Meme: What's In a Name? (The AU Edition!)

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Looks like we haven't done this one since December, and with some really intriguing AU usernames for this BDE, I don't think I'm the only one who's curious about why you decided on the names you did.

Tell us about your character's LJ name, what it means and how you decided on it?

So go on. Share with the class. Be as brief or as wordy as you'd like, but shaaaaaaaaare.

Comments

[justwantsfixing.livejournal.com]

My two are totally boring and easy, but I will share anyway!

justwantsfixing is a play on Sookie's usual justwantsquiet. Normally, all she wants is for people to shut up in their heads so she can just chill. In the AU, though, she's beyond caring that she can hear everyone -- she just wants everything to be fixed.

Easy, yes.

auroryaustralis is me being a dork -- it's normally auroryborealis because of a canon quote, and I just flipped it and referenced the Southern Lights rather than the Northern Lights, la.

[milkedhiseel.livejournal.com]

cursednotbroken --> To match the "X, not Y" format of bitten_notshy. Jack's cursed -- he's a werewolf now -- but detention hasn't completely broken his spirit quite yet.

isvictorious --> Victorious is Victor's supervillain, kill-all-the-Avengers identity in canon. It's a dorky superhero name, but it's still a step up from Ant-Man.

milkedhiseel --> Because Tyrion confessing his crimes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEXW7_lzXQA) makes me giggle, and I figured I deserved one completely goofy username.

twintuloyalist --> A not-very-creative play on twintuitionist. I probably could have come up with something better, but I was in register aaaaaaalll the journals mode and just wanted to get it in.

world_enchanted --> To follow my last two Tara journals, life_inshadow and never_thesun, and also as a reminder that not all enchantments are good. It should have been on_my_face if I was following the song line by line, but I couldn't quite do that to Tara.

[doesntbetray.livejournal.com]

doesntbetray comes from a bit in City of Ashes:

Alec: I get the feeling she hasn't forgiven me for betraying you.
Jace: Good girl.
Alec: I didn't betray you, idiot.
Jace: It's the thought that counts.

And it made me think of how SOMEONE was doing the betraying here and it certainly wasn't Alec, ahem, so.

Also I went through his tag on Tumblr in search of a better username and mostly just found horrifying fanart and some of the worst fic ever written, so.

nomoralcrisis was vetted by Lainey, and my rationale is mostly that a.) Topher is not having a moral crisis in this AU like he does in canon, and b.) his lack of morals cause a bit of a crisis. IDK I TRIED TO BE DOUBLE-ENTENDRE-Y AND I DON'T THINK I'M NICK ENOUGH.

hatesallthis is pretty much just a riff off of hatesmoststuff, because this timeline sucks ass by comparison, la, and

plzdontcatchme, along those same lines, is a riff off of catchmeifyoucan because in this timeline that would be decidedly less pleasant. Ahem.

[waveagreenflag.livejournal.com]

waveagreenflag: When Umbridge first showed up Robin had a habit of taking protest type songs and changing them slightly. Such as he sang "Welcome to the Black Parade" as, 'Green Parade'.

Among various protest movements they wave black flags. It seemed appropriate.

hiddencobra: Stealing a bit from a different G.I. Joe canon I'm afraid. Cobra Commander keeps talking about how the Cobra lies hidden until it's ready to strike. As Billy is essentially biding his time until Umbridge can be taken down, I thought it worked well.

Also I played with the idea of him having gotten hold of his father's helmet, which he would wear during said attack.

u_s_of_leda: Well with apologies to Kate, I kind of stole this directly from United States of Tara. Since this Leda has MPD (I forget, what's that called now?), I liked it.

sonofgreathern: Tim has a few titles going before his name in canon, among which is "Son of the Great Hern", referring to his father, a legendary warrior among the Fae. I used this journal for the Vampire AU for to indicate that he's much more of a warrior in that world.

I used the same journal mostly for convenience.

