[EarlyWyrm]

a hose by any other name

[Pied Piper]

Wasn't going to post, but oh, what the heck. Short story. I am a flutist from way back, and I've always loved the macabre, especially in fairy tales. So Pied Piper just seemed appropriate. Did a search on the web for "female piper," found two different pictures, and snagged the figure and blurred the edges of the one that seemed most appropriate. (The other was tall and willowy--which I'd love to be, but heck, that's never gonna be me...)

[OmegaX]

No big story here. I used to use OmegaSephiroth<random 2-digit number> on various sites/IM-clients. Came a time that I wanted to lose the association with the 'bishie' (as everyone was constantly calling him on my then-favorite site, GameFAQs - which I hae since stopped using the forums of, mostly), but Omega<number> didn't sound 'right'. So 'X'. My other favorite (at the time) game series, Megaman X.

Yeah, I'm such a geek. Gamer 4 lyfe! ;P

[Caspian]

I discovered the world of ARGs and unfiction near the end of October 2005 when I was hyped up anxiously awaiting the recent movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Most online names for me have been based on a fictional character (a concept which I now really dislike for myself, but too many of you know me as Caspian now, so whatcha ya gonna do?). Anyway, I have been a Narnia fan all my life, so I decided it would be appropriate to draw an online identity from Narnia. For those of you who don't know, the second book published in the Chronicles of Narnia is Prince Caspian (although the new numbering system has it at some other numbering in the order...grumble grumble...).

There are lots of characters from Narnia I could have chosen, but I chose Caspian X because I admired his qualities. His story starts out much like Hamlet. Caspian's evil uncle Miraz murdered his father Caspian IX and usurped his throne. Caspian X learns this as a mere teenage boy, and also learns that the rightful citizens of Narnia have been oppressed and forced into hiding by his ancestors. Caspian then leaves the castle and begins to rally the oppressed, rightful citizens of Narnia, forming an army to reclaim the throne of Narnia and to free its rightful citizens. He receives help along the way, but his courage and decision to reject the wrongs he had raised with in favor of what he knew to be right commands my respect.

The truly remarkable thing about Caspian - and the reason I chose to use his name - comes at the end of the story. When all wrongs had seemed righted and Caspian was getting ready to take the throne, Aslan himself asks Caspian:

Quote:

"Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?" "I - I don't think I do, Sir," said Caspian. "I'm only a kid." "Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not."

It's this wisdom to realize and the humility to confess that one does not know everything, is not prepared for everything, and in short one's weaknesses that I admire and that I think is crucial to ARGs. It's the attitude that you can't solve the puzzles or coordinate the live events of an ARG by yourself that makes the hivemind so crucial to success and something that I hope to bring to the table in each ARG I play.

All that, and I'm a big nerd who likes to imagine himself as a character from his beloved fantasy worlds.

[Sunny du Pree]

Meaning behind Sunny of the Du Pree's

[RungeKutta]

My name comes from somewhat of an interesting story -- I think. I stole a couple pounds of coke from this guy named Rang Krutha and I needed to sell it off of course. I found the buyer who usually delt with Mr Krutha but had never met him. This buyer had a weird speech impediment and would pronounce the name like "Rong Kutta". So from then and out I pretended to be Rong Kutta to this guy. A couple years later, I needed a name to sign up on a music production forum, and I had just got back from a differential equations class where we had just learned about the Runge Kutta numerical integration method. Since I had used the name before and kinda liked it, I used it. When I found ARGs I kept the name.

[Phaedra]

bartmans wrote:

A more interesting story about my avatar (can we extend this thread also to explain where we get our avatars from? I particularly like yours, Phaedra!).

Thanks!

I'm thinking of changing it to a transparent gif, though. It's a .png file, which looks fine in Firefox, but the other day I had to visit the forums in IE, and discovered that my avatar was surrounded by a sort of greyish beige background.

Vain creature that I am, I feel the need to fix that. Gifs are transparent for everyone, yes?

As to where I got it, I'm afraid I don't remember. It's from a picture I had saved to my computer. I edited out the background, and was left with my archer.

[bartmans]

The story about my nickname is not very exciting, either. My christian name is Bart and one of my old colleagues always called me 'bartmans'. Since registering with the name bartmans in various e-mail accounts never did get me any trouble of doublures, I stick to using it.

