Time moves strangely in our chain story. Our unnamed protagonist has been riding on his wife’s zeppelin since the end of freakin’ February! He’s been in the bathtub since mid-September.

It’s a lovely zeppelin, as all Royal Contrarian Airships are. It has catacombs and courtyards, a sauna, a petting zoo, a bistro (complete with cutlery freezer), a print shop, escalators, an ice rink, a chapel, a reception hall with a light-up dance floor, and even ice cream karaoke trucks. Like most Contrarian airships, its dental infirmary is rudimentary at best (with off-brand novocaine), but it more than makes up for that with its spectacular bee tapestry (so the chefs always have fresh honey to drizzle over pancakes). And yet, perhaps it’s time to land this sucker and move the story along.

Our chain story started quite by accident. Jen wrote a weird little prompt about a dude under a pier and Kent found himself hungry for context. Et voila! And now it’s been years. It’s hard to remember a time before the chain story, and it’s hard to envision a world after it ends. It could conceivably go on forever. And yet we (read: mostly Kent) sometimes yearn for the freedom to write prompts that are not of the chain story.

But how do you end something so unwieldy and wild? It seems impossible to tie up all the loose ends into any kind of satisfying conclusion. But does it really need a satisfying ending? With no real beginning, does it really need to be tied up with a bow? And yet we’ve been immersed in this crazy world for so long it feels rude to just walk away.

Maybe we’ll aim for 1000 installments. We’re most of the way there already. If that’s the case (and I’m freaking out a little just typing these words), do we want to plan an ending to aim for? Or just meander that way and hope something good arises? It would feel bizarre to suddenly try to steer this thing, but it feels negligent to trust it to find its own way home.

A writing partner is someone who holds your hand as you spiral endlessly about the silliest things.

Turns out, when you neglect to update the Dramatis Personae for your chain story for literal years, a bunch of new characters and locations pop up. As part of our long-overdue refresh, allow us to introduce them to you.

First, two new siblings:

• Benjamin: obsessed with political performance art, and is usually so drunk he can’t spell his own name. His twin is Jessamin. Where she goes, he follows.
• Jessamin: she’s a villain, and Benjamin’s twin. She isn’t a cop, but she likes to dress as one. Our hero has been pursuing her for years, but she’s always one step ahead. Once she dipped all of his belongings in a quick-hardening plastic goo.

And now the friends and enemies:

• Brady: let his clown license expire, got a tattoo on his chest of the Brady Bunch on their Hawaiian vacation, and joined Jorgensen’s pirate crew. Lives on Brackish Bay, and is trying to dupe Kabbadan Scrim into buying a fake weather control machine. Last seen at “Arlo” and “Tessa’s” wedding reception on Brackish Bay.
• Brandita: her name was Delilah until our hero teased her about it in high school. She dumped him, changed her name, and got it tattooed on her neck. Took up accordion and joined a pirate band. Rides a motorcycle with a bathtub sidecar. Last seen unconscious on the floor of Baron von Dimpleheimer’s house on Brackish Bay.
• Mr Carousel: a talent scout for the Royal Contrarian IceCapades. Wears a pork-pie hat and calls fish “feesh”.  Is desperate to recruit our protagonist into the ‘Capades. Last seen on the ice rink of Fleur’s airship, sweet-talking John.
• Chartreuse Pamplemousse: son of the infamous Zeus Pamplemousse. Is a very famous eye doctor, with an entourage and everything. Wears iconic metallic clothes and goggles. Through a mishap in a proxy wedding, is now married to our protagonist (and Hildegard). Last seen in the Honeymoon Suite of the only hotel in Twerkistan, on the Isles of Bumpengrynd.
• Clyde: a mime dog. That is, a dog raised and trained by mimes. He doesn’t bark. Instead he has the word “WOOF” painted on his teeth, which he bares menacingly. He’s small enough to fit in your lap. Last seen in the mime laboratory on Disco Island.
• Deuce Pamplemousse: another son of the infamous Zeus Pamplemousse. He’s a disco artist, with that inescapable hit Hop on My Caboose. He hasn’t actually appeared in the story yet, but he’s been mentioned a few times.
• Baron von Dimpleheimer: a pirate, or at least pirate-adjacent. Lives on Brackish Bay with pirate bodyguards. Wrote songs for an accordion band. Has long, glossy black curls, a drooping mustache, and icy blue eyes. Last seen unconscious on the floor of his house.
• Harriet Donut: along with her sister Violet, they were a few years behind our protagonist at the Academy. But something went wrong. They are full-tilt amoral, and one of them is even a mime (gasp!). It’s unclear which sister is which, not because they look identical, but because we just can’t seem to remember. Last seen in the mime laboratory on Disco Island.
• Harry: a Junior Baronet of Contraria. Quite toadish and repulsive, but Isolde is besotted. She couldn’t wait to marry him, and was finally allowed after Fleur gave birth. Only Harry was too seasick to be aboard the aircraft carrier, so our hero stood in as his proxy during the wedding and subsequent wedding night. Harry took Isolde’s resulting pregnancy very badly. He has tried to poison our protagonist, and is plotting with Arlo against Isolde. Got into some sort of trouble at a cotillion. If he’s found guilty, his accusers are allowed to kill and eat him. Last seen stomping out of the zeppelin docking spire restaurant in the Inimical Archipelago.
• Henry: an accountant who was in love with the second Tessabot. Tried to foil her wedding to Arlo by disguising himself and his coworkers as a famous karaoke troop. He knows someone with a boat. Last seen at that wedding on Brackish Bay.
• Hildegard van der Zhößængrüüpårbergschløssenfußmeister: John’s ex-wife and our hero’s current accidental wife. It was supposed to be a proxy marriage, but things went a little pear-shaped. When she was a child she co-starred in a Bumpengryndian children’s TV show called Bouillabaisse Cowabunga with a sea captain and real live singing German clown (!). Lives in Twerkistan with her father, at least up until the wedding. Last seen in the Honeymoon Suite of the only hotel in Twerkistan, covered in butterscotch pudding.
• Viscount Jeff: deceased brother of Arlo, but sadly seemingly not his victim. He’s a ghost who haunts Brandita’s bathtub sidecar, but he’s recently put in for a transfer to a phone booth in Denver. He’s desperate for our protagonist to meet him there so they can conspire on something. He was probably poisoned by Joey the organist, but he does have a nasty scalp wound, so who knows. Maybe Arlo was involved after all.
• Kabbadan Scrim: hairy and uninked. You’d call him stocky if you were trying not to offend him. His knees don’t bend, like at all, which makes him a peculiar choice to be leader of the League of Tapdancers and head of the Paradiddle Tap Academy. He’s bitter about not being able to dance and wants to rule the world with a weather control device. Last seen at Brady’s fountain on Brackish Bay, pining for Marnie.
• Marnie Glockenspiel: a nurse on Brackish Bay. Left the Paradiddle Tap Academy to escape the attentions of Kabbadan Scrim, who is obsessed with her. Has a missing husband whom she married for revenge. Last seen in the garden on Brackish Bay, with Svetlana and Heinrich, contemplating joining their peculiar lifestyle.
• Maxine: an evil woman with unknown affiliations and a turqoise puffer coat. At one point she was in charge of Jason and made him screw the lids onto medicine bottles. Her voice is grating, as is her personality. Last seen at Oksana’s auction in the yeti caves of the Paradoxica Mountains.
