This week's Sharing Day topic is simple:
Why is the story behind your online pseudonym (either here or one that you use the most often elsewhere)?
I bet you can guess where mine -- "HeroMachine" -- comes from, can't you! I've also gone by "Grunch" before, which is a name I made up for a character in my aborted fantasy novel.
If you like, in return for answering my question to you, you may ask a question of me on any topic and I'll do my best to answer honestly and completely. I'm travelling back to Durango today, so my access and responsiveness depends on how the WiFi is at various airports, so if it's tomorrow before I get back to you, my apologies.
I look forward to hearing your stories!
“Amy Elf” is a take of my actual pen name, Addelina Rayvenne Elf. Although I haven’t been able to publish anything, I write all of the time and regularly participate in NaNoWriMo and some of its subsets thereof. I also tend to go by Rayvenne Elliott, which is what I use for my magick purposes of Wicca. That name is a combination of my chosen witches name and the historical family line for my husband to be.
My question for you is actually about HM3. Will there eventually be sets of female items? Like with the hands and the feet?
Amy Elf,
There are already many dedicated female sets of items in Tops, Hair, and Legwear, among others, so I assume you’re asking more about item sets that are currently gender-neutral, yet by default appear in the proper spot for the male figure but not the female one. If I haven’t yet converted all the Male-only items to have female counterparts (like Tops-FantasyArmor, etc) then I’m really really close.
I had originally planned on having an option at load of “Choose Gender” that would pre-load a blank set of body parts and Standard items for each gender, where everything would be pre-positioned to be in the right spot. So for instance, while the current Eyes load in the right spot on the male head, they’re not by default in the right spot for the female ones. But once you move them in place, following eye placements are right.
I’ve run into two problems with that scenario, however. On the technical side, the whole loading and saving thing is a bit wonky, and I can’t get item positions to be persistent unless an item is actually present after loading once I Clear it. I do think that’s resolvable, though.
The second is more from a user experience perspective. I think people are expecting to see gender-labeled sets. But I wanted to avoid having duplicates of everything since I think that’s kind of confusing and is certainly no fun to create or maintain.
Long story short, if the intent of the question is to make it easier to make female characters, the answer is a definite yes. If the question is, will I rename sets that are currently gender-neutral like Ears to have dedicated, predetermined female positions, the answer is “I don’t know yet”.
Edited to add: This wasn’t an issue in HM2 because you couldn’t load male items into female poses, and you couldn’t load multiple sets into the same slot like you can with HM3, where you can load as many of anything as you want. The list of sets is already pretty full, so I hesitate to double it by making gender-specific names even for those sets, like Items, that don’t change at all from one gender to the other.
Well, back when I was in the 6th grade, I wanted to make a Neopets account. However, I could never remember any of them and did not like having numbers at the end of my Username. So, being the complete and utter genius of a 6th grader I was, I pressed both of my hands down on the keyboard and out popped “zaheelee”. I then wrote it down on a post it note and stuck it on my bathroom mirror, where I saw it every day for about a year. Now, I use it for practically every online account I make.
Well, I have been away from HeroMachine for a little while, and my question is, quite simply, has anything major happened in the last two months?
You mean, besides UGO letting me go, their returning of the copyright and IP rights for HeroMachine to me so it doesn’t get basically shut down, my getting a new full-time gig in Austin (far from my Durango home and wife, alas), and changing the site design? Other than that, no, not much has been going on :-p
Albannach’s just Gaelic for “Scotsman”. My brain was brimming with creativity at the time :/
My question- which two historical figures (any time period) would you like to see fight each other in a boxing match?
I went with Dan, because the first time I made a comment, I guess I wasn’t being creative, and just used my name. I don’t recall ever thinking it would have been more than a one time thing, but I got sucked into the HM world, and just never changed it. Most of the time, when I use a screen name, I go by Darkspring, which came from my favorite character I played in the Star Wars RPG. He was a Chiss smuggler, and my best friend played my Rodian first mate.
Jeff, what was your favorite character you’ve ever played, and what game / class was he (or she)?
“Doornik1142” was the most obscure Star Wars reference I could think of.
Hammerknight started with Final Fantasy XI. He was not my first character because it was on my oldest son’s account, and I didn’t know if I would play for every long. But I was hooked. So I made another character on my other boy’s account. The Hammer came from the fact that I was a carpenter for many years, I have had a hammer in my hand since I was less then 6 months old. The Knight part came from the fact that I believe a warrior is a knight. I was in the Navy, I was a Seabee(Construction Battalion), the Seabees build and fight, they are a combat unit. I served during the first Gulf War go around. I an proud to be a Veteran and proud of my country. I believe serving your country is like being a knight for your King.(King Arthur fan here)So I put the two together and came up with Hammerknight. I believe more people know me as Hammerknight then by my real name.
My question is, is there a HM forum in the future for the site or will we be lift using the UGO’s site?
Sometime around 1999-2000 a friend of mine was planning a Star Wars role playing game and I came up with the Jedi character, Dionne Jinn. The name “Jinn” obviously comes from Qui-Gon Jinn, who happens to me my favourite character. I can’t really remember where “Dionne” came from, actually. In the end the RPG was cancelled but the name has stayed with me ever since, and I’m quite fond of it. I use it regularly on forums and other internet communities.
No question yet, but if I come up with one, I’ll ask later.
Kaylin is a character in a series of books by Michelle Sagara. I read the books, decided I liked the name, and used it for my next online registration. Before that I was using Petra, which is the female equivalent of my favourite male book character’s name*, or Viva, which I picked randomly and means “life”.
The website I was registering for already had someone calling themselves Kaylin, so it suggested putting numbers after the name. I tried “800” but that was taken, so it suggested “881”. Because I am incapable of remembering more than one username, I used it for everything. Which was fine, until it encountered HeroMachine…which apparently already had a “Kaylin881”. So I added the 00, because I didn’t want any more numbers to remember, and 00 seemed easy. I then used the same user for my Photobucket account as what I upload is 99% HeroMachine stuff.
*My favourite male book character, ever since I read the books, is Peter Pevinsie from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
After all that… my question to you, Jeff, is this: if you could change your name to anything you wanted (no limits at all)-
(a) Would you change it?
