icons: 20 + 20 + 5 graphics

[longerthanwedo.livejournal.com]

20 character icons for 20inspirations
20 alternates + 5 large graphics

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alternates, extras, and larger graphics










01 - Inspired by this graphic by panicman. This is the slayer dichotomy. The guts and the glory. The fight and the fall. I put the one with the "chosen" text as an alternate because it's not only about being chosen, it's about losing the ability to choose. The pain is inevitable, as certain as the power.
02 - Inspired by this icon by mm3butterfly. This cap is the essence of Topher, really. Always hiding behind his brain scan.
03 - Closure. More than begin, but less than forget. It's Rose Tyler's life, the end of her story. She's trapped in this world, neither remembered nor forgotten. It's a beginning in so many ways, and an ending in so many more. The lyrics are from "Adventures in Solitude" by The New Pornographers, which is just the perfect Doctor Who song as well. The best of the vanished marvels have gathered inside your doors.
04 - Engulf. The line before this chorus ("Do You Feel" by The Rocket Summer) is why should I have to try to fix things I didn't create or contrive? Which is Jack's whole mission, to fix things, to fix everything. The hero complex that manifests itself both in the super-doctor tendencies and in the beardedness (alternate #4-5).
05 - Inspired by this icon by colourmayfade. I wanted to encapsulate Scully's sort of split life, the FBI part and the part that's quieter, or the part that she wishes was quiet but never quite is. Even in I Want to Believe she isn't able to fully escape, which is why the green part is layered on top of the others.
06 - Devoid. Again the text here (which you can't see in the actual icon, only in the bigger graphic) is lyrics from The New Pornographers' "Bones of an Idol" and it says if you still had the bones of an idol. It's Castiel's fall from Heaven, his humanity, his mixed nostalgia and hatred for his past, and the way he came full circle and embraced the angel in him to the extent of it being harmful to him and those around him. Obviously it's not a complete picture of him, because we don't know the end of his story yet.
07 - Inspired by this icon by darlingbones. This one is pretty self explanatory; first touch life, second touch dead again forever.
08 - Inspired by this icon by motorized. Lyrics here are from Ludo's "Topeka" and the line on this icon is followed by so you know what keeps me hanging around - no you can't keep a good man down. Sawyer accepts his past and welcomes the future.
09 - Reprise. If you haven't seen Lies My Parents Told Me for some strange reason, go watch it now. This episode is the very definition of Spike. We see him at his most savage and his most soft. We see his confrontation with Robin, arguably more human than Buffy, and we see Buffy's reaction - the effect Spike has on those around him. There are the flashbacks to his early days, his mother, his desperate attempt to hang on to humanity that we really don't understand in earlier episodes. It's just beautiful, and this cap is a really strong summation of everything that it says, everything that he is. I just love Spike so much it's ridiculous, I'm sure most of you know this already.
10 - Open. Another obvious one, if you can read the text which I'm not sure if you can, but it says "I want to believe." Mulder in a nutshell, whether we're talking aliens or love or just life, the phrase is one that defines him, everything he does, his relationships with others. It's a simple and obvious theme, but really the best one there is.
11 - Empty. I toyed with the idea of putting text on this from the most perfect Lucifer!Sam or non-Sam!Sam song ever, "Detroit" by Black Gold, but I couldn't make it look good. The idea here is that Sam contains everything he wishes he didn't. Demon blood, demon anger, the devil's mind. And that he can't escape it, no matter how much he longs to. If I had added text, the lyrics would have been, I wonder where you are? Locked on the inside.
12 - Open, again. I was kind of stuck between this and the other alternate with text, because "Adventures in Solitude" sums up The Doctor pretty completely, but I thought that his desire not to be alone is almost more potent than his loneliness in itself. So instead I put my favorite line from "Go Places" by the same artist, because that's all he wants. Someone to take, someone to show what he knows.