[alwaystherebel.livejournal.com]

alwaystherebel comes from Luke always having to go against the reigning power in every situation. Even if in canon he was brainwashed by the wrong side.

mindwarpmagnet is due to Jace being brainwashed several times in canon. First by his dad's words, then by the demon Lilith putting a rune on him and then by his adopted brother taking advantage of said rune. It's only right he gets mind screwed whenever possible.

And donthijackme is for Peeta because he also gets brainwashed in canon (yeah I don't know what is with me) and in THG it is known as hijacking because the process uses Tracker Jacker venom.

[broken-empath.livejournal.com]

Raven: broken_empath because she is.

Bel: stillajackass because he is. For ever and ever and always. And because "jackass" was Anakin's term of endearment for him. ;)

Waytt: bound_twice because it matched blessed_twice and the Vamp AU cursed_twice. I figure he managed to escape once and got thrown back into detention. Hence twice.

Angelica: defierstar because it's a play on Firestar and being a rebel. That one was bloodyspitfire's suggestion.

[nokitestringnow.livejournal.com]

nokitestringnow -- There's a bit from the episode "Touched," right before Kennedy and Willow are about to get down and dirty for the first time, where Willow's scared about losing control, and Kennedy promises her, "You can float around and I'll tether you down." Willow's reply is "You'll be like my kite string?" (Everyone who hated that line can bite me, BTW. /issues) And since Kennedy's here in Fandom without her, well... obviously she can't be that for Willow any more, and I liked the implication that it might have repercussions in her world in this timeline, off the island. Plus it makes the teacup wibble.

whenidontplanit -- Way back in the pre-Del Rey era of the Star Wars EU (okay, 1996), there was a book called The New Rebellion by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, where in a wee, six-year-old Anakin Solo says "And sometimes, when I don't plan it, something I do hurts somebody." It always made me want to hug him forever, and also seemed like a thought he'd have a lot in this AU.

nobettersuited -- I love making Tahiri evil during AUs, just because. In Invincible, the final book of the Legacy of the Force series, Ben tells her "You're no better suited to being a Sith apprentice than I was," and this is just a reference to that. This is like my least pretentiously deep username out of the four.

spoilthatforyou -- My backstory for Stephanie in this AU is that she's no longer Robin, and has gone back to her old vigilante identity of the Spoiler like she does in canon after Bruce fires her and then War Games happens but let's not talk about that ever kthx. And it's Stephanie, so obviously a play on words was necessary. A moral imperative, even.

[upmysleeve.livejournal.com]

You should ALWAYS do the journal names that can be replied to with That's What She Said.

[doesntbetray.livejournal.com]

They had printing presses in 1996? /obligatory

Also *WIBBLES*

[scars-and-money.livejournal.com]

scars_and_money is a super obvious play on Jeremy's usual handle of stars_and_money. I never got around to figuring out any backstory for the scars part, but let's say he probably has a few he didn't have before.

sheisnotnice, normally whenshewasnice is pretty obvious. Natalie's not quite Envy but nice? Nope. She's made a conscious decision not to be that anymore.

And survivorjello continues the theme of vanillajello and bloodyjello. In retrospect, I could maybe have gone for revengejello or bitterjello as well.

[truekindofsith.livejournal.com]

notw_outmytiger is a play on Not Without My Daughter, as even when completely crazycakes, Calvin is not about to abandon Hobbes.

isthevillian is a play on a quote of Lex's when he gets split into and Evil!Lex and a Good!Lex and Evil!Lex is all "I am the villain of the story!" only I managed to typo 'villain' and not pick up on it until after I'd made the bloody journal. I R SMRT.

plannedtohunt reflects Jo's changed life goals in the AU. I wanted to use couldabeenhunter to reflect the wannabehunter construction and reference the whole "I coulda been a contender" thing but too long alas.

grenadewasfake references the first half of the quote thefearwasreal comes from.

truekindofsith is both a play on wrongkindofsith and referencing the fact that Cara is trying to be true to herself Richard and Kahlan's ideals by playing the double game.