(b) If yes, to what?
I know that’s really two questions, sorry. But just a “yes” or “no” to that sort of question isn’t very satisfying, is it?
Tarkabarka is joke for my side. When i first enter in a contest i use my main pseudonym Tarkarra, after when i return i think i use the name Tarkabarka which means motley or kaleidoscope, first of all tarkabarka very good for what about heromachine meaning for me and the word is hungarian and i want to shown it i’m a hungarian. My main pseudonym is Tarkarra i very often use that name, it means nothing (or i don’t know means something), i think it to very cool sounded but i really don’t remember where comes the idea to use this name. My third pseudonym is coming for mmo-s. If i make a female char (yeap i play females :D) i usually give the name Taisen (if i know well that word is japanese and means war). If you see a char named by Taisen in CO, DCU, or any mmo with pink hair and red cloth that 95 percentage that’s its me.
My question.
Jeff whats your favourite superhero type i think gadgeter, martial artist, power user, etc etc, and why you like that type.
I got the name Johnny Gear from a character I made on heromachine. He was my submission for gadgeter in the last Friday Night Fights contest. I liked the name and character so I decided to use it.
I just recently started to get into Doctor Who, so my question, Jeff, is which Doctor is your favorite?
A Long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…. (NAH, just kidding, wrong universe ;))…
Space, the final frontier…. (AHHHH, that’s better! HEHEHE)
AAAAAnyway, way back in 1994, I had just gotten back to Brazil and was in my first semester in college. I found out they were opening internet accounts for students, so I had to choose a name to register, and being a huge trek fan, particularly of the Next Generation, I thought: “Let’s try one of the more original names, like Worf”. Now this was not the Internet as you’re used to today, this was an UNIX system that only had the original net services (gopher, ftp, smtp, archie and a few others). Obviously I got the login, but that started a trend where I’d have to explain to people what the heck was a “Worf”. Now Ricardo (my real first name) is about as common here as John in the US, and I never cared to be called by my last name, so when people I met on campus started calling me by Worf, I went with it. Just about every username on every site I have to register today I tend to use Worf (sometimes I have to add numbers or such and then OBVIOUSLY it becomes Worf1701).
That’s my story and I can guarantee you that, to this day, there are people that only know me as Worf.
My question is to satisfy my curiosity: Jeff, what is it exactly that you’re doing on the new job? And if you can, who are you working for?
maniac mick is the name i used a few times in videogame save files. I’ve spelt it “maniac mic” and “maniacmick” , I threw in the “k” because people would say it wrong (like mike in “microphone) when it’s mick like part of my last name (starts with “McC” cuz I’m part irish)
and jeff:
What superhero movie do you like best? Or do you hate comic book movies like alot of “nerds” do? (i put nerds in quotes since that’s how comic book fans are commonly referred to)
It all started back in college around 1989. I was taking a computer class (before the internet as we know it) and we needed a log in name for assignments. I chose dblaze, which was a play on my real name. Later on this morphed to dblade (I’m not sure why, but probably sword-related) and I’ve been using it ever since. If I can’t get dblade on a site then I use voidwidow, which is a super I created for my supers campaign setting. To date I have never encountered another voidwidow.
If you could have any superhero made into a live-action movie who has not already been seen on film, who would it be? Personally I would like to see the Savage Dragon live-action movie.
Let’s see, I’d go with Muhammed Ali (duh) and William Wallace.
My favorite RPG character was probably “Cavalier!” (terminating exclamation point required), a Champions character who hailed from another dimension and got all his Earth info from watching action-adventure movies from a portal just over that section in a video store.
OK, I’ll bite — what’s the reference to? I don’t recall it. Of course, the other day I thought the blue elephant was in the Mos Eisley cantina but he was actually in Jabba’s palace so what the heck do I know.
I don’t know, honestly. I do have some WordPress forums set up here, but I haven’t turned them on yet. I feel intimidated by the idea for some reason. And there’s SO MUCH content on those UGO Forums … I suspect that yes, at some point in the next couple of months we’ll have to transition as I expect UGO will eventually close their forums as they’ve threatened to do for a while now. But until then, we’ll stick with it in all likelihood.
Hm, interesting … Probably not, I kind of like the way my full name sounds (Jeffrey Michael Hebert). It does get to be a pain having to spell, then pronounce, my last name (it’s pronounced A-Bear), but I’m stubborn enough that I won’t give up on it.
If I WERE to change it, though, I’d go with Princess Consuela Bannahammock. (Obscure “Friends” reference FTW!)
I probably lean towards the martial artist types, especially when combined with something else (Batman’s a MA/Detective, etc.). I think it feels more like something a human could in theory do, as opposed to someone like Superman or a mutant who is born that way. It’s like, I could almost see how I could be Batman and that is cool, but no matter how hard I try I’ll never be able to be Superman.
I like the name, Johnny Gear, it’s cool, and neat that it came from a HeroMachine entry!
I actually have never seen an episode of Doctor Who, embarrassingly, so I’m afraid I have no answer. Maybe during one of these Austin trips I’ll see if I can Hulu them or whatnot, because it’s really an inexcusable nerd lapse on my part not to have tried it yet.
Many years ago, an old college roommate and I referred to each other with the light-hearted jab of “Moog.” Usually, following some bone-headed gaff one of us would say something along the lines of, “Ya big moog!”
Somewhere along the way it was determined that I was the recipiant of said insult far more often than my buddy. So often that I was deemed “King of all Moogs!” Well, a king needs a kingdom, doesn’t he?
So, the Nation of Moog was declared. All seemed well until one day a friend pointed out that my kingdom had no subjects. After moments of despair it was decided that my kingdom was really more of a movement, and since Moogmovement just sounds dumb, I started the Worldwide Movement of Moognation. The rest is, as they say, history…
And, yes, all of those conversations actually happened. My friends and I are big dorks…
Ok… My question is, what happened to that random space background challenge you put up a while back? I can’t find it anymore… Did it got deleted when the page moved?
The actual pronunciation of your name is the most amazing revelation of the day. I will have to recondition my brain to eliminate “Hee-Burt” and replace it with “A-Bear”.
Until then please bear with me when I mistakenly type Hebert instead of Hebert. I’ll eventually get it right.
