35 icons (various fandoms)
These are my sets for 21tvthrowdown and 20inspirations.
Fandoms included:
17 Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3 Farscape
2 Game of Thrones
2 Doctor Who
2 Star Trek TOS
2 Stargate sg1
2 Skins
1 The Big Bang Theory
1 Star Wars
1 Brokeback Mountain
1 Prison Break
1 Harry Potter
21tvthrowdown:
My claim was the character of Faith Lehane from BtVS and Angel, because I have a total crush on her. Shut up, it's not ridiculous for a 23yo to have tv crushes :P Anyway I feel a bit meh about this set, mostly cause I focused much more time and effort on the 20inspirations set. she's still pretty though so everything's cool :D
THEMES
dance
tear
life
death
marked
CAT: Beginning to End
Cat 1
Cat 2
Cat 3
Cat 4
Cat 5
ARTIST'S CHOICE
AC 1
AC 2
AC 3
AC 4
AC 5
20inspirations:
Now this set I'm really quite happy with, all thanks to the hugely inspiring theme which was to represent ourselves in the icons. I didn't have the time to compile an inspiration post so all I have for that is this username banner:
Three general points about this set:
- I'm a guy, so I tried to use mostly male characters with some exceptions when a specific inspiration required it
- Most of these are pretty complex on purpose cause if there's one word I'd use to describe myself, it would be 'complex'
- I like people, but I'm definitely a loner type and feel the most comfortable alone, so in most of these I've only used one character
- I've tried making both the subject and the design reflect some qualities I have, cause I couldn't decide which way I wanted to go (and the correct option in these situations is usually 'why choose when you can have both') :)
Each icon also has an extra explanation but I've put them under a spoiler cut cause srsly, I RAMBLE, and I'm sure not everyone is interested in them. :p
[01-05]
[06-10]
[11-15]
[16-20]
[Icon 01: John/Scorpy]
Starting with the obvious: my stupid, horrible username. Seriously, anyone other than a 12yo girl is NOT allowed to name themselves after a silly OTP, yet somehow, idek, I did. The ship is from Farscape. The weirdo in the gimp suit is Scorpius, and he has a big damn obsession on the other guy, John. Like 90% of my ships, it's non-canon, cause I don't like being told who belong together or something. Also they're creepy enough to fit into my freaky taste. This show and this ship were the reason I made an lj account in the first place. They were also the reason I started iconing.
[Icon 02: Finland]
Jon Snow from GoT! This icon is supposed to represent my roots, Finland, because the wintry scenery of Winterfell and especially at the Wall remind me a lot of my country :) I also tried to make the coloring blue and white like our flag is, but the 'blue' ended up more cyan than the dark blue we have. Well, I tried :p I'm far from a nationalistic person but I have to say the finnish culture has had a huge impact on my personality, obviously. The obsessive need to be humble and put myself down, the low-key manner of doing things, the shyness, the cynicism, the 'thinking before doing' attitude and the occasional melancholy, they're all really, really Finnish stuff - and very me.
[Icon 03: socially awkward geek]
Sheldon Cooper proudly presenting his board full of geeky. Sheldon is smart in some limited areas, but unbearable in any social context. He doesn't mean any harm, he just is clueless socially. We share so many interests - theoretical physics, computer stuff, random useless trivia. Sheldon wants to be the best at everything, especially at his job, and wants others to think so too no matter how hard he claims not to care about what people think. He's really quite childish there. My mum says Sheldon is like me turned up to eleven, and she really knows best, so I'll just take her word for it!
[Icon 04: reading/studying]
Giles from BtVS surrounded by his and my favorite things - books! I guess I'm 'book smart' cause I love to read and study and even the books I read for fun are usually educational rather than fiction, and my grades at uni are really good whenever the exam is something you can just read for. Now, if I need to do something actually practical, that's another thing, lol. This is why getting a job kinda terrifies me. All that reading and it still won't be enough if I can't translate that knowledge into practise D:
[Icon 05: rambly]
This is pretty self explanatory. No matter how quiet I'm IRL, in written text I'm waaaay too wordy, so here we have the Tenth Doctor - who can be quite the Rambly McRambleson himself - with a big wall of obscure text on the background...
[Icon 06: time management]
I'm quite punctual and effective at my time use. I know I always complain about not having any, but actually that's just because I take on so many things to do in short times, and even though it makes me very busy, I almost never have to drop any of it - I'll get it done no matter what, and it's not all half-assed either, I really do the best I can with the little time I'm given. This doesn't only apply to iconing, but school work and other hobbies too. So, I chose to represent all this with an actual time lord! :D
[Icon 07: independent, stubborn, determined, ambitious]
Independence, stubbornness, determination, ambition - this icon tries to represent these things, mostly through the coloring, character choice and Kirk's expression. For the purposes of this challenge I asked my sister how she would describe me, and the first thing to cross her mind was 'independent', so I just had to include it in some form. Thanks, sis!
[Icon 08: how my opinions tend to be]
Sometimes my opinions can be pretty strong, even black and white, cause I'm usually pretty convinced that I'm right. So here is a b&w icon - with a very big contrast, containing almost no grays at all - and Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars, with the most ridiculously hypocritical quote ever :) but hey, we all do that from time to time right? I sure do, even more when I was a teen. Which isn't that long ago, so... yeah.
[Icon 09: science]
More science stuff! This is Daniel from Stargate sg1 finding an ancient alien device, and he's enthralled. I can relate, I have tons of scientific curiosity and want to discover and study meaningful things like he does. The thought that makes me most anxious is that I won't have the time to learn everything there is to learn during my lifetime.
[Icon 10: weird, complex & a lookalike!]
Sid from Skins. The main point of this icon is just complexity and weirdness cause yeah I'm definitely both, but another thing I thought about here is the character - Sid from Skins. I don't even watch that show that much, but I had to include him because he's literally the only tv character I can think of who has any physical resemblance to me. I'm actually thrilled that he exists, because you don't really see guys like me on tv - they're always these tall, muscular, handsome short-haired testosterone containers, but here we have that rare scrawny guy with a babyface and nerdy glasses and hair just like mine. I adore him, I don't even care that his character is supposed to be much younger than I am :D
[Icon 11: shyness]
Shyness/insecurity. These played a huge role when I was growing up, and still do to a degree cause I can't just go to some bar and randomly start talking to people. I need to have something to say to be able to start a discussion. Usually I don't even want to, cause I don't want too many people to notice me cause as an utter pessimist I automatically assume they won't be thinking anything good if they pay attention to my presence :p anyway what better subject to represent this than Angel who likes to hide in shadows, ashamed of his past and always sulking and not great at people skills?
[Icon 12: how things look in my head]
Teal'c from StarGate. This is quite an 'in your face' icon with the coloring, and that's what I am inside my own head - I express myself quite calmly to keep my face but really many of my opinions and feelings are over the top and radical, some even shocking, and if I expressed them exactly like they are in my head, I'd probably get banned from everywhere. (I tried this a few years ago, and that's exactly what happened. Wasn't a good idea.) Anyway I chose Teal'c cause he's the ultimate freedom fighter, a true liberal among his people, and that's the kind of values that are the most important to me and also the fuel behind my most trollish lapses in the past. Now I've just learned to keep them to myself or if I really need to express them, to do so in a milder manner.
[Icon 13: emo geekery!]
Sid again! Also, my depressing view on life written in C++ like a true emo geek would do. This is half tongue on cheek cause I'm not really that angsty usually, but *when* I am, I have the most peculiar ways of expressing it, so... the icon is definitely very me. :D
[Icon 14: some of my less flattering traits]
Oh, Rygel. A Farscape character who seems to have most of my bad traits - he's an utterly selfish, materialistic, greedy guy. The text on this is an actual Farscape quote, with him delivering the obnoxious part on the right :p However he does have a good heart - he's not a villain but one of the 'good guys' - and in the end he can usually do the right thing, and he certainly wants to do the right thing... if it doesn't cost too much.
