, yes. Contraria is a country, possibly in Europe, ruled by a Warlord. His daughter Fleur is our protagonist’s wife.

• Contraria: the capital is Funkistan, but their sanitation is woeful, so the royal hospital is in Pittsburghistan. There is also a city called Philadelphiastan. In Contraria, hockey players still wear garter belts, aerial combat is taught at finishing school, and housekeeping by paid staff is banned. The warlords of Contraria are heavily into calligraphy. And rituals. So many rituals. Most marriage and fertility rites involve birds and bird skeletons. They also have a prophesy for every occasion. Contrarian succession is a complicated matter. The warlord takes many wives at once (one for each previous warlord who shared his name, plus one for himself). Pregnancies are timed to run concurrently, and whichever baby is born first is the heir. All of the children together are the Royal Brood. The unofficial motto of the Contrarian Armed Forces is “Hungry, not Smart.”
• The Inimical Archipelago: a secret chain of islands under Contrarian rule. The best restaurant in the islands is located at the top of the zeppelin docking spire, and serves such Inimical delights as caramel escargots, grapes with frosting, and the Inimical Gin and Tonic, which is opaque, green, fizzy, and possibly poisoned. But at least the grapes are already partially filled with wine when they’re picked! Across the lagoon from the zeppelin dock is a lovely tidal pool, perfect for beach volleyball and water births. The prison is located at one end of the archipelago, and has its own zeppelin dock, but presumably there is no revolving restaurant there. The other end of the archipelago is Disco Island, which is dangerously close to White Faces mime cartel territory.

Next week we’ll dive into the details of our unnamed protagonist and his newly introduced friends, enemies, and family members.