I remember Gopher! Man, that was right before the World Wide Web even existed … wow. I only used Archie once or twice, but Gopher was my main portal to the world. Man, we’re OLD!
The new job is with Demand Media. They own Cracked.com! Along with a bunch of other sites (like, a BUNCH). I’m in the R&D department under the guy I worked for before HeroMachine got bought out by UGO, a really great guy. Our team is currently working on developing iPhone front-end apps for the hundreds of thousands of how-to articles we have, all of which arose out of the company he started and I worked for back in the day. At the moment I’m teaching myself Objective-C, with the goal of being able to be the on-staff Project Manager who at least groks enough of the development side to speak coherently with the actual developers.
Oh no, I love super-hero movies, though only if they’re done well. Like, if I can tell a movie is going to suck from the previews (hello Ghost Rider!), I can’t bear to see it. Nothing’s more painful to me than a crappy super-hero movie because I love the genre so.
My number 1 super-hero movie is either “The Incredibles” or the first “Iron Man”.
You mean this? http://www.heromachine.com/2011/12/30/hm3-challenge/
Hey, that would be cool! Savage Dragon is a great subject.
Let’s see, I’ll be boring and go with The Flash, as he’s the last of my childhood favorites still waiting in the wings. Only, hopefully we could get Marvel to make the movie, as DC has such a poor track record with their own properties. Can we do that?
Just was lazy and took from Moorcock
OK, gotta get on the plane now. I’ll check back in when I get to Denver!
“Lime” is a reference to one of my favorite parts of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. (The part where everyone keeps asking Charles if he’s “the man with the lime.”)
Also, limes have religious significance for me. For serious.
Also, I like the flavor.
Back when I was 7 or 8, my brother and I were way to into Star Wars, and our Dad made us stop. So then we created another sci-fi world called The Colonaxy, which eventually grew to be pretty complex. And Captain Kicktar was a smuggler that I made.
Mine’s fairly simple… I’m left-handed, and I play bass guitar. My favorite one is a left-handed Fender Precision Bass.
Have a safe trip!
As many probably know by now, McKnight came from the name of my main OC. The 57, however, came from the fact that my last name is Hines, which sounds like the Heinz ketchup/condiment company (Heinz 57).
So here’s the question: Aside from Grifter and Voodoo, which characters from WildC.A.T.s would you like to see in the DCnU? As far as I’m concerned, anyone here can answer this question. My answer would be either Spartan or Zealot, even if they show up on Earth 2 in May.
My normal pseudonym on websites is Madman Mike. Not really sure why I didn’t use it here. Maybe a lack of creativity since when I set up the username I didn’t actually plan to participate. Silly me.
Madman goes all the way back to high school. One of my friends, a guy named Andy, started calling me that after one of my all too frequent comic rants. It stuck. When I was still a working comedian, I used Madman Mike as my stage name. Heck, if I lived somewhere that actually had venues for comics I might do it again still as the Madman. Unfortunately, not a lot of places here to perform.
@Hammerknight: When were you in? I spent some time as a blue-shirt myself from 86-93.
I’ll actually copy what I quite recently posted on TrekBBS forums:
My current nickname first came up looong ago, when I was first playing a video game known as “Zeus: Master of Olympus”. I needed something vaguely Greek-sounding, so I just typed “calling” (i.e. one who calls) into translator and got “Kalontas”, so I typed that in game and voila. Later I ended up using it on a fansite of said game, and since then, it stuck to me and I’m feeling fine about it.
Why “one who calls”? I think it was because of one funny saying one local politician said about another one, but I doubt many people would know what I’m talking about if I presented the names and details.
A question for you? HM3 related of course. Is it only me or do HandRight, FootRight and ShoulderRight not have their left-handed counterparts fully filled out? I mean, it’s easy enough to just make two right items and copy and flip one, but it’s just odd that FootRight has three categories with over double the items FootLeft has.
It mostly comes from Explorer Scouts. On my first meeting I turned up wearing a Star Trek t-shirt. Very soon I was asked if I was a fan, and when I said yes one guy started calling me Trekkie, and when I arrived at meetings he was usually the first to greet me with that nickname. Pretty soon everyone started calling me Trekkie, even the leaders and people I know outside of Scouts. Some people even have to ask me what my real name (Rebecca) is, because they’ve known me as Trekkie for so long and they’ve forgotten.
So when I joined the UGO forums, I was trying to think of a name fairly quickly and ended up deciding on he name so many people know me by. And I really couldn’t think of anything else, so thank goodness for scout nicknames!
I can’t think of a question at the moment, so I’ll wait.
The name I use around here doesn’t have all that glamourous an “origin story,” but I’ll grace you with it anyway.
I had recently been regailed with stories of a game one of my friends was playing entitled “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.” I had also asked my grandparents for said game and received it for my birthday, but we needed a pc upgrade (and ironically I’ve been fidling with said game ever since). I was 14 at the time, and thought about the name I would use that sounded appropriately “Star Warsy,” so on the drive to a boy scout meeting I started sounding out words, and low and behold I discovered the name “Tuldabar Starris” (yeah, the last name is a cop-out). I’ve used it in all my sci-fi and fantasy gaming ever since (ecxept Mass Effect).
Typically I save this name for non-social gaming purposes though, so I’ve also created in the past couple of years the online persona “Shadow Quickpaw” (or just Quickpaw). This coincidentally was first used on the “Star Wars: The Old Republic” forums; I have a history with Bioware games.
My question for you this week: I’m hoping to one day write a sci-fi/fantasy book with the main character of a Werewolf time/dimensional traveler. Do you have any hints or suggestions?
A little over a year ago my old email address got hacked and I had to come up with a new one. I was going into the navy at the time and wanted something related to that. I finally chose Alphaalpharomeo because in the military alphabet it’s the first three letters of my first name, Aaron. Jeff if you had to create a team of 5 Xmen to be in an Xmen squad in real life, who would the 5 be?
Phatchick was pretty simple, I’m a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman for those who wonder) and according to the Urban Dictionary Phat means
1. cool
2. Pretty, Hot And Tempting
Which my husband thinks describes me to a T (and who am I to argue with him when he’s right 😉 ).
Okay, I’ve thought of a question, and it is: If you could choose any comics character or superhero group to get their own animated series, who would it be and why?
Personally I think Captain Marvel would make for a good cartoon, what with it being about a kid who turns into an adult superhero.
Well, my nickname comes from Carpathian sorcerers, the Molfars, who can control weather. It first appeared wnen I was finishing the school. There was strong wind, and I said “I wish there was no wind” – and the wind was gone. Then I said “I wish the wind blew in my back, for me to move quickly” – and it happened. I remembered Molfars. Back then I didn’t know how to spell “Molfar” correct, so I came with the name “Malfar” and use it almost everywhere. So if you stumble upon Malfar, or Malfarro, or Malfarius somewhere – 90% that it’s me.
Can’t think of any question right now.
Kaldath is the Name I chose for My First Character I played in a Play-By-Email game through Yahoo groups I was in Called RavensKeep. I liked the name so much that it became my Online Username for almost anything I sign up for the only exceptions being those services that I have had before starting Ravenskeep. I even use the Picture of Kaldath that characters Betrothed that Jeff Drew for me as a Contest prize as my Avatar for EVERYTHING.
Before Kaldath, I was known as DravenDakar which was the username I selected when I first got online. Draven Dakar is the name of one of my most favorite AD&D Characters which I have played. That Name was created from combining names from two different Sources, Draven I took from the Crow which of course was the last name of the protagonist of that movie “Eric Draven”. The Dakar part was the name of a Character in a book I was reading at the time, though for the life of me I can not remember what book now as the name was created some 20+ years ago.
The only other pseudonym I have ever gone by was Alrec Dunneldon. I have used that name Solely for uses at Ren Fares when I was a Member of the SCA ( Society for Creative Anachronism )
My Question for you Jeff is: Of the Two Genre which do you prefer, Sci-Fi or Fantasy ?
It’s not in the movies. It’s a reference to one of the EU books. In the first book of the Black Fleet Trilogy (my three absolute favorite SW books) there’s this brief scene where a ship full of stellar cartographers drops out of hyperspace to survey an uncharted solar system. The captain comes on the intercom and makes this really stupid joke: “Your tour operators, the Astrographic Survey Institute, welcome you to Doornik eleven-forty-two. Make sure you take time to look out the viewports!” And then they get attacked and blown up by the bad guys.
To my knowledge that particular solar system has never been referenced before or since in any piece of Star Wars media. But for some reason that line and the name stuck with me. When I decided to make a DeviantART account it popped into my head and I decided to use it.
Nothing profound here. Bael is phonetically derived from my middle name, Bailey. Though you’d be surprised by how many people think it is something religious in nature.
You mentioned that UGO might take the forums down. If that happens, will you get the content, or will they just vanish? Do people need to start making backups in case you have to start up your own?
well, my actual name in Ephrem. i realized it sounded like the letters F-R-M. thus: FRM
It’s not so complicated. I play the guitar (loudly, badly) and my favourite sonic mangling devices are fuzz pedals – preferably with silly, rude-sounding names. The other inspiration is my large fuzzy cat (a blue British Shorthair) who is normally sitting six inches to my left, purring, at any given moment.
Q for Jeff – a work related one, which seems appropriate. You’ve got into your TARDIS/Time Machine and found a job drawing comics. Which strip, when, and why?
Myro, as I’ve stated before, is the first four letters of my last name (which, if any of you have been lurking the HeroMachine Facebook account, would have found is Myroniuk. It’s Ukranian). It’s a nickname that my friends had started calling me around the time I started going to college, and is still used by my friends at times. So, when I started going online, all those many years ago, I decided to carry over my nickname as my screen name, and it, or some variant, has been used everywhere.
I actually knew that. I guessed it was the same pronunciation as former QB Bobby Hebert, who also originated from Louisiana. It’s probably easier to figure out than Myroniuk (hint: if you’re pronouncing it the same way people pronounce MY-roe, then you’re wrong).
No question comes to mind yet. Have a safe trip, Jeff.
That post is here:
http://www.heromachine.com/2011/12/30/hm3-challenge/#comments
There were some neat ones!
It’s been bugging me all this time that you were typing it properly but mispronouncing it in your head. I’m glad we got that cleared up.
No worries if you’d rather not share, but I have to ask — what is their religious significance to you?
Along with Doctor Who, you can add “never read an issue of WildC.A.T.s” to my Nerd List of Shame.
No, it’s not just you — doing those Right-Left conversions is the next major project I need to undertake once I have all the Male-only items done. Which I think I’m darn close to.
Part of the delay clearly has been the job transition, but beyond that I haven’t had a chance to install Flash on my work computer, so I’ve been stuck in neutral for the last two weeks.
Tuldabar, I take it you’re playing the Star Wars: Old Republic MMO? Do you like it? The standalone KOTOR game was awesome, but since I don’t have Windows I can’t play the MMO. Much sadness.
Make sure he doesn’t sparkle!
I’ll just say that my personal plea to all speculative fiction authors is to always remember that character comes first. Give us characters with whom we can empathize and about whom we care, and the rest will be much easier. We readers will swallow a lot of plot craziness if we give a crap about the beings involved in it. Whether it’s a regular person or a werewolf or a sentient bag of hammers, make them as fully three-dimensional and real in terms of their essential selves and we’ll be happy.
Also, lasers.
Thanks, Jeff. I still don’t understand why I couldn’t find it on my own…
Hunh, all this time I assumed it was your three initials (first, middle, last name)! Good to know the real story.
Let’s see, a five-person X-Man squad … I admit I’m way behind on my X-lore here, so forgive me if I overlook obvious candidates from the more recent past. You gotta have Wolverine, because come on, Wolverine. I’ll make him the team leader since I always thought Cyclops was a jerk.
So that’s our martial artist/hand to hand combat specialist. You need some sort of mentalist so I’ll go with Jean Grey, but in her Marvel Girl guise since I love those green and yellow uniforms.
For getting in and out of various tough spots I’ll take Kitty Pryde. Being able to dematerialize is a heck of an ace in the hole.
You have to have a tech guy too — plus, think how much advanced Marvel age devices could impact the real world! — so I’ll go with Forge.
