i died twice and still couldn't escape student loan debt

My name is Gyralagoss (or Gaz, for short), I go by he/him pronouns, and I'm just the janitor here now :V

I joke, but i do sort of feel like i've taken that role as a front runner, whatever it means. I tend to come in and take care of what needs taking care of.

Before i got here, I was once a professor of physics. And then it caught up to me that I'd been dodging my student loans the whole time, and I ended up trying out piracy to earn enough to settle my debts. I had a good time with that, honestly! I adjusted to the life alright, had a good crew even when people came and went, met Wix. Then I got killed in glorious pirate battle and went down with my ship. And then I ended up back in that dead body two weeks later when it washed ashore. And through many complicated events, ended up here in this system as the revenant ghost of my old corpsey self. I didn't even get to be the alive version of myself. :V It's also warped my memory and my senses are different as a ghost with no eyes. I understand why ghosts cling to familiar things and places, now.

Now that I'm here, though, I've gravitated toward an interest in technology, and especially video games and the history of their development. I'm also interested in astronomy. I used to have to navigate by the stars a lot. Now I have new stars to learn about.

Here's a cool picture of an AU version of me that my very handsome double drew - it's the closest representation so far to my general appearance, minus the tongue. :P Kinda wish I had that.

Being from a totally different world where magic was used so much we only ended up with Renaissance-level technology in most places (though some places in the Underdark have advanced to steam-powered trains and rudimentary electricity), I've struggled with culture shock and trying to assimilate without losing my connection to where I'm from. I have an overwhelming amount to learn about the history, geography, cultures -- the everything of Earth and of the specific cultures around me. Sometimes it's cool, and sometimes it makes me want to crawl back inworld and hide. Here's a small summary of my experiences so far :V

It's worth mentioning that I'm queer, and that's ... the best word I have to describe myself. In my native culture, gender roles are vastly different and really uncomparable to any human gender roles I'm aware of. Drow are often written as having a culture that's just "patriarchy but if it was women instead" and that's just not even remotely accurate to the real experience. I'm a jaluk -- a "male drow" for lack of better explanation -- but expressing what that means is difficult, especially when I'm a binary gender within my own culture, but am not part of any human gender system. And as I'm a jaluk who has a uniquely important attraction to other jaluken, I struggle to find words for that, because "gay" doesn't exactly make sense for drow culture. Bisexual also works, in that I'm attracted to more than one gender, but even that has different significance in my culture. Being in a system full of queer people really forces a person to think about that sort of thing, because that's difficult and novel to do when you live and grow up in a queer-hostile culture.

I'm not like other surface drow uwu. I left for the surface, but I never really shunned the Underdark or Lloth or any of that. It actually kinda makes it harder that I can't just assimilate, but I manage.

I also have an adorable English Springer Spaniel named Zoey, who sits next to me when I game on the couch. She's good.