Tell us about your avatar, name, etc.

[Pontus]

Whether you're a new or old member, or just recently changed your avatar, tell us what it means to you, why/how you chose it, etc..   Don't assume we get the reference or know a character; please tell us who or what it is.  Also, why did you choose your name?  And if you have anything funny in your location or interests, please tell us about it.  

Anyway, I'll start... I initially started using my usual generic Pontos/Pontus avatar of an ancient greek mosaic depicting the OG Greek sea god.  My friends and I got way too into channeling old school Greek mythology in my early twenties (and an occasional mild hallucinogen).  As the calm, quiet, deep one, I was dubbed Pontus, a primordial deity of the sea, born of Gaia from nothing, and with the sea goddess Thalassa created all sea life.  Surprisingly for me, later in life, when I looked this up on the internet (not available at the time), I found out that I actually LOOK like him in this ancient greek mosaic (minus the crab claws and antenna).  Tell me that's not a trip! 😱

Anyway, I figured I should probably keep it Macross related, so I went looking on the interwebs for an appropriate replacement.  I found my current Captain Global GIF which was perfect!  I may have started collecting only for Roy's valk, but my true favorite character is Global.  I also happen to smoke a pipe shaped just like his.  And I'm generally here to watch longingly as amazing valks for sale pass me by for one reason or another, so the valks passing by like ghosts was spot on, lol!

My interests listed as "Heavy machines, far overground" is not only the obvious reference to large space robots, but also a modified quote from the original old silent film, "Metropolis" - "Heavy machines, far underground" which was what we named our amateur noise band (we just had a bunch of noise makers, band instruments, and a big old Wurlitzer organ that we jammed out on).

[sketchley]

For one reason or another, I was given the custom tag "Smarter Than Brainy Smurf" way back when on these forums.  My avatar was the result of mashing together that and Macross.

The original idea was to spoof the opening of SDFM:

 

At one point, I was changing it every couple of months, and as Gangnam Style was hot at the time, we got these strange iterations.  Incidentally, the background of the 2nd picture is the full-size VF-25 exhibit that was making its way around Japan at the time (note Sheryl Nome cosplayers in the lower right and the people standing on the Valkyrie's hand looking into the cockpit in the upper left):

 

The cropped version (current) was due to a change in forum software that changed the larger square display space to a much smaller circular one.  I've (unsuccessfully?) attempted to make it look like the Smurf is peering through a porthole.  Aside from all that, there's not anything deep going on with the avatar beyond taking an idea and running with it.

Here's the full size:

https://www.deviantart.com/studiootaking/art/Brainy-Smurf-SD-VF-1-264897023

Edited August 11 by sketchley

[twich]

My Avatar is a SD YF-19. This was one of my favorite Variable Fighters at the time in the early 2000’s when I found MacrossWorld.

Twich

[Duke Togo]

Mine is pretty self-explanatory. 😜
 

Edit: I chose this particular picture of Duke Togo because of the purple in it, which is my favorite color.

Edited August 12 by Duke Togo

[Mog]

Mog, the moogle from Final Fantasy VI.  Favorite video game of all time.  Relatively small character that can be a butt-kicker.

Current avatar is the prototype of Sentinel’s Mospeada Tread.  Putting the Mog avatar into hibernation until Sentinel finally releases the Tread and I get it in my grubby hands.

I did something similar when there was a massive delay with Toynami’s Beta fighter.

[Seto Kaiba]

Mine... well... I picked the first thing that popped into my head back when my friends first started using online forums back in my freshman year of high school.  We'd been reading bootlegs of the first few volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh!, which had only recently started getting collected editions in Japan, and the villain's name was the first thing that came to mind when the time came to pick a handle.  Reused it on most forums because I was too lazy to come up with different handles for each, so I've been stuck with it ever since. 🤣

My current avatar is from the second panel of a two panel Macross fancomic by Ranko Asai in which Quamzin struggles a bit with Earth's literature.  The gag in the comic is that Zentradi is supposedly Japanese written upside-down, so he's initially shown reading Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human upside-down without issue, but is completely thrown by reading the script for Macross right side up.

[Pontus]

Thanks for replies fellas!  I was sortuv afraid this thread would fall flat, but I'm happy to see others sharing.

