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As someone who spent a lot of time lurking I can say that I choose my avatar, sig, location, etc., with the fact that to some people this is my whole identity in mind.
My "default" avvie is homebrewed; a picture I took of Pauline Baynes' illustration of "The Last Ship," focusing on Firiel as she looks out. The somewhat blurriness of the lines attests to my less-than-competent photography skills. I wanted it for two reasons: 1). it reinforces my femininity (since not everyone will recognize my that my screenname is female), and 2). I really like the character, and the theme of loss, and even the slight questions that the story raises, which goes into my secondary identity as a fanfic writer. Also, it looks simply gorgeous on the Downs' skin.
The default sig is not only one of my most favorite quotes from LotR; it also has a deep personal meaning which does not detract from its general philosophical brilliance. I load a couple of links in there, too: to my livejournal and to my main fanfic opus, in a vain attempt to expose some of my work to the well-read Downers, who I still think would find it interesting if they read it [/shameless self-plug].
My default location just sounded randomly deep and cool; it's mostly intended to sound deep and cool although one could read into it a comment that setting refers not only to place but also to time. For a little while this summer it changed to "The Shire," which is wholly an inside joke.
The current one I have up is for the WW game that I recently ran; it's a pic that I found almost entirely by accident and is meant to represent my art deco Measse as she first appears to the village. The location and sig that match came from Bradbury's short story "Usher II" in which a man gets back on the people who burned his library by having robots simulate a fantastic setting right out of Poe, up to the gruesome deaths he gives them. I'll change them back to the default in a few weeks; I don't have the avatar file on this computer so it'll have to wait, plus I'm still not entirely done with the game itself.
Aside from that I don't have any plan on changing things around in the near future; I like the stability of a static avatar (I wholly approve of the way wilwarin changes hers, keeping a theme so it's still easy to see who she is). Depending on how the MEFAs run I may explode into a few weeks' short-lived arrogance, but we'll just wait and see on that.
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