003) On the Origins of My Account Name

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This entry is inspired in part by the thread on Character Names on the writer's forum.

NOTE: This entry is now outdated, my account name at the time of original posting had been slicersv. This had also been back when I was still hiding from myself. All entries which predate "To Be, Or Not To Be" technically predate my coming out to myself, though there's an interesting progression, reading them back over...

My most commonly used internet moniker is actually the name of one of my oldest characters who's still on speaking terms with me.

He first appeared in a story written for a state proficiency tests writing prompt, the prompt wished for us to write a story about a treasure hunt. Slicer and his older brother Viniece were born, at the time, they had no surname and the presence of any other siblings was not mentioned either for or against.

Then, in an old story I wrote a long time ago, I had a family with the surname Vinesley, and three siblings, their parents named the eldest child Viniece Cloud, a boy, the second, another boy, Slicer Steele, and the third, a girl, Yulanaia Rudai... that's where the moniker comes from, btw, that second child... The oddity of their names definitely played a big part in their identities, though the poor girl didn't live very long in the original story, but then I wrote a side story later in which the brothers went back in time and rescued her, but left a dummy in her place so that the past version of themselves still thought her dead, in order to avoid a time paradox... Ah, those were some fun little romps, the original two Searth stories and my myriads of short little side stories.

Too bad the original Searth: The Ceasing Planet is long forgotten and lost to the sands of time... aka, physical copies destroyed in a house fire, digital copy, by a virus. My mind, is, of course, very hazy on the details of what it remembers of the story. I might re-write them someday... It's been a project on my back burner for some years now. I still have both the original novella version of Searth 2, and the mini-trilogy version that was published in my high school's magazine as a three-part feature story, however. Physical copies only... bound book for the novella version, the three magazine issues for the mini-trilogy version. The only differences were that the novella was originally only split into titled chapters, the mini-trilogy was further divided into titled parts, with little micro-poems for each parts intro and outtro. If I ever do my rewrites they'll be done as full novels, with titled parts and micro-poems for part intros and outtros, and untitled chapters. I also have plans for a third "main" Searth story, but it's going to wait for the rewrites, if I ever do any of it. I also have a distant descendant who wants to start a second series even further into the future...

Interesting bit about those stories, I created a man-made organism for them that was asexual and reproduced by absorbing a male and female of any sexed organisms and then cell-splitting. The resulting eggs would then be forcibly put in the womb of the absorbed female, whose form the organism would adopt until its young matured, when hatched, the new organism would have characteristics from all three "parents"... One of my characters in Searth 1 was a "carrier" of this organism, but had been able to regain conscious control. The brothers sister was also "eaten" by one of these, as the brothers put it.

Transgender fiction? I don't think I'd classify that as such, though it was a fun little creature to create, and certainly calls traditional gender roles into question somewhat, since the creature had self-awareness and intelligence comparable to our own, but didn't really "get" the concept of gender. For it, it just took whatever form was most convenient for what it needed to do. Usually either hunt and eat, or reproduce. It may have been self-aware, but being born in a lab, and then escaping into the wild, tends to limit what you consider to be important. Especially since humans had pretty well devolved into hunt and eat, or reproduce, as well, by the time Searth 1 took place. Cannibalism was rampant in the story.

Did I mention these stories were post-apocalyptic? IIRC, I set the first one for sometime in the 3000s.

Comments

Yulanaia's middle name...

Is pronounced with a definite Japanese accent, slightly rolled "R" that sounds somewhat like an "L" as well, a long "U", and "dai" the same as "die".

Their parents were eccentrics.

Abigail Drew.

Haha I like it

I am always a huge fan of how people come up with there names. As for mine, well I am not sure where it came from honestly. My chosen name is Valerie Ellen Kent, that was decided before valek came to being when I was like 12 (I am 19 now fyi) ever since I came up with valek I have used it almost everywhere I make an account, however someone else on the web uses it too apparently....jerk....about 4 years ago I realized something between my chosen name and user name, they were rather similar. So now I have an applied meaning for valek and whenever possible try to stylize it as ValEK or Val.E.K. as in my chosen name...but I think I chose it originally because I liked the individuality of it, as well as how it sounded, sharp and boyish but without giving away any real gender clues which fits me quite well.

