icon meme

[fahye]

Oh man. I got really carried away. Warnings for poetry, YouTube clips, extensive quoting of things, and squeeful babble.

(If you wan to ask me about any more of my icons, or if you want me to name some icons for you, you can, but I am going to be spending tonight & the next couple of days panicking about my anatomy essay and the upcoming choir concert, and so I likely won't get around to it for a while.)



From innerbrat:



[sueccubus] faye audesley
by schiarire - she can't fly, but she's very rich.

This icon was one of a whole set of wing-icons that Ji made me for my birthday one year, and I ended up using it in the sueccubus fact-vs-fantasy RP thing, wherein you communicate as a version of yourself who has a life you'd like. We don't really play there any more but I have the icon anyway, just in case, because it suits the persona. Faye Audesley is a very lazy medical student & shoplifter who lives in Sydney and has a lot of very rich friends who take her to parties. She likes expensive things and writes romance novels under a pen name that nobody will ever know.



[other] the other pilots
by bantha_fodder - oh, shut up. you liked it too.

Haaaaa. People always ask me about this icon, and I feel bad about telling people to watch Stealth because, well, it's a very mediocre action film, but I have an ENORMOUS love for mediocre films with cool love stories in them (mumble mumble The Saint mumble). This is Ben Gannon and Kara Wade! They are Navy pilots! They kick ass and are in love and make jokes about bras and foster mothers and occasionally I write fic about them because they are just that awesome. They're called 'the other pilots' to distinguish them from the Pilots, ie. Lee and The Original Kara from BSG, who are the first pilots of my heart.



[tw] one more dead immortal
by gemstar69 - they could have been fantastic, you know.

Ohhhh I love this icon. It's from the end of the Torchwood episode 'They Keep Killing Suzie' and the very, very faint text at the top says 'alone again', which is just such a perfect way to express what Jack Harkness was thinking as he looked down at the body of Suzie Costello. I called it 'one more dead immortal' because that episode (and that SHOW) was all about death vs. immortality and for the immortal Jack to have found someone else who was potentially immortal and then have to kill her - especially if you take into account his track record with attaching himself to the Doctor and then being left alone - yeah, it's depressing, isn't it? I worked up a big Thing about the potential inherent in Jack & Suzie when I was writing last year's Yuletide fic, Paramagnetic, and their relationship is one of my favourites. In all its angsty, twisty, psychopathic glory.



[spooks] zoe - finding the centre
by icon_reich - after all that we've been through together.

Spooks - called MI-5 in the US - is one of the best shows I have ever seen. It's often painful to watch both because of the confrontational nature of the violence and the themes, but also because it's...morally dubious and emotionally crippling. For characters and viewers. This is an icon of Zoe, of whom I am very fond, in one of her moments of leaning against a wall trying to get her shit together during some crisis or other. The comment, 'after all that we've been through together', is something that Zoe says to Tom in early S3 when, well, spoiler spoiler spoiler (I want everyone I know to watch this show, and it's ten times better if you don't know the plot twists), but this icon is basically about someone trying desperately to reconcile duty and patriotism and integrity and loyalty to far too many things at once. It's a personal-conflict icon.



[other] helena - all in your head
by loki013 - she's got her own mask.

I have had this icon for ages, and it reminds me of how much I need to rewatch Mirrormask. This was such a visually fantastic movie that I knew I wanted at least one icon from it, and this one captures one of the most powerful devices, which was dark!Helena with her blank eyes and her gothic glamour and the fact that finally, she was wearing a mask like everyone else. But on another level it's a reminder of the reality-or-all-in-the-mind? mystery of the movie, and the fact that even in the 'real world', Helena is never quite showing herself to the world.



[r+g] if that were north
by kyraille - wind, no. DRAUGHT, yes.

This is a great shot from the film adaptation of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, my favourite play IN THE WORLD. My explanation for this one is going to be a quote from the play, because there's no good way to explain it properly:

GUIL: If it is, and the sun is over there (his right as he faces the audience) for instance, that (front) would be northerly. On the other hand, if it is not morning and the sun is over there (his left) ... that ... (lamely) would still be northerly. (Picking up.) To put it another way, if we came from down there (front) and its morning, the sun would be up there (his left), and if it is actually over there (his right) and it's still morning, we must have come from up there (behind him), and if that is southerly (his left) and the sun is really over there (front), then it's the afternoon. However, if none of these is the case----

ROS: Why don't you go have a look?

