So there is all sorts of stuff I could be posting about - what I did last weekend, things I have been working on making, deep thoughts of deepness, interesting RL events, that I have caught up on the crossover requests from that meme and am still answering them, the fact that I finally replaced the screen and keyboard on my laptop (after the crack grew to the point that I couldn't navigate my opera tabs and my S key stopped working entirely) -

but I am celebrating my new screen by catching up on my TV watching, and I feel the need instead to announce to you all that last week's HIGNFY was hosted by DENNY CRANE. With CHARLIE BROOKER as one of the guests. Not sure what all the random Star Trek references were about, but seriously, DENNY CRANE.

I was terrified for a bit that it would be too embarrassment-squicky to watch, like Tom Baker's last guest-hosting stint, but I forgot about the fact that the Shatt has transcended shame, which means he can turn even the most terrible of media appearances into self-aware comic gold. Even the bits where he 'sang'* were made tolerable by the fact that I could watch Charlie Brooker being unable to watch while making the exact same incredulous cringe-grin faces that I was.

Which is just to say, Bill Shatner and Charlie Brooker were on HIGNFY together last week, your argument is invalid.

(also, American accents on television sound really strange. All television people are supposed to speak British, aren't they?)

* why did I not know he had a new album out last year? Fandom grapevine, you have failed me again.

Also, while I am posting silly short things, I have recently been making a collection of Icons I Always Misinterpret Amusingly, so here, for your pleasure, is the first batch. :)

(If one of these is yours, please understand, I am not trying to criticize your taste in icons! I am just trying to evilly put these images into your heads too, okay. ...also an object lesson in making good use of your icon description fields.)

- havocthecat uses this as default, and I see it a lot on network and femmslash discussions. I presume from style that the base is a pre-Raphaelite painting, and it's described as the Lady of Shalott. Said Lady is crouched over, just barely fitting in the icon frame, with her hands sort of pulled back along her sides. She has a kind of dark and disgruntled expression, with the caption "Half Sick of Shadows," and it really looks like she's holding something sharp and pointy in her right hand. I'm pretty sure it's just an illusion, since it's Shalott and not MacBeth, but still, every time I see this icon, my first thought is "somebody's gonna get stabbed."

- This is kerri's default, but I think there's at least one other person in fandom using a very similar base, so it must be from something fannish? I don't know who it really is, but for some reason (maybe the color palette?) in my head it's an adolescent Luke Skywalker sulking in a back corridor of Tosche Station. While not wearing any pants. Obviously.

- This one is marginaliana's. It is either a normal-sized dachsund carrying a large plush penis in its mouth, or a very small dachsund carrying a very large cigarette butt, I can't decide. The description just calls it his "toy", but, well, if I had a dachsund and a plush penis, it would absolutely end up as a dog toy, so that doesn't really solve anything.

- this one is simonejester's. It is a tiny cute toy robot attempting (and failing due to scale issues) to use an Xbox controller. However, Xbox controllers just aren't a major part of my personal iconography, and I always see it as either a tiny robot fry cook at a stove or a tiny robot DJ spinning tunes (mostly depending on how hungry I am.)

- snowynight is a another person I see around a lot but don't have friended. The given description of this icon is "an Asian doctor who's also Captain America" but for some reason, I see the shape in the background as the bottom half of a Star Trek logo, so to me it will always be an Asian doctor who's also Captain America who really wants to join Starfleet.

- starfish uses this one often, and labels it "Joe Dick Bleak Face". Presumably this is Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo? I always see it as Cameron Mitchell, because I am bad at actor faces at the best of times, and since it's just a partial profile, it seems to hit Vala's "Earth has a very limited gene pool" problem straight on...

- staranise has a glass teacup with some star anise floating in it as a default; reasonable enough. However, I frequently stare at it trying to figure out what the anise is floating in. It looks like lime Jello. Apparently it is mint tea and not actually lime Jello? It still looks like lime Jello to me.


...this list does not of course include the icons where I'm pretty sure the ambiguity is deliberate. Or the entire category of "I know what you look like in RL, and I doubt you intend that icon as an avatar anyway, but it will still always be my mental image of you", of which synecdochic's current default will always be the champion.

ETA: Also I strongly encourage the rest of you to share your accounts of the perils of icon interpretation! It is a fascinating subject, yes?