The origin of my username (shadowdoom9)

As my 100th forum thread special and 6666th () total Metal Academy post, I felt like sharing something that was in my mind throughout half of my life that I've never thought of sharing until now, and that is... how I came up with my metal-like Metal Academy username Shadowdoom9!

When I was 11, which is half of my current age, as a few of you might already know, I was playing the MMORPG RuneScape and I had a few accounts instead of one (don't ask me why). Back then I was also into the children's book series Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and one of the books mentions a made-up book called "Shadowdoom - Dark Realms Volume 9", which the main Wimpy Kid character Greg wanted to share for a book reading club but his mother rejected it because of the book's "suggestive" cover that had nothing to do with the story itself.

I personally found that book name and the female warrior on its cover really cool, so I named my third RS account Shadowdoom9 and tried to make my character have the same appearance as that female warrior. Though I didn't use that account as long as my first two, the name Shadowdoom9 has actually grown on me, like it's my signature account name. I even used it as the name of my first YouTube channel that I started a couple years later, but that channel was terminated for copyright reasons. Even though the termination had nothing to do with the account name, I took a 5-year break from using that username, mainly because I thought of what I thought were cooler names for my accounts in websites like my later YouTube channels.

When I first joined Metal Academy two years before this post, I felt the need to think of a username that sounds metal but not too wordy, and ultimately, well... it's very obvious what username I chose. My old Shadowdoom9 name has returned! I've even used it for my account in Rate Your Music and other sites. Hope you enjoyed my username origin that is finally shared!

I go by the name The Trickster (or Tricky) pretty much everywhere, including RYM. The reason for the name? Trickster G (aka Garm) from Arcturus. I went through a massive Arcturus / Ulver period in the late 90s, which was exactly when internet communities started popping up, so that's where it comes from.

When creating Metal Academy, it seemed silly to call myself anything but Ben, since listeners of the Metal Academy podcast already knew who Daniel and I were. Plus I like the idea of being an approachable enabler as opposed to a masked overlord, pulling the strings in my secret lair. 

My own semi-official logo for my username:

I've enjoyed what I've done with my semi-official username logo and decided to make something similar, this time as an unofficial Metal Academy logo, so here it is. Enjoy!

I've enjoyed creating the threads for the clan playlists (mostly on behalf of Saxy and Xephyr) along with the free-to-use images for the graphics, that not only did I make a new version of my avatar by overlaying the original one over the Gateway (see my profile), but I've also made a panoramic combination of that and the other images to create a new semi-official logo for my username. I even used my username to cover up the sh*tty watermark the program won't let me remove. Check it out!

Updated my Shadowdoom9 logo with the cool new Sherwood font that I found and installed, instead of the previously used Algerian font. (see above)