• Mingus Mint: the deceased spouse of Myndilynn, replaced by an enormous puppet replica so she can continue her relationship with him. It’s pretty fucked up, yo. The puppet is controlled, at least some of the time, by Harriet and Violet Donut. Is a member of the Ventriloquist Syndicate. Our hero had a bad mission with Mingus, once upon a time. Last seen in the crystal throne room beneath the mountain on Disco Island.
• Myndilynn Mint: wife of the deceased Mingus. When he was alive, she would sit on his knee and act as his ventriloquist dummy. Now that he’s dead, she’s made a giant puppet replica of him, and still sits perched on his knee. She nods flirtatiously and tends to let Mingus do the talking. Is in league with John and Jason. Last seen in the crystal throne room beneath the mountain on Disco Island.
• Oksana: with a name like that it’s surprising that she’s not one of John’s sisters. But her family is Colloquillian, her grandfather having been the king. These days she lives with the yetis in the mountains above Enigma Fortress. Some of them are yetis she has trained to be ninjas. Some of them are ninjas disguised as yetis. And some might be yetis disguised as ninjas inside yeti costumes. It’s very confusing. Banged one out with Jim before auctioning him off to the highest bidder. Last seen in a skintight white fur jumpsuit, auctioneering.
• Rebecca: we haven’t met her yet. All we know about her is that she winters in Prague, and is in a fight with Fleur. Oh, and the last time our protagonist saw her it involved a whole lotta free-ballin’ in a fanny pack. She sounds fun!
• Tatiana: another of Tessa’s sisters. Was crew champion at the Academy, where she specialized in maritime skullduggery. Wanted to be impregnated by Jason because of what the star charts (or at least John’s interpretation of them) said, but when Jason wasn’t around, she settled for our protagonist. They conceived their children on the crystal throne on Disco Island while John and the Mints looked on. Last seen birthing the resulting twins on a silver platter at the auction in the Paradoxica Mountains.
• Dr Valentina Ferguson: used to work in the nurse’s office at the Academy. Is now the protege of Chartreuse Pamplemousse, but is very snarky about it. Is also a reality TV divorcée. Her second husband is called Buttons, and he directs her in episodes of Slimy Passions, an x-rated reality program she compels our hero to perform on through the (over)use of aphrodisiac icicle slugs. Won the moose raffle. Last seen on the set of Slimy Passions in Twerkistan.
• Violet Donut: sister of Harriet. Possibly a mime. At the very least, is in league with them.
• William Penn XII: Fleur’s half-brother. When he was an infant his mother entered him into an official blood feud with Fleur, but he’d rather forget all that and live a life of leisure. To nullify the blood feud, he needs our hero to impregnate his wife so they can turn the resulting child(ren) over to Fleur. He’d hoped to do it in vitro, which is what launched the whole “magic sperm” thing. That didn’t pan out, so he has them do it the old fashioned way. He smokes cigars and has a fancy calligraphic number 12 tattooed on his cheek (also a childhood gift from his mother). Got the nickname Humbug Billy when he tried to usurp our hero’s place at the Spring Scampering ceremony. Cut him some slack, he was having some feelings about his wife getting impregnated. Last seen at Enigma Fortress in the aftermath of a purple-ranger-mushroom-spore-fueled threeway with our hero and YoYo.
• Yesterday: wife of William Penn XII. She’s got dark skin and black hair, and is from one of the Eastern Noble Houses. Doesn’t seem particularly in love with her husband, but does appreciate the lifestyle. Got knocked up by our protagonist at her husband’s insistence, so as to nullify his blood feud. The blessed event had to be witnessed and notarized to make it official, so that was awkward. It also involved quite a lot of glitter. Last seen collecting her husband after the ill-advised threeway. Presumably she’s given birth by now, but we haven’t heard how that turned out.
• YoYo: real name Yolanda. A Yodeler under our protagonist’s command at Enigma Fortress in the Paradoxica Mountains. She seduced him on the airship on their way to the Fortress, and several times after they arrived, and got pregnant. She’s a tarot aficionado, and believes the cards when they tell her she’s in love with our protagonist, even though she doesn’t actually feel it herself yet. She does not believe in twins. Or at least she didn’t. She is now mother to a pair, so who knows. We haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it yet. During her pregnancy she lost a leg in a yeti attack. Last seen as part of the Toboggan Club aboard Fleur’s airship, holding her twin children.
• Zeus Pamplemousse: father of Chartreuse and Deuce. We haven’t met him yet, but he’s infamous. When dressed as a horny necromancer we were understandably mistaken for his son, so he’s gotta be a pretty interesting guy.

