What's in a name?

I was at a loss for what to post today, yet I felt htat with WoW down and this being my day off, I should post something. So I looked at Owaru's blog and that slacker hasn't updated in forever and a day. So I looked at Bremm's blog and he in turn mentioned... just what I mentioned. At a loss and wanting to post something.

Thank you Bremm, for showing me BlogAzeroth. Now I have something ELSE to waste my time with! :)

I didn't see what Bremm was talking about in regards of where exactly he got his post topic, but I like his post topic anyway. Names. What's in a name? What's in my names? My story is just a little bit longer than Bremm's.

You may have noticed a certain theme with my character names. Bremm has all Bremish things. I have K.

(No, my real life name doesn't start with a K. I wish it did.)

It all started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. No seriously, it did. Well, almost.

Back when I was a teenager, I was a trifle antisocial. Not because I wasn't friendly and outgoing, but I lived far away from my school and I wasn't a 'cool' crowd kid. I was in the 'not true nerd/geek/but not goth oddball' group. My brother was on a BBS. I don't recall what BBS stands for now a days, but it was a big old chat room, text based only. There were games in there, like a dungeon crawler that you could play. All text based. He kept at me to join it and try it.

I finally caved in and then I had to pick a 'handle'. Egads. How do I do that? The answer is an odd one. Years before that day, I had this very strange dream. I was looking down at this ancient tome that was faintly glowing. It suddenly opened before me and the pages started to flip rapidly. It stopped. The only word I could make out on the page was Cristivaliani.

No joke. Cristivaliani.

So, that became my handle on the game. People thought my name was Cristi Valiani. It isn't. But it was a good try. We could also write descriptions for ourselves. So I became a silver-white dragon with gold eyes, horns and teeth.

Through that BBS, I met people who actually went to my high school! One of them became my first boyfriend. And then oddly enough, he was with me when I met (and bought) the real Cristivaliani. When I made my description up, I knew nothing about Windstone dragons (remember, geeky teenager, me + malls = never happened). But now that I had a boyfriend and went out more often, I ventured into this little gift shop in the mall with some report card money I had. And there she was. The white Windstone Edition dragon.

And that's how it started for me. But you say, ..... K? Where's the K?

The BBS also had a link to a text based RPG based on Star Wars. For those in the know, it was (and for all I know, still IS) SW1. I created a character on that game and made up a name. I just happened to call her Kaera. Because it looked pretty. I met one of the greatest friends I would ever have on SW1, named Skylar on the game, Mike in real life. We played a lot of games together. And from SW1, I tried the other Star Wars games. SW: Brak Sector, SW: Minos Cluster, SW: Clone Wars. And I honestly don't know why, but all the names started with a K. Keisha, Kiva, Kylariss, everything, K. It wasn't conscious at first, they just had K's.

I branched out into other games, some fantasy games, all text based at first. K, K, K.
(Interesting K trivia, I met my husband on SW: Minos Cluster.)

The first MMORPG I played was EQOA (PS). From there I played FFXI, CoH, LOTR (trial period), EQ (computer), SW: Galaxies and finally WoW.

By the time WoW came around I was consciously picking my K names. The only times I don't have K names was in FiranMUX, where you have pregenerated characters and when I'm trying something deliberate with a name ... like when I named my Tauren after an old Celtic mythic bull. Some of the names, I've posted about earlier where they came from, so I won't bore you with repeating that.

My K characters have been famous on some games (and this isn't my hubris speaking. I'm serious). Kaera, my first ever character, was known throughout half of SW1. All the independents and the mercenary group I was part of knew her. She was a gunner on a capital ship, yet knew more secrets than most of the diplomats because people kept... talking to her. She was 100% sweetheart. I don't think anyone ever tried to hurt her. In fact, the one bar fight she was 'in', happened around her, and half the people in the bar made sure she was safe before they went on to fighting.