[Icon 15: ac/dc :D]
Brokeback Mountain. Well, doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that this maker might not be 100% straight, considering my freaking lj nick is a slash ship :D It would have been way too obvious to make a 'gay icon' in glowing rainbow colors, but that’s not me. I'm actually very low-key about it - not ashamed, just not interested in circles where being gay/bi would be the common denominator and the trait that defines me the most, you know? So I made this a really subtle, natural icon. Cause that's what it is for me, natural, no big deal, a part of my personality, definitely a big enough part to be rightfully included here, yet not something that alone could be used to draw even a rough picture of me.
[Icon 16: control freak]
Another complex icon, this time to represent controlled chaos. Like Michael Scofield from prison Break, I'm a total control freak and perfectionist, I want to be able to put everything into a nice tidy order so I can process it the most efficiently, I'm completely thrown off by chaos (which is why I hate bars, clubs etc - so much noise, so many people, so little sense!). So in the icon there's complexity, many little blocks and everything, but it's also put into a symmetrical composition so it's easier to grasp, since that's how I try to process the world - which usually isn't all that successful cause the world has this annoying way of being way too complex to grasp, completely beyond anyone's understanding :( oh, and another really weird coloring, cause I am.
[Icon 17: head vs heart]
Spock from Star Trek. Like him, I think of myself as mostly a logical, 'head over heart' person, and I'd like to be even more of that cause I sort of see distancing yourself from your emotions and making all decisions purely based on logic as a 'higher level'. Too high for us mere mortals, I guess. Um, just to be clear, I don't idolize sociopaths or anything like that - I welcome general emotions like empathy and caring. It's the personal feelings like affection to someone in particular, jealousy, stuff like that I see as kind of evil cause they twist our mind into thinking that some people are more important than others, so to free myself from those emotions, that's what I see as beneficial (not to myself, but to people in general) and what I try my hardest to do. That's what the calm blue side reflects. Now obviously there's the other side to the icon too, meaning that like Spock, I'm not completely successful at this and there's still a huuuuuge difference between me and the ideal Vulcan I want to be :p
[Icon 18: hierarchy]
Ok, so this is a very twisted part of me - we have Braca, just another soldier, and Scorpius, an ingenious leader who Braca likes to follow. I think I'm like Braca a lot. I see a lot of value in hierarchies when they are not exploited. Actually I think they are a natural part of any social context, so there's not much point in fighting them. I have this weird way of almost worshipping anyone I see as superior in some way - mostly skills, accomplishments or intellect - and I don't do it to advance myself or anything, but because I see it as my role, something I just want and need to do. Now this only goes one way, I definitely don't have a habit of considering anyone inferior. I mostly just see myself at the bottom of any pyramid, and I have no problem with that cause I know it doesn't always have to be like that. (I've heard it said that Finland should be a monarchy cause we really love power figures, lol. I guess that's where this comes from.)
[Icon 19: extreme liberal]
I mentioned those (too) strong opinions right? Well here's one, I'm very liberal towards anything involving romance :) As long as all parties are consenting, I don't really care who's frelling who, lol. Not even if there's something that makes their relationship 'wrong' to most people, like with the twins Cersei and Jaime here. While not wanting any sort of romance personally for myself, I'll defend anyones right to be with whoever they want to be, even if it squicks someone else.
[Icon 20: nihilism?]
Harry Potter and some random dice. Huh?, I hear you thinking. This is actually the most meaningful icon of the batch to me, it's my view on universe and life itself. (That sounds stupidly overdramatic.) After learning about theories of quantum physics, Einstein famously wrote that 'God doesn't play dice with the world'. Later, Stephen Hawking commented on this with "All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion". I have to side with him on this one. I don't think I've ever really believed in anything other than a random, meaningless (in the grand scale of things) existence, and learning about quantum physics kinda cemented it for me. If everything is just random movement of particles, all determinism - including any variations of fate and meaning - are rendered useless. What's left is us floating around in space alone and abandoned, living our little lives here for a while and then we just stop existing and that's it :p so in the icon we have a tiny character floating in darkness, but the scene is dominated by the dice. In the icon, Harry certainly isn't there to represent God :D but instead I chose his character to add some contradiction, since HP is a work very much based on the concept of (his) destiny.
