And here we have the sketch from which I took the background image and banner: the two main characters of the current Randomly Bemused incarnation. Nimos the satyr, and Nikki the hippie lady.

 

This is new. Like, six months old new. I'd abandoned RB when I went to college, focussing intead on the fledging Riftwatcher and Huntress ideas as they burgeoned in my head. It was only my recent infatuation with satyrs in the past year that finally led one to the most honoured position in my imagination: semi-mythological friend to my incarnate character.

 

Nikki's change, while very radical compared to her earlier verson from 2004, is not complicated. I have long since shed my anime drawing style and prefer a more expressive, cartoony comic-ish style. She came into being as I was at the time six months ago (September 2007): going through a hippie rivial phase upon entering a real University of 20,000 people. I was becoming increasingly environmentally aware as well as increasingly more obsessed with mythology. As a character she is different from me for story purposes ... but as a person we are remarkably similar.

 

Nimos is even less complicated. He popped into my head as a generic character, someone I would love to meet on the street. A satyr who was not born into the modern world but somehow finds himself there nonetheless. A perfect match to Nikki: her life is constantly bombarded by the mythological, while he is a mythological creature whose life is bombarded by the modern human world. Instead of mixing fact and fiction as I was before, I am now mixing reality and mythology. Almost the same thing, but it makes me look smarter.