Icon Meme

[brightknightie]

batdina posted an icon meme on Friday, and agreed to play it with me.  Would you like to join in?

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick up to four of your icons.
2. Make a post of your own (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts, in a spreading spiral of icon squee!

batdina pointed out my Tracy, Natalie and IB icons.  (As a word of caution, I may replace icons with others of the same name in the future, and then of course this post would no longer make sense. ~g~)

***
Tracy:

This image is from "My Boyfriend is a Vampire," of course.  Tracy Vetter is just about to say her "babe cop" line, in her dispirited complaint about being forced to appear on The Jerry Tate Show, and Vachon -- why? why?! -- is rooting around in her refrigerator.  "You alphabetize your refrigerator?" he will ask in a moment, probably with irony rather than as a strictly literal observation.

The idea that Tracy tries -- vainly -- to organize her world into submission is the key tidbit that has made her character for me, and this is where it was articulated.  She's a Type A overachieving control freak out of defense, not desire, and perhaps the best defense is a good offense.  I refer to it every time I write her; it matters.  And I am still amused by the question of what Vachon was seeking in her refrigerator -- really! what does he expect? -- and how she's completely blase to the vampire in her kitchen.  Does she think she has him handled, that she knows what's what and it's all neatly slotted -- if so, she should see his flashbacks: ick -- or is she just consumed right then by frustration with the exercise of going on that stupid talk show all dolled up?

I have been using this mainly as my "huh" icon.  As in: Golly, but the world just isn't quite what it ought to be.

***
Natalie:

This image is from "Only the Lonely," naturally.  Natalie Lambert is looking up from her desk as Grace and other coworkers bring her a twinkie with thirty lit candles.  I'm afraid this icon is very boring, explanation-wise, as I simply wanted a sturdy, standard, serviceable Natalie image with room for my "Bright Knight" logo.  (I put the logo on all of them because I want people to know at a glance that a post is mine; I have ambivalent feelings about the distinction between user icons and mood icons, and the logo-branding feels like the right compromise to me.)

Of course the morgue is Natalie's domain, so while I could have picked something from the precincts, Nick's loft, her own apartment, many a crime scene, and more, the morgue is both more generic and more story-driving as a set for her.  The tag line I use with it -- "Everyone's favorite Medical Examiner" -- might read as a take-off of that Liam O'Neil line in "Bad Blood," but it's not; she's certainly my favorite M.E., and FK's, too.

I have been using this icon lately mainly when speaking with the Natpacker moderator of the femme_fic ficathon.

***
IB:

As we all know, "IB" stands for "Immortal Beloved," the Nick/Janette couple affiliation.  I have this icon in part because I also have an N&N (Nick/Natalie) icon, and the N&N icon in part because I have this one.  And yet I don't have a UF (Nick/Lacroix) icon, which has become an equal contender in the fandom, and my Faithful (Lacroix/Fleur) icon is nearly the first I created, though that affiliation has always been minuscule.  So it's not all about proportional representation.

I don't do couple factions anymore, as such. From an interpretational stand, I will gladly take whatever makes the best story in any given scenario ("best" conditioned in light of canon).  But ever since I figured out that, in the tag of "A Fate Worse Than Death," Janette is expressing full support for Nick in his quest -- not because she believes in it but because she believes in him -- and that this is reflected in actions rather than words in many places in the first two seasons, I've leaned a bit IB.  (I once told leela_cat my proposed scenario for a story in which Janette, through no effort of her own, becomes mortal, and Lacroix then decides that Janette must be his Fleur-revenge, as Nick's love for her over eight centuries approaches Lacroix's psychosis for Fleur in a more satisfactory parallel than any other Lacroix could imagine; i.e. only Janette is worthy of being his sociopathic sacrifice to Fleur's memory; leela_cat did not approve the scenario. I dunno. I may write it someday anyway.)

I do not know from what episode this image came.  Do you?  I have the original (in color, larger) on my hard-drive from years and years past, when screenshots were much harder to come by, labeled only "Janette and Nick."  The Nick in the image looks almost second-season-like, from hair and stubble, but Janette's dress is black and she wears a choker, which suggests first season.  They're in the Raven, and blue and red strobes are flashing (so it can't be from "If Looks Could Kill," because the lighting color does not match).  I turned it sepia to give it a more timeless feel, because there is so much time between them, and in my imagination of them.  I like the stance, him embracing her from behind as they look out at the same scene.

The tag line I associate with it -- "What makes you think I'd take you back?" -- is from the "Partners of the Month" flashback, of course.  Nick asks that petulently as Janette is leaving him; it is too much to demand that anyone be graceful at such a moment.  He can be petulent, or he can be broken.  He chooses to hold together by what must have seemed more dignified in that moment, but really was not; I wonder if he knows better after four centuries more?  So he asks, and Janette kisses him.  "That," she says, meaning not the kiss, but the attraction and connection burning in it even as she is walking away.  In the present-day image in the icon, I imagine they both know "that," and know they each will always take the other back -- "always" until Nick is mortal, that is, and that is the part apart.

Comments

[abby82.livejournal.com]

I do not know from what episode this image came. Do you?

