This is a complicated story to tell. You see, Peridan and Per-Nog don’t remember who came first. They both remember the before times, when they were one. They both remember being called Peridan, but Per-Nog insists it’s just a nickname for her. Whenever they tell this story, they make sure to use pronouns, or call themselves “the girl”. It sounds confusing now, but I hope it will make sense at the end.

Once upon a time, a girl was born to Daran and Alissa Twinklefoot, a minor noble family of Magnimar. The Twinklefoot family was responsible for a small sub-sector of import and export management, and in a city as big as Magnimar, on the coast of the sea, import and export was very important. However, Daran was…he wasn’t bad at his job. He didn’t shirk responsibility, but he started to take on less responsibility. Eventually, when the girl was 10 years old, the council that oversaw Daran’s position decided that, if he wasn’t going to devote enough time to the position, they would find someone else, and petitioned to have his noble title revoked.

With the title went their home, status, and revenue stream. Daran was able to scrape and beg his way into a mid-level position instead of being cast down all the way to the bottom. The girl didn’t know what had really happened. They had moved, all her friends were gone, and even when she saw them on the street once, they didn’t talk to her. Her life has been changed forever, without any consultation. And it would change again.

Her mother, Alissa, had become accustomed to the noble lifestyle. The social gatherings, the prestige, the money…she wanted it all back. She enrolled the girl in every etiquette course, dance lessons, anything to help build her child into someone that could marry back into a noble family. If she couldn’t be a noble woman, she could be a noble mother.

On the other hand, her father, Daran, was much happier with his new position. In fact, he wanted his daughter to also be happy there, and to be ready in case they fell further. So he started to train her in combat, strength, cardio, anything to help build his child into someone that could take care of herself without needing a noble family. If he couldn’t be there to save her, he could make sure she could save herself.

But she was just one girl. Her parents didn’t give her chances to rest, pulling her in two different directions at once. Thinking back on it, Peridan and Per-Nog agree that they should have picked one or the other, but it was their parents. The girl didn’t want to disappoint either one. So she kept studying, and kept training. Her nights were short, her sleep precious and insufficient. As the years progressed, she started to slip. Her grades were falling, she wasn’t progressing with her strength training…in trying to make both her parents happy, she was letting them both down.

One night, at age 16, she laid in bed, tossing and turning. It wasn’t even that momentous of a night; there was no reason for this to be the night something amazing happened. But something amazing did happen. Deep in the Twinklefoot family line, there was magical talent. Her mind being torn in two directions was pushing her to find things within her that she didn’t even know were there. In the middle of the night, there was a blinding flash and intense fanfare of music. And then…nothing. Her parents came running in, startled awake by the lights and sounds. But there was the girl, lying there as if nothing had happened. They kissed her forehead and went back to bed, chalking it up to rascally children in the street.

And in the morning, Per-Nog woke up, and Peridan was there in her mind. Their first conversation was halting, jumbled, confusing. Per-Nog remembered all of their etiquette training, but for whatever reason, didn’t want to act on it. She just wanted to lift weights and practice fighting with her father’s heirloom axe. Why go to all those boring, stuffy classes when she could spend more time training? With Peridan’s voice in her head insisting that they had to go to class, she spent a solid week with Daran, getting stronger and stronger.

After a week of training, Peridan had enough. She forced herself to the forefront, with another flash of light and explosion of music. Now she was out in the real world, and Per-Nog was in the back seat. Peridan remembered all of their strength training, but for whatever reason, didn’t want to continue it. She just wanted to lift wine glasses and practice dancing in her mother’s old dress. Why run around and get sweaty when she could spend more time being comfortable? With Per-Nog’s voice in her head insisting that they never skip leg day, she spent four days with Alissa, getting fancier and fancier.

Eventually, Per-Nog insisted they find a compromise. They spent a few days feigning illness, just talking to each other in their mind. About who they were, who they wanted to be. Why Per-Nog was called that (she was inspired by the stories of the great female halfling barbarian Ur-Nog). How it was even possible…they had so many questions. On the third day, they went off into a park and practiced switching places. By the time the sun had set, not only could they change places when they both agreed, but they had cut the sound and lights down. It was still audible and bright, but the kind of sound that could be masked by ducking into a closet, or their room.