We have also encountered some exciting new organizations!

• Bandits: these intrepid folks live in the sewer tunnels under Twerkistan in the Isles of Bumpengrynd. They all call themselves “Uncle”, even the women. They wear bright green wigs, and go about in pairs that share a bikini. Our protagonist had a tryst with Uncles Gossamer, Marigold, Albatross, and Periwinkle. Perhaps they should be added as possible members of the Toboggan Club.
• Clowns: treacherous and poisonous creatures. Jupiter and Jove are both married to clowns, if you can believe it.
• International Siblinghood of Street Performers: were seen recruiting at the Academy’s senior year homecoming party.
• League of Tapdancers: led by Kabbadan Scrim. Recently signed a treaty with the mimes.
• Masked Carnivalistos: led by Domino, Lord Carnevale. They’re trying to ally with the Guild of Fire Eaters, and are just as creepy and overdramatic as the mimes. Domino trains his troopers in his haunted castle. He wants to marry Jemima to unite his organization with the fire eaters. She’d rather not.
• Pumpkin Spice Latte M&Ms: PSLM² is the world’s preeminent karaoke group.
• Royal Contrarian Mountain Police: headquartered in Virginiastan, stationed in the Paradoxica Mountains, they have sleds pulled by mountain goats.
• Ventriloquist Syndicate: the Mints are members, if not leaders. Are recently allied with the mimes. And John. And Jason.

And a few new exotic locations!

• Brackish Bay: a remote pirate outpost with a lovely garden, hedge maze, wedding temple, and reception hall.
• Colloquilia: a beautiful country with many figures of speech. An enemy nation. The people are deeply suspicious by nature, and very superstitious about punctuality. Colloquillian is not known by anyone outside of the country (except that our protagonist knows a bit). Known to host grand hallucination auction bacchanals.
• Disco Island: a blighted hellscape full of mimes, located at one end of the Inimical Archipelago. A ring of ragged rocks encircles a shark-infested lagoon with a steep mountain rising from a black sand beach in the middle. There is a crystal throne in the subterranean audience chamber, and a laboratory inside the mountain peak. While there is a paternoster connecting the two, there is no zeppelin docking spire.
• Enigma Fortress: our hero’s outpost in the Paradoxica Mountains. It has a grand courtyard for Spring Scampering ceremonies and the hosting of mermaid-themed birthday parties. The lucky general is just about the only person with an indoor bathroom. He also has a fox named Rodney in his room (for luck). The light fixtures were all stolen long ago by marauding Harmonians. The official ceremonial tape is stored in an underground stationery vault. The place is surrounded by yetis, but that’s okay. In the Paradoxica Mountains, they use every part of the yeti. The last four generals died of soap poisoning.
• Isles of Bumpengrynd: a very snowy archipelago under Contrarian control. Claimed by William Penn VII because no one else wanted them. The capital is Twerkistan, which is so small it doesn’t appear on any contemporary internet maps.
• Plentylvania: a small country completely surrounded by (and always at war with) Svenborgia. Our protagonist’s Mother recently let it slip that she is a member of their royal family.

Plenty of other characters, organizations, and locations have had their entries updated, so check them out!

Every now and then when we’re writing our ridiculous chain story we need a reminder about who all these bizarre characters are and what sort of shenanigans and crimes they’ve been up to. We have enough to keep track of for our novel writing, and there’s no way we can do that and cram the entirety of the chain story into our heads as well. It’s nearly 750 entries long, FFS!

Luckily, we have a solution: the Dramatis Personae. That’s right, a nigh-exhaustive list of all the important characters, places, and organizations in our ongoing saga is just one of the services we at SkelleyCo Amalgamated Fiction Enterprises LLC are proud to offer. Unluckily for both you the reader, and us, is that we hadn’t updated the damn thing in several years. Oops. For a while we were able to remember enough to limp along. We thought we were doing pretty well, but Jen just reread the whole thing, and, um. Let’s just say we forgot a few minor things. Like an entire wedding. A wedding our protagonist was the groom in. Granted, he was impersonating someone else, and the bride was a robot duplicate of his true love, so it probably doesn’t really count. But still, as the authors who put him in that situation, we ought to at least remember it. And so, it was time to update the Dramatis Personae, for newcomers, stans, and for ourselves. Dammit, we all deserve nice things.

We’ll start with an update on our main dude himself. He’s still unnamed, but at least he doesn’t go around calling himself The Protagonist, like some movie characters we could mention but won’t.

