All about YOU

[birdsofshore]

I love talking with you all here each week / day / hour / insert own level of addiction, but I often think I don't even know basic stuff about your LJ , like what your username means, what your icons are, etc etc. Come and tell me everything.

Why did you pick your username, and what does it mean? What's your default icon, and does it have any significance? If it's a famous person, please don't assume I will know who it is - I never know who anyone is unless I have the hots for them. What about those other things we can personalise on LJ - the quotes or messages at the top of your journal, and that odd little thing I've never worked out how to change, for instance who_la_hoop's says "I can see your house from here", which always makes me laugh. Do you have special art or graphics on your header? What are they all about?

I will start you off. My username is from a poster that I have in my living room, which says "Birds of shore & sea", with, er, drawings of different birds. Of shore, and, indeed, of sea. "Birdsofshoreandsea" is more characters than LJ allows, and besides, the shorebirds are the ones I like the best.

My picture is probably self-evident, but it's a curlew, which is my absolute favourite bird. I live quite near to plenty of these glorious creatures and they make me very thrilled and happy whenever I see one. They're just so ludicrous and beaky. They look like they shouldn't exist, and they seem to have really fabulous personalities. I can watch them for hours, just mooching about and digging for worms. They also have subtly beautiful plumage and the most wonderful song. I'm not actually OBSESSED with birds in real life, but I can verge on HIGHLY ENTHUSIASTIC about birds on any given occasion, so apologies if you just glazed over there.

The quotes on my journal are from one of my favourite books, The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. "You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed" and "Keep passing the open windows" are pieces of advice from the book on how to survive whatever life throws at you. If you haven't read it, it's a big, insane, sexy, sweet, funny, tragic romp of a book and please don't tell me if you don't like it, because I have adored it since I was about 15 and bought it to impress a boy I fancied who worked in a bookshop (my rec for Frequent Patronage will be along any day now, by the way). Fandom is definitely part of my plan to remain sane and to 'keep passing the open windows' (in other words, to avoid falling into depression and self-harm), so both quotes seemed apt when I was picking my layout.

I have only got a standard LJ header thing - it was the one that seemed least offensive when I looked through. I'd love fancy graphics or some beautiful art up there, but OMG, how hard to choose, plus, if I'm being honest, I don't have a clue how to do such things DD:

Please come and do all the sharing. I really, really want to know.

p.s. A very big thank you to whoever nominated me at HPfanficpoll thingy, if you are on my flist. I was very flattered indeed that you liked my fics, and touched that you took the time ♥

Comments

[all-not-well.livejournal.com]

It's really fun reading these - I have often wondered how people came up with their usernames and what their icons or headers represent to them. But I'm always too shy to ask. :)

My username comes from the last line (I think?) in the DH epilogue. I didn't agree with the whole idea that all was well for Harry with that ending! I really wanted my username to say all_is_not_well but that was too many characters. My journal used to be just a fanfic browser (I didn't want to use my RL LJ to join some darker HP comms in case someone I knew from RL stumbled across it), so I wasn't very particular about the name. But now that this is my main journal, I wish I'd chosen something else. But I don't want to change it because when other people have changed their journal names I felt as though I didn't really recognize them anymore.

The header in my LJ is just one of the generic headers - I don't know how to do my own. I rather liked the raven though. I wanted the colors to be dark and the theme to be very moody and dark as well. There weren't many options to choose from, so this was the closest I could get.

The header says, "Quoth the muse: There may be more... Sometime. When I get around to it. Terribly busy, you know. Stuff to do." Which is basically my muse talking. She is a fickle muse. Some days there is fic, other days, not so much.

My default icon is a photo I found online somewhere at random. I have several different icons that are versions of Ginny. I don't know why - I'm not especially a fan. But I like the windswept look of this one.

[birdsofshore]

Ah, I have wondered if your username referred to the epilogue of doom! I'm glad it does. I agree, it felt awkward or intrusive to ask individual people what their names and pictures were, but asking generally like this, you find out people don't mind and everyone seems interested in the subject, too.

It has made me realise how much time I spend pondering these things. I wonder if I will remember them all, or go back to thinking "I wonder what that quote is from?" :D