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some random musings on icons
(Presented in no particular order - just as they occur to me.)
Animated Icons
I am so extremely happy that my browser allows me to freeze images just by hitting the escape key.
Because when I'm looking at a page with animated icons, I can't look at anything else. Nothing at all. (Silly ADHD and its restrictyness.)
So, those of you who carefully use your lovely animated icons in comments to make a lovely animated point of wonderful subtlety? Sorry - but I'm not going to see them.
Default Icons
My first LJ icon was a photo of me. (Because what else would you put in an icon?)
Then came the 2007 writers' strike - and I changed it, in support, to a little yellow round person holding a protest sign.
This was around about the time I first entered fandom. So almost everyone I knew on LJ got to know me as the little yellow round person - while I was busy discovering how fun fannish icons could be, and stocking up on them for the wondrous day when the writers' strike ended, and I could stop having a boring icon and start having pretty ones, and change my default EVERY WEEK!
...yeah. Didn't quite work out that way.
Mainly because my flist were horrified at my impending non-yellow-roundness, and insisted that I create a default on the same theme.
Hence my little yellow round person writing with a quill.
Since then, I have changed my default icon twice: once for my birthday - which also happens to be the Glorious Twenty-Fifth Of May, ala Pratchett - and once... right now. For another supporting-a-protest situation.
(Don't worry. My normal default will return eventually. I will once more be yellow and round.)
So, you people who change defaults regularly - how do you do that? And how long does it take you to get used to your new look?
Moods
I have icons for headdesking, and for being bitchy. I have some for when I'm angry, some for mad squeeing, one for hugs, one for being cool, some for looking scared, some for friendship, some for being busy, and a few for being sneakily snarky in my icons while being perfectly polite in my actual words.
I don't have a *facepalm* or a "Whoa" or anything for looking confused. (Really must find those.)
Of course, this presents a dilemma.
If I'm in a squeeful mood and I'm talking about Giles, do I use my icon of Fred squeeing, or Giles studying? Or what if everyone's discussing Dawn and I use my main Dawn icon, and everyone assumes I'm "demanding an explanation for this bullshit" when I'm just wanting to go "Yay! Dawn!"?
Clearly the answer involves getting more icons...
Animated Icons
I am so extremely happy that my browser allows me to freeze images just by hitting the escape key.
Because when I'm looking at a page with animated icons, I can't look at anything else. Nothing at all. (Silly ADHD and its restrictyness.)
So, those of you who carefully use your lovely animated icons in comments to make a lovely animated point of wonderful subtlety? Sorry - but I'm not going to see them.
Default Icons
My first LJ icon was a photo of me. (Because what else would you put in an icon?)
Then came the 2007 writers' strike - and I changed it, in support, to a little yellow round person holding a protest sign.
This was around about the time I first entered fandom. So almost everyone I knew on LJ got to know me as the little yellow round person - while I was busy discovering how fun fannish icons could be, and stocking up on them for the wondrous day when the writers' strike ended, and I could stop having a boring icon and start having pretty ones, and change my default EVERY WEEK!
...yeah. Didn't quite work out that way.
Mainly because my flist were horrified at my impending non-yellow-roundness, and insisted that I create a default on the same theme.
Hence my little yellow round person writing with a quill.
Since then, I have changed my default icon twice: once for my birthday - which also happens to be the Glorious Twenty-Fifth Of May, ala Pratchett - and once... right now. For another supporting-a-protest situation.
(Don't worry. My normal default will return eventually. I will once more be yellow and round.)
So, you people who change defaults regularly - how do you do that? And how long does it take you to get used to your new look?
Moods
I have icons for headdesking, and for being bitchy. I have some for when I'm angry, some for mad squeeing, one for hugs, one for being cool, some for looking scared, some for friendship, some for being busy, and a few for being sneakily snarky in my icons while being perfectly polite in my actual words.
I don't have a *facepalm* or a "Whoa" or anything for looking confused. (Really must find those.)
Of course, this presents a dilemma.
If I'm in a squeeful mood and I'm talking about Giles, do I use my icon of Fred squeeing, or Giles studying? Or what if everyone's discussing Dawn and I use my main Dawn icon, and everyone assumes I'm "demanding an explanation for this bullshit" when I'm just wanting to go "Yay! Dawn!"?
Clearly the answer involves getting more icons...
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Gabrielle
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And now I'm trying to decide on an icon for this comment. I think I'll go with Joss holding his toy gun in the writer's room, which has become my standby/default icon for fandom stuff. Then again, I also use 'Fanboy Moment' a lot and it kind of fits the mood of the comment. Decisions, decisions... *changes mind* ... *changes it again* ... *and again*
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I do try to fit the icon to the post/comment - but, like you, then think 'Should I use the appropriate character, or the appropriate sentiment?' or I wonder if the person reading will 'see' the icon as meaning the same thing as I do...
I do love having 100+ to choose from - but like you with no 'facepalm' etc., I still have 'gaps'.
Pity you don't see my non-sequitor penguin desperately flapping its little wings.... but I am going to use it anyway as I am a rebel! Although usually it means 'I am amused' or 'I am being silly...'
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I know how you feel! Which is why LJ is getting rich off me... (I love my icons much too much. *hugs them all*)
Oh and I didn't have a facepalm icon until recently, but I couldn't pass this one up! :)
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So I don't snag any animated ones cause they're all distracty and repeaty. Plus it gives me a limit on snagging, which I need. :P
I like keeping my default the same for awhile and then changing it if I find something cool or get bored of it, because I just use the one icon with this journal.
And I support any and all quests for more icons! If you'd like I could link you to my Photobucket where I have saved oodles of Buffy icons.
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Outside of that, I have something of a Willow theme going on with my icons. Some people have noticed.
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I actually have a whole complicated scheme for when I use what icon that I'm going to write up one of these days, as well as a big long thing about what I like in icons.
I change my default icon when I can't stand to look at it anymore; this varies from a couple of months to almost a year. I started the fannish LJ with a default icon of Dru because I thought it was pretty, and it sort of stuck, so my default is always Dru. I decline to speculate what this says about me.
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*ponders*
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