It was another few months before they talked to their parents about what had happened. Up until then, Daran and Alissa both thought their child has suddenly become more invested in their own training. To both of them, life was wonderful. When Peridan and Per-Nog showed them what they could do, at first, they were scared. Their little girl…no, she was two little girls now. But they had enough love for both of them. And now, they could really focus on training. Both kinds.

When I’m trying to discover how a character thinks, I try to get into their head. A good way to do that is to have a little interview with them, in character. Ask some basic questions, answer them in character. I’ve done something similar with one of my stories, where I had each character explain why they wanted to date the main character (trust me, it made sense for the story).

For an example, I’m going to answer some questions as Akemi, a fox girl in one of the campaigns I’m in.

What is your name?
I’m Akemi! It’s nice to meet you.

What are you?
That’s a little rude to ask. I’m a kitsune; you can tell because of my adorable foxy ears and tail!

What are your skills?
Well, for one thing, I’m smoking hot. That’s a good starting place. Also, I can make people do what I want…but I try not to. It’s not fair.

(At some points, you can pretend this is a real interview, and ask follow-up questions, if it makes sense. Really figure out what’s going on.)
What do you mean, not fair?
Well, I want to like people, and I want them to like me. I don’t want to make them like me, but sometimes I have to.

What are your weaknesses?
I’m not very good at fighting. I have weak arms, and I’m small, even for kitsune.

Who is your best friend?
Thaco. He…he’s perfect. He makes my heart sing. He’s the reason I wake in the morning, and the reason I go to bed at night.

Is there anyone else who is your friend?
I have lots of friends. There’s Leon, Griff, Tai, Nen…N-Nendra.

Is this Nendra not your friend anymore?
I…I don’t know. I hope so! But…can we go to the next question, please?

What are your goals in life?
I want to be a part of the stories I’ve been hearing. I want to be with the people who are in the stories. I want to live like I’m part of an epic fantasy.

What is preventing you?
Inexperience, mostly. I keep trying and trying, so I’ll get there one day. But for now, I’m happy where I am.

You can keep going like this, asking the kind of questions you want to answer. Make sure you speak in character, and you might even learn things you didn’t know.

Let me tell you a story about Illyana, a woman who has run out of time, a wizard in a world of mutants, the most responsible person ever.

Illyana was born to Mikael and Anya Ievgenovich on January 25, 1992. They lived in the wilderness about 100 miles outside of Omsk, Russia. It was a simple life, but they wanted for nothing. Mikael worked hard as a logger, and always provided for his family. Or at least, until the accident.

After a tree fell on Mikael’s leg, it became infected. Illyana was twelve at the time, and wasn’t going to let her family wither and die. She started working in the local small town, two or three jobs, sending all the money home. She also started attending school, and quickly realized how smart she was. Her father didn’t get worse, but he didn’t get better either. So after high school, she attended college, then medical school, rushing through in record time. Sure, her grades weren’t stellar. But by 25, she was trained as a doctor, with some knowledge of surgery. And back she went, setting up her parents at a rehabilitation center and staying in their simple cabin, becoming the area’s only doctor.

But she had a problem. All that learning, all that knowledge…she needed more. She taught herself English, German, and French. Every time she went into town for supplies, she stopped at the local bookstore, hoping for a new text. A few years into this ritual, a book finally caught her eye. It was large, looked very old, and…seemed to speak to her. When she brought it to the shopkeeper, he looked surprised, like he had never seen it before. Had Illyana found this book, or had it found her? She couldn’t have known how prophetic this thought would be.

Two years later, she had made basically no progress. It turned out that the book was filled with archaic magic spells, and the first one she tried, her hand sparked, just for a moment. That was all she needed to keep going, but after this long without success, she was starting to lose hope. One day, while she was making a house call, the book started…moving. By itself. She ran home to look at the book, and it was open to a spell:

Hold soil from your homeland in your left hand, exposed blood in your right, look at your reflection, and speak the words “Break the chains of mortal limits.”

