Audio

[walkingballpit]

We don't talk much, Network. I should be blogging more. After all, they gave us these comms for a reason. They want us to chat.

I've been thinking a lot about names lately. They tell more about your parents than they do about you. I never asked mine about my name, but I think "Robert" means that my dad won that particular argument so I got a name that would look good on a business card. Robert J. Baldwin, attorney at law. If my mother won, I'd probably be Dakota or Jaden or something else offbeat.

There's always that one kid in every class, though, who gets saddled with a name so awful that you have to think the parents are outright sadistic. Crazy consonant clusters, random zs, silent letters all crammed into one word, sometimes with a "helpful" apostrophe to sort it all out. Is it unique? Is it traditional? Does anyone stop to think if it's fair to give a kid a name that they won't be able to spell until they're in high school?

Codenames aren't much better. Everyone assumes that you pick them yourself, but I didn't pick mine. It just stuck. I think it's that way with a lot of people. No one sits down and thinks "I need a cool moniker if I'm going to fight crime!" ... well, maybe some people do, but I don't think names like "Marvel Boy" took a whole lot of though, especially since there was already a Marvel Girl.

Thoughts? Complaints? I know, really deep stuff getting talked about here. Take your time. Incidentally, if you do have a crazy first name by New England standards, I found something that belongs to you, but, since I can't figure out how to say your name to save my life, it's on you.

[Individually privated to Peter Parker, Valeria Richards, Kate Bishop]

So if I strip a file of some of its content, can you still find out anything about it? You being yourself or a more experienced hacker. Because I'm not sharing it as is.

Comments

voice;

[fistofthejoestar]

[oh, what a coincidence. he'd just been talking about names with someone else.]

There are many cultures that believe knowing a person's true name allows you to have power over them. Even if you don't feel a connection to your original name, it's still a link to some part of you.

voice;

[walkingballpit]

I'm not sure if I buy that. We give our names out like candy, and it doesn't do any damage.

video

[forsometimenow]

[So, Jennifer's not going to bring the file thing up unless Robbie does. Damage done, and she figures he's discussed it enough.]

I have a totally ordinary name... really, the only thing I dislike about it is it was kinda common. Even growing up in rural Wisconsin, I usually had at least one other Jennifer in all of my classes.

[walkingballpit]

[Robbie isn't going to bring it up himself, because this post is partly to show that he's not hiding or concerned with it. Even if he's, in truth, unsettled by the dump of medical information and lies.]

Virtual high five for ordinary names! I don't hate it; I just think that everyone knows a Bob or a Rob. Or both. I never had another Robert in the same class, though. It's kind of a shame. Robbie B's got a nice ring to it.

audio, private

[smarterthandad]

[Val's little voice is distinctive even without video.]

My name's not common anywhere, and my parents didn't pick it.

I can do the thing with the file, too.

audio, private

[walkingballpit]

[She's the only toddler with a communicator that he knows of.]

Valeria's not, but Valerie's sort of common. How'd you get it if your parents didn't pick it?

[... she couldn't have been born talking and picked it herself. Right??]

It doesn't really matter, the name thing. I had to come up with some way to segue into asking about weird names. I got sent someone's file, and the name in the file isn't anywhere on the Network. I'm going to scrub it of anything personal and give it to you. Think it's safe to send it through the comms?

video

[wayhot]

My name is just Flame Princess. [A shrug] Apparently it's a weird name to have here, but all the royalty in Ooo have names like mine.

I'm sorry.

[walkingballpit]

No, Ooo's on first.

video

[you_tried]

You know, I actually did sit down and pick out a cool name. I was gonna be Goldstar. Sounds awesome, right?

... and then I wound up with "Booster Gold" by accident, but I guess it worked out in the end.

video

[walkingballpit]

... it sounds like those stickers that teachers give first graders. I'm not sure if awesome's the right word for it.

audio

[gonstop]

I feel like you're thinking too much. Aren't they just names? Unless they're something super weird.

[Robert seems pretty normal to him. And actually--]

Mine's pretty normal. [--he thinks his does, too. Despite the fact that he was basically named Killer.]

How does anyone get a different name from their own while fighting crime, anyway?

audio

[walkingballpit]

They are, but they're names you're stuck with for at least 18 years that you don't get a say in. By the time you're old enough to have them legally changed, it's usually too late. You'd have to retrain everyone to call you something else.

[Robert is pretty normal, which got annoying when he spent a good chunk of his high school years trying to be rebellious. The nickname options - Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bobby, or god forbid Bert - don't exactly scream counterculture.]