A more interesting story about my avatar (can we extend this thread also to explain where we get our avatars from? I particularly like yours, Phaedra!). I used to post without one, but then I decided I needed one too. However, I am hopeless at drawing, thus I needed to 'borrow' an avatar somewhere. Since I am a patent attorney, I was familiar with the logo of the Dutch Society of Patent Attorneys, which you now see depicted at the left. This logo embodies the technique to be translated in somebody's head and I think it fits nicely with the human character of the ARGs, where also (sometimes) a technical mind is needed to get any further in the game.

[ItWasntMeISwear]

Mine came from a mistake I made when I first joined the ARG community. I misread a lot of things and thought that we were supposed to develop our own characters and play the game as that character. Big mistake!

This led to a very embarassing moment which was handled by the PMs of Wildfire Industries very nicely I must say.

From that mistake I chose a different name so that I may try and start over again with the new, and correct, information. I certainly didn't want to be known for what I had done.

So, that's how I got my name.

[weephun]

Yah! with explanation maybe people will stop calling me weep hun. I mean who would want to go about reminding people about unhappy huns all the time anyway?

Exclamation of joy I've used since childhood when having a really great time: weeeeeeee fun!

f to ph since my buddies were all phat tacos (which is another story entirely) and ph is just sooo much cooler than f anyway, right?

Shortened to 2 e's just because I was sure I'd forget how many e's I needed to use all the time, and well, too many e's is just never a good thing.

weephun.

[Puppy_Zwolle]

EGo wrote:

no one I knew [myself included]

No worries. You are the lucky one.

My sister in law wanted to name her child; Anna Berendina Carola v O. "Don't" her husband said, "That spells ABC. She'll never hear the end of that."

So, she now is known as Berendina Anna Carola v O........ Spells Baco, popular name here for her moms favorite drink, Bacardi 'n coke.

[Axys Denyed]

Ikkarus wrote:

I totally picked my name for its mythological / literary significance. Then I spelled it wrong because "kk" is eXtreme and that's how I roll. Ok, well that's half true. Ikkarus was a Shadowrun character I made years and years and years ago. Ikkarus was a decker (or hacker to all you non-SR-players). He chose the misspelling because he was eXtreme and that's how he rolled. A few years down the road, when it came time to formulate an online persona for myself, Ikkarus seemed the logical foil.

AxysDenyed wrote:

I already explained mine once in the PXC thread for this, but I might as well explain it here as well. Now, I play RPGs. I don't mean the console ones, I mean the true pen and paper, dice rolling, buying too many books RPGs. There was a great one a while back by the name of Shadowrun. Futuristic-type game, there's a character type called a decker. Basically it's someone with a computer in their head. Well, I made a decker once with a street name of Axys Denyed (I liked the pun) and when I came around to the internet, I figured it'd make a good screen name as well

Seems I'm not the only one who misses the old FASA game

[EGo]

A bandwagon! Let me jump on it.

Okay, this won't be very interesting. My name's Emmanuel Go. Sad thing is, no one I knew [myself included] thought of it until middle school, when the administration assigned us email addresses.

Often someone snags EGo [or ego] before I arrive at the party. Sometimes it's too short to use as a name. I don't have one set fallback in those situations.

sequoya wrote:

I happened to be reading The Computer Connection by Alfred Bester (an author who I love, although my favourite of his is actually The Stars My Destination), the main character of which is called Sequoya Guess (who was in turn named after the Cherokee inventor dude).

Heh. Back in high school I used to register AIM names on whims. I first read Bester's stuff then, which is why I own the AIM names Sequoya Guess, Rogue Winter [The Deceivers], and Galatea Galante ["Galatea Galante"].

[Ikkarus]

I totally picked my name for its mythological / literary significance. Then I spelled it wrong because "kk" is eXtreme and that's how I roll.

Ok, well that's half true.

Ikkarus was a Shadowrun character I made years and years and years ago. Ikkarus was a decker (or hacker to all you non-SR-players). He chose the misspelling because he was eXtreme and that's how he rolled. A few years down the road, when it came time to formulate an online persona for myself, Ikkarus seemed the logical foil.

[Dorkmaster]

Dipthong... heheheh....



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