And so she did. Against all her better judgment, against every neuron that told her to double-check and peer-review and be careful, she performed the actions. And then the mirror shattered, her blood exploded out of her hand, and she passed out.

When she woke up, she was covered with shattered glass, she had successfully blasted a hole in the wall of her cabin, and there were no sounds of nature. When she went outside, all the birds were on the ground unconscious, a wolf was out cold and not breathing, and a scared deer ran off at 120 mph. What the hell is going on, she thought. That’s when she heard an explosion from the town 20 miles away, and a man on fire flew over her head. Knowing that the greater problem was the town, she hopped in her truck and took off. Halfway to town, the book flew through her window and dropped into the passenger seat.

In the town, everything was awful. The one firetruck was on its side, the driver’s door blown off. Most of the town was on fire. Illyana made a snap decision and looked for people alive. She found a small girl burned and covered in shrapnel. When she tried to administer an emergency transfusion, Illyana’s blood erupted from the girl’s arm. and the wound closed on its own. At this point, she had had enough. She pulled out the book and cursed its very existence. The book opened, a single sentence on the page:

Welcome to the Age of Awakening.

And then the book sucked her into a black hole.

She dropped out of the void about seven feet up in a dark room, lit by dim green light. When she landed, she dislocated her hip, so she couldn’t quite see the man that was speaking to her in English. She could, however, tell that he had a terrible personality. He never stopped talking, and he said the stupidest things. Worthless noise without end. She mentally wished something terrible upon him, and when she rose to her feet eventually, she saw that he was cut open, his liver hanging out. So she got her wish, so that’s nice.

On another table was the girl she tried to save, Alexandra. She was covered in scars, and barely responsive. How did she get here? Did the book bring her too? Where did she get the scars? Why won’t this asshole shut up? She didn’t have time to think. She wrapped up his wound, which was…also closing up? A lot slower than the small girl’s wound earlier, though. She found crutches and followed the loud obnoxious man through…wherever they were. He said it was Canada, but that couldn’t be right.

This guy, Woody, might be a crude jerk, but he knew what he was doing. Probably former military. With the little girl in tow (who was taller than before…odd…), they made their way to the final door, which was locked. The book provided once again, allowing her to pass through the door, then…blow up the door. Wasn’t the stealthiest option, but it worked. Over the next month, they walked through Canada and across the border into Washington, where Woody had contacts with people who could give them new identities. Now a month removed from her initial ordeal, Illyana was ready to let it all be over.

They arrived at the safe house after a four hour drive in a…requisitioned vehicle. Inside the safe house, Illyana was greeted by a penguin (huh?), an alien (what?), two identical twins (oh, that’s normal), and a girl that could stop time (and we’re back to “what?” again). All these new, strange people, in a strange house, with strange customs…she froze, using an invisibility spell to try and hide. But everyone in the house could sense her, even the penguin. There was no hiding. This was where she needed to be.

At dinner, Woody started talking more nonsense, which was par for the course. Amira, the timestopper, talked to her about mutants. She described a red flash, very similar to what Illyana saw when she cast the spell. Maybe she was a mutant too… As Woody tried to get the alien to give him her eggs, Illyana started to open up. About becoming a mutant one month ago, about when she infected the girl that was sitting at the dinner table with them, dropping through a portal to Canada, walking across-

Wait, said one of the twins. A month ago?

Yes, a month ago, she said. On November 13, 2022.

…It’s 2025.

What?

…January 25, 2025.

And then Illyana started swearing at her book in at least two languages. Two years? TWO YEARS! How dare it steal that time from her? What right did it have?

The book opened again:

You’ve broken the shackles of humanity, unlocked the world.
The deed is done. You were to see your deeds.

…It all made sense now. The spell she cast last month…no, two years ago. Illyana had done this. The mutants…Alexandra’s condition…Woody’s surgery…the state of the world right now…it was all her fault.