That leaves one slot unfulfilled, and we don’t have a flyer yet. So I’ll take Storm, since someone who can control the weather could do incredible good for the world. She would be a heck of a lot more valuable ending droughts and dissipating tornados than fighting bad guys.
What would your list be?
Amen, sister!
I think there was a Shazam! cartoon on when I was younger, but I don’t think they did a terribly good job with it. A well-done one could be neat!
I think I’d love to see a well-done “Bone” cartoon or movie. That was such a beautifully illustrated and scripted series, with tons of action I think would translate well. But only if Jeff Smith were very involved, otherwise I could see it becoming a disaster.
I realize that’s a weird answer, but I loved that whole series.
Consider it done. At least go to YouTube and look up the 90’s cartoon series of the same name. All kinds of awesome.
Boy, that’s a tough question. I mean, ultimately they’re both speculative fiction, which is really what I like, and there’s a lot of crossover between them.
But if you twisted my arm and forced me to answer, I’d probably have to say … fantasy. Partly it’s just that good sci-fi is, I think, harder to write, and thus rarer. Even when it’s handled competently it’s harder to get a really great story out of it, for whatever reason, and as a result you tend to run into more stinkers. There are so many people writing fantasy that the pure quantity is enough for a lot of good stuff to bubble to the top. And the worlds can be so different, it’s more of an escape than a sci-fi novel, which by necessity is grounded in our own reality a fair bit.
But I love ’em both! Strangely I tend to read mostly military sci-fi like the David Weber “Honorverse” titles and such.
I am not sure either. I found it first via a GMail search (all comments get emailed to me) for “space challenge background”, then I tried a direct search using the box at the top of this page just to check, with the same string, and it came up.
Good to know, though, thanks for filling us in!
Yes, absolutely and emphatically. Given the massive size of the images they must have stored there, I can’t see how they’d ever manage to get them to me even if they were willing. You definitely want to make backups of everything there.
Nifty! I was just pronouncing the letters individually but this makes a lot more sense.
Ok… Now I feel like an idiot! I hadn’t even noticed the search box! I just leafed through category after category without finding it.
Oh my. That’s hard to say because I wouldn’t want to displace any of the great artists who worked on them before, you know? It would be like going back in time and painting the Sistine Chapel before Michelangelo could get to it.
So instead I’ll say that I would go back and draw Bulletman, because let’s be honest, no one really remembers either the character or the artist. It wasn’t like Kirby or Gil Kane or anyone brilliant did it who I’d be bumping off, right? Plus, BULLETMAN! And Bulletdog!
Well, my names come from when I was joining a online RPG called Battleon. This was a good 6 years ago. I was trying to think up a name for my account and all the ones that had come to mind had been taken. So I decided to mess around with one of my favorite things at the time, vampires. Not the sparkly sissies, but the suave gentlemen type. Vampire, and Vampyre were taken, so I eventually came up the Vampyrist. So I turned out to become a Vampyr specialist.
So my question this week is if you could pick one show, not necessarily nerd-centric, to be saved from cancellation/brought back to Television, what would it be?
On a side note, maybe for when the UGO forums go down, and they will, it may be a good idea to open up the new one early, to allow people to transfer over stuff gradually, instead of in a mad dash like when the forums are brought down.
actually, i intended for the letters to be said individually, so it sounds like the whole name, not just “from”
This is super random, but there was a show called Day Break (bad name!) featuring a Groundhog Day type of plot where a detective keeps waking up on the same day over and over, wherein he’s framed for shooting the DA. He discovers slowly that he can make permanent changes, but the series ended after like five episodes, and we never found out what the heck was going on. It was maddening.
So I’d pick that one, so I could see the ending.
Meniukas if translate to English would mean ‘little artist’. I got this nickname about ten years ago, when I went to university in the dormitory I was dubbed as meninikas ‘Artist’, because of my long hair and bohemian behavior. But after two years the bohemian life style turned me from healthy farm boy to rather slim bohemian. My weight dropped from 198.9 pounds to 143.65, and then one friend joked ‘that now I’m not Meninkas but just meniukas. So since then that nickname has been stuck on me and even now after ten years there are more people who know me by that nickname than by my real name.
My question would be is it true in USA about nerds and geeks, how its shoved in Hollywood movies, because I simple can’t believe it, I for example vas the only one geek in my school and no one harassed me for that it was even opposite we the smart one ‘nerds’ harassed the stupid ones?
Hollywood rarely gets anything totally right, and I do think that the treatment of geeks and nerds has gotten much much better in the last twenty years or so with the success of people like Bill Gates. But before that, yeah, people who were good in science or math, or who liked Dungeons and Dragons, or who were into chess and such were definitely picked on in high school.
My name comes from my favorite Vampire the Masquerade character. He was a Malkavian. I played him for a number of years. His name was derived from a character from my favorite novels of all time, “Dragonlance Chronicles”. It was originally sqelled Kith Kanan, but I changed it a little to sound more modern to fit in with the game world.
I really can’t recomend these books enough. If you haven’t read them, you should. It is a great story about the struggle between good and evil with very well thought out characters. I have read the original trilogy at least 10 times and the sequels “Dragonlance Legends” at least 5 times.
I “borrowed” much of the flavor of my own dnd campaign from the world of Krynn with a taste of several of my other favorite worlds as well to combine it all into a game world that has spanned 6 generations.
Question: What is happening with the Heromachine Freestyle that we started. I thought that there were several good story starters in there to choose from and I am patiently waiting to see who gets chosen to launch our epic tale.
My original name was “poymoo” because my friend came up with Roymo randomly and being the uncreative 13 yr old I was, I stole it. I had used it about a million times in the past 5 years, so came up with “HairWhip” because it was the name of my first HM creation. I have long hair, so it kind of fit me, and I use it only for this site.
Question: How did you come up with the handle “Jeff Hebert”?
really? ghost rider? i enjoyed the first one, it was okay but not great and the new one looks like it could be good.
For me, popcorn shrimp has religious significance.
I chose Syntax as a bit of a joke regarding the internet. The full title is ThereisnoSyntaxhere, which can be true depending on which part of the internet you are on. Y’know, chatspeak and all.