It has to do with not wanting the people you're fighting to know who you really are, so they can't hunt you down in your bed or hurt your family. Put on a mask, call yourself the Falcon or something, and nobody knows who you really are. I got called Speedball by someone else though, and it stuck.

audio

[notafishwhisperer]

I really wish people would stop with the naming. "Aquaman" is on the nose, but once it hit the late night talk shows, I couldn't escape it.

audio

[walkingballpit]

At least it's not a euphemism for hardcore drugs. You're pretty much resigned to a life in teal tights, though. But, yeah. I hear you on that one. Once Speedball hit the papers, it never went away.

video;

[friendshiprocks]

My full name's really long- [ Himelda Window Cure Queen of the Blue Sky ] so I just go by Hime Shirayuki here. I picked the last name myself. In English, the last name translates to Snow White--like the princess!

[ which means that yes, this kid's name literally translates to "Princess Snow White" ]

video;

[walkingballpit]

Huh. Why Snow White? Is it an accident - like you love the name Shirayuki, and it just happens to mean Snow White? Or do dou just really like fairy tales or something?

[He doesn't speak Japanese, so she's spared the fisheye that would accompany knowing that her name was Princess Snow White.]

Permavid

[governorkang]

I find many of the names humans use, especially those not from my world, to be very odd.

Permavid

[walkingballpit]

[... that is barely human-ish. If Robbie saw him in the street, he'd probably attack first and ask questions later.]

... we do pick weird names for stuff. Like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

[It was really the first name he thought of.]

audio

[boobwindow]

[ No ID printed. ]

What's the code name?

audio

[walkingballpit]

Mine? Speedball. I tried another one, but it didn't really work out. What about you?

[Since you're going through the trouble of hiding your ID like that.]

video

[corviform]

[ He's never thought about why he was named Gilbert. ]

A name doesn't have to be complicated. It's just a name.

video

[walkingballpit]

If it was just a name, there wouldn't be dozens of baby name books, and books about what your name tells people about you. There wouldn't be cultural rules about when it's okay to use someone's given name instead of their surname. Your name is what people think of when they think about you. It's kind of a big deal.

[ Video ]

[onewiththewild]

Granny chose my name for me. It means "Howling".

I like it!

[ Video ]

[walkingballpit]

Nice! Your granny has an edge. I can dig it.

voice;

[blondtactician]

I don't have a code name. I was a little confused by the concept when I first arrived here.

As for my name, Armin, my grandfather gave it to me. I've read it means protector or soldier, which suits me.

voice;

[walkingballpit]

I can see that. It's not like everybody has one where I'm from either. Sometimes, it just feels that way.

Hey, at least it suits you. Not everybody's name does. And it's not so weird that I haven't heard it before. It's... French, or something, right?

audio; private;

[ex_question191]

[ he so thought he'd got lucky. derek and lydia both got their details blasted to the network, but stiles hadn't had more than a passing mention in their files, and his own was nowhere to be found. he'd got some guy's, but so, it turned out, had freddie lounds, and stiles figured this dude — this dude who taught at his school — didn't need more bugging than he was already gonna get from that tattlecrime article. he hadn't thought for a second that robert j baldwin might have his file too. ]

[ but here he is, just talking about weird first names like it's totally a coincidence that stiles' is exactly that kind of terrible. ]

No last name?

[ he checks, though the private lock might give away that he's already pretty sure he knows what name robbie's struggling to pronounce. ]

audio; private;

[walkingballpit]

[The private lock is a bit of a clue, but he hadn't expected it to be someone who was so close to him, proximity wise, that he could have handed the information over any day of the week.

And Robbie does, in fact, want to make sure that the file is read by whoever it belongs to - they need a chance to brace themselves for whatever would happen if it really leaked.]

Not unless Redacted is a surname in some Eastern European country. It probably is in Latveria. That's the exact sort of miserable they go for there. Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz* Redacted. Sort of has a flow.

[*Pronounced like the Sesame Street song.]

[askedtobe]

Pretty sure all my parents wanted to do was make sure everyone knew I was Italian.

It is kinda interesting though - the kid that gets stuck with the name that their parents think will make them stand out. Something uniquely them. When all it does is set them up for years of torture in school.

[walkingballpit]

Wouldn't your last name handle that? I feel bad for anyone named Guido, though. That's got to be a nightmare of stereotypes and syllables that rhyme with wee.

I think the more time a parent spends on a name, the worse it probably ends up being. There was a girl on that old Nick show, Figure It Out, who had the world record for the longest name. It took her a full 30 seconds to say. That's just cruel.

[voice]

[yatagarasu]

I like my name - Kay Faraday. If I write it out as just "K" as in the letter, then Faraday, it'd sound the same!

Plus, I can make a lot of jokes with it. I hope that's oKay with you. [BA DUM TSH.]