[inthewhole.livejournal.com]

Both pretty obvious as plays on their normal journalnames, I think:

nonookie4you for Bo because while she's still nookiepowered, in the Umbridgeverse that's channeled into depriving everyone else of it. With a side order tie-in to Kenzi's regretiz4suckas/regretiz4u usernames.

inthewhole for Ace because it's another place besides upmysleeve that you can hide a sneaky advantage, because it sounds dirty, because inthehole sadly already belongs to a Portgas D. Ace journal, and because (admittedly figured out as reverse engineering), Ace is in her element in this setting. She gets to blow up schools, fight tyrannical authority, hang out with likeminded delinquents and be friends with aliens and other weirdos -- this is Ace in the whole, rather than the mostly pre-canon version of her that is regular FH Ace.

[milkedhiseel.livejournal.com]

It would have also made a nicely dirty sentence if I put Tyrion's journal name next to Tara's.

Alas for lost opportunities.

[sia-later.livejournal.com]

sia_later- Nick is funny. The night before having to have our journals made I asked for help and this is what I got. And now those of you who didn't know how to pronounce Sia's name know!

dontphasemebro- Nick is funnier.

detentionsbitch- The only one I came up with myself. In canon she calls herself Fate's Bitch (hence her regular username) so now she's detention's bitch. Which makes me think of a prison yard, but I can't help but think that Bryan Fuller would approve anyway.

doesntpatent- Thomas Edison patented everything. Annie Edison does not. YES I MADE A TAH REF IN MY USERNAME SO WHAT. PATENT!

[spoilthatforyou.livejournal.com]

I remember you joking about the "on_your_face" thing before, and I have to admit I'm actually vaguely disappointed that you didn't actually use it.

[spoilthatforyou.livejournal.com]

YES I MADE A TAH REF IN MY USERNAME SO WHAT. PATENT!

HAHAHA I THOUGHT THAT WAS WHAT IT WAS. I LOVE YOU, HAVE I MENTIONED THAT?

[sia-later.livejournal.com]

MWAH.

[justadeserter.livejournal.com]

justadeserter - because when Atton finally gives in and admits about his sordid past, he points out he's not a Sith or whatever or anything, he's a deserter, that's what he does best. And then I decided to pun on 'just desserts' because I'm ridiculous.

flaps_wings is... well, in the first game, Liara's mother, Matriarch Benezia, refers to her as 'Little Wing'. In the third game, we finally find out why: because Liara's dad, Matriarch Aethyta, would always tell Benezia, "You're treating her like a baby bird, but she's going to raise one hell of a storm with those little wings." Which she does, in canon, and probably will as soon as she busts out of detention.

nomutineer - in the first game, there's a mechanic they later abandoned where you can turn some of the characters a little darker. If you darken up Kaidan, near the end of the game when Shepard and crew escape their superiors (something which Kaidan can encourage regardless of Renegade'ing), he makes a crack about how the fate of the universe is now left up to 25 mutineers. This Kaidan... is not a mutineer. He obeys his superiors.

past_gettysburg is an old but good one. Kerrigan was captured and turned evil by the zerg at the Battle of New Gettysburg. AU Kerrigan invariably isn't there for that battle, though, and lives on past Gettysburg.

lockeunlocked is another Locke pun because I love those. Peter's now Locke without having to hide it, and he's gunning for you, yo.

gameinprogress is a play on Ender's journal name as well, but not a particularly interesting one, really.

[spoilthatforyou.livejournal.com]

And then I decided to pun on 'just desserts' because I'm ridiculous.

Steph and I approve.

[panickedbanik.livejournal.com]

This is the same journal I used in the Wishverse AU. Honestly, I just like the way it sounds. And Stark does have a bad habit of panicking at inconvenient times. He's being awfully calm in detention though. Someone should make him stop.

