User Name and Avatars: Origin Stories

[Meech17]

I had someone once tell me that his doctor told him to drink Wild Irish Rose to get his daily vitamins. I'm serious, there's some things you just can't make up. Needless to say, everyone else in the room laughed at him for a good 5 minutes straight

I've heard that someone can subsist entirely on something like 5 or 6 pints of Guinness and a glass of whole milk. Apparently the Guinness fell short in the calcium or vitamin D department.

 

[R_J_K75]

I've heard that someone can subsist entirely on something like 5 or 6 pints of Guinness and a glass of whole milk. Apparently the Guinness fell short in the calcium or vitamin D department.

During COVID in 2020 or 2021 I went on a bender and subsisted on nothing but alcohol and cigarettes. I didn't get hungry, and it was only after day 5 or 6 that it occurred to me, I hadn't eaten in quite a while. I wouldn't recommend this on a regular basis but there must be some nutritional value to beer at least.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd just watched the anime Ruin Explorers on VHS and the tape was on my desk, and I was slightly in a sulk with the other couple of usernames I'd used a lot in the '90s, and wanted something different, hence I desknamed myself Ruin Explorer, in part because it seemed apposite to RPG discussion (this was actually for another forum before EN World, but I forget which), in part because I love the word "Ruin" and in part because I was being lazy. When I came to ENworld I used it because it was what I was going by at that time.

My current avatar is recent and likely to change - it's Willem Dafoe in Streets of Fire, a character whose intense look inspired numerous manga/anime/Japanese videogame characters. I shall probably return to something less scary soon - for a very long time it was Dame Maggie Smith as Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey, both because I liked her face and character, and I felt like it mocked the pomposity and verbosity of some of my posts.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

My current avatar is recent and likely to change - it's Willem Dafoe in Streets of Fire, a character whose intense look inspired numerous manga/anime/Japanese videogame characters.

Willem Dafoe is always awesome, but Streets of Fire is criminally underrated. I mean, it's not a perfect movie, I'm not always sure it's a good movie, but it is an awesome movie.

You and me we're goin' nowhere slowly
And we've gotta get away from the past
There's nothin' wrong with goin' nowhere, baby
But we should be goin' nowhere fast

 

[p_johnston]

My username is....my name. I never super cared if people can identify me online so most places I just use my last name (also Johnston is not so unique a name that it would be easy to track me down).

As for the Pic I just really love New Vegas. Might be my favorite game of all time.

I've considered changing it a few times but generally try and avoid changing profile pics in places like this because I know that half the time I use profile pics to identify posters more then reading names (and assume I'm not alone in that).

 

[Rabulias]

Like many others, my username is from a favorite D&D PC. Rab was a halfling multiclass fighter-thief, created back in 1986 for an AD&D game at college. I envisioned him as a swashbuckling type (very different from his halfling kin), with some Indiana Jones influence, exploring the unknown, uncovering ancient mysteries, and sometimes having to fight his way out of trouble. I wanted a name that could also have a shorter nickname (like "Indiana" and "Indy") and I came up with "Rabulias" and "Rab". It's pronounced with a long "u" and the same emphasis as Indiana, so rab-yew-LIE-us. He usually adds his (self-assigned) epithet when introducing himself as "Rabulias the incomparably shrewd and clever" but as he likes to say, "That's a lot to say in a tricky spot -- just call me Rab."

As for my avatar, I am no artist, but I wanted to have a good character illustration for Rab. This was pre-World Wide Web, and the Internet was only accessible to a few (I was not one of them), so I had limited options. Most of the illustrations of halflings I found were either pretty silly or were very, er, rotund (a definite Hobbit influence). I pictured Rab as more lean and athletic, and a little more serious. I never really found a good one until sometime in the 1990s I got a used copy of TSR's The Five Shires Gazetteer, illustrated by Artie Ruiz. An illustration of Jaervosz Dustyboots, the Sheriff of Seashire, stood out to me. I made several photocopies and (after many attempts) blacked out the background with a Sharpie, and it's been how I have pictured Rab ever since. I got a much better result once I could scan the page and edit the image in a graphics program (with undo ), and that is what I used here.

 

[Velderan]

I used the name Velderan in the mid-90s as my first AD&D 2e character to live to level 20 and retire. I've since used it a couple different times as the name of my D&D character, usually as a half-elf spellcaster. I'm not sure where the name came from, aside from previously using the shorter Veld in Final Fantasy 1 in the late 80s for my red mage. I'm sure I stole it from something that at this point I just can't remember.

 

[Velderan]

All I will say is what I wanted was taken for user name.

So it's not because you're a Vikings fan?

 

[payn]

So it's not because you're a Vikings fan?

I am not a masochist.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I am not a masochist.

I think this is in the category of "All Cretans are liars."

1. Payn is Vikings fan.
2. Payn states he is not a masochist.
3. Therefore, Payn is not a Vikings fan.


....nice try, KIRK!