I believe that it would be interesting if Simon make a whole deal of giving his name to someone else.
I have this headcanon that in Eden giving your name -your real name not your nickname- is something very intimidate, because it is the only possession that you keep through all your life and it is only yours. It is not like us that we have a name and a last name or more, for example I have two names and two last names.
In Eden you only have one name and thats it, and they wouldn't want everyone to call them by their only name, that is for more special people, so they use the nicknames.
The nicknames in Eden are base in you role, in what you represent, Simon gets the Butcher, because his job is to dismember the corpses of those who had die to feed the Last Tree, and because he has show to be violent in fights, he represents the violence needed to survive.
The last time that Simon gave his name, when he gave it to Ava, was out of fear that no one would remember him, that he would pass through all that hell just to be refered as a convict without name.
The Eel has been the last "person" to call Simon by his name, but he didn't choose to give her his name, she stole it from him. Somehow, she was able to take it from his mind and twist what is suppose to be something just use by people who he had carefully choose, and yet, she ripped it out of his mind.
I think that when Simon meets Grace and Rocky he would introduce himself as The Convict or The Butcher. This nicknames may carry bad memories on them, but at least there are not as vulnerable as Simon's name. In addition, they also tell who he is, what he has done, and he can use them as a warning of what he capable to do.
Grace and Rocky, think is a little weird, but the play along at the start, "if that is what The Butcher wants, well we are refering him like The Butcher then". Rocky presents himself as Rocky, not trying to translate his whole Eridian name, and Grace, who has been referring to himself as Grace for a long time, just presents himself with his last name without thinking to much of it.
With time Simon grows out of those nicknames, he feel uncomfortable with them, because he has become something more than than a criminal and a bloody man. Rocky gives him an Eridian nickname, which Grace translate, maybe something in the lines of "survivor", "fighter" or "plants caretaker" something possitive, and it becomes its whole new nickname for Simon, who is quite happy and sensible of having gain another nickname, this time a nice one.
It is not until months later that Simon looks Grace in the eyes and tells him that his name is Simon, and Grace, who may have forgot that he has another name by this point, confess that his first name is Ryland, and Simon feels even more close to Grace because he has also choose to give him his name in return.
I think that at some point Rocky and Adrian should translate their names, like all of it, using the equivalent of human names or words, it would be funny, I think, like maybe Rocky's real name is translated to "the most persistant eridian" or just eridian equivalent to John.
I found very cute the idea that Simon means "to listen" and Ryland "land of rye", because Ryland needs someone who would listen all his ramblings, and Simon would appreciate someone who is able to grow in hard conditions.
kianamaiart
blakekathryn
stormborns
2087