In the middle of this crushing revelation, she finally remembered…January 25…her birthday. Happy birthday, Illyana. This is your gift to the world.

And then Amira said she sensed radio waves coming from Alexandra.

This was the moment. This is where the story began. Everything in her life had been leading to this moment. Working hard to provide for her family. Learning how to be a doctor. Taking responsibility for the people in her part of the wilderness. Prioritizing the town over the burning man. Every major event…

The creation of mutants was the first thing that was 100%, without question, her fault. Everything else she had taken responsibility for, she had chosen to. This…this was her mission. She weighed the fate of her small part of Russian woods over all the mutants in the world, and it wasn’t even a contest. She had made this mess, and she was the only one that could fix it.

So obviously, she used an EMP spell to disable whatever was broadcasting, set the 11-year-old girl on the kitchen table, cut open her stomach, and pulled out the device. Her first step in making things right. She didn’t know what the second step would be, but she had taken the first.

One of my Pathfinder characters just got a girlfriend.

No, please, hold your applause. Please, please…OK, keep going.

Anyways, it was a little sped up, but we went through a good arc. For the purposes of brevity, I will be speaking about this relationship in the first person. Remember that “I”, “me”, etc. refer to Peridan for the following story. I’ll explain at the end.

When I arrived in Sandpoint (the main town), Geth was one of the first characters I talked to. She was kind, knowledgeable, and accepting of my quirky nature (I have a split personality, which has been so much fun to roleplay). We went on missions together, she introduced me to Hannah (who has been helping me accomplish some of my goals), and sparred with me (the other part of my goals). We were becoming good friends.

But then something happened. You see, Geth was a worshiper of an evil deity (there’s lots of deities in Pathfinder), and she was starting to lose faith, like any good and caring person would. In her past, she was beholden to her faith, but now, surrounded by caring people, the tenants of her faith were at odds with her current life. I spent time with her, comforting her and helping her come to terms with these changes in her life. At the end of it, she kissed me, and I admitted that I liked her. And now we’re dating. It’s a love story for the ages.

Oh, also Peridan is female too.

How did that late addition to the story change your opinion of it? Did it become more compelling? Less? Or, like me, did it not change anything at all?

I want to believe in a world where love stories can exist purely on the merits of their love and connection. Sure, gender, race, personality, etc. are part of the characters, but love should be the main factor.

Six years ago, Marvel Comics had the first gay marriage in major comics. It was huge, on the levels of Spiderman’s or Superman’s wedding. And, if I’m being honest, the characters involved were just some yahoos from the X-Men. It was a good story, but the gay-ness of it felt more important than the love in it.

Fast-forward to last year. Ice-Man, a major character in the X-Men, admits that he’s gay. From then on, he has side plots about how he’s bad at hitting on guys. It’s not a story about a gay guy who’s awkward. It’s a story about a person who’s awkward, who happens to be a gay guy. That’s my jam. That’s the kind of story I want to read. When he has to abandon his team in the middle of a fight that he was told is for his very survival, so that he can save the life of the man who he has grown to love, it didn’t matter that they were both guys. They had built a story of love.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Peridan has to argue with herself about whether she’s the prince or princess in her own fairy tale.

Well, here’s another late post. I was up too late last night playing Pathfinder and exploring my characters. Here’s where they’re all at right now:

• Alex Lewis started as a pleasant geokineticist (moves rocks with his mind), and now he is a surrogate father figure to at least one other character, isn’t sure if he’s going to go on dangerous adventures, and has started to master water in addition to rock, so that he can heal the people he can’t always save.
• Peridan Twinklefoot and Per-Nog, two sides of the same person, started as eager adventurers with an axe to grind (literally), and now they are partially responsible for two people’s religious redemption, one of whom she might be in a relationship with, and she’s traded in the axe for grappling and suplexes. Oh, also she’s less than three feet tall.
• Akemi is just getting started, but she’s already gone from relying on her natural charm to realizing that sometimes, you have to just talk to people and be yourself.
• Angela was supposed to be a throwaway character, created to create peril for other characters, but through the course of a few hours, she changed from a field medic who had never experienced war before to the kind of woman who is smart enough to ask her allies to cut off her arm because it’s not salvageable. Also, her arm nearly got shot off.
• Ashley is the NPC (non-player character) who periodically gives quests to save animals around the town. She’s undergoing some changes, but I’m not going to talk about them right now. There’s a longterm plan, and I don’t want to give the plan away just yet.

