The Unreal Ozymandias
So there I was, sitting at a telnet prompt (hey, it was 1995 you know) logging into Warbirds, trying to think of a handle. I’d trialled it several times before with a variety of forgettable handles. At some point Ozymandias popped into my head, and I thought, “Hey, it’s no worse than any of the others I’ve used, and it’s a heck of a lot better than being the 8th Maverick or Iceman!” And so it began.
In the beginning, there was no personality attached, just a handle. There was a 4 character limit on the handles, so I was “ozds”. Obviously, the easy ozes were already taken. Later we’d get upgraded to 6 character handles, but since I couldn’t come up with anything better than “ozmnds” to try and approximate the full name, and it sounded too much like the Osmonds, so I added the wings like a lot of the other WB vets and became -ozds-. But that came later, and there was definitely personality then. The original persona was very simple, because it was just too hard to type and fly. Not so much time for exposition when you’ve got your hands full flying. This is what I refer to as the CaveOz era, because the communication was much more like simple grunts than anything else. I got shot down an awful lot…I remember lots of “oz sad”, “oz bad”, and “oz mad” with very few “oz glad” to liven the day.
And then as I grew to know these strange and wonderful internet aviators and came out of my shell, the megalomania kicked in.
Subtle at first, to be sure. But folks seemed to enjoy it, and I sure did, too. It was kind of fun to be someone else. Especially Ozymandias, King of Kings, with legions of executioners waiting to knock on your door! I went the whole nine yards — it was a great exercise in creativity. Throw in the KoKly 3rd person-only references and a further evolution of ozspeak by combining verbs, since “ozknows” has a whole deeper meaning than “I know”. The oz part was usually capitalized, what with me being so humble and all. If I liked someone, then I might promote them. For example, WB’s Carrot (RIP) was made King of the Vegetables. Being a subordinate king was of course no easy thing, and prone to replacement. I don’t recall exactly how many different King of Idiots there were, but there was never a shortage. 
Whenever somebody said something like soandso was “the King!” for whatever reason, I’d jump in there with “oz’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much!” If anyone mentioned a political system as being better than another, it took no time for me to point out that a monarchy of monarchies was the only legitimate form of government. Being a King of Kings also made everyone my subjects, whether or not they liked it or accepted it. It had it’s downsides too, to be sure. Occasionally people would declare that I was not, in fact, Jesus. I would usually promote them to King of Missing the Point for a time. It all sounds crazy I’m sure, but it was all rather fun and a nice challenge. What a great way for an ordinarily somewhat shy person to become completely bombastic instead!
As my online gaming changed in character, character went with it. I stayed in character, even in new games where no one knew me. It was slower to catch on, since those games and communities tended to be so much larger, and not developed over the course of years. I think some people also didn’t appreciate anyone being a “real” fantasy character in the midst of all the other fantasy characters like in Everquest. I played and played and played, and then one day, I just stopped. I didn’t really want to play games anymore, I just did. So I stopped, and dropped out of online gaming completely.
Some time later I’d end up back on our old community at AGW, or Alt.Games.Warbirds, which is mostly populated by people who don’t even play the game anymore, for a variety of reasons. We still haunt the Off Topic board, grousing about this or that. Many of us have known each other even 10 years or more. I no longer really wanted to play the character anymore, so a humble oz became Ozymandias, King of Kings, (retired). No more ozspeak, and only the occasional rumble of past character, as I had retired in a faraway land “to live among my subjects as one of them”. It seemed a good way to establish continuity and community but let the effort pass by. I’d had trouble remembering who was who, as we had many members pass in and out of the community, often under different names, so it kept some bit of stability.
And so you have it, a quick overview of the development of a character. But frankly, you missed all the fun.
