Thunder Roarer

Author notes

ZOMGWTF... Tom has Stubble.

IronWolf

on Aug. 14, 2006

Sorry, chicillos, but this is going to be long.

- Firstly, MAJOR love to anyone with the patience to not yell at me after my prolonged absence. Also, major love to the new readers, and bonus major love to Jenshin and her swifty Thunder art. Go back a page and admire its coolness. I'm done with calculus and chemistry, and plan better time management in the future, so as to keep such delays from occuring.

- Secondly, I tried speech bubbles. Meh. However, I love the faces in the second and third panel. Taylor (of the Krae) believes Avar's face in the fifth panel is good; I'm not so sure.

- Thirdly, go to The Krae (http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Krae/), because the Krae artist and I swore a blood oath to update today… Okay, not really, but we should both be updating. No blood was exchanged, but we had popcorn from the same bowl, which probably counts as some kind of oath. ANyhow, she's really good and doesn't get all the love she deserves. This next page is hilarious. Go see her. Also, while you're on the humor circut, visit http://www,drunkduck.com/Gnoph/, where JillyFoo has just helped Mina_Lunga by filling in the blanks with her lovely madness. JillyFoo's homebase is http://www.drunkduck/The_Planet_Closest_To_Heaven/.

- This brings us to my fourth and final topic. During my mysterious absence, Tom was kidnapped by Mina_Lunga for said crossover joy. Tom wound up in a bleeding heap. Tom didn't get any licks in in JillyFoo's version, either. Of course, here at TBOTR, he has a possibly infected gut wound. In fact, let's review the sterling career of Mr. Nearford.

1.Tom steals Jacob's horse while Jacob beats the blazes out of his buddies. Some guy grazes Jake's face while Tom distracts him. Jacob beats up that guy. Even mounted, Tom he manages is to make Jacob slip on a rock and twist his ankle. Not sprain, even. Jacob tackles Tom, intimidates him, and uses him as a crutch.

2. Jacob scares the blazes out of Tom with a sword and the threat of torture. Tom cracks like a CD case under the tire of a Hummer. Tom whines to himself.

3. Tom spends time being scared by Jacob. He does not attempt escape. He does not tell Jacob to push off.

4. Tom rushes back to help Jacob in the ambush, swords one guy in the neck (his finest moment), then gets slashed across the stomach immediately. Tom falls off his horse. Jacob carries Tom and dumps him with a poisoned horse (I love Jake's tail), then stabs and slashes the remaining chaps. Tom's interference may or may not have helped Jacob.

5. Jacob and Tom undergo some buddy bonding. So do Tom and Eveline. Of course, throughout, Tom's lying there.

Now, I used to hate Tom. The rest of this story was planned. Tom was not. Tom was a surprise, and he didn't belong. I wanted to kill him off so badly. Then, the Krae girls convinced me to let him live a little longer (read, beyond Avar's arrival in the story), and I found out he was actually useful, storywise. Now, Tom's grown on me. There's a lot of reasons, but it can be summed up as such: My poor Tom. He tries so hard, yet accomplishes so very little. It seems that Tom cannot win. In some ways this amuses me, but nowadays I have a soft spot for my pansy guardsman. My poor, poor, inept, possibly dying Tom.

Moreso, because Tom's pushing his way in to my orderly universe left him with a really scary/cool father who you will all meet soon. He has stubble, too. (Tom just forgot to shave. For the curious, nearly everyone in my psuedomedievalistic world has ankle daggers. Did I show Jacob's once? … I forget. Anyhow, Tom's been shaving with his, but his gut wound distracted him today.) Tom's father is stubble-icious. I'll explain that to someone besides the Krae girls when Tom's scary daddy shows up.

Note my crafty use of internet slang in the title.