So I've always talked about my game via the hashtag #AOZTG because I was uncomfortable revealing that my (hopefully soon to be changed) username is based on the protagonist of the game.
But since coming out (on here) and starting to change my own name I'm much more comfortable with talking about the game in general? And I want to actually work on it again. But its complicated.
The thing that I've realized is that have a weird relationship with my previous given name. Like it only brings me some grief & loss when I see it, sometimes it brings a mild annoyance of dysphoria like 'that's not quite me'. But this is only when its associated with me, the person me.
Its not as bad as my actual legal name which as always been horrible dysphoria. That I consider a deadname for sure. No one uses that name, except my mother. Ick.
Since my main character and title of my current passion project, the Adventures of Zack The Great, shares the name of the previous me, I've thought about changing the main character's name. It would be a smart move, but one that I've been resistant to ever since the issue came up of me and my MC sharing the same name.
I made the decision not to for a couple of reasons.
1) It would cause me to have to start all over and destroy all the momentum I've built on social media. 2) It would be a branding nightmare, suddenly I would have two game names and lose a lot of people in the confusion. 3) It goes against the spirit of the world's meta, of preserving the past and keeping it safe. That last one might be a bit controversial considering the new intersectionality between my transness and what the previous name represents, but lets unpack that further.
Lets talk about why we shared a name in the first place.
At one point in time, Zack “The Great” Hojo was a self-sert. As in, he was a representation of me inserted into the world for which I would vicariously live through him, exploring the world and with me and my brother, his canonical brother Nate “The Great” Uzu who was also a self-sert.
Both characters are no longer self-serts but are now evolved versions of charactertures of who we were, with Nate being more like my brother than I like Zack, for a lot of different reasons.
Namely, Zack is the representation of the character I played when I was pretending to be not-trans, when I was pretending to be male or at least masc-aligned in some way.
He was a reflection of the facade of my self-perceived manhood. He was someone I thought I wanted to aspire to be, endlessly toyed with and adjusted his character and gifts, his boons and rewards, ever growing in scope and power until I had made something that I thought I was happy with. But he just kept growing, ever and ever alien to who I was.
When my Ehvi and I started to write a book series together where our characters interacted, he grew out of being challenged both in writing and outside of it into something I now adore, but so different to what I started out with that I no longer see him as me.
There are parts of me who live on in him, and its the way he is and the things my brother and I and my friends came up with together that I want to preserve:
- The unbreakable bond between his brother and him.
- His undying loyalty to the pursuit of good and righteousness.
- The theme of found family through his friends when he was betrayed.
- All the quirks that make Zack, Zack.
And while my irl brother and I are no longer brothers in the cis-sense, and while he carries my previous name and pronouns and some of my previous beliefs about myself, I still feel like my life would be more incomplete if I were to erase or drastically change him.
Every trans person has a right to their own past, their own previous names & deadnames, and what gets remembered and what gets erased from existence. I'm no longer Zack, but who I was lives on in some way.
Zack, the person I was, was just an incomplete form to the person I am now. I am the pinnacle of who I am. I am reborn.