The Name Game (it’s a LORE DUMP!) (Patreon)

Let’s see if I can keep the momentum to talk, um, Momentum, and explain this cheeky tweet:

This is a joke that goes back to 15yo Chrispy. You know how I like to be a bit weird with names - such as funny choices like “Monster” or “Oven,” or using less-common spellings, like “Sky” and “Mitzy,” and whatnot? Early Momentum was FULL of naming insanity. Tijo had LAYERS of nicknames, due to the syndicate that recruited him trying to dehumanize him, which I’ve jettisoned in the reboot cuz it felt too tedious - except maybe for Tijo, if I wanna make it a compression of Tiberon Alejandro instead of simply being his name. Aaron and Rhenna both had black market aliases, which was more about how I couldn’t commit to surnames for them than any plot thing, so that’s gone too. (Aaron still doesn’t have a set surname. Rhenna’s is for another post, because it’s got my cheeky naming involved, but there’s a larger fun story to tell with it.) Phoebe changed her name around when she joined the army (going from Phoebe Alexandra Dionne to Phoebe D. Alexandros) which *remains* part of canon! Meret’s surname of Kaida (kah-EE-dah) is actually her given middle name, cuz her surname was withheld when she was left at the orphanage as a baby, since a surname would mean folks would know where she came from. (Note: There is currently no backstory about this. I have no idea what her birth family name is, cuz I never bothered to put a plot or context there, even tho her birth family was likely well off at some point, and potentially on the losing side of the war. That… is Phoebe’s backstory. We don’t need two of ‘em! The Dionne family is a religious one that got sucked into a radicalizing cult that… is, um, basically exactly what is going on with MAGA jerks now. I wrote that part 25 years ago, when it was just cynical and not painfully real. Anyway, you see why Phoebe ran away and joined the army to DEFEAT her sucky family, and its UNQUESTIONABLY EVIL alliance.)

And then there’s Nate. Why is this sweet girl using a name normally associated with males? (Back in the days of Wii, I made a Mii of Nate, and anyone who saw her commented on the male name. It wasn’t that long ago that even this thing was TOO WILD to folks! Wild.)

Well, you saw the tweet about it. It’s cuz she had SO MANY NAMES that the proper reaction was to shorten the four-surname behemoth down to a mere four letters!

I don’t really want to keep those backstory elements, but I’ll go over the silliness with you. 15yo Chrispy thought it was HILARIOUS. Cuz he sucked.

Momentum takes place 16 years after the Big Epic Fantasy War For Existence. I have it in canon, and it plays a role in everyone’s backstories, but I greatly prefer the Momentum plot of “This world is at a turning point, and we can usher in a golden age if we learn about all in the land and work to make things better for everyone, not a privileged few” to a grim “BATTLE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH!!!” fantasy mush.

I had to establish that context, because Nate’s birth family was among the very first victims of the dark forces at play. Like, it took a few years before people realized what happened was an assault, and the plague was actually a deliberate attack, not random bad luck. (Nate was one of the first war orphans, and Meret was among the final war orphans. I really like that part. You’ll find a lot of parallels, but with different expression, among the Momentum cast.) This plague was the first move of an insidious war crime campaign: It was designed to hurt the able-bodied and leave behind those who are dependent on help, like kids and the elderly. It forces a society to either devote resources to caring for its vulnerable citizens, and embrace compassion, or resent the victims as burdens, with the healthy cruelly turning their back on them. (Boy, does THIS aspect of the story look different as I write this post in pandemic America, where the Republican Party enjoyed the systemic inequality and broken infrastructure/social programs as a way to slaughter the elderly/minorities/the poor/the disabled/etc. All my dark cynicism in 1995 came true in 2020!)

Baby Nate was adopted by a doctor who helped with the plague cleanup, because her remaining family was one or two frail and fading seniors. So he knew her given name: Natalia Sara Annelith. (Autocorrect HATES NataliA, so blame it if it “fixes” something to be wrong.)

And here’s where baby Chrispy piled it on. Adoptive dad was named Eric David Core Vonnegan-Kindler. “Eric David” is his first name. Because her dad had two first names, child Nate really didn’t think anything of having two “middle” names. (Vonnegan-Kindler was now her last name, so Annelith was a middle name.)

After witnessing the horror of the designed-to-maximize-pain plague, and now being a father, the middle-aged Eric David retired and joined a group of doctors who focused on the properties of magical plants (since Momentum is set in a fantasy magic world) and built a school around it.

SIDEBAR: This means little Nate spent all her youth around older doctor types, whose kids were all 10-15 years older than her - and their kids would be 10-15 years younger. This part isn’t related to the name aspect, but I should mention it because Nate spending her life rarely being around people her age is one of her cornerstones that she must adapt to during Momentum. Before running into Aaron, the people her age in her life were… the graduate students she taught. And she had ZERO interest in violating those boundaries. This is why she is so messed up about the connection with Aaron - is this a REAL attraction, or is she just glomming onto the first candidate she met? (Aaron was *also* raised on a college campus, among adults, btw. So… hmm!)

Anyway, in the original Momentum story, Eric David had an accident and died when Nate was still young. Since she was kinda raised by all the doctors of the school anyway, the head of the school, Cello Markwood, officially adopted her. Thus, Natalia Sara Annelith Vonnegan-Kindler Markwood!

By the way, that also locked her into a role of “The Heir,” if you want another cornerstone deal. Spoiler: In her story, after Nate completes the quest and gets her Power of Fate reward, under her leadership, the school expands to a near-religion, and she becomes one of the most prominent voices of the land! She represents reverence of nature and magic and community and kindness - with her rival being the icon of modernization and “personal responsibility”: JERROD! Ooh! Turns out two rewards can both be meant for good and progress, yet cause conflict with each other!

Oh yeah, I actually tried to make a drawing of this “exalted Nate” from her BEST ENDING version of the Momentim RPG story. Is it the REAL ending? It’s what I run with, but I’m open to all stories playing out differently. Plus, going that far in the future isn’t much fun. The goal of the end is leaving things on the upswing, with maximized hope for the future. But Nate leading a group of people that leads with kindness and a sense of community is pretty great, and I want that ending everywhere! Anyway, here’s the sketch (and sketch try #1 of it, which I REALLY dislike, but will offer a cropped version of anyway):

(Notice Aaron faded into the background? He was all about the quest being HIS, cuz he’s the fate-appointed leader, and one of only two who knew it was coming and what it offered. He ends up being Nate’s caring hubby, supporting her and managing her school. All his selfish desires end with him giving his reward for winning the quest up for the others to thrive.)

Look at that! I got a lore dump down today after all! It took hours of semi-focus! As previously noted, Momentum is VITAL for me performing anything these days, cuz I can zone out and autopilot the plot, as it’s been in my brain for decades. I could not do anything like that for Precocious and cartooning right now. Only loose sketching and loose speculative plotting. You may not care or prefer it, but it’s all I can do, and I will MAXIMIZE what I can offer, because my life is boring and empty otherwise! And I covered THREE quest endings, too! Plus lots of backstories! Pretty good!

(Folks, I have a MONSTROUS headache after writing this, but I’m glad I caught the wave and successfully rode it out.)