"I could be your guardian, armor tight and weapons drawn, but I have a feeling you're already safe a

[larryhammer]

It's been a while since my last used this tag -- time to check in and see how things are doing in memespace. Via angevin2:

Comment on this post. I'll choose seven userpics from your profile and you'll reply here (or you know, your own journal, whichever), explaining what they mean and why you're using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along. Also, feel free to ask me about my other icons here, as well.

She asked for:

iceland, icon of awe, magic, protection, wonder: As the comment text says, it's a symbol for protection in traditional Icelandic magic, the name of which translates as "helm of awe." I use it for posts/comments about Iceland, that express awe, or plead for protection of some sort.

romance, shopping cart of love: It really is a sign from chain of Icelandic supermarkets (cropped: the woman also has a shopping cart full of love, but I prefer having them share). Used (infrequently) for comments/posts about romance, both the literary genre and the activity, and anything that could have the subject "Can't buy me love."

curlicues, revolutions, spirals, twirls, what tangled tales we weave: Used for "fluff" posts -- though it's been partially superceded by La!, which has taken over the more frivolous ones. The original quote is something like "It comes in revolutions, spirals as it twirls," only that's also wrong, and I can't remember at the moment which U2 song it's from.

fantasy, high fantasy, maps are sexy, worldbuilding: The picture is part of the working map for a medieval romantic fantasy I'm not working on, in part because I'm focusing on contemporary YA romance for now. (Chain mail is sexy also dates from that project.) Used for posts/comments about high fantasy, worldbuilding, craft of writing, cartography, poring over atlases, research, and outlining -- though less now than when I was writing that book.

astronomy, cassini, enceladus is sexy: In my profile, I like to code my interests metonymously: thus, Enceladus, one of the more mysterious moons of Saturn, stands in for astronomy as a whole. Used for posts/comments about astronomy and, sometimes, science -- and even my dark past as an astrophysics grad student.

disappearance, gone, vanished away / completed, done, finished: These two overlap more than a little in my mind, and I'm not always sure which to use. They both signify that something is over, and in theory "softly and suddenly" is over and gone, as in something is behind me, and "like smoke" is completion, as in something has been accomplished. The quote on "softly and suddenly" is, of course, from the end of The Hunting of the Snark.



Yup -- meme still means me! me!

I still wanna hear about about other people's icons, though.

---L.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love this post!

I love it with a powerful love--I'm going to stick it in memories.

A lot of my icons I use interchangeably and idiosyncratically, but some I use in a particular way. For example, I use my "holy carp" icon for laughter



I use Coach Z, having more than two problems, when I'm feeling incompetent or doing something stupid:



I use the tambourine cat, now that I have it, for things relating to writing or other creative endeavors, and to children's and YA lit.



I use the hummingbird or the bluebird when I'm happy or excited about something. I like the glowing grass for something really magically beautiful.

The one I'm using for this comment is for when I love something a whole lot.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

This isn't a comment (I do NOT need more excuses to blat about myself) but an observation that your icon explanations seem to me, anyway, an interesting glimpse into a poet's mind. I had to read the "Softly/vanished" one four or five times to try to reach for the sense that you, what, hear? hear and see? Because it didn't match my images at all. Fascinating! I love brains! Even when mine asks more like a squid.

[larryhammer]

It has occured to me that "softly and suddenly" makes sense only in the context of "like smoke," at least from the outside. Otherwise, I'd just delete the latter, because I'm unsatisfied with the design.

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had real trouble with that--I had to SAY the words to try to get at the sense, because my brain stubbornly wants to present smoke as lingering, not sudden, and diffuse, not soft. Though I can kind of 'get' the softness, it's not tactile, it's an aspect of its appearance, right?

[larryhammer]

Yeah, it's more a visual than tactile softness.

---L.

[larryhammer]

It also occurs to me that there's more than a tangential relationship between associating smoke:disappearence and "her smoke rose up forever," both the Tiptree story and the bible verse it's named after.

---L.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Lovely stuff.

A small comment: that's spelled angevin2.

Nine

[larryhammer]

Le oops. Danke.

---L.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I love this. *g* I love your icons.

And I adore the "softly and suddenly, vanished away" icon.

You know how the right words, the right sounds, are like a delighted ripple down your spine? And on the heels of that emotional response...images, bits of story, maybe a ghostly whisper or two?

Well, maybe that's only me. But this icon does that.

[sarah-create.livejournal.com]

It is fun to see all your icons.
I only use one, because a friend asked me to start using an icon and suggested using something that expresses where I live.
Maybe I should start using more.