thank @awesomerobot
i went and checked a couple of things, have not gotten to the specific discord element you mention (removed: brainfart)
checked exactly which attribute “James Mitchell” is contained in under Orzo’s discourse profile I have found that the name doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the user’s account.
I checked a few other posts into discord from discourse with similar string @profile and found the same thing.
that setting prioritize username in ux is enabled.
toggled the setting - did not alter behaviour
installed data browser and confirmed that users.name is what is finding its way to discord
interestingly users.name doesn’t appear editable through the discourse UI - am i having a muppet moment here?