[hiddenkilt.livejournal.com]

hiddenkilt was the first and easiest of my AU journals this time. It runs right in line with lovemykilt, Priestly's standard journal, hatesthekilt, Priestly's mother's (and other NPCs') journal, and lostmykilt, from the vampire AU.

borrowedwalls is thanks to Jono, who suggested "behind_the_walls" for Arietty, seeing as she's hiding out and separated from the rest of the world. That was too long, and I wanted to run with the whole "borrower" thing, and came up with "borrowedwalls", which I love far too much.

inthefreezr is . . . well. It makes me laugh. It has a bit of a play on "in the closet", which works for Vincent's low key homoromanticism, which he's playing even lower in the AU, and the fact that he's Resistance-friendly. But mostly, it's from one of Vincent's few lines in the second to last episode of canon, when he advises the random extras townspeople of Eureka to hide in his freezer from the pod people bio-printed replicants that are taking over the town.

Of course, then it turns out he is a replicant himself, and he stuck them in there to keep them in one place for replicant!Jo, but that's not the point. . . .

[agent-00venus.livejournal.com]

lioness_courant was Bron's idea, going with the lioness theme from Ghanima's other journal. I was going for lioness_rampant for nostalgia feels, but I liked the imagery and associations with lioness_courant when it was suggested.

cold_hard_heart is Emma's journal from Wishverse, and takes a phrase from one of my favorite quotes of hers ever: "I've had quite enough of these painful emotions. I have no telepathic powers in diamond form. And no empathy, no compassion, just a cruel sense of humor and a cold, hard heart."

hunting_harpy is an obvious riff off harpy_daughter. Only Surreal is all grown up (in her view) and going after those who hurt children on her own.

agent_00venus is a play on Minako's identity as Aino Minako - herself - and herself as Sailor Venus/Princess Venus. And I NEED to get her out, dammit.

[pinnedherwings.livejournal.com]

Rinoa's usual is angelo_wings -- the name of her pet dog plus her motif of wings, plus angelo is close to "angel" and that's another theme of hers, and her limit break is called Angel Wings, so well, I thought it sounded cool.

So I wanted to keep the wings, but imply she was trapped, and Cara-mun was kind enough to supply pinnedherwings.

Maeby's usual is thatwasafreebie, which is what she says any time she's about to get caught and needs to pull out some epic bullshit to walk away unscathed -- but everyone else is so self-absorbed they fail to notice that she's, you know, filming a movie instead of attending school, so they never even ask. But she's low on freebies these days, so nomorefreebies.

I left Callie the same (boobs_and_evil) because it already has Evil right there in the title, and she's going to be using all her normal icons anyway. The line is from a quote of someone else's about her -- Twayne, her would-be fiance, makes up a presentation so she can be selected as the new CEO of Hell, and it starts with the fabulous line: "When you think of Callie Maggotbone, you think of two things: boobs, and evil."

[crushstalker.livejournal.com]

Harper's username crushstalker comes from a twist on her most identifiable trope, "Stalker With A Crush (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StalkerWithACrush)." In my mind, AU!Harper doesn't have the mental strength to overcome the Imperious Curse, so she compensates by crushing on Umbridge.

[noroselessthorn.livejournal.com]

Ok, the easiest user name was for Savannah: tangledpaths. I thought that it was a nice play of her original username of walks_two_paths. Then I started reading spoilers about what would be coming out in the last book of Savannah's canon for now and wished I could have kept tangledpaths to change her regular username to and make her character in the AU walks_two_paths because that's what she's doing.

Phoebe's is captivevisions because she and her visions are now captives of Umbridge.

Cassidy became noroselessthorn because it was an opposite of her nothornlessrose.

Cassie was easy. She has a dark heritage because of her evil father, so she became darkheritage.

And for Annja I needed a user name that kept the sword in the name so she because resistantsword.

[promisenogood.livejournal.com]

Very late to the party, but promisenogood comes straight from the lyrics of 'No Goo Deed' from Wicked. A song Elphaba sings when she's going off the deep end after her sister is murdered and her bf is captured and her ex-gf is all 'Come join the good guys' and she's all 'bitch plz'.

Or something to that effect.

I would have gone with 'nogooddeed' or 'noonemourns' but... those were taken, heh.

