via ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
et_tu_lj:
1. My username is ______ because ______.
My username isarcanetrivia because esmestrella was too long to type and too many people seemed to have problems spelling and/or pronouncing it. (To be fair I'm not sure myself how it ought to have been pronounced; given its dog-Spanish esmeralda + estrella derivation "es-meh-STRAY-ah" would have been most correct, but even I normally used the Americanized "es-muh-STRELL-uh".) I knocked it together from syllables I liked the sound of without aiming at any particular meaning, although like most "gibberish" words you can still find some references if you Google.
However, I'm thinking of another change (once Dreamwidth implements rename tokens), because I've realized something about (user)names for myself: they need to be not only shortish in letters, but short in syllables. "Elethian" is four; I should strive for two, three only if I should think of something quite exceptionally perfect (which, ha, that'll be the day; I have never found a name which is comfortably "mine", probably because I have no idea what "me" is I want to attach it to). The longer it is the more grandiose it sounds and the more incongruous with unexceptional little me I feel it is. And yet at the same time names are a kind of magic and I don't want to invoke a negative influence with a bad name. It's a puzzler and has been ever since I heard of the idea of naming oneself anything other than a birth name (sooo... twenty years now, or so).
2. My name is _____ because ______.
If you mean "LJ name" as distinct from username, it's "pervy snape fancier", because I am. A play on "pervy hobbit-fancier" (hm, I ought to hyphenate it!) from The Very Secret Diaries (see Samwise Gamgee for example).
More generally, see above. I've got a collection, of different natures in different venues, and I wish I could use just one everywhere (although I'd still have a separate Harry Potter fandom journal because it's just too big a monster to keep it in my personal journal).
3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
"bellatrix, we do not have time for marshmallows" -- from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in Fifteen Minutes bycleolinda, under "The Part Where the Villain Talks Too Much (II)". Severus actually says it in CAPSLOCK; it just made me LOL.
4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.
"other partakers of the poison" -- refers to a remark I made back when I was just getting into fandom that Harry Potter was a poison that, once ingested, spread inexorably to every vein and which one could never be rid of (or something along those lines)
5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.
Harry's Potions book from HBP, but not the one from the film (is this from a book cover, or something? I thought the "adult" HBP cover was Slytherin's locket...), with "Property of the Half-Blood Prince" text. Eh, I just like its aesthetic; it's general enough to be used for most things.
I change my default pic around every so often, though, when I get bored of it. Others that I remember having used as default lately are
(around the time of the HBP film earlier this year)
(ditto, somewhen thereafter; this bit is from the Advanced Potions book in the film)
and
(an oldie but a goodie, ca. the time I got the OotP DVD, so um, Dec 2007?).
et_tu_lj: 1. My username is ______ because ______.
My username is
arcanetrivia because esmestrella was too long to type and too many people seemed to have problems spelling and/or pronouncing it. (To be fair I'm not sure myself how it ought to have been pronounced; given its dog-Spanish esmeralda + estrella derivation "es-meh-STRAY-ah" would have been most correct, but even I normally used the Americanized "es-muh-STRELL-uh".) I knocked it together from syllables I liked the sound of without aiming at any particular meaning, although like most "gibberish" words you can still find some references if you Google. However, I'm thinking of another change (once Dreamwidth implements rename tokens), because I've realized something about (user)names for myself: they need to be not only shortish in letters, but short in syllables. "Elethian" is four; I should strive for two, three only if I should think of something quite exceptionally perfect (which, ha, that'll be the day; I have never found a name which is comfortably "mine", probably because I have no idea what "me" is I want to attach it to). The longer it is the more grandiose it sounds and the more incongruous with unexceptional little me I feel it is. And yet at the same time names are a kind of magic and I don't want to invoke a negative influence with a bad name. It's a puzzler and has been ever since I heard of the idea of naming oneself anything other than a birth name (sooo... twenty years now, or so).
2. My name is _____ because ______.
If you mean "LJ name" as distinct from username, it's "pervy snape fancier", because I am. A play on "pervy hobbit-fancier" (hm, I ought to hyphenate it!) from The Very Secret Diaries (see Samwise Gamgee for example).
More generally, see above. I've got a collection, of different natures in different venues, and I wish I could use just one everywhere (although I'd still have a separate Harry Potter fandom journal because it's just too big a monster to keep it in my personal journal).
3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
"bellatrix, we do not have time for marshmallows" -- from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in Fifteen Minutes by
cleolinda, under "The Part Where the Villain Talks Too Much (II)". Severus actually says it in CAPSLOCK; it just made me LOL.4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.
"other partakers of the poison" -- refers to a remark I made back when I was just getting into fandom that Harry Potter was a poison that, once ingested, spread inexorably to every vein and which one could never be rid of (or something along those lines)
5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.
Harry's Potions book from HBP, but not the one from the film (is this from a book cover, or something? I thought the "adult" HBP cover was Slytherin's locket...), with "Property of the Half-Blood Prince" text. Eh, I just like its aesthetic; it's general enough to be used for most things.
I change my default pic around every so often, though, when I get bored of it. Others that I remember having used as default lately are
(around the time of the HBP film earlier this year)and