13 - Heart/Death. Because I think, for Alice, death comes from the heart. There is no morality with her, no "normal" social code that keeps her from killing. If she feels it in her heart, she does it. Her parents, from her hate. Ian, from her love, her desire to avenge John. She doesn't differentiate, and it's what makes her both dangerous and really, really interesting.
14 - Inspired by this icon by calikalie. This is one of the only ones in which I used an obvious character line or cliche, but really I thought it just fit. It's so much of what Amy is and what she wishes she didn't have to be. She spent her life waiting for The Doctor, so many years. She waited in the pandorica with Rory watching over her. She waited to be rescued while she was pregnant with Melody and I really have problems with that and wish they would stop it already but that's an entirely different issue.
15 - Inspired by this icon by letsey_x. The reason I used a cap of Kate kind of smiling in this icon is because I don't think her need to run away is always a bad thing. She wants it to be a bad thing, almost, because she thinks it should be, that she should be able to settle down, to stop moving. But she can't and she knows it and, in the end, she reaches this sort of balance where she is in the place that she wants to be (with Jack and the others, in the sideways world), but she's still moving. Moving one.
16 - Inspired by this icon by darlingbones. If you haven't listened to "That's Okay" by The Hush Sound, you really, really should, and then you should be in awe because the song is actually just the definition of Dean Winchester. The line I used, you want to go back to where you felt safe is followed by to hear your brother's laughter, see your mother's face. And your childhood home is just powder-white bones and you'll never find your way back and you are boundless in beauty with fright in your face and and when you're gone will they say your name? And when you're gone will they love you the same? If not, that's okay.
17 - Ending. John, oh John it's never over. I love how he constantly toys with the concept of ending, endings, reaching a stop, fully and completely. But nothing for him ever ends. The end of season two wasn't a true ending. Him leaving his job wouldn't be an ending. The breaking off of his relationship with Alice isn't a definitive end. The only way his mind will ever stop spinning is in death, which he also toys with. But it never, never ends.
18 - Inspired by this wallpaper by takethewords. Ben may be a rebel, but he was raised in the Dharma Initiative and he never really left. He never left his home on the island, not with the murders of the Dharma staff, and not with the death of his daughter, not with anything else that happens. Which is a lot.
19 - Death. Well, this doesn't need any explanation. I had a ridiculously hard time resisting the impulse to spell it "eemartal".
20 - Encompass. Echo, my voice is an echo of places I don't know, and stories have been told. Echoes, we all are connected. A lighthouse voyage - for history's sake, would you please take notice. This song is Echo. It's called Echo (by The Hush Sound). It's how Echo encompasses everything, everyone she has ever been. She absorbs them into herself. A mixture of voices that come together to make one unique, not just an echo but a song of her own.
alt. 15 - Aftermath. I didn't end up liking the finished icon so much, but I wanted with this to show not just the fight but the reprocussions. Which I ended up combining in the icon I used, but still.
alt. 16 - Inspired by Florence and the Machine's "Howl". I wanted to just have one Spike icon in the set, but I made this one as well which I think is a a good representation of his resentment, the desire to escape the shackles, so to say, of his condition. It's a desire that's not present all the time, but that lurks under the surface.
alt. 17 - Inspired again by "Howl". I didn't like how this turned out that much, but I do like how it's symbolic of Anna's fall and her happiness that came with it, even if it came at a price.
alt. 18 - Requiem. I just love this texture, okay, and I love that Dean was ressurected after what he did in Hell as an angel figure, albeit a really messed up one.
alts. 19, 20, and the last large graphic - Inspired by calikalie's gorgeous graphic. I really, really loved the graphic I made with this idea, but unfortunately I didn't like how either of the icons came out. They're alright, but they just didn't come together the way I wanted.

- feel free to skip all that ridiculously excessive text, I just wanted to explain everything because I really had so much fun summarizing all these wonderful characters!
- comment, credit, don't change, don't hotlink
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- enjoy!