GUIL: Pragmatism?! - is that all you have to offer? You seem to have no conception of where we stand! You won't find the answer written down for you in the bowl of a compass -- I can tell you that. (Pause) Besides, you can never tell this far north - it's probably dark out there.

ROS: I merely suggest that the position of the sun, if it is out, would give you a rough idea of the time; alternatively, the clock, if it is going, would give you a rough idea of the position of the sun. I forget which you are trying to establish.

GUIL: I'm trying to establish the direction of the wind.

ROS: There isn't any wind. Draught, yes.

GUIL: In that case the origin. Trace it to its source and it might give us a rough idea of the way we came in --- which might give us a rough idea of south, for further reference.

ROS: It's coming from the floor. (He studies the floor.) That can't be south can it?

GUIL: That's not a direction. Lick your toe and wave it around a bit.

Ros considers the distance of his foot.

ROS: No, I think you would have to lick it for me.

Pause.

GUIL: I'm prepared to let the whole matter drop.

(The whole joke, in the film, revolves around the fact that when Ros says 'there isn't any wind', a wind blows through the room and sets the pinwheel that he's holding spinning madly. Ros looks very unimpressed and then says, ' Draught, yes'.)



[larklight] it must be love
by memlu; art by David Wyatt - she's contemplating pushing him out of the hammock with her broom.

This is Miss Myrtle Mumby staring in a thoughtful way at the space pirate Captain Jack Havock, while she cleans the good ship Sophronia, and the fact that the gravity is turned off causes his various belongings to float around unless tethered. (This should tell you everything you need to know about Philip Reeve's book Larklight, including the fact that its illustrations are adorable.) Most of the joke here is in the comments, which is a combination of what I think the narrator of the book - Myrtle's younger brother - is assuming about their situation, and the fact that Myrtle DID feel like tipping him out of his hammock on occasion. This is another of my many OTP icons.

'Hoverhogs? Not on my ship,' replied Jack Havock sullenly. I believe he knew that she was trying to improve him, and rued the day he had appointed her ship's cleaner. They had what I believe learned coves call a 'Clash of Personalities', my sister and the pirate chief. Often I caught her staring at him when his back was turned, as if considering other ways to save his soul, and when her back was turned Jack Havock stared at her, probably thinking how much simpler his life would be if he just opened a hatch and kicked her overboard.

From jezrana:



[other] music is an illusion
by spiffed_icon - night unfurls its splendour.

I don't have many non-fandomly icons, but I needed something for when I talk about music. And I really love the aesthetics of this one, the way the arms of the pianist blend into the background and all you see is the cuffs and the keys and the shadows defining the hands. Negative space. The comments are lyrics from The Music of the Night, because...it's a very Phantom-y icon, I think.



[ga] solitude stands by the window
by syxstring - this is helping me get over my hatred for the finale.

Exactly as the comments say, this icon represents the only thing that I liked about the Grey's Anatomy S3 finale (ie. the episode that made me give up on the show for good), which was a scene with Cristina and Meredith immediately after the wedding that wasn't. The transition from tragedy to relief, peace to violent emotion, everything about it, was testament to how awesome Sandra Oh is. I really loved Cristina. And that show brought me a lot of entertainment and happiness when it was good, so I wanted to keep an icon of it around. (The keywords are from a Suzanne Vega song.)



[science] a nice girl w/action potential
by pirateygoodness - this is maybe the best icon ever. for use by neuro geeks only.

Hmm, my keywords don't quite match the icon. Anyway. pirateygoodness explains the joke behind this icon here, and she kindly allowed me to steal it because we are fellow neuroscience enthusiasts.



[bb] genius writer at work
by maplest - oh, black books. everything should be an episode of black books.

TRUFAX. Everything SHOULD be an episode of Black Books! This icon is a quote from the episode where Bernard and Manny decide that writing a children's book should be pisseasy and they're going to try it themselves. It's awesome. The context goes like this:

Manny: Uh, he lives, he lives, um...
Bernard: This, this had better be good, Manny. This had better be perfect.
Manny: [Desperate] Ummm...bottlebank!
Bernard : [pauses, thinking]...Oho! Brilliant! Fabulous!
Manny: And he, uh, he...plays the trombone!
Bernard: Keep going, keep going!
Manny: And he only eats...erm...liquorice!
Bernard: Manny this is gold! Solid gold!
Manny: [more confident] His best friend is a...panda!
Bernard: [losing it completely] NO! NO! NO! Awful! Bilge! Child poison! You stay away from the story!

