#and I'm already insanely stressed with work and convention prep and an event I'm performing at next week

[pixiemage]

At this rate, I'm beginning to think this won't ever get resolved, but I'm going to rant about Twitch support anyway because I feel like my head's about to explode.

So I have a Twitch channel, and for the longest time I've been mildly inconvenienced by the fact that I had to make my username "Pixie_mage" as opposed to "Pixiemage" like I wanted it to be because my first choice was already taken. It's minor, really, so I've never been too upset about it even though I do occasionally check to see if Pixiemage is available so I can change my name.

That is, I did used to check...until about a week and a half ago. I was on Discord and noticed that I had my Twitch account linked, and I was a little baffled when the name attached was Pixiemage, not my actual channel. Not the one I use for streaming. And I was even more confused when I saw that I had a subscription for Jacksepticeye's Twitch attached to it. But then I laughed because - oh my god - I realized I must have made an account ages back for one purpose, stopped using it for a while, forgot I'd made it, and because it was connected to an old email I don't really use anymore I didn't get a popup saying I already had an account when I went to make a new one.

Basically, I was the one standing in the way of having my preferred username the whole damn time.

I could stop there, because that's a pretty hilarious conclusion - but I can't, because it only goes downhill from here.

I tried to log into my old account. Of course, because I literally forgot it existed, it took me a few tries to figure out what email and password I'd used for it way back when. I got it in the end, but it doesn't really matter, because I never made it past the login screen. It told me I needed to reset my password in order to continue, and it said it had sent me a link in my email.

Checked my email.

No link.

And I'm absolutely certain it's the right email because it told me when I had the wrong one. (I got stuck waiting for about 24 hours because I'd tried too many emails, so - yeah. I knew I'd gotten the right one when it didn't lock me out.)

I tried a few more times, checked my spam, checked to see if maybe I had a block on Twitch emails - but no, they weren't blocked, because I was still getting monthly invoices for the subscription I hadn't realized I was still paying for and - later - Twitch support emails were getting through no problem. (And yeah, maybe I should've noticed the subscription thing sooner, but to be fair the invoices were being sent to an email I don't use anymore and I have a few other subscriptions active on my current account, so even the stuff popping up in my bank account didn't really raise any red flags.)

ANYWAY. This is the point at which I contacted Twitch. All I wanted was to figure out a way to force the email through or send a link to an alternate email address or, hell, to my phone number. They asked me a whole bunch of questions to make sure I was who I said I was - and nothing. Apparently I'm not actually me, because whatever information I provided wasn't "accurate". Which, bullshit, I think I know my own email and phone number and username and birthday, and I have a list of every single invoice number from now all the way back until the damn of time, all sitting in my inbox...of the email address that you can clearly see is attached to my Twitch account. I have bank statements if that ain't enough, my old username is almost identical to the one I use today, I use Pixiemage on almost every form of social media on the planet and - hell - my profile picture is the same one I made on a goddamn pixie hollow character designer game a decade ago, the one I still use on multiple accounts including my other Twitch account, and I've got the full sized version sitting on my fucking USB drive from high school if you're looking for the source.

(And maybe, yeah, that last one won't prove anything, but I'm trying to make a point here.)

I am who I say I am, and in reality, all I want to do is go in, scan my inbox for friends I need to add back on my new account, and either change my username or delete the damn thing so I can use Pixiemage on the channel I'm actively trying to build a following on. There should be a way to prove I'm me, right? I mean, for god's sake, I have the damn thing still attached to my Discord. Surely that's a way to confirm my identity? Surely?

On the plus side, Twitch did cancel my Jacksepticeye subscription so I'm not paying for something I can't even use, which I'm grateful for. (Although, a bit weird that they let me cancel a paid subscription if they legitimately thought I wasn't the REAL Pixie_mage...but I digress.) But the crux of the problem is that this whole mess started because of Twitch itself. I did nothing wrong. I've had the correct login information this whole time, and if Twitch didn't decide to (A) bar me from my account until I changed my currently correct password and then (B) never actually send me the damn reset email I need in order to do so in the first place, this whole mess would've been dealt with in the span of an hour.

It's been a week and a half.

Twitch support keeps spouting stuff about their Privacy Policy and about how whatever I sent them isn't enough to prove my identity, and while I normally appreciate that kind of security, when they're barring me from my own fucking account it's more than enough to make me want to punch a wall. They won't even give me alternative options for how to prove my identity, and if it weren't for the fact that they did actually take care of the financial half of the problem, I'd probably be ten times more irritated than I am now.

But for real. I want my account back. Give me another way to prove it's me. Communicate. Because right now it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall.