red_satin_doll

My cup runneth over: Thank you to the voters at

whedon_elite Challenge 126 and

slayerstillness Challenge 52 for voting for my icons, to

starry_night for the Mod's Choice, and to

tempertemper for her gorgeous Willow banners (B - F)!

Congratulations to

fassy,

sweet_lyri,

crazy_cordy,

emmatheslayer and

tempertemper for their wins in both challenges!

A - B

More banners and icons after the cut....

C - D

E - F

Entries for

whedon_elite Challenge 126 "Weapon of Choice": "For this challenge you have to icon your characters with their symbolic weapons. Doesn't need to be physical weapons, e.g. vampire with fangs, witches using magic, etc.".

thewitchcatherinemadisonicon1.2rsd2015.png

1 - 4

Entries for

slayerstillness Challenge 52 "Free-For-All"
doublemeatpalace0434_willowicon3.7.png

5 - 9

Alts/Extras:
buffyangelweaponicon1.4crsd2015.png

10 - 12

13 - 18

19 - 24

25 - 29

Texture Resources:

lookslikerain: 1, 7, 10, 23, 25 - 29;

whitebamboo: 9, 21;

jordannamorgan @

wolfbane_icons: 25, 26, 29
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Atahualpa, Fourteenth Inca, 1 of 14 Portraits of Inca Kings (el tirano Bastardo, Atahualpa), (Peruvian, mid-18th Century(?), artist unknown): 5, 19 - 20

Beta: Muse-Goddess extraordinaire velvetwhip

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

Current Music: Sandy Denny, "It'll Take a Long Time"

What do you do if you're trying to make icons for the upcoming round of

btvsats20in20 and feeling horribly uninspired? AND you've been feeling exposed and tender the last several months, as your skin has been partly scraped away? If you're me, you go back to a fanart you made two months ago (just after Round 3 of 20in20), tinker with it a bit and decide you're finally ready to show it off:

botn52f87548-29d5-42c2-b39a-f1c475dc1368_zps105b1a48

(teaser image)

The Night/Lost in the Woods (click all images below to enlarge)

ETA 01/03/15 Thank you rbfvid for rec'ing my art at buffyversetop5!

I forgot to mention earlier that the trees in the background are a photograph I took of the woods around my yard at night, adjusted for color and saturation.

01

Warm palette or cool palette? I like them both.

e96cc1bf-fa1a-4ad7-afb4-c7446d6fc359_zps6595a167

This piece has three "godparents": It was inspired specifically by some comments

pickamix made about Buffy's wounds some time back that got me thinking about my own swirl of fuzzy feelings that I'm reluctant to examine. What IS going on when I look at Buffy in this moment? Sympathy of course, a desire to tuck a blanket around her in a "motherly" way; self-identification for my own psyche and wanting her to have the things I feel I don't (comfort, sympathy, nourishment.) But - is there a sensual component as well? Auto-erotica, masochism turned outward into sadism? All of the above? Is that unhealthy or merely human?

Hard to sort out what it all means. Easier to just make the art.

The line of text comes from Morphine's song "The Night"(Lila), which also inspired some of my Tara icons in Round 3. It's really a perfect fit for the women of the Buffyverse in general, all of them ordinary and extraordinary all at once; but I've identified that song with Buffy most especially ever since I watched the series: "You're a folk tale / the unexplainable...."

This is also dedicated to

bone_dry1013 for the many, many enjoyable hours (and I do mean hours) we spent last year talking about our mutual love for Buffy on her blog, dissecting her psyche, her pains and burdens with a fine tooth comb. It does feel a bit like sadism, somehow, when I love her so much; how can it be so comforting and discomforting all at once?

One of the most disconcerting things about this image is that when I lightened the screencap, which was quite dark, I really saw how odd Sarah's eyes look, each one focused in a slightly different direction. How is that possible, even? I have no idea but I can think of few images from American tv in which someone looks more truly injured, and utterly lost. In fact it's the complete opposite to the previous of image of Buffy in that episode, unconscious on the ground after her fight with the Ubervamp, blood spattered across her face and yet looking impossibly glamorous.

44f73eab-ac0b-44ad-b5f8-410b1580eb6e_zps3c0ae21c

I'd considered adding images of other girls throughout the series, or specifically focused on S7, but I preferred for once to keep this relatively uncluttered. The trees in the background are my own photograph taken in my yard and that I've used before in icons but never in a larger piece. I added the lyric fragment after I saw the "bar" of light that the filter provided across Buffy's face; serendipity. I adore old-fashioned typewriter fonts and the fact that this is "rough around the edges" makes it a perfect fit for the image of Buffy.

I made other versions that were cropped more tightly, cutting off the bottom, but decided I preferred to leave a little "breathing room" around Buffy visually. I also made lighter, brighter versions but I felt the background patterns competed too much with the image of Buffy. I also had a go at something on "meta", Buffy's monologue from Becoming, Pt2 superimposed over the image. I'm not sure it really works the way I wanted. (Going back to the original typewriter font might have been a better idea?)

15ca9c6c-9b86-4b13-be66-a16e07397cc6_zps5ec7cfce

I have no idea what that stuff that looks like lettering in the upper right corners of these is. (It's not text.) It seems to be a combination of the color filters I used, the tree image, and Joyce's curtains plus a bit of sharpening. A "pattern" popped out and I liked the mysterious/ambiguous quality of it.

Tell me what you think of all this - the art, my psyche - , while I fix Miss Summers a hot meal. Civilized concrit and feedback is warmly appreciated.

ETA: wicked_awards Nominees 2015 - THANK YOU for the nominations!
#1 Best Banner
#4 Best Wallpaper

nomineebuttonbuffywickedawards275x128_rsd2015_1.1final.png

nomineebuttonfaithwickedawards275x128_rsd2015_1.3final.png

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.)

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.

*As always - want? Take, have - with proper credit please! And also, letting me know is not necessary but totally cool*

And this is where I pretend I'm ~~such a mature, blase adult about such things~~ - oh, screw that. I won third place in otherworldlyric icontest #163!

(But also, I won? Like, SRSLY??)

Thank you to everyone who voted! And congratulations to the other winners in this challenge, chic_c and spikesredqueen!

I had a hard time voting this round (as per usual) because there were so many lovely things to pick from. Two of the ones I voted for are in fandoms I'm not familiar with, so I had no idea who the characters were, I just thought they were wonderful icons. And I even voted for a Spike icon - I'm as shocked as you are! Then immediately after I hit the submit vote button I thought "Oh, no wait, but there's that other one too....Can I vote again?"

You know me. Given my druthers, I don't wanna enumerate them. I just wanna enjoy. *sigh*

Of course, a thousand THANK YOUS go to my ~~agent, my manager, my stylist~~ beta

wickedbish (Ryan); he specifically mentioned that Fading Away Fast icon as one of his favorites and I don't think I would have submitted it otherwise. I liked the icon very much - I loved the concept of it when I thought it up - but I wasn't entirely happy with the execution. (I wanted the effect of a more gradual fade on the colors on each word in the text.) I knew right away that I wanted to submit #11 and #15 (below) but I wasn't sure about a third choice.

ETA: OH DEAR, I forgot to thank comlodge for her very kind encouragments to me re: talking about the process of making these and the stories behind them; in essence, she's "given me permission" to open Pandora's box. (Thank you sweetie - I hope you don't regret it later!)

Here are my three entries, numbered according to the challenge number assignments:

11)

15)

These represent two of my favorite episodes in the entire series; I made the Prophecy Girl icons first. #15 is probably one of my favorites of all the ones I've ever made. I really wanted the double-image of Buffy in front of the mirror as well as her reflection and was really happy with what I got. And I love that the font looks like graffiti scrawled it on the glass. This time around I was consciously trying to experiment with fonts I hadn't used before.

Have I mentioned before that PG is the first masterpiece YOU MUST WATCH THIS episode of the series? (Although I will ALWAYS argue that one needs to watch the season in it's entirety as well. Especially Nightmares and Angel.) That Sarah never fails to bring me to tears when I watch it? And Tony as Giles, standing in the library utterly useless despite all his efforts and intentions, just as Buffy accuses him of being...ugh. Heartbreaking.

#11 is a farther distance than usual for me (I tend towards close-up shots) but something about that distance visually emphasized Buffy's isolation in that moment, the lonely struggle with and against her own mind. I also loved the diagonal light and shadow lines on the wall; diagonals and asymmetrical compostions have alwayts appealed to me in art nouveau and Japanese woodcuts. The shadow offered a perfect canvas for the lettering and, again, the effect of graffiti on the wall.

Here's the remaining icons I made for that challenge, vaguely-sorta-kinda-not-exactly in the order I made them. Or something like that:

Please. Explain to me again why Sarah NEVER won an Emmy or any major award for playing Buffy, aside from that "Performances in _______ (fill in the blank) genre programs aren't deserving of serious awards love" b.s.

10)

12)

13)

14)

#10 was the other one Ryan suggested for my third choice, and I love how the "deer in headlights" effect emphasizes Buffy's struggle ("traps for your mind"). But I almost submitted #5 as my third choice. I LOVE that one, perhaps for similar reasons that I love the PG one. I used the same font, but with small caps, for a graffiti effect that came out much better than I'd expected; it looks like Buffy has childishly, desperately, scribbled the words on the wall and then dropped the crayon in frustration or resignation. But I also almost went with #7 (or 8 or 9) because OH GOD HER EXPRESSION THAT FACE I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THIS MOMENT just total incoherence.

