SWTOR Character Tales: Unrevealed Second Names

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den! Today, I'm going to talk about the names of my characters. In particular, parts of their names that are unrevealed.

This has actually been mulling around in my head since Cavik brought up how he thought Amelisan was mononymous; that is, she only has that first part of her name.  I gave her the surname of "Strannos", because it was needed in the future.  And as of late, this got me thinking about the other characters who just happen to be currently mononymous.  So, even though their names won't show up in the stories, I'm here to reveal all characters' second parts of their names!  (Or the reason why they don't have one/don't use one. :P)

Ragdat: Ragdat does not have a last name.  The Rattataki are tribal by nature, and Ragdat has been away from his tribe for so long that he no longer feels a connection to it, and thus, no connection to the "clan name" they gave him. 

Adaso and Colmallus: They both have the same surname, but they do not use them, because doing so would take away from what they're supposed to represent.  So "Adaso of House Adaso" and "Colmallus of clan Mallus" are what they go by.

Darth Nox: Technically, she has two. The first is the obvious "Kallig", but the second ties in with twi'lek naming conventions.  Technically, her name, by Earth standards, would be "Koyi Shak", but she utilized the twi'lek naming convention of joining her personal and clan names together.

Vedere Marr: No explanation needed here. :)

Maircus Renfer

Curoda: By the point in the story where it would matter, it would be "Riggs", as she'll have been married to Corso for several years.

Allisani: She's kind of interesting, since she follows the Chiss naming convention of family name, personal name and clan name.  So her full name would be Gua'llisan'ireshoth, with "Allisani" being the part of the name that others would consider the "first name".

Amelisan Strannos

 Vizhdam Pucat

Chas'Raan: Conforms to the twi'lek naming convention.

Gentugo: He does not lay claim to to any last name due to the life he has lived; from slave to escaped slave to slave again to consort of Darth Nox, so he really has no connection to anyone but his family.

Tavella Corray

Mamine: She can lay no claim to any family name or clan name, due to her exile.

Suthazi Rushir

Yokonari: Technically, it is Kutswi, but due to events happening between the end of Shadow of Revan and the beginning of KOTFE, she rejects it.

Casek: He claimed Yokonari's surname as his own, but rejected it for the same reasons.

Anstrisil Khidin

Azulini and Hardatt: No family to call their own, no clan or tribes to claim them, so they are 
mononymous.

Some of these were more difficult than others; I couldn't really find any naming convention for Sith.  But even if a character's second name is never revealed, here they are.

For now, stay beautiful freaks!

20 years of Pokemon: An outsider's perspective

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den!  As most of you know, Pokemon turns 20 this year, in Japan at least.  In the west, it turned 18, due to it being released in 1998.  But still, that's impressive.  Few kid friendly franchises have both the worldwide appeal or lasting power of Pokemon.

However, I never got into the series.  When Pokemon came out in 1998 in the west, I was 15.  I was more leaning toward games like Mortal Kombat and Doom, violent and "edgy" games as I tried to reject all things "kiddy".  There also wasn't a gameboy in my household either until I graduated high school in 2001.

I didn't actually pick up Pokemon game until 2004, with FireRed for the GBA, mostly because I was traveling a lot for the military.  I wanted an RPG that could get me through long plane rides and downtime with no tv or internet access.

So by that point, I wasn't thinking about how cute these monsters were, or about the journey, or any of that.  I captured a lot of Pokemon specifically for dungeons, gym battles and the elite four.  I was minmaxing, building teams to soak up damage and exploit weaknesses of my foes.  I never named them, I never bothered to form a bond with them.  I also never EV trained them, due to me not knowing about that metagame aspect at the time.  The only Pokemon I kept in my team the whole time was my Blastoise, due to it being able to soak up damage while I learned strategies.

FireRed was both my first and last Pokemon game.  I stopped traveling a year later due to getting out of the Air Force, and my GBA eventually broke.  So I'm not really a fan of it today, though I have kept up on it a bit.

But that doesn't mean I don't recognize the significance of the series.  Pokemon has brought people together in ways I'd have never thought possible when I was a kid.  My brother told me about how kids with a link cable became the popular kids on the playground due to the games requiring trading to get certain evolutions.  And today, with wifi, you can trade with people all over the world!  And that's not even counting the trading card game, side games, toys, and all the other stuff.

Pokemon is big, and for a good reason.  It's upbeat, and, like Pope John Paul II, it is “full of inventive imagination,”and does not have “any harmful moral side effects” and was based on “ties of intense friendship".  It's a fun game that is both simple and surprisingly deep, bringing people of all ages and nationalities together.  It deserves its popularity, and it deserves this celebration Nintendo is having for it.

So happy anniversary, Pokemon! Here's to 20 more years of friendship and fun!