Kylariss, my most famous character on Minos Cluster -- I've had a few, but Kylariss lasted the longest -- was known by the entire cluster. Literally. If I'm remembering correctly, she made the MUX news as an entry under local heroes or legends or whatever they were doing for some of the older characters that were retiring. Most established characters knew her, either in person or by reputation. 1: she was the only sluissi (snake like alien) in the cluster, 2: she was the best technician in the cluster (she was tied by a human who was an admin alt that sometimes fudged his stats.), 3: she eventually was a high ranking officer in the New Republic, though at one point in time she was an Imperial bounty that they released. I bet they kicked themselves over that ICly, but OOCly they released me because they were being nice, 4: she was a pacifist and the entire NR looked out for her. If she got hurt, watch out because the entire NR was up in arms. "They hurt Kylariss! Those BASTARDS! GET THEM!".

Keisha was my Brak Sector character. She ... uh ... has a long involved history. She was a medic/martial artist. Really. She was. She was freaking scary. I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley. She could kill you then bring you back to life. And with her attitude, she'd probably kill you again.

She started out independent, became a rebel, was captured by an independent organization, tried to kill the head of said organization (most famous man in the cluster) because he said he was going to kill her friends or her (I forget which).. (did I forget to mention she did this in full public, in a room full of people, and did this by deliberately throwing a knife at his groin. Which in most men, would kill them), wound up getting a dark side point by using a force point to try to kill someone (granted, said someone had held her prisoner for a brief period of time, but still) while escaping the planet that she was on while trying to kill said head of organization, then wound up keeping an entire group of people unconscious and in 'quarantine for a mysterious illness' because she didn't like the company that they were leaving (they were leaving the company owned by the fellow she tried to kill). (What can I say, she didn't trust them!) without anyone realizing she was actually drugging them. Then when her brother was in trouble on a planet with the Empire about to catch him, she hatched a scheme with a bounty hunter friend to take her in to provide distraction so her brother could escape the planet. In the course of her time as an Imperial prisoner, she got whitewashed, was made part of the ISP (Imperial Intelligence? I forget the initials), and released on the main planets as a 'good citizen/pet of the Imperial Admiral and Imperial Captain who liked her spunk/poster child for why rebels should turn themselves in so the good Imperials can show them the error of their ways/See, we made this evil terrorist murderer into an upstanding doctor! We're good Imperials. Nice Imperials.'.

She could single handedly kill a raging trandoshan bare handedly if she had to. She could also, as I said, bring someone back to life using a tongue depressor and tooth paste. She was... an interesting... psychotic (because of that pesky DSP)... character. No wonder the Imperials liked her. (I loved playing Keisha. She was great. She'd fly into a black rage and try to seriously hurt you, then the next minute be telling you what you should do to fix that nasty bruise you just obtained.) Oh... and... never fight her with knives.

In her tenure as a 'villain', she was #1 on the Bounty list for the cluster. #2 was her brother. #3 in the cluster was the head of the local rebellion. #4 was Luke Skywalker. :P

Anyway, I digress. (But God, I could talk about Keisha Vorr for hours.)

It's amazing how much you remember of such trivial things.

I had a squib named Kithan on some game that I don't recall the name of. She wasn't famous necessarily because the game wasn't large, but dear lord, people who knew her did not forget her. Have you ever heard a squib talk? Or a kender? The two are related even though one is Star Wars and the other is DragonLance. Heehee. I had someone tell me that if I didn't shut up, he'd kill himself. It was great. She walked into a bar once and there was this evil dark cloaked person sitting by himself, all gloomy and drinking his drink in utter silence while watching the room closely. You know the type. She walked over to the table, told him he reminded her of something, or something like that, and proceeded to talk to him. She got out a ball of yarn to show him, she's been collecting yarn for years and years and the ball was actually Aunt Clara's ball of yarn but Aunt Clara was dead and do you know how hard it is to actually collect yarn, I mean you can buy yarn anywhere but to collect it it has to be special yarn and...

And he grabbed the yarn and threw it on the floor and told her he didn't care. And she cried. And he picked the yarn back up and gave it to her and told her he was sorry he threw the yarn, would she please stop crying and leave him alone.

I miss roleplaying.