Dear Jason Cintron,

I took advantage of the ability to designate my own user tag and became Changeling#0001. According to my understanding, this should have put me up the line to get the username Changeling. When it was my turn, I found the username had been taken.

I checked on the account that did get the username, and found it inactive. I sent an email to support back in April, 2022, and never received a response. I also messaged the account that has my username and asked, since they were inactive, if I could get them to switch with me. I did offer to entertain monetary compensation. I never heard back from the account.

The frustration of not receiving a response aside, there are two main reasons I want Changeling. First and totally self-centric, I am totally blind and neurodivergent; synesthesia is the specific condition. I like the way the name Changeling looks in its textures and shapes, which is how i experience words. It’s a little like that special profile pic people love and use everywhere.

Second and geared toward persons with blindness and visual impairments, my current name is changelingmx; written as Discord processes it. when using TTS like a screen reader or similar application, it runs the name together into what is essentially gibberish that takes away from my online brand. If Discord supported camel case, I could do ChangelingMx, which would tell the software to process the username with Changeling Mx, the handle i use when Changeling is taken and the account is being used. If I could have the username Changeling, no changes would need to be made to the way in which Discord operates. If it is possible to fulfill my request, doing so would be the faster way to resolve my specific issue. However, it would behoove Discord to make this change to make it friendlier to users of text to speech software.

In closing, I believe letting me have Changeling would give discord a happy customer and not put anyone out. If you go to https;//starshipchangeling.net/about, you’ll see I do have verified web identity under this name. I also feel it is a reasonable ask since I spent a lot of time and effort assisting blind and visually impaired users with using Discord.

Thank you for your consideration of my request.

Sincerely,

Randy Reed

Update: May 19, 2024

No response after 24 hours. Disappointing, but not surprising. The real surprise would actually be getting the username. I’ve never one of these open letters, no matter how justified, but I don’t have a right to want it if I won’t try for it.

On a different note, I’ve decided that I will not be updating the guide until I get it. Call me what you like, but the fact that I can’t such a simple thing from such dedication without compensation is just a bit demoralizing. To be fair, I’ve been extra sensitive to that, even now when things are clearly better for me overall.

Update May23, 2024

Still no response. That is all.