[Sits at his desk with a typewriter]
Bernard: I'll co-write this with.....myself!
[Pulls out a second typewriter]

I use it to proclaim my writing genius to the world, obviously.



[lom] we melt up from the ground
by winterfish - falling darkness & rising suns.

I went through AGONIES of indecision about what icon could possibly encompass what I think/feel about Life on Mars, and this won out. I, um, still haven't seen the second season (SHUT UP ARIA. I KNOW. I'LL GET THERE.) but the first season was just SO GOOD and this scene, especially, such a sharp and intelligently-written and heartbreaking piece of television. Annie talking Sam off the roof. The tension comes because they are both so, so convinced of their own side in the reality/illusion debate, but we-the-viewers have absolutely no idea what would have happened if he had jumped. The keywords and comments, um, don't actually come from anything. Sometimes I just put random words down because that's what the icon says to me.



[ss] downing street invasion
by me - and then the triplets arrived and nothing was ever the same again.

Okay, this is one of the 'photographs' that comprise the epilogue of The Taming of the Shrew in the BBC's Shakespeare Retold series, which I ramble about (and give YouTube examples of) here. Oh, and nuit_belle does a great pimp post here, too. This is Katherine Minola and her cross-dressing husband outside Number 10 Downing Street, which is the residence of the British PM. (At the end of the movie-thing, she's pregnant. With triplets. And these two would have the most DEMONIC CHILDREN EVER and they would just invade No. 10 like a miniature army of insanity.)



[avatar] playing triage
by memlu - *INCOHERENT HANDWAVING* oh firebrats

FIREBRATS. I love everything and everyone in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I have especial love for the prince & princess of the Fire Nation and their little entourage. Far left is Princess Azula, centre is Prince Zuko, far right is Mai, the sarcastic knife-throwing girl who is a friend/follower of Azula's. Azula has just caught her brother and Mai having a maikout makeout session on a picnic blanket and is NOT IMPRESSED, so she sends Mai away on a transparent excuse. Mai is Not Impressed Either. The keyword is kind of a silly pun on the fact that there are three people in the icon, and the fact that Azula is mentally assessing the damage that could be caused by Zuko & Mai and their awesome adolescent love.

From deutscheami:



[hcl] this is my time travel coat
by jhava - the beginning of the end in scarlet tones.

Oh, man, so many things went into this one. The icon is of Billy Tallent from Hard Core Logo, played by the inestimable (& hot) Callum Keith Rennie, and that shot of him arriving with his guitar is one of the first glimpses of Billy in the film. The beginning of the end. The 'time travel' is a game of Billy & Joe's that we see for a VERY short moment and that I played with a lot in my HCL fic Twelve Pater Nosters, and the phrasing of the keywords is taken from an amazing poem by Denver Butson:

what she was wearing

this is my suicide dress
she told him
I only wear it on days
when I'm afraid
I might kill myself
if I don't wear it

you've been wearing it
every day since we met
he said

and these are my arson gloves

so you don't set fire to something?
he asked

exactly

and this is my terrorism lipstick
my assault and battery eyeliner
my armed robbery boots

I'd like to undress you he said
but would that make me an accomplice?

and today she said I'm wearing
my infidelity underwear
so don't get any ideas

and she put on her nervous breakdown hat
and walked out the door



[bsg] serial contrarialist
by nyuszi - words do not exist to describe my love for romo lampkin. and his sunglasses.

This is Romo Lampkin, the kind-of-amoral, totally kickass lawyer who really should have stuck around longer because he was one of the best things to happen in S3 of BSG. He wears sunglasses. Always. He's sarcastic. He manipulates Lee and calls him a serial contrarialist (or something. I don't know. I think I may actually have invented the word 'contrarialist', but it sounded A LOT LIKE THAT and the meaning is clear anyway) because, well, for a good little military brat, Lee is rather prone to mutiny. I used the quote in a fic, too:

“I don't know,” and Lee gives that little laugh of his, the desperate one. “I guess I need to talk about it with someone who isn't...connected. To me, to her, to all of it.”

“I see. So you don't believe in the gods, so a priest won't be any help, and you won't see a therapist because that'd be admitting something and you are -”

“- a serial contrarialist, I know.” This time Lee's laugh is almost normal.