I shortened it to Syntax when I realized that that by itself sounds pretty cool, even if the word itself is relatively mundane. I’m also a bit of a grammar nazi, so there’s that too.
Oh what a question Vampyrist… I’ll give you two that, if I ever come across the execs that did them in, I’m likely to kill them.
Strange Luck and Firefly.
I’ll give an answer to this question myself. The Program I’d like to see brough back is; Kindred: The Embraced a TV show from 1996 based on the White Wolf role-playing game, Vampire: the Masquerade. It only Ran half a season before it was cancled, to my dissappointment because I really enjoyed that show.
Well, when I decided I wanted to make a comment on one of the first sharing days, I thought i would need a suitable name. I decided to reach behind me and take a book off my bookshelf, which was filled with my favorite books. The first book I pulled out was the first Rouge Squadron book, so I picked my favorite character from the series, Lt. Corran Horn. If I reached a little farther right I would have been R. Daneel Olivaw.
My question, for Jeff or anyone who wants to answer, is have you read Game of Thrones, and if you have, who was your favorite character?
i want more episodes of the batman/superman adventures. they’re much better than the newer batman shows.
Oh, and I was also know as Stan Lee for the 8 months I worked at a restaurant. No one except my boss picked up on that, and the waitresses didn’t even know my real name (Joe). I still get a kick out of that.
I would pick Pushing Daisies and The Zeta Project since I loved both and both ended on a cliffhanger after the second season.
As for my question to Jeff, what sort of details do you like to see in speculative fiction? The little things, like a device for a non-hominid that could plausibly work, or the big things, like how a specific culture works?
I’d help you with the Foxheads who messed with Firefly. The way they handled the series was sinful, playing the episodes out of order. I know long time fans of Joss Whedon, including myself, who were scratching their heads by use of the Train Job as the series opener. It just didn’t feel like a proper introduction to the world. My friends stopped watching it. Fortunately I stuck with it and when I saw the actual pilot I was filled with rage at the idiots who made the decision not to start with that wonderful piece of television. I envy Firefly newbies who actually see it in the right order with their first viewing.
my question is: what is your opinion on the Lord of the Rings/ dungeons and dragons type world? and have you read the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini?
I’d Have to say My List would Have to inclure Beast, Phoenix, Wolverine, Banshee, and Armor
I only know about “syntax error” when i add wrong input in my calculator 😆
when i was elementary school, my name mock me by called me “gendon”
I dunno how to describe this word, but it’s kind of an animal or insect 😆
if u really want to know it, here’s a picture of “gendon” http://www.resep.web.id/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ulat-sagu.jpg
later, I began to love these name :D, and became my pseudonyms for years till present day.
to make it more unique, I then added suffix “esia” taken from half of my country name. and voila! here come gendonesia
I have no question yet Jeff 😀
Mine is from the Van Halen Song… “The Atomic Punk!” The song inspired my Champions character who was a psiborg. Somewhere around here I have the character sheet.
I use The Atomic Punk as my psuedonym on mostly music, art, fiction, and fan sites. I have several sign-ins and accounts for various sites. I have a nickname since I was 15 that people call me only after I grant them permission. For that, they have to listen to the story of how I acquired it.
I knew that I should have picked up “Firefly” when I saw it for ten bucks. I think my dad has read every “Honorverse” novel there is. Not much of a reader myself. I’ll wait for the movie. Speaking of movies… “Alien Legion” is slated for 2013!
Seem to be a lot of musically-inclined people around. I always have my ear open for different sounds. I’m on a 1990s R&B kick as of late.
Open question for everyone: What are you listening to right now?
When this blog first showed up at heromachine, I saw people’s comments as such and such says:. So It immediately made me think of Frankie says relax. I wasn’t born during that era, but when I was in elemetary school in the eighties, a kid had that on his t-shirt. some of my other online names have better origins.
No question at the moment, so I’ll answer a few of the posted questions.
A superhero animated cartoon? The Golden Age Justice Society of America.
Five X-Men? Wolverine(duh), Rogue(my favorite X-Woman), Beast(pre Catman Beast that is), Colosus and Iceman.
What am I listening to now? I’m facing the computer and listening to the t.v.
Like Worf and dblade, I have a small pit of rage in my heart for the TV execs at Fox who completely fumbled and axed Firefly on their program schedule. It’s too bad it was a relatively expensive show to produce at the time, as Joss Whedon said, in hindsight, he would have been better off selling it to Sci-Fi (now SyFy), who would have a) been thrilled to have gotten Firefly’s 140 000 viewers per week, and b) presented Firefly the way Whedon intended.
My other choice is MTV’s Undergrads, which I found was a hilarious, and surprisingly accurate depiction of college, given that it was animated and spent almost no time in the classroom. Unfortunately, that one never got picked up for a second season, leaving tons of unresolved stories. And, of course, my rage at MTV stems from how they would now rather put up crappy reality TV series like Shot of Love with Tia Tequila or Jersey Shore.
I go by the name Silverlion most places. It is because my favorite self created hero named Silverlion. It started out as a character I made trying to make a costume for Freedom Force (the video game) then it became more important and became the name of my company and character.
Kinda late here, but I’ll post anyway
I actually didn’t quite understand when it asked for name and gave my real name, not realizing it would be my username. The standard internet name I use is Onikagenoken. I came up with it when I was coming up with the idea for an anime (Which I do ALL the time, I love anime) and I gave the man character a cursed sword called the Onikagenoken (which is a bad translation that means demon shadow sword). No question though.
Right now, this second? The piped in classical music that the restaurant stereo is playing where I work. However, once I finish my shift, get in my car, and plug in the iPod, I’ll be listening to the 4X4=12 album by Deadmau5. Is it unseemly for a man my age to listen to so much house music? Probably. But you asked.
Weird Al Yankovic on Yo Gabba Gabba. (My daughter is watching it). 🙂
Most recently on my player I was doing a shuffle that included the Offspring, Shotgun Messiah, Metallica, Killer Dwarfs, Linkin Park, and Disturbed.
A playlist shuffle of Styx, Guns n Roses, Rush, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, My Chemical Romance, with some extra Kansas thrown in for good measure.
