Vote now at btvs_hush challenge #273 - and oh, nostalgia, I can live without ya
What it says on the tin: voting is up now for 10 terrific entries in the latest btvs_hush challenge 273 (Becoming). The deadline for voting is Sunday the 25th, 8pm EST (North America); but if you're reading this right post you might as well go ahead and take another minute to vote right now because if you're anything like me you'll tell yourself you'll do it later, get totally distracted with ten different fanfics (shiny!) work projects and the deadline will slip right by before you know it.
Unless you're organized and have a terrific memory ergo, not like me in any way whatsoever. Lucky you.
While I'm here I might as well take the opportunity to trot out the icons I made for btvs_hush challenge # 257 last August. My timing was spectacularly horrible. True story: I entered three icons for Challenge C, "blades" on August 14th because it seemed like a really fun idea; who doesn't love the Buffyverse women cracking out weapons of destruction? (Or maybe that's just me.)
1)
2)
3)
Then August 19th my sweetie's bedroom went up in flames. Neither one of us died (the good news).
WInners were announced on September 1st: delicately beautiful icons by xclaire_delunex and rua1412 of horrible moments in Tough Love.
I wasn't really disappointed. Just tired, stressed out, living for two weeks in a tent in our front yard (that I pitched myself I will have you know), bandaging my sweetie's burned hand and foot, trying hard not to have flashbacks or at least not be too upset by them, and dealing with incredible back and leg pain because I retraumatized an injury that had not yet healed from the prior November and totally wasting that epidural I had in March which hurt like hell all by itself....
Add to all that the embarrasment of trying to answer (or dodge) everyone's queries about the fire, and the knowledge that I nearly killed my ladylove. She nearly died because of me, because of a stupid freak spark that turned the mattress into a firebomb. That knowledge is something I will live with for the rest of my life. She was frightened, hysterical, trying to fight an unbeatable fire when the sensible thing to do would be run away; I was begging her to leave the bedroom and had to drag her out with an assist from my landlord just as the firetrucks arrived. She nearly died and I did that. I'm sorry about the property damage, Mr Landlord, I truly am; but your walls and floorboards pale in comparison to her life. To anyone's life. That's on me.
I DO NOT MISS THE YEAR 2013 A.D.
But enough of that....Now I look at these entries and think, meh, I wouldn't have voted for me either. Especially now that I'm trying to improve my icon and image making skilz and can barely stand to look at some things I did even a few months ago. Or even a week ago. Now that I've had a chance to use the sharpening tool in http://ipiccy.com I'm embarrassed by the fuzziness and lack of clarity of #1 & 3.
I still kind of fancy #2 though; I'd seen icons of Willow with her "bag of knives" in Glory's apartment many times, but I wanted to focus just on the knives themselves, and increased brightness and saturation to give it an incongruously bright and cheerful Technicolor or cartoon effect. Some alternate efforts I didn't enter, including images from Spiral, which I think I love more than fandom does generally, the hokiness of the Knights Who Say Key notwithstanding; Anne icons and my first effort at Joyce in School Hard which is pretty horrible. But, hey, shiny red ax! Bright blue window!
I wasn't thinkng at the time about the parallels/echoes between Joyce protecting Buffy in School Hard, and Buffy protecting Dawn in Spiral; it's just one of those things that's there, whether I'm conscious of it or not, and lies at the base of why I love those Summers women. Fighting, protecting, to the point death and beyond - I get that.
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
*As always - want? Take, have - with proper credit please! And also, letting me know is not necessary but totally cool*
Unless you're organized and have a terrific memory ergo, not like me in any way whatsoever. Lucky you.
While I'm here I might as well take the opportunity to trot out the icons I made for btvs_hush challenge # 257 last August. My timing was spectacularly horrible. True story: I entered three icons for Challenge C, "blades" on August 14th because it seemed like a really fun idea; who doesn't love the Buffyverse women cracking out weapons of destruction? (Or maybe that's just me.)
1)
2)
3)
Then August 19th my sweetie's bedroom went up in flames. Neither one of us died (the good news).
WInners were announced on September 1st: delicately beautiful icons by xclaire_delunex and rua1412 of horrible moments in Tough Love.
I wasn't really disappointed. Just tired, stressed out, living for two weeks in a tent in our front yard (that I pitched myself I will have you know), bandaging my sweetie's burned hand and foot, trying hard not to have flashbacks or at least not be too upset by them, and dealing with incredible back and leg pain because I retraumatized an injury that had not yet healed from the prior November and totally wasting that epidural I had in March which hurt like hell all by itself....
Add to all that the embarrasment of trying to answer (or dodge) everyone's queries about the fire, and the knowledge that I nearly killed my ladylove. She nearly died because of me, because of a stupid freak spark that turned the mattress into a firebomb. That knowledge is something I will live with for the rest of my life. She was frightened, hysterical, trying to fight an unbeatable fire when the sensible thing to do would be run away; I was begging her to leave the bedroom and had to drag her out with an assist from my landlord just as the firetrucks arrived. She nearly died and I did that. I'm sorry about the property damage, Mr Landlord, I truly am; but your walls and floorboards pale in comparison to her life. To anyone's life. That's on me.
I DO NOT MISS THE YEAR 2013 A.D.
But enough of that....Now I look at these entries and think, meh, I wouldn't have voted for me either. Especially now that I'm trying to improve my icon and image making skilz and can barely stand to look at some things I did even a few months ago. Or even a week ago. Now that I've had a chance to use the sharpening tool in http://ipiccy.com I'm embarrassed by the fuzziness and lack of clarity of #1 & 3.
I still kind of fancy #2 though; I'd seen icons of Willow with her "bag of knives" in Glory's apartment many times, but I wanted to focus just on the knives themselves, and increased brightness and saturation to give it an incongruously bright and cheerful Technicolor or cartoon effect. Some alternate efforts I didn't enter, including images from Spiral, which I think I love more than fandom does generally, the hokiness of the Knights Who Say Key notwithstanding; Anne icons and my first effort at Joyce in School Hard which is pretty horrible. But, hey, shiny red ax! Bright blue window!
I wasn't thinkng at the time about the parallels/echoes between Joyce protecting Buffy in School Hard, and Buffy protecting Dawn in Spiral; it's just one of those things that's there, whether I'm conscious of it or not, and lies at the base of why I love those Summers women. Fighting, protecting, to the point death and beyond - I get that.
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
*As always - want? Take, have - with proper credit please! And also, letting me know is not necessary but totally cool*