Fandoms included:
17 Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3 Farscape
2 Game of Thrones
2 Doctor Who
2 Star Trek TOS
2 Stargate sg1
2 Skins
1 The Big Bang Theory
1 Star Wars
1 Brokeback Mountain
1 Prison Break
1 Harry Potter
21tvthrowdown:
My claim was the character of Faith Lehane from BtVS and Angel, because I have a total crush on her. Shut up, it's not ridiculous for a 23yo to have tv crushes :P Anyway I feel a bit meh about this set, mostly cause I focused much more time and effort on the 20inspirations set. she's still pretty though so everything's cool :D
THEMES
dance
tear
life
death
marked
CAT: Beginning to End
Cat 1
Cat 2
Cat 3
Cat 4
Cat 5
ARTIST'S CHOICE
AC 1
AC 2
AC 3
AC 4
AC 5
20inspirations:
Now this set I'm really quite happy with, all thanks to the hugely inspiring theme which was to represent ourselves in the icons. I didn't have the time to compile an inspiration post so all I have for that is this username banner:
Three general points about this set:
- I'm a guy, so I tried to use mostly male characters with some exceptions when a specific inspiration required it
- Most of these are pretty complex on purpose cause if there's one word I'd use to describe myself, it would be 'complex'
- I like people, but I'm definitely a loner type and feel the most comfortable alone, so in most of these I've only used one character
- I've tried making both the subject and the design reflect some qualities I have, cause I couldn't decide which way I wanted to go (and the correct option in these situations is usually 'why choose when you can have both') :)
Each icon also has an extra explanation but I've put them under a spoiler cut cause srsly, I RAMBLE, and I'm sure not everyone is interested in them. :p
[01-05]
[06-10]
[11-15]
[16-20]
[Icon 01: John/Scorpy]
Starting with the obvious: my stupid, horrible username. Seriously, anyone other than a 12yo girl is NOT allowed to name themselves after a silly OTP, yet somehow, idek, I did. The ship is from Farscape. The weirdo in the gimp suit is Scorpius, and he has a big damn obsession on the other guy, John. Like 90% of my ships, it's non-canon, cause I don't like being told who belong together or something. Also they're creepy enough to fit into my freaky taste. This show and this ship were the reason I made an lj account in the first place. They were also the reason I started iconing.
[Icon 02: Finland]
Jon Snow from GoT! This icon is supposed to represent my roots, Finland, because the wintry scenery of Winterfell and especially at the Wall remind me a lot of my country :) I also tried to make the coloring blue and white like our flag is, but the 'blue' ended up more cyan than the dark blue we have. Well, I tried :p I'm far from a nationalistic person but I have to say the finnish culture has had a huge impact on my personality, obviously. The obsessive need to be humble and put myself down, the low-key manner of doing things, the shyness, the cynicism, the 'thinking before doing' attitude and the occasional melancholy, they're all really, really Finnish stuff - and very me.
[Icon 03: socially awkward geek]
Sheldon Cooper proudly presenting his board full of geeky. Sheldon is smart in some limited areas, but unbearable in any social context. He doesn't mean any harm, he just is clueless socially. We share so many interests - theoretical physics, computer stuff, random useless trivia. Sheldon wants to be the best at everything, especially at his job, and wants others to think so too no matter how hard he claims not to care about what people think. He's really quite childish there. My mum says Sheldon is like me turned up to eleven, and she really knows best, so I'll just take her word for it!
[Icon 04: reading/studying]
Giles from BtVS surrounded by his and my favorite things - books! I guess I'm 'book smart' cause I love to read and study and even the books I read for fun are usually educational rather than fiction, and my grades at uni are really good whenever the exam is something you can just read for. Now, if I need to do something actually practical, that's another thing, lol. This is why getting a job kinda terrifies me. All that reading and it still won't be enough if I can't translate that knowledge into practise D:
[Icon 05: rambly]
This is pretty self explanatory. No matter how quiet I'm IRL, in written text I'm waaaay too wordy, so here we have the Tenth Doctor - who can be quite the Rambly McRambleson himself - with a big wall of obscure text on the background...