@sketchley, love the Schtroumpfs/Smurfs and I've always wondered about your valk smurf, nice job!  I created my own avatars for other forums using a modified Handy Schtroumpf (that's pretty much me if I was a smurf) where I added my pipe.  But on a motorcycle forum I changed the log into a tire, changed the pencil in his ear into an air gauge, and changed the hammer in his hand into a wrench while adding a BMW logo to his overalls (my motorcycle).  It's kinda hard to see in the restricted avatar size of that particular forum, but here it is:

Oh, and @Duke Togo, it seems I was unaware of this manga, and now that I've read about it being the longest running manga ever (how did I miss this?!), I think I need to check out Golgo13.  And I thought One Piece had a lot of manga, holy cow!  So thank you.

 

Edited August 12 by Pontus

[Master Dex]

My avatars aren't especially inspired, here it's often various pics or fan art of Max, especially in his Captain form from Macross 7. It's cause he's my favorite. I'm kinda used to changing my avatar over time though so it's often down to my interest at the time. 

The name though is a story. Master Dex is the second long running alias I've used on the Internet and it kinda just started as a random pick up based on a self insert character my high school self invented for a Star Wars fanfic. This is funny because I'm not an especially big SW fan lol. So the master refers to Jedi Master, and Dex was the last name in Ivan Dex (not a very SW name admittedly). I never actually wrote the fic though and nothing came of the character but the name sounded nice so I used it for a screen name somewhere one day when I felt like not using my old König alias variation I'd grown out of, and it just stuck. Been using it ever since.

[camk4evr]

Well, as you can see, I don't use an avatar ('cause lazy). My user name is just my initials scrambled and with 4evr added because I wanted to use my initials on my email account and spent a stupid amount of time trying to find an ordering that didn't have 100+ other users. So, on the last one I enter camk4evr thinking that someone would have already chosen it and was mildly surprised that it worked. I've been using it on forums, and as my PlayStation handle, ever since because I just can't be bothered to come up with something new (and, for some stupid reason, it always seems to work).

[jenius]

After college (a long time ago now!) I found MW. In my young 20s I was pretty insufferable both on these boards and elsewhere. As both a fan of Max and the humor of the ironic mispelling of genius in the context of these boards, the handle was 'prefect'. Later, I was offered the anymoon website but it was unclear how long I'd be able to operate on it so I made the name 'scorched earth toys' with the assumption it might have to be housed somewhere other than anymoon.com someday. Turns out, I've been able to keep anymoon.com so now the two name thing is just confusing and since my handle here predates the site, it's yet another name to throw in. 

[JB0]

Oh man... mine's basically a time capsule from twenty years ago. 

Avatar's Yuki from Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. Because Haruhi-ism was real and I haven't had much urge to change it. I've always changed avatars sparingly.

 

JB0 is... well, my standard nom de clavier at the time was JB, but MacrossWorld required a minimum three-character name, so I added a zero. The letters had already lost any meaning at this point in my cyberlife, the joke they began as so irrelevantly weak it was forgotten almost instantly. I was just using the name because it was who I was online. I've claimed the two letters stood for a few things over the years, but it was mostly post-hoc justifications.

Name length limitations would be an increasingly-common problem moving forward, as well as the two-character namespace being full, resulting in JB becoming Jaybee before eventually being retired as my primary nom de clavier.

 

Tangentally, if the corners of internet JB was born in had moved to requiring logins a few months sooner, I would've been known as Jack Daniels. Dodged a bullet there.

[MisaForever]

I, uhh..... hmmmmm. So it's Misa, but.... she's mini. YOU SEE?!!

(Yes, I know it's not really her but dammit, I'm convinced it might be her daughter!)

Edited August 15 by MisaForever

[Pontus]

53 minutes ago, MisaForever said:

I, uhh..... hmmmmm. So it's Misa, but.... she's mini. YOU SEE?!!

(Yes, I know it's not really her but dammit, I'm convinced it might be her daughter!)

Well, I for one thought it WAS Misa, especially considering your handle.  If it's not Misa, where's it from, and why did you choose "MisaForever"?  Does either have anything to do with your interest in "Zentradi Women" or do you just like the strong willed, stubborn type? 