Drive by posting for now but that pic is from 'For I Have Sinned' when Nick walks into the Raven and dances very briefly with Janette. To my knowledge it isn't a screenshot but a publicity still from maybe the season one press kit. I was actually bidding on it on ebay about 6 months ago but when the price went up over $100 I dropped out. I regret it now because I've yet to see another one go up again. This image online might actually originate from kristin1128 but I'm not sure on that.

[brightknightie.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the identification! The original image does have the look of a deliberate still rather than a screenshot; I had always thought it was a happy chance of lighting as the strobes moved during an episode, but perhaps not. I have often used it as desktop wallpaper over the years.

>"This image online might actually originate from kristin1128 but I'm not sure on that."

Well, my particular JPG is older than Kristen H.'s high-quality image archive. :-) That doesn't mean it's not the same image she has, nor even that the original didn't come from her, but I definitely didn't find it on her archive myself. I wonder if someone gave it to me? I had a very distant relationship with graphics in the days before DSL!

Did you want to play the icon meme? If so, I would pick your "I approve!," "Whoa!" and "Nick & Nat" icons about which to learn more.

[abby82.livejournal.com]

Tracy Vetter is just about to say her "babe cop" line, in her dispirited complaint about being forced to appear on The Jerry Tate Show

I love the delivery of the line but I particularly find it amusing because it's probably not too far off from the character's original role on the show. Thankfully Tracy and Lisa Ryder had far more substance than that.

The idea that Tracy tries-vainly-to organize her world into submission is the key tidbit that has made her character for me, and this is where it was articulated.

::nods:: In Black Buddha one of Tracy's immediate concerns has to do with the number of diseases that can be found on the sewer not the fact that she's just witnessed a man chew on a dead rat. Granted Tracy's first reaction is to faint at the sight of Vachon and his dismembered hand but after recovering she starts barking orders-first in her car and later on in the sewer.

And I am still amused by the question of what Vachon was seeking in her refrigerator -- really! what does he expect?

He's always struck me as someone who needed to keep his hands busy. I don't really read Vachon-centric fic so I don't know what kind of background writers have given him but I imagine that he hadn't spent too much time around the minutia of mortal life like refrigerators and other household appliances. I figured that he was probably amused to have a mortal in the know about him so he took the opportunity to do some reconnaissance.


Of course the morgue is Natalie's domain, so while I could have picked something from the precincts, Nick's loft, her own apartment, many a crime scene, and more, the morgue is both more generic and more story-driving as a set for her.

I really like your explanation behind you selection for Natalie. Often times when I watch a morgue scene I can't help but think about some the logistics that might have gone into the filming of that set. As a set it's pretty drab. It's a green box filled with florescent lighting and stainless steel. It's not spacious like the loft, physically dynamic like The Raven, or even boisterous like the precinct sets. The morgue is a place for exposition rather than action. It must have been so dull to shoot there but it was also evident that they tried to make the most of their time there and have something of interest happen. I automatically think of the Natalie/Grace/food scenes or perhaps the drain fixing scene that overtook discussion at forkni-l a few months back. The small size of the space also amuses me compared to the lush coroner's office that appears in Blood Ties or perhaps the precursor to the present day Coroners' Building in Toronto that is depicted in Murdoch Mysteries. They've got tons of nooks and crannies to sneak in cameras for interesting camera set ups.


I turned it sepia to give it a more timeless feel, because there is so much time between them, and in my imagination of them. I like the stance, him embracing her from behind as they look out at the same scene.

I'm not ashamed to admit the love I have for the pretty those two bring to the table.

"That," she says, meaning not the kiss, but the attraction and connection burning in it even as she is walking away. In the present-day image in the icon, I imagine they both know "that," and know they each will always take the other back -- "always" until Nick is mortal, that is, and that is the part apart.

Nick believes in romantic love and in happily ever after. There they were two vampires pretending to partake in a very mortal convention--marriage. Even if they both had dalliances on the side I believe that Nick believed that he and Janette would be together forever. The idea that she might want something other than that rocked his sensibilities. Janette had her own reasons for leaving Nick but he was too caught up in his own pain to see beyond himself and see her position. I like that in 'Partners of Month' Nick was finally able to acknowledge the state of things then. Better late than never, huh.

Did you want to play the icon meme? If so, I would pick your "I approve!," "Whoa!" and "Nick & Nat" icons about which to learn more.

I'd love to play. I've posted my responses here (http://abby82.livejournal.com/12355.html)

[brightknightie.livejournal.com]

>"Nick believes in romantic love and in happily ever after."

Something I've been thinking recently about those "Partners of the Month" flashbacks is the transition from medieval ways of thinking as represented there by Nick -- in which creation and our places in it are fixed and unchanging, and rightly so -- to Renaissance ways of thinking as represented there by Janette -- in which change begins to be conceivable, and individualism begins to gestate in western thought (rolling on eventually toward the Enlightenment).

Of course Janette is even older than Nick, and surely as purely medieval in experience and age, but Nick is more peculiarly characteristically medieval in his mindset, perhaps because he was in a superior social position, where that "conditions are static" mindset by and large served him and his class and his sex.

>"I like that in 'Partners of Month' Nick was finally able to acknowledge the state of things then."

Similarly on Janette's side, I also like in PotM how she admits -- though only in the hearing of the mildly intoxicated Schanke -- that she left then in part because she was frightened by the depth of Nick's devotion.