its one of those nights

"Some people, when they're hurt...they remember the challenge. They grab hold of the fire once, and when they're burned, they make plans, trying to figure out how to hold live coals. [...] But some of us remember the pain. You're like that. You remember the pain, and you flinch." -- The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

Dear Courtney,

I do not read romance or Romance to have profound fucking enlightenment at ten at night. That shit came out of nowhere; what the hell? You remember the pain and you flinch, what were you thinking? You get that shit is going to haunt me at two in the morning for the rest of my life?

This is why no one trusts Romance. Sure, you promise us well dressed men riding horses in the rain and rescuing us from Gretna Green before marrying that bounder and ruining our reputation, and then LIFE LESSON before we even lose our virginity in that convenient barn. It's bullshit.

Love,
Sep

Note: until I posted Agincourt, no one had ever called me "Sep". The first time I saw it, I loved it; it's so sharp. "Sep" is ten thousand times better than 'jenn', not least because not a literal million people aren't also using it.

Funny story on that; Child was trying to get my attention for reasons (I was ignoring him because it's good for him or I was uh, reading porn, mayyyybe Sam/Dean because nostalgia) and he went through the litany of names and belatedly, I stopped and said "...did you just say 'Seperis'?"

Him: *smug* Got your attention.

Well played, Child.

At some point, I anticipate someone at work saying "Jenn" and I absently correct them to "Seperis". I come from a long line of people who forgot their own wallet names by sheer dint of no one ever calling them that. I'm not sure they even used my dad's wallet name at his funeral. I mean, in theory, they had to have, but I don't remember hearing it.

Comments

[niqaeli]

I literally had someone call me "Nick" in person as their (not totally nuts, I'll grant) interpretation of 'niq' and very much went "...??!?!" for a few minutes because while I am ENTIRELY USED to people calling me by my online name of niqaeli/niq -- and the thing is, Nick is my SPOUSE OH MY GOD. It was very confusing.

'niq' is both uncapitalised and pronoucned the same as the "nique" part of Dominique, for the record. If you pronounc it as "nick" I am going to spend like five second not reacting and then another five seconds going ???????, before I responded. >_>

[mecurtin]

this is v important info I have long desired, thank you.

[niqaeli]

...I should probably get around to putting this info in my profile, shouldn't I.

[neotoma]

Yes, it would be very helpful.

[toujours_nigel]

... that's a terrifying quotation you've got there. That's gonna linger, forsure.

I remember reading your Smallville stuff back when you posted them as Jenn and later being very relieved to find them again here and on AO3 under Seperis.

[seperis]

Dude, if I'm going to be haunted, time to share.

I remember reading your Smallville stuff back when you posted them as Jenn and later being very relieved to find them again here and on AO3 under Seperis.

Yeah, seperis was literally for making a geocities account back when i was on usenet, that's it. It was convenient to use when I was invited onto a friend's server, but when I got my LJ, it--changed. Not on purpose, exactly, but the nature of social media meant I was referenced by that far more than 'jenn'; it was both address of my journal and the username shortcut: lj-user=seperis. I chose the username, but it was the internet that both named me and made it my name, as much as my parents did my wallet name. There's no difference between them to me anymore, other than one happens to be on my birth certificate.

Which is why I don't use pseudonyms; the last thing I want is to accidentally start identifying by a name I'll someday hate or worse, I can't guess how to pronounce. I got lucky this time; imagine if I'd been like VaderBitch1224 or XILuvTomParisX when this happened. It doesn't bear examining.

[akacat]

imagine if I'd been like VaderBitch1224 or XILuvTomParisX

For the second one, people probably would have shortened it to Xil. Other than not being sure how to pronounce it (I’d lean toward Zil and probably be wrong), that would be pretty cool.


And now I’m wondering if my grandpa’s wallet name was ever mentioned during his funeral. Possibly not, though his nickname isn’t an uncommon wallet name, which probably makes a difference.

[seperis]

For the second one, people probably would have shortened it to Xil. Other than not being sure how to pronounce it (I’d lean toward Zil and probably be wrong), that would be pretty cool.

Okay, Xil isn't bad, yeah. But the rest, just...no. Just looking at it makes me queasy.

And now I’m wondering if my grandpa’s wallet name was ever mentioned during his funeral. Possibly not, though his nickname isn’t an uncommon wallet name, which probably makes a difference.

You just reminded me: my grandfather (dad's dad) was generally known by his surname to everyone. That must have been a little surreal; like my dad, no one ever used his wallet first name.

