Saturday, February 25, 2006

Nobody fucks with the Wolf.

A long time ago I was called "Big_Bad_Wolf".
I was one of the two original ones.
The two of us had a gentleman's agreement about usage of the name on IRC.
Everything went well, there was no confusion, both of us used the name and everybody knew it was in use by both of us.
But after a few years our original IRC network (not "our" as in property, but we hung out there) shut down rather unexpectedly, driving entire communities apart.
We lost track of eachother, and I ended up roaming many, many networks in search of lost friends that remained lost.
On those many networks, it turned out every assclown with a desire to act bad-ass was claiming the name Big_Bad_Wolf.
So, the name too became lost.
I spent some time going by other, inferior names, until I figured "Blackblood" fitted me well.
Unfortunately, after going by that name for a while, it turned out someone else already went by that name in other places that I visited too, and he had a legit claim to it - Not only did he get it first, it also fitted him.
After that I used "Blackblood73", and another variation, but it just didn't do enough to distinguish between us, so I went looking for another name again.
Several inferior and some even down right ridiculous names were tried, until I decided to simply go for "Biggest_Baddest_Wolf".
A variation on my original name, with an added notion of how I was - and am - the biggest and baddest, the only remaining original, the Alpha male of Big_Bad_Wolves.
And it was a good choice.
It fit me like handlotion fits a hand.
I was me again, there were no misunderstandings (well, a few from wanna-be copycats but they were soon sorted out and dealt with) and the Wolf was back in his forest.
And after a long time, the fakers started to lose interest in "Big_Bad_Wolf" long enough for me to reclaim that name at least on one network.
Surprisingly, the new group of friends that had grown around the Wolf had always considered that name as mine.
The wisdom in this story:
Fakers can be takers, but in the end they lose it all again.
And only the original will always be the same.