That Name Became

You might recall that there have been a couple of times in recent years where I’ve either been seen by a thing (Heartbreak High) or felt the need to tell someone who made a a thing that I saw them (Shoplifters of the World), but I certainly did not expect to see myself in Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

It doesn’t quite rise to the same level, but nonetheless: about halfway through the book, Jenks tells Rosemary the literal story of how I got my name.

“Do you know why Human modders give themselves weird names?”

She shook her head.

“It’s a really old practice, goes back to pre-Collapse computer networks. We’re talking old tech here. People would choose names for themselves that they only used within a network. Sometimes that name became so much a part of who they were that even their friends out in the real world started using it. For some folks, those names became their whole identity. Their true identity, even.”

Obviously, I’ve written about this here—and did so again just recently—and as I said in an email to Chambers, while it might be on a technicality this might be the wildest, weirdest way I’ve ever been seen by something.