16)

17)

#16 - 17 OTOH are "meh" in comparison although I swear I did try my best. I do like the look of a vintage book illustration in #16; as with #11 it's a more distant shot than I often use but I think I got the mood of the moment. I actually am pleased with the way I caught Faith's expression in #17, from Touched, thanks to lots of adjustments in brightness and contrast (the source screencap is so dark). You can almost hear her panting here. I even like the detail of her fist in the lower corner, sort of a visual punctuation mark. There's something almost stupidly mechanical in this mano-a-mano confrontation between Spike and Faith in Touched, this power struggle that didn't have to happen. And I absolutely adore that entire scene and this moment especially, fighting over Buffy and about her (they're both warriors, it's what they both do best) when it is so obvious that they both care about her very deeply: "Where is she?" / "I don't know!"

Those crazy kids - god help me, I love them.

Speaking of love - I really wanted to make one with Joyce in Normal Again, but ran out of time and energy: "Your father and I have all the faith in the world in you."

Oh dear. Buffy has to go into a hallucinatory state to find the emotional comfort and support she needs in that moment - and the person who provides it is her mother. Of course it is. How can anyone watch this episode, never mind the entire series, and think that Joyce isn't the most important person in Buffy's life? Of course it's Joyce - not Giles or Hank, nor any of her friends or lovers. Not even Dawn can get through to her this time the way she did in Bargaining/After Life. Just as in season 7's Bring on the Night, the First appears to Buffy wearing Joyce's face, because no one could unsettle Buffy so deeply. It HAD to be Joyce.

LIkewise, it had to be Joyce in CWDP; Dawn fights as a warrior and magician with everything she's got, and is cut to ribbons far worse than Xander was in Grave, in order to save and protect her mother. Summers Blood is truly the blood of champions.

And whether NormalAgain!Joyce is a "bloody figment" hardly matters in this moment. Is this what the real Joyce would have said in the situation, or what Buffy would have wanted her to say? A bit of both I suspect.

Now I have a bit of a personal confession, so feel free to skip this if you're not so much into the person stuff:

I suspect that part of the reason I'm drawn to Normal Again is because when I was a teenager I was certain I was going to become mentally ill and locked away at some point in my life - is that a teenage angst thing or a "me" thing? And as an adult dealing with depression I've discovered that, yes, it is something you do battle with. Sometimes it IS a war, and you have to fight to stay alive. And sometimes it's just a friggin' slog. So, I identify.

I have no idea why I had this fear years before before my mother revealed a secret to me: that my father had taken his own life when I was about three years old and my brothers even younger, not an accident as she'd always claimed. (In the interest of our protection, I know. How do you explain that to three small children? My mother was in her early 20's when that happened; I was 3, one of my brothers 2 and the other a toddler. How do you explain that, ever?)

And it was at least another five years in addition to that before I learned that his brother had also taken his life, leaving behind a wife and two young daughters I never even knew about. My grandfather came for a rare visit after a trip from Alaska, and said my cousin had seen my picture in his wallet and asked Who was that pretty girl? My response:

"I have a cousin in Alaska?"

And another one in the midwest, as it turned out - both with spouses/partners and growing children of their own. Somehow I knew that my dad had a brother, but in the absence of information assumed he died in a war or something years ago. Like John Kennedy's older brother in the biography I'd read as a kid. Apparently that's what a child's mind will do - fill the vacuum with whatever bits they can find lying around. Perhaps not unlike the way Buffy assumes that her parents' divorce is a result of her father's disappointment in her; her brain fills the vacuum of polite silence and careful phrases that she wants to believe but can't entirely.

And here's a thought that just popped in my head: That there IS a reason why the theme of well-meaning adults hiding or keeping information from their children "for their own good" in the series resonates so deeply with me. *ponders this*

Families - you can't live with them....

Last week we finally got the gas stove (burners etc) in the new apartment fixed and approved for use, and I made the first dinner since the house fire that I was proud of: Chicken breasts rubbed with a little balsamic vinagrette dressing from a local restaurant (to which I'd added a little more oil and maple sysauteed in the cast iron skillet in a slick of olive oil, with chopped leeks, mushrooms, garlic etc; seasoned lightly with salt, pepper, and then just a dash of balsamic vinagrette dressing from a local restaurant (to which I'd added maple syrup) poured in at the last minute or two. Making it felt like coming home on some small level: this is ME, this is who I am. It felt familiar, and "familiar" has suddenly become very precious to me.

And yes, I do know children are starving around the world and women have to walk ten miles to get water and I've never been raped and I'm not mutilated or dead so stop whining and be grateful. No, I'm not joking, this stuff really goes through my head. Although when my landlord pulled out the "at least you have a roof over your head" line I wanted to tell him to stuff it.