And to answer my own question, while I did actually only watch Firefly recently and in the right order, I loved every minute of it. It deserved to have more episodes and ’twas a shame it was cancelled. Another show which should have more or in my opinion ended differently, was the show Reaper. It had the perfect ending set up, then the show screwed over that ending nine ways till sunday.
I wish my name had a cool origin story…Well, my last name is Gero, so that’s usually what I use as my screen name, since it’s easy to remember, and short enough that others won’t trip over it when typing it. In cases where it’s too short or already taken, I usually add “Keymaster” to the end. I like to collect skeleton keys and key-shaped memorabilia, and thought Keymaster was a psudeo-impressive way of describing my hobby.
Okay, my question for Jeff is (and forgive me if it’s been answered in another SD post, as I don’t normally participate in them) : What’s your favorite book (i.e. Novel/Story/VCR Manual, not comic) you’ve ever read?
Blackmore’s Night a Folk Rock Band. The Actual Song I am listening to as I type this is Titled Fool’s Gold
I just got in from the flight (long story involving cat poop in the seat next to me on the plane), but I’ll get to the rest of the direct questions to me tomorrow. Have a good night, thanks for the fascinating reading, and I’m glad you all are here!
The rain. 🙂
“ams” are my initials. I know, pretty boring, but when I started with heromachine I had no idea it would be in my daily routine or I would have thought of something cooler like ……..ams1.
Question – Any time table for new items? I understand the transition you are going through being away from home, but there is nothing like opening the blog and seeing a shiney new item to play with.
Cheers!
Foo Fighters & Rush are in the car right now.
I’m listening to Opie & Anthony.
Some of the best books ever written, in my opinion, and the source of my HM user name. Lannister pride, biotches! 😀 And a massively well-deserved Emmy for Peter Dinklage.
My most common account name is ‘Diamond’, a nod to Diamond Jim Brady, Jim being my first name. I think this is the only site I regularly visit where I use Imp.
My question for Jeff: Have you ever read Lois Bujold’s ‘Vorkosigan’ series? And if not, WHY???
I opened Michio Kaku’s “Hyperspace” at a random page and “quark” was what I got. Why did I pick that book? I am/used to be a huge Muse fan, and they used Hyperspace to name their second album and a couple of songs, so I thought I could do the same looking for inspiration.
when you have an afro and beat all your friends at mortal kombat, it is only natural for them to combine these two traits into a nickname 🙂
nobody actually calls me frotality anymore, probably because they all got sick of losing and stopped playing the game… but i figured it made an easy, memorable online persona. i also went by “onewithtoenail”, a nonsense name from those far-off, afro-less days of youth…
Skarchomp is just “Skarmory” and “Garchomp” combined into one bladed, chocolate-covered Poke-pseudonym. Yeah, I’m a Pokemon fanboy.
“I like you, I love you”, Rin Kagamine version. It’s been stuck in my head all day.
~ne ne ne nee ne chouto ii isogashii nara gomen…
D comes from my hatred of repetitive typing, the most common initial among my friends, the fact that I call my wife ‘sunny-D’ for her optimism, and the fact that several of our gaming friends used to call she and I ‘D&D’
Jeff? How do you feel abt those like me who never post because our projects are never on topic, rarely saved to a site, and almost never have anything to do with superheroes / other comics? Not to be blunt, but I haven’t been happy with anything but heromachine . . .
Nightwish, Bye Bye Beautiful
Debochira started about three years ago when I in my infinite wisdom decided to write a book that would be on par with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Debochira, or Debo for short, is a play on the word debauchery, which means seduction from virtue or duty. You see, Debo is one of the World Powers, four elements that correspond to the four aspects of the human soul; Strength, Courage, Wisdom, and Heart. Debo is the Power of Heart, meaning he follows his gut feeling and acts largely on instinct while also being passionate in various respects. The pun of his name is that in the fourth and final book, he resigns from the position to marry the main character. Nothing bad happens though, this is how the book and series ends, I just made a morbid connection because I wanted to.
Forgot my question, haha. If there was one aspect about HeroMachine that you’d love to improve or add (like 3D modelling, no copyright infringement, etc), what would it be?
“Thunderstruck” by AC/DC.
I just dropped the ball, frankly. I hope to get to that today once I catch up on all the other stuff I need to get done upon my triumphant return to Durango.
42 years ago my master plan went into motion on an unsuspecting Yankee living deep in the heart of Dixie as she entered the hospital to give birth to the Once And Future Bald Avenger …
I have indeed, except for the most recent one — I just haven’t had a chance to get to it yet. But I will!
As for my favorite character, I want to say Arya Stark because I love me some wolves and I admire her pluck, but she hasn’t gotten enough “screen time” for me yet (in the book, haven’t seen the mini-series since I don’t get HBO). So I’ll go with Imp. His courage and willingness to forge his own way in a world set against him is admirable. He is also one of the few to show kindness when it doesn’t immediately serve his own purpose.
My only reservation with him is how he confesses to acts he didn’t commit, which seemed like a bit of the author forcing things to go in a certain direction to maintain the plot, rather than being something arising naturally out of the character.
The weaselly answer is, both. But what I like the most is probably a world that takes its conventions seriously. I’ll give you an example.
I love Stephen Brust’s “Vlad Taltos” series of fantasy novels because he writes his characters in such a way that THEY take all the repercussions of a magic-based society seriously. The fact that people can be brought back from the dead has repercussions that affect so many things, but the characters in the world take it as just absolutely normal. You can see how it affects their planning, how they live their lives, how jobs are planned, everything, but it’s not a Big Deal to us, because it’s not a Big Deal to them — it’s just how the world works.
I have not read that series, no. I am currently re-reading “Lord of the Rings” for (at a conservative estimate) the thirtieth time, so I like it a lot 🙂
I don’t have Spotify open right at the moment, but I’m on a serious old-school Country & Western kick — like music from the Thirties and Forties, Hank Williams Sr, Ernest Tubb, and the like.
I’d probably have to put “Lord of the Rings” at the top of the list. It’s the one I return to over and over, pretty much at least once a year. “Ender’s Game” is close to the top of the list as well. A less-typical speculative fiction type of novel is “Replay”, which was Groundhog Day before Groundhog Day was cool. If it ever was.