I always wished that Hikaru would have gotten married to Misa.  I was never a big fan of MinMay from the very start.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Pontus said:

I always wished that Hikaru would have gotten married to Misa.  I was never a big fan of MinMay from the very start.

He did.  We've got multiple pieces of official art of the wedding.  They even had a kid together before Megaroad-01 went missing in 2016.

[Pontus]

22 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

He did.  We've got multiple pieces of official art of the wedding.  They even had a kid together before Megaroad-01 went missing in 2016.

I can finally die in peace!

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

My username is obvious.  My avatar is my 2 favorite anime characters.  Kamijou and Misaka from the Toaru series.

[pengbuzz]

Well, decided to put up my avatar after some time of not having it up (I felt it wasn't fair to comment in here without one!); the full pic of it is this:

It's the Pengbuzz in a TOS BSG Colonial Warrior's outfit (complete with helmet).

Now for the million dollar question: what exactly is a "pengbuzz"?
 

Spoiler

Ya really wanna know?

Spoiler

It began as a family joke that then evolved and took on a life of its' own...

When my mom was pregnant, my dad nicknamed her Penelope Penguin (it was meant affectionately, not as an insult) because she would waddle when she walked. Meanwhile, my dad was considerably older than my mom, and since mom had a nickname, we chose one that fit my dad: The Ol' Buzzard.

So.... since my mom was a penguin and my dad was a buzzard, that made me a hybrid in the bird-joke department: a Penguin-Buzzard.

Or...a Pengbuzz.

Then after a bit, I began illustrating my family as these characters , and thus this little guy was born.

Recently though, he got elected as Federation President:

 

 

Edited August 16 by pengbuzz

[MisaForever]

11 hours ago, Pontus said:

Well, I for one thought it WAS Misa, especially considering your handle.  If it's not Misa, where's it from, and why did you choose "MisaForever"?  Does either have anything to do with your interest in "Zentradi Women" or do you just like the strong willed, stubborn type? 

I always wished that Hikaru would have gotten married to Misa.  I was never a big fan of MinMay from the very start.

There's this one bridge bunny in the 2nd Delta movie that looks eerily like Misa but obviously younger and has a gem on her forehead. No idea who she is but it has to be a call back. 😁

[MisaForever]

11 hours ago, Pontus said:

Well, I for one thought it WAS Misa, especially considering your handle.  If it's not Misa, where's it from, and why did you choose "MisaForever"?  Does either have anything to do with your interest in "Zentradi Women" or do you just like the strong willed, stubborn type? 

I always wished that Hikaru would have gotten married to Misa.  I was never a big fan of MinMay from the very start.

[Dark Skull]

Mine is simply from a low lighting pic of a sort of custom 1/48 VF-1S "stealth" made from an extra VF-1J Stealth I had.

 

Nothing fancy. I just made up a head canon for a "Dark Skull Squadron" consisting of experimental stealth VF-1s.

[Shawn]

Some super cool insights to the member names here

Mine is super simple-back in 1999 it was Shawn's & Graham's MacrossWorld...so gotta be Shawn!

My avatar is the DYRL re-do that Garoquel did for the site way back when.
Super talented artist!

[505thAirborne]

Hey all, 505thAirborne comes from my father's uncle who served in the 82nd Airborne during WWII (after seeing Saving Private Ryan research into my families service records began), that name became my username when I had my Helmet restoration business on eBay back in 2007, so when I joined up that same year here on MW, that was the first name that came to mind & well, here we are all these years later. 

As for my Avatar, that is Eunha of both Gfriend & VIVIZ. As far as I am concerned, she is the true real life Galactic Fairy. 

Edited August 20 by 505thAirborne

[Pontus]

46 minutes ago, 505thAirborne said:

Hey all, 505hAirborne comes from my father's uncle who served in the 82nd Airborne

Why 505 and not 82?

[505thAirborne]

21 minutes ago, Pontus said:

Why 505 and not 82?

Because he served in the 505th PIR (Parachute Infantry Battalion). 