So how did all these characters get to where they’re at right now? Maybe I’ll give full rundowns of each character later. For now, the basic explanation: I like longterm storytelling. I like seeing characters earn major changes by spending time developing. Peridan didn’t meet Geth and immediately start a relationship with her. It took weeks of being friends with her, hanging out, sparring, and finally working with her (across multiple days) to convince her to stop worshiping an evil deity. And only after all of that, after being there for her for weeks of real time (which could be months in the game), only then was I rewarded with…one kiss. But it was well earned. I’ll be continuing to put in more work to get the second one.

Part of being a NEET is not having a job. That may fly in some circles, but around here, it’s recommended to be employed. And I’m in luck; there’s jobs everywhere! The problem is finding them. That’s where the Job Center comes in.

The State of Minnesota doesn’t want its citizens to be unemployed. In addition to looking bad on an end-of-year spreadsheet, unemployed people don’t reinvest in their community. So there are dozens of these job centers sprinkled around Minnesota, providing resources, access to training, and recommendations for those of us who need a bit of help.

Luckily, one of these job centers is in my hometown, so one morning, I dressed in something other than a printed T-shirt and sweatpants, printed out my resume, and tentatively entered this mecca of opportunity. There, I found…well, not what I expected.

I expected a job fair, a room plastered with job postings, so I could find something acceptable and get employed quickly. Naturally, the state doesn’t have that kind of time or money to run dozens of job fairs 365 days a year. What they did have is many more resources than I was expecting.

As an introduction, I was given information about continuing education, manufacturing training, and one-on-one consultations. Upon request, I was given a few typing test websites so I could get a sense of my typing speed, which comes up sometimes on applications (it’s around 70 WPM). Then I made a breakthrough.

That is, I started talking to another staff member, and she gave me the breakthrough. There are so many websites where Minnesota jobs are posted. The main one is minnesotaworks.net, where you can find anything from McDonalds grunt labor to VP of Oracle. There’s also websites for non-profits, schools, or county jobs.

If you’re on the lookout for a job, these websites are a great resource. If you want more help, these job centers are even better. Oh, did I mention that all of this help was free? You just have to get to one, and there’s multiple in the Twin Cities. If you don’t live in Minnesota, there are job centers in every state.

Don’t let the photo fool you. Vietnam was colonized by the French, and so the Vietnamese snagged one of the things France is good at: bread. The end result is some tasty combinations of cultures coming together.

I heard about Trung Nam through a friend of my parents. The word was, they had the best croissants you’d ever tasted. But there’s a catch: they only take cash, they’re only open until 1 pm, and if you show up after 10 am, all the good, fresh ones will be gone. So at 9 in the morning, I went on an excursion for breakfast.

Trung Nam is on University Ave in an area dense with cultural food. Across the street is a ramen restaurant, a place called iPho (which is super clever), and a massive Chinese supermarket. Trung Nam itself is very unassuming. The building, if I had to guess, used to be a Taco John’s, but it was definitely some kind of fast food restaurant in another life.

Inside, it smells amazing, the first good sign of a good bakery. We had to look this up: not only does the smell of fresh bread make you act kinder, but any pleasant smell will have a similar effect. So if you want to have a better day, clean up your house! (I’m really disappointed in myself for discovering that, because now I have less excuses to not clean up.)

The menu is fairly limited, which is also usually a sign of quality. It allows a restaurant to focus on what it’s good at, like how Five Guys only makes burgers and fries. Anyways, we came home with five croissants of four flavors. The croissants are $2.50 each, so I expected good things.