Hopefully this week at some point. I just got a slew of new ones from dblade (which are awesome as always), and those are fairly easy to get done. I haven’t had Flash on my laptop (or my Wacom tablet) so it’s been impossible to work on it for the last two weeks, and before that it was all the UGO/job search brouhaha.
Soon, though!
When I am awake and working or driving I listen to anything that is rock oriented. Classic, alternative, metal, or even so called “emo” (I hate that term btw). I will not listen to anything rap or country. No offense to anyone that likes that kind of music, it’s just not my thing.
But when I sleep, I have a playlist on my computer that is made up of female singers. Tori Amos fills out most of that playlist, but you will also find bands like Heart, Paramore, Halestorm, and a band that I stumbled upon when I lived in Athens, GA. called Soul Miner’s Daughter. It features Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland. It was her first band and was more blues/rock than her current country sound.
Love that series, and Bujold in general! In fact, I was missing one novel out of the series and so it was one of the first I ordered on Amazon for my Kindle.
That whole set of authors at Baen are, I think, the best of the current crop of sci-fi writers, from Bujold to Weber and on down the list. You can get an awful lot of great free ebooks from them as well at the Baen Free Library.
It’s all good, whether you want to participate in the larger discussion or not. If you have fun reading the comments and posts, that’s great! I am sure the vast majority of people who use HM never do the blog at all. And of those that do, the vast majority never comment. Which is totally fine!
Open question for everyone: What are you listening to right now?
Fighting Trousers by Professor Elemental, oddly enough. But that’s oddly in a good way.
I think doing all this in 3D would be awesome. The latest version of Flash has some 3D capability built in to it, but I haven’t had a chance to explore it yet. I don’t know how advanced it is or how complicated the imports are, and I don’t know 3DStudio Max or anything, but my goal would be to have you able to create your 3D character like you do now in 2D, then you could send it for printing on a 3D printer in full color to get your very own custom statuette. Wouldn’t that be awesome?!
I know I wasted my question with my own stupidity yesterday, but this just came to mind when reading the comments, you can just ignore it if you want. If/when we are doing copyrighted characters (for example I do a lot of SW characters and stuff) to be used in fan fiction sites, is it OK to post them here for OCDs and the like if we clearly state that they are meant to be fan fiction illustrations and only to be used according the rules of the fan fiction site in question?
excellent! good books, all. if u like LOTR, you’ll like Eragon.
many times it annoys me when people refer to elves as “santa’s short helpers”. that’s how much of a LOTR geek i am!
Jeff, here is a portion of episode 4 “Evil Within” from the WildC.A.T.s cartoon. Please watch this and then pick up and read the trades of James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.s and do the same for the Alan Moore run. As a Jim Lee original (which is also the origins of Grifter and Voodoo) it sort of sets the tone for everything else Jim Lee ever did.
http://youtu.be/ut7qxB7hwR4
Chisoph comes from my real name, Christopher, except I couldn’t fit that in Pokemon (and I didn’t like Chris for some reason) so I took out a few letters and made “Chisoph.” I now use it as my second name in real life (my brothers and closest friends call me Chisoph) and my main name in the virtual world. I usually don’t add numbers, but it depends on what site I’m on.
I don’t always use a pseudonym, as I think I’ve shown here. The thing is, neither of my other two were appropriate:
A) my most common moniker, “Tizmaole” (?), is simply a random collection of letters that I saw in a word-search puzzle once. It looked like some kind of exotic, proper noun, like a Polynesian tribe or something. Anyway, I kept it, because it’s too weird for anyone to guess, copy, or hack.
B) I’ve often used “GreenBikeGuy” on bike- or environmental-related boards and mailing lists, because I do, in fact, ride a green bicycle.
Hey Jeff, This has nothing to do with the topic at hand, however I was looking at the social media share buttons you have on the site on each blog post and I noticed you did not have a Google+ +1 button. I personally would like to see you add such a button so I can more easily share Heromachine with the Google community as I feel there is actually more social engagment there then on facebook. You might even consider a Heromachine Google+ Page.
The screennames I use most often are Knight1192 and Hellcat or a variation of the two. Knight1192 was originally because I pictured myself as being a knight serving under Richard I in the year 1192, the year the Third Crusade ended. It actually came about from my using a crusader knight pic and a heardic shield pic as a logo for greeting cards I made with Print Shop. I’d always place them on the back of the card along with my name in an arch, the knight above the arch and the shield below. When I signed up for my e-mail Knight1192 was already taken so I added the a to the end so it’s knight1192a.
Hellcat comes from the Grumman F6F Hellcat. My favorite fighter of WWII. I use either Hellcat or F6FHellcat for a screenname. I’d just kinda like to have been a Hellcat pilot during the war.
Waally1 and Aslan96 are my most used, i think i got Waally from Wally West from Flash (?). Aslan from CoN the lion dude, lastly “96” from 1996 year of my birth. Also the double “A’s” because Runescape didn’t let me use one.
I want more Tech-Armor
“TOOL” is a nickname given to me given to me by my step-brother that carried into the military. It’s because of the lastname Stanley, like the tools, I got in trouble in basic because my Drill Sgt. tried to poke fun asking what type of Tool I was or something so I told him I was a drill press and that his wife didn’t mind the name. I had it on my helmet overseas, I had a flag that went from the front then turned to flames on the sides and a big middle finger in the back that said my track number and squad and TOOL. I added bullet hole stickers all over it and wore a skull bandana over my face too. When I had to add a name here I just went with that. Anywho… Hey Jeff, How’s it going where your at now, I just moved myself and I am really tired from packing, moving and cleaning.
Dude, I’m wiped. Plus I’m splitting time between Austin (where the job actually is) and Durango (where my home is, including my wife who stays here full time). I spent two weeks in Texas and just came back to CO on Friday for the week. The travel and the being unsettled are, I am discovering, making things that much more tiring.
But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Mine is much simpler than it looks. Back in the mists of time, before the oceans drank Gleaming Atlantis, my favorite superhero gaming character was Paradox. but paradox@aol.com was already taken, and my initials are sm.
Just pulled it out of a hat for my KOL character. (Kingdom of loathing) which is a silly RPG spoof.
so I thought as a seal clubber it’d be a good name.
(One of the classes, the first one I played)