I keep on wanting to ask certain people on this forum where their handle came from — but rather than just ask a few individuals, I'll go ahead and ask everyone.
My name "Saddleblasters" originated as my own dumb term for describing music that sounds like this:
https://youtu.be/OYeBE07MMkc
Later on I used it as the name for a show I had on my college's radio station. Eventually I just started using it for everything since it seemed better than the previous handles I used. That isn't to say it's a good handle — it's just so hard for me to think of anything that doesn't sound idiotic! So I'm stuck with this dumb name, and probably will be until I someday think of something slightly less terrible.
edit: Since people are mentioning their avatar as well, I figured I would explain that mine is a screenshot from Deadly Premonition, which I had just started playing around when I joined the forum. The incidental composition of York's lifeless body juxtaposed jauntily with the game's "YOU DIED" equivalent was both hilarious and aesthetically pleasing to me, almost like an album cover. So far I have only used this avatar on this forum, though I also use "kory" as my handle on twitter and discord.
Update: my current avatar is [my entry for the first IC Art Jam](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/714-art-jam-gallery-march-21/12)
My late partner and his college friends had a joke where they gave each other ridiculous fantasy titles like “The Illustrious Kyle of the Northern Winds”.
My partners joke name along those lines was "Mxxnsxxther", and I know it's weird but since his death I've kind of taken up that handle online in a few places because I like it for multiple reasons, yes, one of which being that it reminds me of him and I feel like I'm carrying it on in a "Dread Pirate Roberts" way.
When I registered to the forums I shortened it to "Moon" since I was an early adopter here and thought having a very simple single world name would be nice (not often you get to do that these days).
Moon was one of my first words. And for a while when I was very young I would call every round thing "Moon". "Mxxnsxxthing" is what I like to imagine what dogs are doing when they howl at it, and I've developed a pre-sleep meditative exercise that involves visualizing a new moon (yes I know that's black on black) reflected on the surface of a pool of water that becomes disturbed whenever I have an errant thought. I have a VERY hard time with onset insomnia so I've had to homebrew some remedies that work with my broken brain.
The icon is because I think the Tale of Tales people are generally brilliant and have been doing interesting internet stuff since the 90's. I wish there were more interesting and unique online spaces like "the endless forest" so I guess I chose that avatar because I think of these forums as sort of a low-stakes hang out space similar to that? Sort of?
Mine is just uhhhhh there's a bay area thrash band called exodus that I liked when I was 15 when I made my ebay handle, exodus666. I've used lots of other handles but I wound up recycling this one longer term even though I don't really like exodus that much these days, and maybe never did. But! The name felt ambiguous enough unlike some of the others I chose, AND exodus was from the bay area and one of the "lesser" big thrash bands so I felt like I was representing something for some reason? And now I just use it because I've used it since I was 15.
my avatar is a stylized image of my face that I used in game developer magazine. I continue to have a weird thing about thinking that if you show your face on the internet it's narcissism. I realize that's an outmoded thought process but to kind of split the difference I have made this my avatar in various places and then just never changed it. I was also the one who decreed that we must use our real names on insert credit in a time when everyone was using handles, so who knows what I think!! Not me. A friend took this photo at another friend's house and I like how it looks like my mouth is falling apart.
I’ve used this handle since an MMO I played in the mid to late 90s called Graal. If anyone remembers Graal, hit me up. I took the handle Cid because, ya know, I loved Final Fantasy. The Night came from the guild I was in. The convention at that time was for your username to be a first name followed by your guild name in parentheses. Thus I was Cid(Night), and eventually Cid Night, as if the guild name was a surname.
Thought this was a funny name for a weapon. Happened upon it around the time (age 15) when i started having an online identity. i still think it's cool! i like when certain people call me "wick."
My avatar is from one time five or so years ago when i googled "chair" and picked maybe the seventh or eight image.
Got my wisdom teeth pulled some time ago, and started watching the show while I recovered. Was surprised how much I enjoyed it (mainly seasons 1-3). Its a glorified soap opera for the most part with great costuming and acting, but questionable writing at times. Currently reading the script for season 1, which has been equally enjoyable.
My (legal) name is John, which I share with my dad. (As well as my grandfather and great-grandfather. I have a fancy “IV” at the end of my name and everything). John is a little too formal a name for my mom‘s liking, and my dad already went by Jack, so I’ve gone by Jax as long as I've been around.
My avatar is of Nwankwo Kanu, who played for Arsenal well before my time watching them but I've always liked this photo. Which importantly in this use case, is from the time when [Sega was their primary kit sponsor](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/70/c2/ea/70c2eaa73366a2beb4646758fa6709d0.jpg).
Mine is a shortened form of “sharkbeets” a handle I created in high school as I was getting bored of my previous handles. I made it from rhyming with heartbeat as I was listening to that Enrique Iglesias song at the time. I had planned out a whole logo/gif of a heart monitor that blipped to the theme of Jaws then became a shark's head outline. I have mostly scrubbed it from social media now because I feel like it represents an old part of my life ||(and that I once sent embarrasing dms when I drank too much)||.
My icon is just a screen of the splatoon 2 plaza where my character is represented by the same handle.
@Syzygy#20042 that blows my mind that in this tiny community there would be another person who played that tiny MMO. But I suppose if they would be anywhere…
@Syzygy#20045 Heh, I was mostly a boring Sub-Zero kid growing up. I‘ve made a more concerted effort to use Jax in the more recent games though. It’s fun when you win and the game says your name.
My handle is dunk (short for Duncan) and the first letter of my last name (Robson). I picked it when I joined Flickr back when that was something people did.
My avatar is from WarioWare DIY which I used for a few years to make personal little diary games.
@Syzygy#20050 I played a LOT of Graal between the ages of maybe 12 and 16 or so. I was the “Vice President” of a server at one point and did a lot of level design (what they used to call a LAT). That was a very neat element of Graal, the servers were mostly player run and largely player designed. Since the game was basically an RPG Maker rip off of LttP, anyone could design levels for it that looked decent and coding for it was also dead simple.
