A Note On Pseudonyms

[redbrunja]

 nimblnymph  was commenting about sexism in language, and it got me thinking about usernames. Specifically, (and I know I have people on my flist who do this and I don't mean to be insulting, this is totally just my opinion) how much I hate it when people use some part of a character's name in their username.

You know.

Mrs_Hatake

I_heart_hakkai.

Anything with Snape or Severus.

Even more subtle references: blooming_sakura or whatever cause me to twitch.

First, I always wonder how long you are going to like that character enough that you want them to be the most visible part of how you present yourself online. Secondly, I make the assumption that you are fourteen and feel the need to wave around your fictional boyfriend or (also fairly common) your OTP like a banner. I also (despite knowing really excellent writers who do this, and often aren't writing about the character referenced in their handle) assume that your fanfic is not worth my time.

Comments

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I admit to being one of the people whose instinctive response to fannish tattoos is 'don't do that' but I have to say that it would be really cool to have something fannish tie into something that is already a motif in your own life, as with the leafy vine designs. (And your hip tattoo is awesome, fyi - I take it it healed up nicely?)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of the bad rap fannish tattoos get is that some of the folks who are the loudest about getting them, and getting really visible/blatantly recognizable designs, often seem to be younger fans; that particular mix of age/maturity, trend following, and attention-seeking behavior all combines to make it look like there are higher odds there that they might wind up regretting it a few years down the line. Someone who's outside of an age/subculture demographic where ink is particularly trendy, and plays things closer to the vest, is probably less likely to influence the perception of "fannish tattoos = kids with bad ideas", because you're a lot less likely to randomly see or hear about their work -- they're getting it done for themselves, after all, not to fit in with a crowd or gather attention. (It's sort of the fannish-specific subset of one of the amusing flaws in logic from folks who get really judgemental about tats and piercings in general -- for all that they sneer at folks with work they can see, they clearly have NO IDEA how many people outside of their biker/dumb kid/etc. stereotypes of Trashy Modded People are going about with tons of mods that are completely hidden under their usual everyday clothes...)

And thanks, yep, it was kind of slow going due to the location but the vines healed up beautifully -- I get a ton of compliments any time it's warm enough for me to go out in clothing and footwear that let them show. It's funny, really, while that's the second piece I had done, the general idea of something fluid and botanical twisting around a leg was my very first tattoo idea, more than ten years ago; but I ended up getting my second idea done first, because as much as I sketched away I could never quite come up with a design and placement that felt quite right. When the youkai-vine idea hit me years later, it finally fell into place; it felt right in a way the earlier sketches had never managed, because they didn't have that extra symbolic weight to go along with the aesthetics. (Not that I think there's anything at all wrong with someone who has ink done purely because they find it beautiful, but it's become clear to me that I need meaning as well as aesthetics to be content with a design.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I definitely think that who is being loud about their tats is a factor - as you say, the ones who are loudest about them are very likely to be the ones who regret is ten years down the road.

Whereas, you rarely hear about the subetly fandom-y tats that aren't shouted about.

And I actually agree about needing that extra level of meaning to a tatoo, not just 'oh, so pretty!'