[emphasisonho.livejournal.com]

I actually had another name in mind for Hoshi. But as I trying to explain to someone how a Loyalist!Hoshi would behave, I described her as "Hoshi with an emphasis on the H-O." As luck would have it, emphasisonho was available.

As for the others, Mary would be "bigboobsbiggerheart" except it was too long, so boobs_and_heart it is. It refers to her boss in Las Vegas describing Mary as the girl with a heart of gold who always helps others.

I wasn't going to have a separate journal for Lion-o at first. Then someone asked me if Lion-o would be hiding somewhere in the preserve to keep away from Umbridge, and I decided to snap up cat_in_exile.

[armednderanged.livejournal.com]

Bruce: willbevengeance - From the same "I am vengeance! I am the night!" quote that Bruce's main username comes from.

Zayne: armednderanged - Because I love other people's descriptions of Zayne early on in KOTOR. When he's first on the run, police reports warn that he's "armed and deranged." Zayne was expecting "armed and dangerous." Gryph thought the police had it right.

Dave: anewdaveisborn - In one episode of NewsRadio, Dave throws off the shackles of being good because it's gotten him nowhere. "Today, a new Dave is born. A Dave who is, for lack of a better term, pure evil." It doesn't really apply here but I don't care. I love the quote.

Coulson: hasconviction - Unlike that damnedgod Loki

Yakko: thismeanswarner - As in, "Of course you know..." Most directly taken from the "King Yakko" cartoon. Let the anvils ring!

That's all.

[hurricaneanna.livejournal.com]

Alex: godinthisbox as a play on thegodofxbox, and because he's trapped in detention. And because godinabox was taken, and I am apparently doomed to forever play article games with this kid.

Anna: hurricaneanna is a reference to a line in Anna Dressed in Blood: "She's not a ghost, she's a hurricane." There are a lot of these sorts of lines about Anna...

Natasha: drippingred is what her ledger is doing. I like this username but for obvious reasons I keep associating it with Anna.

Petra: missteenrebel I wanted to play around with "Miss Teen Dream" and this wasn't taken and was short enough. *shrug*

[spoilthatforyou.livejournal.com]

You win at AU names. You just do.

And I can't look at Yakko's username without hearing that whole line in my head, FYI.

[thismeanswarner.livejournal.com]

I forgot to credit Elaine for Coulson's, but that's the worst one I have. TAKE THAT, ELAINE.

And thank you. :D Yakko's was actually the one that took me the longest, although that was in part because I decided to watch King Yakko before I settled on it. THINGS I DID NOT KNOW WHEN I WAS YOUNG: That it's just a total riff on Duck Soup. That cartoon is even better now that I've seen that movie.

BUT I DIGRESS.

[spoilthatforyou.livejournal.com]

That's the sort of thing that makes Animaniacs infinitely rewatchable: everything we didn't understand when we were younger. The double entendres, the pop culture references, all of it. *DIGRESSES MORE WHEE*

[notso-it-girl.livejournal.com]

For Hanna, I went with notso_it_girl because it's a play on new_it_girl. She's an it girl in canon, but not so much when she's stuck in detention.

rebelliouswitch doesn't need much explanation. Piper's a witch and a rebel.

[thismeanswarner.livejournal.com]

The entendres that weren't even double... "Finger Prince." "Lake Titicaca." Holy crap, they got a lot past the censors.

[squirebellion.livejournal.com]

Karla!Mun suggested "squirerebellion" from the normal squire-hand as the Mocker-now-squire is on the side of good and I did the smush because invented words are so much better than real words. Trufax.

[resistancesnark.livejournal.com]

Laaaaate to the party, but WTF ever, right?

resistancesnark. She's part of the resistance and she's snarky. Pretty explanatory.

screwedbyfates. Because really, Eve WAS. They sent her to Fandom and then shit went down and yeah.

intheceiling. Because in canon, they find K-Mart hiding in a K-Mart store and I see her as having hidden in the ceiling, and yeah. It made sense at the time!

brotherbadass. Because Sean is Savannah's brother, and he's also a badass.

taseyourass. Because really, it's what Elle will do to you, especially if she takes a liking to you.