im absolutely delighted at all the kh-inspired handles. waaaaayyyyy back in the day I went by Oathkeeper on an old nanowrimo forum for kids (it was the YWP i think?), because i wanted to be named after an important keyblade and Oblivion was too much edge for me
Mine is the name of an early character of mine and I've been using it since 1991, when I needed a handle for ... some MUD or other, I think. She was heavily wish-fulfilment-y. None of the stories survive, thank the Gods.
Acey is a nickname I use both online and IRL (especially in fandom spaces), and has since become my penname as well. When I was 12, I began going by Anna IRL, because I don't care for my given name at all and I was sick of having it being misspelled and/or mispronounced. Anna is just a shortened form in this instance; I "tried it on" at summer camp before starting 7th grade, and it felt like it had been my real name all along, somehow. Later, in 8th grade, I grew tired of the constant "HURR ANNA (SURNAME) SMITH!!!!!!!!111" jokes I got from my asshole classmates (since this is a public board, I'll just say that my surname sounds very vaguely similar to "Nicole," and thus...well, Anna Nicole Smith jokes, because middle schoolers are assholes). I decided to start using a middle name, but I hate my given middle name too, and since it doesn't have much nickname potential (the only one I can think of is Dee, which didn't fit me), I picked something entirely different. I went with Cassidy after a character from a webtoon I was into. Funnily, I never cared much for Cassidy the character, but I liked her name, and it flowed well with Anna, so Anna Cassidy (Surname) it was. For a while, I just went by Anna Cassidy on forums and such. Then, one evening, my friend Brett and I were chatting on MSN (remember when that was a thing?), and he had to head to bed, and he said "Seeya, Acey!" I was all, "I like that. I am stealing that." So basically, Anna Cassidy becomes AC becomes Acey. My Tumblr URL, damaramegido, is just my beloved canon Homestuck URL. She's my trash waifu. <3 I change my icon a lot, but right now it's Amethyst from Steven Universe--specifically, her with her gem cracked in An Indirect Kiss. For those who've never seen the show, a cracked gem will Fuck You Up, and often causes the Gem's body to distort horribly (that long noodly thing? that's her neck). And she was letting out these awful screams at the time, and wow this is actually a pretty dark icon now that I think about it. But Amethyst is my fave SU character, and somehow the LOUD PTERODACTYL SCREECHING resonates with me on a deep spiritual level. So purble screm it is...for now. (DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN) I'll probably go into some of my old usernames later. Lots of stories there.
Back in 2001, when I was, what, ten years old... no wait I think it was 2002 or 2003... regardless! I was a teeny Raire, who had been through a couple of years of intense bullying for being "weird" and "different" and a foreigner in one of her schools, and I'd managed to cultivate something of an independent streak. So I ferociously took what people had used to attack me, "weird", found a synonym that had a better connotation, "rare", and played with the phonetics until I found something I found elegant and simple, as a way of reclaim my confidence for myself and defy anybody who would fuck with me for dumb reasons. If I wasn't hurting anyone with my weirdness, why should I change? I'm still proud of little Raire for learning that lesson and not going into the extreme mode of black and white "everything normal is TERRIBLE" that is so easy to fall into. I had to use Rairii for tumblr since Raire was taken and I wasn't in the mood to get something new because I am so attached to this username. I try to keep some variant of Raire going on for any site I sign up on, but at some point I made up an alternate - Raiein - as a kind of mash between Raire and Rain. Some places have little mashups like Rairein and the like, but in general I try to keep it simple. I do find it funny that I am apparently attached to rs, because I have always been bad at pronouncing the Spanish r, and that was one of the ostensible reasons I got bullied, and I had to get some speech therapy as a kid to strengthen my tongue to be able to speak my own first language with less of an accent. I still speak with a distinctive accent that nobody can identify as being from anywhere in particular. My icon is just a quick drawing I did of myself in my favourite colours, with the glow shutter shades from the CDCF rave that happened back then :3 I try to have drawings of myself for my avatars, it feels more right.
OKAY OLD USERNAME STORIES TIME. As a little kid, I went by Mojo Jojo on a few sites. Jo and Jojo were my childhood nicknames, and of course, there was a Powerpuff Girls villain named Mojo Jojo...the joke was too perfect. When I was eight or so, I joined Neopets under the username mandydonut35. I was always fond of the name Mandy, and it became my netnick in general for a while. I'm...not sure what the significance of donuts was there, but it might've been a Simpsons thing. The 35 was a failsafe in case "mandydonut" was taken (spoilers: it was not). A few years later, when I was about ten, I joined a Neopets fan forum, initially under the same name. However, since I've always been a filthy shipper, I later changed it to Shippy Mandy. Someone else on the forum dubbed me Shippinator Mandy, which stuck for a long time. I stopped using Mandy as a nickname anywhere in my early teens. See, Mandy was, and still is, also the name of my main OC. She started out as a total self-insert, but as time went on, she became very much her own person, and it didn't feel right to use her name anymore, if that makes sense. And Tumblr-wise...I dunno if this is all my past URLs, but it's what I remember. tearandripandtear is a reference to the infamous Doom comic. offensiveusername was picked more or less as a joke--I had very briefly changed my URL from tearandripandtear to cuntonastick, but I was (reasonably) worried that one would bother people, so I changed it to offensiveusername for a while. Kind of an inside joke with myself, in a way. gh0stb00bs is just a play on Aradia's typing quirk. littlealterniangirl is a Homestuck reference, but it's also a reference to a Reel Big Fish song called Alternative, Baby, which contains the line "hey, little alternative girl." aceyweepingalonewithsolara is self-explanatory. damaraschoiceass was chosen back when "(character's)choiceass" URLs were all the rage. mrsaradiacaptor is also self-explanatory. solaragasm is also self-explanatory. destroythepast is a TMBG song. aradiascorpseparty (which was a seasonal URL for Halloween one year) is just a reference to Aradia calling funerals "corpse parties." dramaramegidont is a play on Damara's name. damara-tan was a (rather inappropriate, I now realize) reference to Nevada-tan. thecardinalmovement is the name of the Beat Mesa equivalent in the pre-Scratch trolls' session. damaradia is just a mashup of Damara and Aradia. damaramegido is self-explanatory and flawless. And as for other sites... My Instagram is rustmaid, based on a Homestuck song. My art blog (as well as my deviantART) is duendedefined, which is a reference to Three Might Be Duende by TMBG (which contains the line "one might be duende defined"). It also refers to the concept of duende, which is, roughly, the concept of emotion and authenticity in art. My 8tracks is timewitch, after Aranea's comment about Damara becoming LE's "faithful time witch." My AO3 is AceyEnn. Acey is pretty obvious; I used Enn as my penname's surname for a while, since N is my last initial. (My penname now is Acey J. (mildly corrupted version of surname). The J was chosen as an homage to classic cartoons such as Rocky And Bullwinkle, and also due to Matt Groening's use of it for the same reason--Homer J. Simpson, Bart J. Simpson, Philip J. Fry, etc. It stands for Jane, which shares a meaning with my given name.) My Twitter is Damnethyst, which is, of course, a portmanteau of "damn" and "Amethyst." It was Amepissed for quite some time, but due to harassment I changed it.