[Icon 06: time management]
I'm quite punctual and effective at my time use. I know I always complain about not having any, but actually that's just because I take on so many things to do in short times, and even though it makes me very busy, I almost never have to drop any of it - I'll get it done no matter what, and it's not all half-assed either, I really do the best I can with the little time I'm given. This doesn't only apply to iconing, but school work and other hobbies too. So, I chose to represent all this with an actual time lord! :D
[Icon 07: independent, stubborn, determined, ambitious]
Independence, stubbornness, determination, ambition - this icon tries to represent these things, mostly through the coloring, character choice and Kirk's expression. For the purposes of this challenge I asked my sister how she would describe me, and the first thing to cross her mind was 'independent', so I just had to include it in some form. Thanks, sis!
[Icon 08: how my opinions tend to be]
Sometimes my opinions can be pretty strong, even black and white, cause I'm usually pretty convinced that I'm right. So here is a b&w icon - with a very big contrast, containing almost no grays at all - and Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars, with the most ridiculously hypocritical quote ever :) but hey, we all do that from time to time right? I sure do, even more when I was a teen. Which isn't that long ago, so... yeah.
[Icon 09: science]
More science stuff! This is Daniel from Stargate sg1 finding an ancient alien device, and he's enthralled. I can relate, I have tons of scientific curiosity and want to discover and study meaningful things like he does. The thought that makes me most anxious is that I won't have the time to learn everything there is to learn during my lifetime.
[Icon 10: weird, complex & a lookalike!]
Sid from Skins. The main point of this icon is just complexity and weirdness cause yeah I'm definitely both, but another thing I thought about here is the character - Sid from Skins. I don't even watch that show that much, but I had to include him because he's literally the only tv character I can think of who has any physical resemblance to me. I'm actually thrilled that he exists, because you don't really see guys like me on tv - they're always these tall, muscular, handsome short-haired testosterone containers, but here we have that rare scrawny guy with a babyface and nerdy glasses and hair just like mine. I adore him, I don't even care that his character is supposed to be much younger than I am :D
[Icon 11: shyness]
Shyness/insecurity. These played a huge role when I was growing up, and still do to a degree cause I can't just go to some bar and randomly start talking to people. I need to have something to say to be able to start a discussion. Usually I don't even want to, cause I don't want too many people to notice me cause as an utter pessimist I automatically assume they won't be thinking anything good if they pay attention to my presence :p anyway what better subject to represent this than Angel who likes to hide in shadows, ashamed of his past and always sulking and not great at people skills?
[Icon 12: how things look in my head]
Teal'c from StarGate. This is quite an 'in your face' icon with the coloring, and that's what I am inside my own head - I express myself quite calmly to keep my face but really many of my opinions and feelings are over the top and radical, some even shocking, and if I expressed them exactly like they are in my head, I'd probably get banned from everywhere. (I tried this a few years ago, and that's exactly what happened. Wasn't a good idea.) Anyway I chose Teal'c cause he's the ultimate freedom fighter, a true liberal among his people, and that's the kind of values that are the most important to me and also the fuel behind my most trollish lapses in the past. Now I've just learned to keep them to myself or if I really need to express them, to do so in a milder manner.
[Icon 13: emo geekery!]
Sid again! Also, my depressing view on life written in C++ like a true emo geek would do. This is half tongue on cheek cause I'm not really that angsty usually, but *when* I am, I have the most peculiar ways of expressing it, so... the icon is definitely very me. :D
[Icon 14: some of my less flattering traits]
Oh, Rygel. A Farscape character who seems to have most of my bad traits - he's an utterly selfish, materialistic, greedy guy. The text on this is an actual Farscape quote, with him delivering the obnoxious part on the right :p However he does have a good heart - he's not a villain but one of the 'good guys' - and in the end he can usually do the right thing, and he certainly wants to do the right thing... if it doesn't cost too much.