Thought I would add mine on here because I am too lazy to do this myself... :P

if anyone else...

Wants to use this blog entry to reveal how they came up with their account names, feel free. Like Val, I always find it interesting as well. Or at least usually do... sometimes people have the lamest reasons for their account names though. Especially lame are account names that are their birth names, not even so much as their RL nickname, which the origins of can be just as interesting!

My RL nickname isn't really anything interesting or special though... an Andrew is always either an Andy, or a Drew, and no one dares call me Andy.

Abigail Drew.

A friend of mine...

is pretty much obsessed with WoW and how he gets all his names is ridiculous, but interesting in its own right because he has done it the same way for each name. He picks an "I" word out of the dictionary...and that is it...

Just had to say that one because it is so lame it is almost awesome.

~Val

kd7mvs is my amateur radio

LibraryGeek's picture

kd7mvs is my amateur radio license, and my initial screen name here, and elsewhere. But it's not really me anymore, I don't do amateur radio any longer. So I just changed it to LibraryGeek, which still has some relevance, being a retired librarian. There was a time when I was active in the SCA that I used my SCA name, but it's been over ten years, I'm not really Ian Jameson anymore. I've had family nicknames, but somehow "boybie" or "Sir" or "The Boy" don't strike me as relevant screen names either. So we'll see how I feel about LibraryGeek as time goes by. Maybe something else will jump up and say "This is me!", but in the meantime...

Yours,

JohnBobMead

Yours,

John Robert Mead

One acronym, multiple meanings

The precursor to my nickname started in September / October 1995. I'd started uni and needed a nickname for IRC (this was back in the days of proper IRC and newgroups, instead of web chat and web forums). I'd discovered the BOFH stories, so inspired by that and my then current degree, I created mbfh (Mad Biologist From Hell).

Skip forward a few years, and the uni were daft enough to let me back in to do a Computer Science course. I could have chosen mcsfh, but for some reason went with ...IT Trainee...

My first proper job was as a school IT Technician, I had a brief spell as an IT Teacher, and now I help maintain, support and produce user documentation for an electronic social care case recording system - so I suppose I'm an IT Technician again :)

Needless to say, the vast majority of Google search results for my nickname reflect my diverse activity in various corners of the web - although over 30,000 entries (so far!) in Google's search database is a little on the scary side...

 

Bike Resources

There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

I was called The Kid...

For a very short time at a P.E. Class at the community college I was going to. These guys were like twice my size and one had been in the marines, the other was just a huge guy that was 1 year younger than me. It started off with them picking on on me and turned into a friendship because they found out how freaking fast I am. Most people who have played soccer know what a liverpool is, or an equivalent, it is where you run around the entire soccer pitch in under a minute, it is rather hard to do, especially when like me you haven't been working out in over a year...I managed to get around in 57 seconds, and put the most dumbfounded look on these two's faces.

So they started calling me "The Kid" because despite being half their size, I could out perform them on everything except weight lifting.

~Val

I did have some interesting school nicknames

In high school both my sister and I were called "the fish" because we were always seen gulping down 1 liter bottles of water, that we refilled throughout the day.

Additionally, I was called either "Speedy Gonzalez" or "Speedfreak", depending on the particular clique you spoke to. To the jocks and cheerleaders, it was speedfreak (probably because we had a mutual love-hate relationship going - we loved hating each other), to almost everyone else it was Speedy Gonzalez. I got these nicknames because of my speed-walking. I can literally walk a mile in under 12 minutes without breaking a sweat. After getting myself loosened up enough and if I'm willing to break a sweat... let's just say that EVERYONE else had to run, just to keep pace.

The phys ed teacher was extremely dubious when I asked him if I could do the mile run test as a speed-walk instead, but said as long as I could do it, it was OK. When I outpaced about a third of the class and everyone else was running, he about blew a gasket. Was very funny :P

Abigail Drew.

