In honor of what I’ve heard about the Hobbit, this post has a long and unnecessary preamble.  Those with valuable time may wish to skip to the contest itself, the beginning of which is obvious even though it is incorrectly called a game.  (It’s clearly a contest.)



Moxie is soon moving to her own room.

How does this affect me, you say?

That answer is currently unknown to science, so, officially, we have no comment.  Unofficially, we expect you will be affected by the move, and that, in effect, that effect will be large relative to the effect on you of other things that have affected you.

Oh my, you say, then perhaps I should help!

Yes, otherwise you would risk being a feckless FoM, effectively.

FoM, you say?

Friend, Family or Financier of Moxie.   You pick.  (You may pick up to three, but must pick at least one.  The last one.  Pick the last one.)

Oh, you say.
Seriously?
This all a little Moxie-centric, you say, don’t you think?

You’re the one reading the blog that openly talks about her fecal fecundity.

You say, fair.

Yes.  And listen, she’s moving to the other room soon.  So let’s continue.  Preparations really must be made.

Of course, of course!  What can I, you say, do?  Can I, you say, set her room up?

Well, Bob and Teresa have already done most of the heavy lifting and fancy interior design, so you can’t help there.  The room is as it will be.

Hmmm, you say, mmmm.   
Then perhaps I can get Moxie stuff to put in in her room to make it all feel more roomy?

Well, you’re always welcome to send Moxie stuff.  But a lot of people have already thought of that, so the room is decently roomy.  Perhaps try another command.

You say this: Well, poop.

Oh dear!  Such language from a supposedly winning adventurer!

Say what?!? 
Wait….
 >go downstairs , you type.

It is pitch black.  You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

 >Light the candle , you humor me.

It is not clear what you want to burn the candle with.

Ahhhh, everyone in the world says!
 >LIGHT THE CANDLE WITH THE MATCH! 


The match is not burning; you cannot light things with the match.

Just kidding.  The room is lit and to the east you see a great idea for how you can help Moxie out with her room!

…, you don’t say.

The east.  There’s the idea.  Go over there.  East.

<rude gesture>, you sign.

All right, all right.  Let me do if for you:

 >Go east 

You come upon an old, battered sign that you can just barely make out.  It reads:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Name Moxie’s Dragons Dragon Naming Game!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Ok, everyone, Moxie has dragons, and they look like this:

Droles de dragons
The similarities between the purple dragon in the middle and the blue dragon next to it are a great example of convergent evolution.  While both have bulbous bodies, rectusian tails, and ovid ears, their closest common ancestor is the primordial wing, which is the earliest undisputed organism in the dragon taxonomy.

(If you’re lucky, you can click on the picture to make it bigger.  If you’re not lucky, I’m so, so sorry.)

I won’t go into much of the backstory on these dragons because there’s a lot of pain–the real, gut-wrenching pain of love, loss and love lost–and going through it all again just isn’t fair to them.  Suffice to say, they’re on the other side of all that and now Moxie has 10 dragon friends and one dragon wing friend, all of whom watch over her.  (It’s a mobile; what else would they do?)

(To be completely transparent, there’s an additional dragon friend not pictured here that already has a name and will be discussed at some other point in time.  This is not a page for dragon rivalry.)

So these dragons need names.  (Again, long story, but there’s some people out there that’d really like to know where these dragons are.  Some not so nice people.   We don’t want to take any chances, so they all agreed to assume new identities.)

As is apparent from the prequel, Moxie’s dad is much too dorky to come up with these names himself, so he’s asking for help.  He’s me, though, so let’s go back to the first person because I’m uncomfortable here in third.  Ok, I’m handing off the naming duties to you all, but I’m too egotistical to just let this be entirely open.  So I made some dorky rules for you to follow.  Call them Naming Conventions.

  1. The name must be a real word.
  2. The name must tell me something about the dragon.
  3. The name should be three or more syllables long.
  4. The name should not be a commonly used word.
  5. The name should sound cool.
  6. The namer must be ok with their name or names not being chosen.
  7. The namer may specify which dragon they are naming, but must also be ok with that name being assigned to a different dragon.

Read the conventions with “must” as immutable; read the conventions with “should” as guidelines that can be bent if need be.  The convention with “may” is entirely optional.

Ok, Convention 6 is there just in case I get too many names.  I’m the final arbiter and will judge the names based on the Naming Conventions.  And really, I just mean I’ll chose the ones I like best.  I won’t take into account who sent the names, so reread Convention 6, please.  Seriously.  I’ll wait.  Also, Convention 7 is pretty enjoyable, if you’ve got the time.

Here is an example from my childhood:  I grew up with a dragon named Serendipity.  She was a pink dragon that learned about being who she was.  This is a pretty good example.  Serendipity is a real word that sounds really cool, is long, and somewhat rare.

I don’t actually remember the plot that well, so I don’t know if Serendipity’s life was serendipitous, but I’m guessing it was, so Convention 2 was probably satisfied.  As for Convention 6, well, I didn’t contact the author for this post, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he won’t feel bad that I’m not choosing Serendipity for Moxie’s dragons.  She gets her own dragon names.

(I should mention that Serendipity is the inspiration for this.  I don’t remember a time that I didn’t have some idea of what serendipity meant because of those books.  So there’s a little bit of education motivation in all this.  I hope that doesn’t taint it too much.)

All right, I know you all have favorite words that would just be great for dragon names.  Leave comments.  Private message me.  Email me.  Letter write me.  Anything you want, just get me some names.