[voice]

[walkingballpit]

[ Robbie chuckles at that, because he appreciates a nice sense of humor. ]

Oh, Kay. You know I'm okay with that.

It's a great name, though, with the internal rhyme and everything. It bounces off your tongue. Kay Faraday.

video.

[darkspider]

People should do what they can to choose their own identity. Fuck anything else.

[He has a feeling that Robbie was going for something else, and he doesn't care. Kaine feels pretty strongly about this subject.]

video.

[walkingballpit]

Did you choose Kaine? I mean, talk about setting yourself up for a hard time. You picked the name that was all about being set up, because one day God woke up on the wrong side of the cloud and decided lamb chops weren't good enough that day. God can be an asshole.

[He was, but now that they're talking about it, why is your name Kaine, Kaine?

...then again, Robbie took the name Penance. Glass houses.]

[video]

[extirpations]

My codename as you call it was chosen for me as well, however I can't say I find it to be objectionable. I always found the title of the Crimson Lotus Alchemist to have a pleasing sound to it.

[Real names on the other hand... well, there's more than one reason Kimblee prefers to go by his family name.]

Re: [video]

[walkingballpit]

Crimson's a pretty strong way to start it off. I'd go with Lotus or Alchemist though. It's a little long to be shouting in the middle of a fight.

audo;

[shutterbugged]

I think my parents just wanted me to alliterate. I did get ragged on for it at school, but less than you'd think.

[ Probably because good ol' Eugene didn't want to throw stones in glass houses. ]

My middle name's Benjamin, for my uncle. He pretty much raised my dad -- and me, too, so that worked out for the best. If I ever have a son [ (unlikely) ] he'll probably be a Benjamin too.

[ private ]

If Val doesn't already have you covered, I can take a look.

audo;

[walkingballpit]

You did? But Peter's another one of those classic boring names. I don't get why … initials, right. That must've gone great with swirlies.

[ He's tempted to him a few bars of "Ben", but only gets as far as the initial note of Ben the two of us need look no more and decides not to push his luck. ]

[ private ]

Val thinks she can do it, so I think I'm covered. Is it - is this weird to anyone else, asking a three year old for help?

voice;

[crab]

My name is an onomatopoeia of the sounds the giant crab monster who raised me made.

voice;

[walkingballpit]

[ How does one even... ]

Cool?

[ That will do. He suspects he's being wound up, anyway. ]

AUDIO.

[huitzilin]

I called myself what I wanted to call myself. Mm—[there's a thoughtful moment]—but Aracely is what I remember, it was given to me.

Why are you thinking so hard about names?

AUDIO.

[walkingballpit]

Yeah, I had that one figured out.

[ New Warriors like cute code names, this is pretty much an established fact. But even Night Thrasher - another bird name - had a much more kickass connotation than Hummingbird. Although Robbie can't come up with anything that would suit her more.

There's quite a pause, because it's caused something else that she's said to click into place. That she doesn't know who she is. ]

I found something with a name I couldn't read. What do you mean - you don't know who you are?

text

[ferroustigmata]

[Display reads Zheleza]

Where I'm from, one is given as much freedom to choose their moniker as they are the power it derives from...which is none at all. But they have a different reason for existing there.

Instead of being a name of affection, to associate with heroic acts or crime fighting, they're meant for anonymity; for distance. There are no heroes in war, only casualties and those that manage to fight another day. Notoriety follows the moniker, rather than an individual--the living weapon, not the person.

text

[walkingballpit]

I'm not sure that I understand the whole "they are the power it derives from" spiel, but the notoriety following the name - that's kind of how it works. It doesn't happen that often, but there are definitely names that have been reused.

[ Names like Scarlet Spider... and Night Thrasher. And Nova. ]

Sometimes, I don't think they should be. If you knew the first one, sometimes, it's always going to be too soon.

video

[sanguineseams]

Ryuuko gave me my name!

[He seems so pleased to share this information.]

It was the first thing that I was given, to call my own. That's a lot more than most clothes can claim.

[walkingballpit]

[ Robbie looks extremely confused. ]

... more than most clothes could... what?!

[ Asking who Ryuuko is seems beside the point. ]

audio | private

[selfequipped]

I can bring in a teammate to have a look at it, but having the file as is will be more helpful than it stripped down. If you're worried about information getting out, I can promise that it won't, but I'm pretty sure all of it would be needed.

audio | private

[walkingballpit]

Let me think about it, okay? It's nothing personal. It's just… personal. To whoever's file it is.

[ Oh, god, just shut up or grab a shovel already, dig the hole a little deeper. All this is doing is calling more attention to the word personal. ]

I'll get back to you on this. Someone thinks they might be able to work with the stripped file.