As written above... "that was the first name that came to mind". 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Username, started originally at me poking fun at the engrish in the Kawamori Mechanical Design works.   It then spiraled into an inside joke amongst friends and some old MW members.     My avatar was a gif of Kohaku dancing..  then MW had a upgrade years back and been stuck ever since..      damn I'm old now..

[wmkjr]

My avatar is the Destroid Work from Frontier. Reason I chose it because it was doing firefighting work so this would be the one I'd like to operate instead of them fancy valks. 😁

[blackconvoy_D01]

My name came from the start of my adult toy collecting days in 2000 with Transformers Car Robots. I absolutely loved Black Convoy. My avatar is in dedication to my child who I got into Macross and anime. She's studying Astro chemistry. Hopefully she gets to the next level of exploration.

[nightmareB4macross]

My name comes from having nightmares of having to gather lots of money in secrecy to collect Macross before my wife finds out. Just kidding.

I have a great admiration of the creativity and wonderful figures of “the Nightmare Before Christmas” and then just mashed it up with Macross another great franchise known for its awesome creativity and figures.

Hence, NightmareBeforeMacross, NightmareB4Macross, or NB4M for short.

My avatars would usually be centered around customs I would work on or complete. The pair in my avatar are these fun custom birds using Yamato as a base in 1/48. The avatar shows them being built in tandem.

Here they are finished.

Live in good old sunny SoCal and have been very fortunate to have met so many of you in person mostly at MWCon thru SDCon. 

Since I travel extensively for work I always try to connect with Macross fans found in the areas I land. Always make time for good food and conversation, and of course the occasional beer.

Cheers!

Edited August 28 by nightmareB4macross

[Pontus]

@nightmareB4macross, I can't believe I never put that together!  I always imagined your handle was a reference to Macross having helped you thru a dark place in your life. 🤣 

[nightmareB4macross]

That is a pretty good assumption.

This is how battles usually look like inside our home.

[BigInJapan]

Hello fellow Macross fans. First post on this account since I lost access to the email of my old account.

I am writing from Reykjavik, Iceland and I just wanted to re-introduce myself. Was pretty active here in 2019 and beginning of 2020 but then started a family etc and was occupied with other things. But man did I miss my hobbies so here I am again. 

[Pontus]

Welcome back!  As per the thread topic tho, did you choose @BigInJapan because you're a Tom Waits or Alphaville fan, or did you simply like the phrase as it applies to our hobby?  And why did you choose that particular avatar pic?

Edited Wednesday at 02:26 PM by Pontus

[TehPW]

My name... My Avatar...

Well the Avatar is easy. The story has NOTHING to do with Macross Frontier's Female #2. It's the album cover of one of F2's Discography and at the time, I thought it was "cool". I suppose I could replace it with something more modern but *shrug* I'm too lazy at this point in my life...

 

The Name... requires some travel time in the Way Back Machine...

The time is 1999, the place is Webcity Cybercafe (It no longer exists) and the Game is Unreal Tournament. Now up till that point, I probably had a few different Handles for the three BIG FPS games that came to be from DOOM: Quake (series), Duke Nukem 3D and UT. Of all three, the most, best memories I have, is from Unreal Tournament. For those who weren't even Born Yet, those game were your parent's bread and butter.

During one particularly and delightfully violent session of CTF-Facing Worlds, my friend changed his handle several times, settling on the simple and beloved: Cow.

I, feeling the need to comeuppance, did the same. I initially settled on Pensive.

Now, Pensive holds a place in history (to some); Pensive was a patron of JACS Cybercafe (also long non-existent) who's handle was Pensive. You have to ask him what the back story was and I was not privy to that. But he was a good citizen, kind hearted and yet annoying AF if you played against him (expert at Online Chess) so I always remembered his handle.

Now If you are familiar, Facing Worlds is a very simple design for a Capture The Flag map. I specialized in a very effective Troll by Camping the topside Teleport with my Impact Hammer. Because the results were typically giblets of former enemy players, I had an Apiffany and changed my handle to the name that I retain to this day (but rarely use now):

 

Pensive's Wetness(tm)

My current handle is merely the result of age and maturity (nothing more). I hope my name brings smiles of remembrance (or maybe ulcers; I wasn't always a nice person to my foes)

Anyway. Derp.