“Then I shall proclaim myself honoured... ” a pause, in which Dee imagines the man giving one of those odd, mocking inclinations of his body “...and reiterate that you seem to be quite angry at yourself over this. More so, perhaps, than reason would dictate?”

“I have to be.” Lee sighs. “I have to be mad at myself, and mad at Dad, or -”

“- you'll be mad at her.” Lampkin's voice slides under his, effortlessly.



[bsg] life is a dancefloor
by schiarire - this has nothing to do with Anders. deal with it.

This is an icon for huge, inexpressible emotions. I think I've babbled about it before, to Ji, so I'll find that...

...you have a knack for taking BSG's wideshots and making them perfect for tiny pixelated squares, even though the show itself is more about the close-ups. It reminds me that sometimes the show really is about the grand arcs, the mythology, the humanity. And personal pain. And how the microcosm and the macrocosm can complement each other.

And yes. The shot is of the Resistance's makeshift pyramid court on Caprica, and the caveat about Anders was in case it should be mistaken for some kind of shipwar statement, which it isn't, but BSG shippers can be kind of crazy sometimes so I felt I needed a disclaimer. I am very fond of Sam Anders! But this isn't about him. Though it's at least partly about Kara, because the keywords are from Pink's song 'God Is A DJ', to which there is an excellent & well-known Starbuck fanvid.

From carrielh:



[science] test tubes
by schiarire - not that I'm big on prac work, but I can see the aesthetics of it.

I am a scientist, and I will never stop being a scientist. But I am also an aesthete and will never stop being that either, and this icon neatly encapsulates both of those. And it's true: I find working with test tubes and other lab equipment to be, for the most part, very dull.



[buffy] spike - well fucking yay
by shati - can you feel the edge of sarcasm?

Spike is one of my three favourite characters from Buffy (the others being Faith and Oz) and I feel that this icon better illustrates his entertainment value than would anything that focused on his angst. I use this icon as a kind of all-purpose approval/faux-approval signal, which I realise could be a little confusing.



[rp] fina - break loose
by dopplegl - jubilate domino omnis terra.

Oh, Fina. A while ago in Milliways I played, for a short while, a character who was the post-film daughter of Bethany Sloane from Dogma and, uh, Alanis Morissette the Holy Spirit. Her name was Rufina (because Rufus tells Bethany to name the kid after him) - Fina for short - and she was the new Last Scion. After playing Lucifer and Galahad, a perky teenage girl who liked chocolate milkshakes and playing the harp and getting into childish arguments with Adam the Antichrist was so much fun. I didn't have the time to keep her in active play, which was a pity, but I kept this icon because it was my favourite of hers. Now it's a generic icon for jubilation and excitement, but the comments contain both the jubilation and the religious aspect to Fina's character.



[dw] this could be a little more sonic
by angdelia - OT3 <333

So once upon a time in the days of Nine 'n' Rose (*nostalgic sigh*), our intrepid heroes were joined by one Captain Jack Harkness. (This picspam best illustrates why this was a great occurence). And the following conversation took place courtesy of one Stephen Moffat:

I love my geometric relationships, especially those where everyone loving everyone else and being happy that way is not only plausible but preferable. I love Nine/Jack/Rose. I loved this two-parter episode, and this scene. Basically there is nothing about this icon that I don't adore. And if that clip doesn't make you want to watch Doctor Who, there is no hope for you.



[spn] under a devil's trap
by crazylittleme - dirty pretty things.

This icon I uploaded purely because I think the design & camera angle and the cropping & colouring are just gorgeous. Kelsey makes great SPN icons. The icon is of Meg-the-demon looking up and realising that she's walked under a Devil's Trap and, well, there are no exciting layers to this one, I just really love the icon. 'Dirty Pretty Things' is a movie, I believe -- not one that I've seen, but I know it exists -- anyway, it describes all of SPN's characters quite well.

From pirateygoodness:



[other] ji must have the heart today
by schiarire - because sharing emotional functionality means friendship!

Injoke icon! Long ago Ji and I decided that the best way to explain our lack of appropriate emotional responses was to conclude that we in fact share a heart, and so any emotional deficiencies can be blamed on the other person having it at that moment. The other part of the joke is the fact that it's a very clinical drawing of a heart, drawing attention to the fact that hearts don't actually have anything to DO with emotion. And, er, that's it. I use this icon when I feel that my response to something should be stronger, but it isn't.