Our Protagonist (we’re allowed to call him that because we’re his creators): Though we have yet to learn this man’s name, we do 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 using something called “goldfishing”. For someone who attended boarding school, his French is shockingly bad, though he does know several dead languages quite well. During senior year he was voted Most Likely to Become a Sasquatch King, and was actual King of the Senior Prom, having won a wilderness survival competition against his classmates. He was on the Academy’s Beatnik team, and is adept at the bongos. While enrolled at the Academy, he impaled his friend John’s foot with a harpoon. This earned him extra credit from the school, and a lifelong grudge from John. 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 always dreamed of a career in skates, but wound up in a career involving both crime and espionage. He sometimes uses the codename Ludovico, sometimes Winifred. He’s not a theatre critic anymore, and one of his brothers owns a weather control machine. 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. He can often taste what Jason is tasting, while Jason can smell what he’s smelling. He is a full-on karaoke person, his favorite tune to belt out being YMCA. 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 used to have blond hair. He has blue-gray eyes and a super hairy chest (and back, also, it seems). There is a tattoo hidden under his chest hair, given to him by Tessa. It contains, naturally, a hidden message. His toes are very ticklish, and he has quintuple elbows (it’s like being double-jointed, only moreso). His tongue is covered with a golden tattoo, to commemorate the birth of his first children. It’s a Contrarian thing, obviously. He lives by the river, if his house hasn’t been washed away in the long, long, long time since he’s been home. He is married to Fleur, daughter of the Warlord of Contraria, but they have an understanding. They are parents to twins. Additionally he acted as proxy when Fleur’s sister Isolde married the odious Harry, and on their wedding night as well. Later he impersonated Viscount Arlo of Svenborgia during his wedding to the second Tessabot (it was her idea – they were tricking the guests, not the bride), and even later Fleur gave the okay for him to act as proxy again for Hildegard’s wedding to Chartreuse Pamplemousse. Things went a little haywire during that ceremony and he wound up legally wed to both Hildegard and Chartreuse. His wife’s half-brother inadvertently started a rumor that there was a coveted miracle substance in his semen, which led to many many women throwing themselves on him and bearing him children. Fleur made him a general in the Contrarian armed forces. His first command was the mountain garrisons in the Paradoxica Region, but he’s recently been promoted to head of the entire Comedy branch of the services, which is no laughing matter. He has many resplendently spiffy uniforms, some with small brass squirrels atop the epaulets, others with fringed boots and a lamp in the shape of a dove that dangles from his hat like he’s an anglerfish. Most recently he was seen wearing his ceremonial polka dot footie pajamas. It was a wedding reception after all, and one must follow protocol.

Now, about all those babies.

The women call themselves the Toboggan Club (because everyone took a ride), and they are all currently aboard Fleur’s Contrarian Royal Airship. The children are all considered part of Fleur’s royal brood, being fathered by her husband. He’s a twin, so obviously these are all multiple births. That’s just science.

A non-exhaustive list:

• Fleur – his wife (mother of twins)
• Isolde – her sister (mother of an uncounted number of children)
• Svetlana – John’s sister (quads, and is possibly pregnant again)
• Tatiana – Tessa’s sister (twins)
• Titania – Tessa’s other sister (unknown number of children – we haven’t checked in lately)
• YoYo – a yodeler from the mountain garrisons (twins, even though she doesn’t believe in them)
• Yesterday – wife of Fleur’s half-brother (unknown number)
• Olga – another of John’s sisters (unconfirmed, but likely)
• Betsy – a spy (unconfirmed, less likely but still possible)
• Marnie – a nurse and retired tap-dancer (unconfirmed but quite likely)
• Hildegard – John’s ex-wife, our dude’s current accidental wife (unconfirmed but extremely likely)
• Dr Ferguson – evil eye doctor and reality tv divorcee (unconfirmed but likely)
• Vera – she’s on the airship, but our dude doesn’t remember her

For more info on these lovely ladies, see their individual entries in the Dramatis Personae. They’ve all been lovingly updated.

This entry is outrageously long, so we’ll save the summary of the new characters and stuff like that for next week.

A writing partner is someone who puts up with (nay, encourages!) all your batshit ideas.