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Friday, January 22nd, 2010 03:09 pm (UTC)
*nods* It's interesting to me, some of the way I tend to look at online handles lines up with you and some doesn't. The "MRS_CHARACTER_NAME" or "XXX_OTP_4EVA!!!_XXX" type definitely make me snicker or roll my eyes a little bit and presume the user is likely either very young, or immature for their years -- but I don't really make that much of a distinction between nicks that make more obscure/artsy/non-fannish character references and ones from big, popular, fannish properties, especially if they're being used in fannish-heavy circles like the Pit or LJ or certain web forums -- I've got no way of telling if they have other online identities they use for more "real life" activities, after all, or if (on journaling sites in particular) they might have multiple pseuds for RP journals, or personal vs. fannish stuff, or even just to keep different fandom activities separate (like someone who maybe does a lot of gen in a fandom that skews young, and a lot of kinky/porny stuff in another, and doesn't want their underage fans from Fandom A accidentally stumbling across their NC17 hardcore BDSM for Fandom B...) It could be a different story if a person were using a really blatantly fannish sort of name in an inappropriately non-fannish context -- say, if someone sent me a resume and their email address was "SASUKE_IS_MY_BOYFRIEND@HOTMAIL", I'd be really suspicious that the person might have some Issues with understanding boundaries and adjusting behavior and self-presentation to be appropriate for context. But if they're using that sort of fannish handle in a more casual online setting, I won't necessarily assume that the character/fandom/pairing is the absolute center of their life -- it might just be a playful part of their leisure time activities, not the absolute center of their identity, online and/or offline. (If anything, there are certain sorts of non-fandom, RL-based online handles that get me twitchy and fighting with my own kneejerk tendency to get judgemental much more strongly than almost anything fannish, but that's another story.)

As for pre-judging fic based on the author's pseud, eh, while I do notice the author's handle, I pay much closer attention to how they write their summary or any teaser paragraphs before the cut; if it's an interesting premise and their grammar is competent, I'll give it a shot even if their username looks very giddy-tweenage-fangirl. About the only time I can think of where a pseud is a major factor in making me run screaming *away* from a fic are when both the username and the story description align to make it clear that it's going to be all about hooking up the Sue/Stu OC with a fandom character.

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