[other] loganing is an elitist art
by carrielh - it's official.

*deep breath* Another 'once upon a time' story. And another injoke. Once upon a time a girl called Fahye, who had never really attached herself to a single fandom before, started watching a show called Battlestar Galactica, and she wondered if there were any good fics written about a certain pair of pilots. Making some tentative forays into the BSG LJ fandom, she came across some very nice fanvids by someone called carrielh, and sent her a squeeful email. Carrie was nice enough to point her in the direction of some excellent fics written by people like stars_like_dust and bantha_fodder, and Fahye went on a friending spree and accidentally fell in with a group of totally awesome girls who, it would later emerge, were rather notorious in fandom for being talented and/or Elitist Bitchy Whores Who Oppressed Fandom Via Pilotshipping. And lo, having quite a sense of humour about the whole thing, these girls called themselves the Plastics, and people who were invited to join their chatroom for capslocked craziness were referred to as 'Logan' as a kind of Babysitter's Club joke. Months and months later, and despite the fact that most px no longer participate in BSG fandom, Fahye is proud to be the official Logan, complete with obnoxious icons and a T-shirt.



[bsg] persephone in perpetua
by _snitchbitch - kyil khor means enlightened vision

Hoo boy, I love this icon so much. It's a perfect, PERFECT embodiment of the patterns followed by Kara Thrace and Leoben Conoy in BSG, their eternal oscillation between prisoner and captor. I am also REALLY fond of the contrast between black-and-white and colour, foreground and background, because of my fic Eleusis (and by my god have I jumped over a wall) which discusses Kara's role in the series by drawing on the Greek myth of Persephone-Kore. The keywords and comments both refer to aspects of this fic.

They move her to a room that is not a cell, but has a lock, and she is left alone but for the cold organic humming of the metal. Lights are set into the ceiling and the air is cold, sterile, restless; she imagines that she can almost feel the atoms knocking clumsily against her skin.

Leoben is settling himself on the edge of the bed, and he says, “You’re free now.”

She thinks, We’ve been here before.

“Sure,” she drawls. “Locked in the bowels of a Cylon basestar. Looks like it’s my turn to be the prisoner again. What am I free from, exactly?”

“Impetus,” he says simply, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at her as though he is waiting for her to figure something out. “You’ve moved out of the light. How do you feel?”

She considers.

“Forgotten,” she says, and thrills.



[bb] how to kill the Pope
by art_in_disguise - best. episode. ever.

More Black Books! And this is, indeed, the best episode ever. I'll see if I can find a YouTube clip to illustrate why...

Basically, they end up inventing their own wine to fill the bottle, the unsuspecting owner presents it to the Pope as a gift, and he (the Pope) dies of poisoning. Uh. This is Black Books. It doesn't have to make sense.



[dexter] from blood we rise
by weapon_icons - like himself / assume the port of mars.

Okay, I CANNOT explain this one without spoiling the hell out of Dexter, so look away now if that bothers you. I'll leave space.








RIGHT. This is an icon of Rudy Cooper a.k.a. Bryan, who is a) Dexter's brother, and b) a serial killer just like his little bro! Aww, how sweet. Um, plot plot plot but the important thing is that Dexter and Rudy have the most massively fucked-up relationship in the world and I love it to tiny little pieces. The keywords are a reference to the fact that they were both found in a transport container at a very young age, after they had been sitting in two inches of their mother's blood for three days, having watched someone chop her up with a chainsaw after a drug deal went bad (this is a cheerful show, huh?). The comment is a quote from the prologue to Henry V:

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment.

'Like himself' is a reference to Rudy & Dexter's fixation on the fact that they grew up the same and so can understand and accept each other. I liked 'assume the port of Mars' for this icon, too, because Rudy has this whole blood-red, forbidding-look thing going on that quite suits the war god, don't you think?

Comments

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

YOU FORGOT THE JOKE ABOUT "SEMI-" MEANING HALF (and in dissectyfuntimes, usually 'straight down the middle') AND THE TEXT BEING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ICON.

I am going to bed; may thoughtful comment later.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I ALWAYS FORGET THAT PART OF THE JOKE. MEA CULPA.

My anatomy course doesn't actually include dissectyfuntimes :( All our wet specimens are pre-dissected, because we only use human specimens.