So it's been little things, grasping for the familiar comforts and rhythms, while being aware somehow that the "old normal" doesn't exist anymore and never will; that a new sense of "normal" is establishing itself, while the old patterns elbow their way in. Or perhaps it's the other way around? Whether that "new normal" is comfortable or desirable is too soon to tell. The old normal was comfortable; but was it actually desirable?

So I can still light a fire in the Weber grill with wood I've gathered myself and grill a steak or burn documents without hesitation. The fire and smoke don't bother me because I've mastered this activity and it's "under control", safe and contained.

But I'm hyper-aware of fire truck sirens in the streets, and I startled at unfamiliar noises in this new apartment, the slight ones coming perhaps from outside on the stairwell, beneath the floor or through the walls; in fact I'm not sure where they come from most times. I freeze and wait for a second until they pass. Sounds, not sights or smells, seems to be the main sense in which my recent "trauma" (let's just call it PTSD, shall we?) expresses itself. It wasn't the mattress in flames that terrified me, or the smoke filling my eyes; it was the awful sound of my sweetheart's high-pitched, hysterical scream as she tried to fight the fire. Running up the stairs I thought for an awful moment I'd find her engulfed in flames, burning to death.

No one should have to hear that sound, although many people do, and worse. I know.

But written words can have an effect as well. I had to stop reading

beer_good_foamy's recent post re: Night Vale when I read this quote from the podcasts: "The world is awful. And on fire. And beautiful." A month ago I would have loved the elegant and evocative language. Now I run away from it because I want to cry. And I am not liking this state of affairs one little bit. Not at all. But there it is. (Note to BGF if you're reading it: don't change the title of your journal on my account, ok? That is NOT what I'm saying at all.)

It is always unpredictable and never within my control. Perhaps that's what is really setting me off lately, and not the triggers themselves. That may explain why I have a hard time lately bearing my partner's moods when she arrives home. She might be exhausted, in pain, angry about work, hyper-focused on some obsession or project that must get done, throw herself into a frenzy of activity or barely be able to move. She's no different in fact than she's ever been but now it feels very heightened to me. The fact that she speaks aloud constantly, says everything she's thinking at every moment she's thinking it, or thinks and obsesses in patterns and circles, is nothing new. The fact that she wants me to "respond" to her, but automatically know when she's talking to me and when she's just thinking aloud isn't new either. We've been together 17 years, she's always been that way.

It used to be irritating, frustrating; now it feels like nails scraping my skin to be in the same room sometimes. And other times, she leans into me and I stroke her soft hair and forget all that for a moment, until the next disagreement and we're off to the races again.

My primary solace, lately, or methods of trying to hold onto "normal" have included being here with my friends on LJ and chatting for hours while ignoring my must-do list and procrastinating like a champ; and carrying a notebook with me everywhere I go so I can write when inspiration strikes - again, always when I'm supposed to be doing something else "more important".

And lately I'm writing Buffyverse fanfic. After announcing a year ago I would NOT write fanfic because 1) my previous efforts in another fandom sucked which 2) made me decide I'm really a non-fiction writer plus 3) there are so many good writers in this fandom that I could never compete or say something really new and therefore, 4) I was going to write meta in this fandom instead of fic.

( I'm writing Buffyverse fanfic. Be very afraid.... )
In other news, my sweetie and I are going to the Cape tomorrow, to Truro, MA just south of Provincetown; she's taking a painting workshop that was planned and paid for back in May. We've been to the Cape just once before on a weekend trip and loved it. ("Off-season" is the way to go on a strip of land that has only one road going in and out.) I don't know if I'll see the harbor seals this time, but I am taking the laptop along.

And my notebook. Much cheaper than therapy, with none of the nasty side-effects of antidepressants.

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Page Summary

Fairie Queens, Flying Fatalities, and Wicked Words
(Bring On)The Night / Lost in the Woods, (Buffy poster art)
Vote now at btvs_hush challenge #273 - and oh, nostalgia, I can live without ya
I WON AN AWARD AT THE OTHERWORLDLYRIC iCONTEST! (??) Icons, thinky-thoughts and my usual blather...
WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS.....
Trying to recalibrate "normal" whatever that means - and, I'm writing fanfic. Be very afraid.

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Style Credit

Style: Ivory Alcea for Mobility by branchandroot
Resources: Mitsuba Aoi

Page generated Aug. 18th, 2025 07:13 am

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Entries tagged with what doesn't kill you

Fairie Queens, Flying Fatalities, and Wicked Words

(Bring On)The Night / Lost in the Woods, (Buffy poster art)

Vote now at btvs_hush challenge #273 - and oh, nostalgia, I can live without ya

I WON AN AWARD AT THE OTHERWORLDLYRIC iCONTEST! (??) Icons, thinky-thoughts and my usual blather...

WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS.....

Trying to recalibrate "normal" whatever that means - and, I'm writing fanfic. Be very afraid.