[lilacsigil]

I live in a very rural area where it's common for people to go by nicknames their whole lives. I work in the pharmacy, and when the NHS suddenly brought in a rule that we had to have everyone's actual legal name on their files it got very, very confusing. Lump's name is Sean? Norm's name is Anthony? Flip's name is Nicole? Half the population over 70 are called either "John" or "Joan" and none of them like it? Beyonce turned out to be really called Beyonce, though.

[seperis]

*giggles* I have a cousin generally known as 'Bubba' since before I was born, and there were various relatives I never knew their wallet name or they had another name until after they died.

[schneefink]

Out of curiosity, how do you pronounce Seperis?

[seperis]

That I've heard:

1.) SEP-eris
2.) SE-peris
3.) Se-PER-is
4.) Sep'ris

If you're asking which one is right, I answer to all of them, though the first is the most common pronunciation.

The fourth, however is the closest match to the root name I made it one from, Cipris, from Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince, one of the High Prince Roelstra's seventeen daughters. Why? Literally I went through so many normal and semi-normal names for my geocities username that already existed, and I refused to use a number, and here's the kicker, someone was using cipris so I got cranky, replaced 'C' with 'S', all the 'i's with 'e's, threw in the extra e, and that one? Worked.

...then when google appeared, I found out my totally made up name was a Serbian? surname and several people in the US have it. So that was surreal.

[swingandswirl]

Yeah, that's the best/worst part of authors like Milan, isn't it? They know just how to break your heart in the best ways.

And I feel you; one of my reading challenges for next year is 'a book that starts with your name' and I am in a serious quandary whether to go with Tam, since I've been Tam for over ten years now, or with my wallet name, which doesn't feel near as much like me.

[sian1359]

I suggest Tam Lin by Patricia Dean, if you haven't read it before.

[sian1359]

Sorry, Pamela Dean.

[the_ladylark]

There was definitely a period in my life where I would answer as readily, if not more so, to Ladylark or 'lark than my given name. It's been several years now since I was regularly called that in person, but I was reminded during the summer that it still gets my attention rapidly. Names are odd.

(While I'm here, thank you for the dreamwidth thing btw!)

[seperis]

'Lark is so pretty; it's a good choice for you, now that I think about it. Larks only sing when they're flying; it makes sense, breaking the bounds of boring old gravity and taking to the sky like you own it, who wouldn't sing?

[musesfool]

Whereas I'm still confused when people call me "musesfool" in person. It's not a name? I mean, it IS a name - it's my name (my confusion upon finding someone else using it on tumblr, let me show you it), but it's not an in-person name - I've also been victoria p. online since almost the beginning, so that's what I expect people to use? - so it'll take me a second or two to parse.

(otoh, if someone actually called me cacchieressa in person, I would accept that - it's a misspelled version of 'chiacchieressa' which is what my high school Italian teacher used to call me, i.e., 'chatterbox'.)

[seperis]

It's social media, I think; all those intralinks with your username mean that the association is between you and it automatically. Some nifty brain engineering there, if you think about it. It's got to be the convenience of username shortcuts that sped up the process, but yeah: I write user name='musesfool' twenty times more than victoria p, the brain takes it from there.

[musesfool]

That is very true. It doesn't make it any less startling for me, though, as I'm not used to hearing it spoken.

[that_mireille]

I was in my 40s before I found a name that works for me IRL as well as "Mireille" (or Mir) works for me online/in fandom. But in my head, I am *always* Mireille. I've been using that in fandom since I was 13, and I'm pushing 50. That's who I am.

[seperis]

I love both, but that sharp "Mir" can easily be shouted over distances. *g*

Yeah, I get you on that; seperis has been mine over half my life. It's very much me; maybe more, in some contexts.

[bedlamsbard]

I've actually had the opposite experience -- while I'm still mostly known as Bedlam or Bed online, and I call myself that if I'm talking to myself for some reason, because I've got "Katrina" as my display name on Twitter people who mostly interact with me there tend to call me "Kat." Which I've never gone by IRL, but now I'll use it on occasion since it's easier for people to parse if I'm at Starbucks or whatever.

[katherine]

That author, slipping a life lesson in with the rest of things.

Names do stick, don't they?

[seperis]

Know yourself by the name by which you are known: not just for obscure philosophical debates anymore.

[morvoren]

I stopped going by my first name in junior high/high school since there was at minimum 1 other Erin in any of my classes, sometimes more (there were 5 of us in my one English class). So I just gradually started going my my last name or initials (which are actually pronounceable). I had to re-learn to answer to Erin when I started working, since then for once there were no others. It was *weird*.