These croissants are really, really good. Flakey, soft, perfect for sandwiches or just eating straight. Between three people, we ate all five in less than 10 minutes. The flavored options (apple, raspberry, chocolate) were all great, but the chocolate was a bit underwhelming compared to the other two. I’m chalking it up to there not actually being much chocolate in the pastry.

Trung Nam also offers sandwiches and pork buns, which are next on our list. The bakery is on University, west of Dale St.

There’s a lot of American history that we learn in school, about how the country was formed and what has happened since then. There’s also a lot of cultural history running around, and it’s just as important. An aspect of history that I didn’t learn much about, and I’m afraid still isn’t being taught much, is Native American history. Who was here before us, and how did my state transition from a Native American territory to a United States territory?

Near Fort Snelling (which is important for various reasons), Pilot Knob stands as a sort of “peak”. Even though it isn’t very tall, it sits on the bank of the Mississippi River, making it an ideal vantage point. To the Dakota people, it was Oheyawahi, which means “a hill much visited”. The visits were not just for scouting; the hill was also a cemetery. This site was well known to the Dakota, and not just because of its cultural significance.

A brief walk from the highest point leads to a simple circle with seven stones cut from Minnesota stone. Each bears the name of one of the tribes that signed over their land to the United States in the 1850s. The negotiations started in a warehouse, but Chief Wabasha (for whom the town of Wabasha is named) requested they be moved to this hill, so the Dakota could see what they were giving up.

What I found interesting is the names of the tribes. Because I think words are really neat, the names of the tribes stuck out to me. There are seven stones and seven names, but one doesn’t end with “-wan” or “-wana”. I guessed that “-wan” meant “people”, which is true, but were then the Wahpekute not a “people”? Were they not Dakotan, and therefore used a different language with a different name structure?

It turns out it was the first option. Wakpekute comes from the words for “to shoot” and “leaves”, meaning they were the shooters from the leaves, or the guerrilla warriors. In fact, the two stones I photographed were the two major tribes in the area.

This is an example not only of appreciating the history that came before us, but also of taking advantage of the great internet that we have to learn something. Don’t be afraid of learning. There’s little opportunities everywhere.

I like food. I don’t necessarily “like” cooking. I’m perfectly capable of cooking, but most of the time, I like my food pre-prepared. However, because I do cook from time to time, I need to know my way around a grocery store. The best local option is Cub Foods, a big store with just about any standard food option. It gets the job done.

I bring this up because my excursion this week was to El Burrito Mercado, a Mexican supermarket in St. Paul. I’ve never really been to a cultural supermarket before. My frozen food diet rarely calls for any specialty ingredients that can’t be found at Cub Foods. But this store has an integrated restaurant, so how could I say no?

I was pleasantly surprised by all the recognizable selections available. Near the door is a frozen food section with namebrand ice cream and frozen pizzas. The selection is smaller than at a big grocery store, but it’s not as big of a store, so that’s fine. The fresh fruits and vegetables were more than sufficient to prepare various meals, the meats section was staffed by jovial meatsmiths, and the bakery section had both traditional treats as well as massive cookies.

At the restaurant, I made a bit of an ass of myself not understanding the options available to me for a burrito, but in the end, the employees made themselves understood. It’d good, every once in a while, to be on the other end of not being understood, so you gain perspective when you’re not being understood. The burrito was more expensive than Chipotle, but I could tell that the ingredients were prepared in my favorite style: use only the ingredients that you need, and throw it into a burrito.

They also had a selection of Mexican soda, which is still made with real sugar. As for the burrito, it had only the flavors that it needed. Chipotle is my closest comparison; Chipotle has a lot of flavors going on at once, sometimes too many. It was nice to have a burrito that felt like it was compiled from homemade ingredients around a kitchen table.

Honestly, I was apprehensive about just how “cultural” this market would be. There were some aspects that I didn’t understand and clearly weren’t intended for me, but then again, there are some aspects of Cub Foods that aren’t intended for me. If you live near Cesar Chavez St and State St, I recommend you try their food, and if you need a grocery store, you could do worse.