Well folks, I hope you enjoyed the anagrams. You’ve seen the last of them. I finally met my new pen name. I’ll be writing under a new nom de plume from this point forward.

To clarify, I still like my nickname. I will still answer to my nickname. Those of you who are my friends in real life can continue using the nickname if you like. I do not expect to shun or shed my nickname. It’s just that I don’t want to write under the nickname anymore. I feel that my wellness writing has outgrown the moniker. For the purposes of writing about wellness, the nickname feels like the younger me and feels like a different blog(ger). As my wellness-related blogging has matured and become more defined, the nickname as a pen name has felt less appropriate.

So my new pen name is Mercy.

Mercy as in clemency, pardon, compassion. Leniency. I write on this theme with some regularity so this is not a far reach for a wellness blog.

However, I’m going to have make a preemptive strike when it comes to some parallels previously unknown to me.

Let me disclaim right away any previous knowledge that there is a video game character named Mercy. Her powers are healing and strengthening. I kid you not. I had no idea she/this was a thing. I don’t play video games. I don’t follow them. I have no interest whatsoever in video games or the characters within them. I simply don’t do video games. Never have. Never will.

I didn’t feel like making one so I did a standard Google image search to find a pretty text graphic with the word Mercy in it. THIS is how I found out about the cyber superheroine Mercy.  This a screenshot of the very first page of search results. Click here to see all of her buxom blonde badassery for yourself.

I didn’t know. I really didn’t. I came up with the name on Monday. On Tuesday I bounced it off of The Chef. This morning during my workout I tried it out on my trainer and made up my mind. Today I went to write this introduction and found out by Google accident that there is a wellness-supporting character of the same name.

Mercy is a guardian angel in the game Overwatch. According to the Overwatch website, Mercy flies around healing up her allies when they get hurt. And this is not just your garden variety first aid. She carries the power of resurrection within her arsenal and “radiates restorative power, bringing nearby dead allies back into the fight with full health.” She wears a winged Valkryie suit for flight and carries a Caduceus staff that can shoot two different beams of power, one of which can heal in mid-flight, mid-fight, or on the run. The other beam amplifies the existing powers of those she zaps.

For my long-time Steeple readers, she’s a sky stalker. The power of resurrection is in her crown. Her backstory indicates she is a “staunch advocate for peace” but apparently no pushover, as she also carries a sidearm.

Once again,  I. did. not. know about this before I chose the name. I found out today. And now that I know it I can’t exactly unknow it. And ya’ll are well aware it took me months to come up with this name. I’m not changing it now but I felt it was important to address this coincidence. Maybe just for my own satisfaction.

I honestly have no clue whether or not my readers play video games but you never know. The internet is a weird place. So weird, in fact, that while I was learning about Mercy this morning I discovered a fan site article in which a gamer wrote to the Overwatch developers asking for permission to marry Mercy. Mm hmm, marry a video game character. A flesh and blood person can marry a cyber person? What a world.

Anyway, I do have a pen last name to go with my pen first name. If I ever finish this novel I suppose you’ll see it. Otherwise I’ll just stick to signing off as Mercy the way I used to stick to the nickname. And if anyone ever did accuse me of trying emulate a crown-wearing, wing-flapping, staff-waving, gun-toting, girl super wellness hero who just happens to be a brilliant healer, freedom-fighter, and peacemaker, I suppose I could do a lot worse than Mercy.

To wit:

— Mercy