[Icon 15: ac/dc :D]
Brokeback Mountain. Well, doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that this maker might not be 100% straight, considering my freaking lj nick is a slash ship :D It would have been way too obvious to make a 'gay icon' in glowing rainbow colors, but that’s not me. I'm actually very low-key about it - not ashamed, just not interested in circles where being gay/bi would be the common denominator and the trait that defines me the most, you know? So I made this a really subtle, natural icon. Cause that's what it is for me, natural, no big deal, a part of my personality, definitely a big enough part to be rightfully included here, yet not something that alone could be used to draw even a rough picture of me.
[Icon 16: control freak]
Another complex icon, this time to represent controlled chaos. Like Michael Scofield from prison Break, I'm a total control freak and perfectionist, I want to be able to put everything into a nice tidy order so I can process it the most efficiently, I'm completely thrown off by chaos (which is why I hate bars, clubs etc - so much noise, so many people, so little sense!). So in the icon there's complexity, many little blocks and everything, but it's also put into a symmetrical composition so it's easier to grasp, since that's how I try to process the world - which usually isn't all that successful cause the world has this annoying way of being way too complex to grasp, completely beyond anyone's understanding :( oh, and another really weird coloring, cause I am.
[Icon 17: head vs heart]
Spock from Star Trek. Like him, I think of myself as mostly a logical, 'head over heart' person, and I'd like to be even more of that cause I sort of see distancing yourself from your emotions and making all decisions purely based on logic as a 'higher level'. Too high for us mere mortals, I guess. Um, just to be clear, I don't idolize sociopaths or anything like that - I welcome general emotions like empathy and caring. It's the personal feelings like affection to someone in particular, jealousy, stuff like that I see as kind of evil cause they twist our mind into thinking that some people are more important than others, so to free myself from those emotions, that's what I see as beneficial (not to myself, but to people in general) and what I try my hardest to do. That's what the calm blue side reflects. Now obviously there's the other side to the icon too, meaning that like Spock, I'm not completely successful at this and there's still a huuuuuge difference between me and the ideal Vulcan I want to be :p
[Icon 18: hierarchy]
Ok, so this is a very twisted part of me - we have Braca, just another soldier, and Scorpius, an ingenious leader who Braca likes to follow. I think I'm like Braca a lot. I see a lot of value in hierarchies when they are not exploited. Actually I think they are a natural part of any social context, so there's not much point in fighting them. I have this weird way of almost worshipping anyone I see as superior in some way - mostly skills, accomplishments or intellect - and I don't do it to advance myself or anything, but because I see it as my role, something I just want and need to do. Now this only goes one way, I definitely don't have a habit of considering anyone inferior. I mostly just see myself at the bottom of any pyramid, and I have no problem with that cause I know it doesn't always have to be like that. (I've heard it said that Finland should be a monarchy cause we really love power figures, lol. I guess that's where this comes from.)
[Icon 19: extreme liberal]
I mentioned those (too) strong opinions right? Well here's one, I'm very liberal towards anything involving romance :) As long as all parties are consenting, I don't really care who's frelling who, lol. Not even if there's something that makes their relationship 'wrong' to most people, like with the twins Cersei and Jaime here. While not wanting any sort of romance personally for myself, I'll defend anyones right to be with whoever they want to be, even if it squicks someone else.
[Icon 20: nihilism?]
Harry Potter and some random dice. Huh?, I hear you thinking. This is actually the most meaningful icon of the batch to me, it's my view on universe and life itself. (That sounds stupidly overdramatic.) After learning about theories of quantum physics, Einstein famously wrote that 'God doesn't play dice with the world'. Later, Stephen Hawking commented on this with "All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion". I have to side with him on this one. I don't think I've ever really believed in anything other than a random, meaningless (in the grand scale of things) existence, and learning about quantum physics kinda cemented it for me. If everything is just random movement of particles, all determinism - including any variations of fate and meaning - are rendered useless. What's left is us floating around in space alone and abandoned, living our little lives here for a while and then we just stop existing and that's it :p so in the icon we have a tiny character floating in darkness, but the scene is dominated by the dice. In the icon, Harry certainly isn't there to represent God :D but instead I chose his character to add some contradiction, since HP is a work very much based on the concept of (his) destiny.