Distance Running.......not my friend

Distance running and I have a love hate relationship...I am not great at it but not bad at all and usually don't like it...I just get bored with stuff if I don't have someone to beat. So I can't make myself go out and run, just doesn't work well because I get so amazingly bored and tire very quickly, but throw someone else in there and I will keep up till they start slowing down. In this case I ran the mile in high school in 6:40 the first time, then we had to do it again and I got the second one in 6:30...now this is from never ever running and mostly sitting at home in front of my computer....I actually wonder what I could do if I put effort into it.

But I must say, speed walking is the one sport i have never really understood the attraction to...I don't like many sports but I can see why people participate. Although, I can totally believe you outwalked a third of the class who was supposed to be running. I for one am more into longboarding, skiing and snowboarding, and with those three sports my cardio is much higher than most people would think for a gamer sitting in front of their computer for over 10 hours a day. And even though I am at 6,732 ft above sea level I am pretty positive I could still be under 7 minutes if I had someone to set a pace.

I recently worked with someone with the last name Fisch...and that is what everyone called him, just thought I would throw that out there.....

~Val

I'm really not that fond...

Of running or speed-walking myself. Speed-walking like that eats through shoes faster than my bicycling habits eat through break pads.

I prefer my bike, really... Though I wouldn't be surprised if at least part of my nickname came from that too, since I was always riding to and from school and often outpaced the cars while weaving through them. Granted... school zone, so they were all going slow. I could also ride faster than what I was, going to school. Much faster. Didn't really feel like arriving at school sweating like a hog though.

Abigail Drew.

Try doing it...

On a mountain bike...I never got a fun speed related name, but I would often do the exact same thing on my hardtail, It was especially easy during the winter. Up in Washington the snow (at least where I lived) is super wet and freezes nicely, so I would let some air out of my tires, and away I went, I outpaced cars even easier when there was snow and ice on the ground, I tend to do mountain biking so I am used to sliding and the drivers of most of the cars were not. :) Worked out well for me. but never try riding one handed off a curb while holding a gallon of something in the other...that left me embarrassed and laughing at the car that had to stop so I could move my bike off the road.

I don't think I change my brake pads that often, I am usually going so fast downhill it doesn't matter, then everything sort of levels out to the point where I have to pedal again. But I get the idea, I have worn a hole in 3 pairs of shoes by braking while longboarding, I wouldn't have thought putting your foot on pavement at 50 mph would do a whole lot for your shoes, but who would have thought I would go through them like that...

Currently I really want to get a road bike, however there is no way I can afford one, but it would be nice to have in Colorado and make getting around so much easier. I have thought about looking into a single speed bike, but in the mountains that would utterly suck and you really kind of need the granny gears...

I do ride a mountain bike...

Always have. I also ride in snow and stuff too. One time I rode home in one hell of a storm, it was pouring down freezing rain, with needle-sharp sleet and golf-ball hail... Took me like two hours to get warmed back up enough to have half-way normal color again. About freaked my sister out too, she hitched a ride with one of her friends and completely forgot about me.

I can agree with the desire for a road bike... or at least a better mountain bike... Probably going to have to get a ladies bike, mens bikes have always been too big for me, even with the smallest sizes they have for the bikes that go small enough, which are all comparably cheap bikes...

Sometimes being only 5'5" can be a bit bothersome, especially being a male, but yet a leggy, 5'5".

Though my slight frame is helpful at my job. There're lots of really tight squeezes that the other guys on maintenance for the apt complex can't get to.

Abigail Drew.

I kind of know how you feel

I kind of know how you feel I am a little over 5' 7" and while I inherited my fathers shoulders :( I am extremely skinny and can fit real well into tight places. I just try to get neutral bikes since I am far too long in the torso to fit smaller bikes.

I think I did the same thing one time, however I had just moved back to Washington and missed the rain so I went out on purpose in a t-shirt and jeans during the hardest storm we had had since I had moved back up there. I was epic and when I got in I jumped into a bath, however the bath would have been perfect before I left, so I jumped back out because the thing was blazing hot...it was a good ride however and I actually loved it. No Hail.

I need to get a new job, something on the weekends, I am near a ski resort so I am going to try there and see what happens, but before all my jobs seem to have been at restaurants, even though I am always trying for a tech job somewhere because I am just good at computers...I may actually aim for WalMart...god save me...