About LunaFlare

I am transgender, and Luna is my chosen name. Despite the number of fictional characters I like who share the name, it wasn't directly inspired by any of them, I just think the moon is pretty.

As for "Flare", I appreciate the aesthetic of fire. This may sound pretentious, but in a very small way I like to think of myself as aspiring to the ideals of Prometheus - as he stole the knowledge of fire from the gods and spread it to humanity, my goal is to make anything I discover accessible to the public for the benefit of all.

Additionally, I enjoy the paradoxical notion of a "Lunar Flare". Taking something usually associated with my opposite, the sun, and claiming the term for myself. I can be a bit chuuni at times, and it brings to mind a surge of magical power.

Alpha Kretin is a unimportant boss from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. I picked the username a long, long time ago, when I was a young teenager. I'd recently been on a spree of constantly reimagining my username for various website, and losing track of which was which. I wanted to pick something that would last a long time, so rather than naming it after a passing passion, I went for something that would remain evergreen - Mario. However, I didn't want to come across as a Mario superfan or something, or wind up having the name taken everywhere, so I wanted it to be a relatively obscure element of the Mario series. Hence, a minor boss.

My intention paid off, and I wound up using the username for years and years. I only changed to LunaFlare in most public spaces very recently, and in some places it's more trouble than it's worth to change. That includes my domain name, which I bought at a cheap price a few years ago. lunaflare.com is unfortunately a premium domain, so rather than go broke to make the switch, I'm sticking with this for my personal website.