There was a thread on this but it appears to have been zorked for some reason. To my knowledge the twink-term for a fixed level char with top gear came from Anarchy Online.
Nay It came from Everquest. It was the name for a alt char that you gave top level gear too in order to progress faster. We called that char a twink.
They would twinkle in the moonlight as they munched upon the cookies in the lake of ill omens!
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I just assumed it came from [censored word that refers to sex videos and images]. Twinks being supported by their daddy main. lmao.
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I thought it was for the low levels in such magnificent gear, that it twinkles.
Someone must of gotten reeeeal mad when someone mentioned that in the thread.
interesting, I guess that makes sense
AO had hard level limits on tons of stuff, so it make a lot of sense to develop twinks, they were incredibly useful
but EQ came before it all, I didn’t know that level mattered there though
If you meant my thread it’s right there.
back in the beginning of EQ, a lot of really good gear could be traded and did not have a level requirement, so much so ,that you could give them good enough gear to almost make them invincible and they would destroy lower level mobs
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Yeah the term twink (and variants like ‘twunk’) has its roots in something that a quick google search will turn up.
I’ve never seen it relate to ingame, like after 20 years of playing, not one hint, not one chuckle, not one sly wink, nothing.
it’s possible that it may have some odd shared origin but just as likely not, regardless, as people have used it in my entire experience, zero relation to that
Oh it gets widely used in gaming by people who don’t understand what it means or where it came from, no question. 
But it’s had that meaning since the 70’s, before online gaming was even a thing (outside of DARPAnet).
I don’t know man, I’ve played with a ton of gay and straight people, covered all manner of stuff all the time, not one word
if it was there, and sure, it could have been … I think that meaning may actually be left behind a bit in common ingame usage
Remember the fungi tunic!!
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my monk had one for the longest time…
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My theory (zero evidence to back this up) is that it probably started with people who know the irl meaning using ‘Twink’ as a funny joke term for the well geared low level characters, and then people who didn’t know the term picking it up from them without being given an explanation.
I personally had never heard the word used irl until somewhat recently when a gay person I know explained it to me, so I don’t think it’s known very well outside of the gay community.
HUH? What do you mean?
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