Picturing you

[resonant]

Do you have a mental picture of the friends you only know online? I find that I have quite clear images of some of you; others I can only see in parts (hair, hands); and others I can't see at all as people.

For instance, I've seen a picture of laurakaye, but in my head she looks just like her icon of a reading girl. resmiranda is a snatch of a song. And flambeau is type set in Verdana in some muted color other than black.

In my head, julad is small, with pale skin and short mahogany hair. For some reason I've got a pretty clear picture of her hands -- small, pale, with bitten nails. And she waves them around a lot when she talks. I also get the impression she has trouble sitting still.



kaneko has longish strawberry-blonde hair and freckles. She smiles almost all the time.

giglet has short brown hair and sparkling eyes and strong square tanned hands.

darthfox has light-brown hair with a bit of a reddish tint to it. Light eyes and pale eyelashes.

fabularasa is tall and has unusually good posture. Her hair is reddish, and because she scrabbles her hands through it when she's thinking, it's usually in disarray.

I think I may be picturing cmshaw when she was seven, because I see a brown-haired, sun-browned, freckled girl who's all knees and elbows.

Have I seen a picture of kassrachel? When I picture her, I feel less like I'm making it up and more like I've actually seen her. She's round and fair, with curly hair that's brown with a sort of red overdye, and she has a lovely smile.

lanning has short salt-and-pepper hair, high cheekbones, and a rather elegant mouth. Sometimes she wears glasses; the rest of the time they're around her neck on some sort of interesting chain.

tradescant looks a bit like Princess Leia, only younger and a little less harsh around the mouth.

merryish has short, straight brown hair and is on the short side. I imagine her with the brisk, slightly world-weary manner of a camp counselor trying to wrangle two dozen eight-year-olds and not let any of them drown, no matter how richly they deserve it.

imkalena is tall and wiry, with long fingers. She's tanned, and her brown hair is sunbleached and somewhat windblown.

kormantic -- I can't see her face, but I can hear her voice. It's a nice rich alto speaking voice, slightly rough (smoker?), talking veryveryfastwithoutevenstoppingforbreath.

shrift has long, dark-blonde hair and very dark brown eyes.

prillalar is tall, with light-brown hair and light eyes and a disconcertingly sharp gaze.

brighidestone is mid-height and curvy, with dark brown hair and eyes. She and destina both have a sort of Gibson-girl prettiness.

helvirago has straight shiny blonde hair, but is more regal than cute.

One of my grade-school friends had an older sister named Shay, so in my head shayheyred looks like her: tall, with brown hair in a ponytail, and never walks anywhere if she can run, bounce, or skip.

eliade and katallison both look like a younger Patti Smith to me. I think Kat may actually have used a photo of a younger Patti Smith on her website at one time, which is probably the source of the confusion. Of the two of them, eliade is taller, with a longer face and sleepier eyes.

carlacoupe is tall, with chin-length reddish-dark-brown hair, a mischievous face, and an unusually deep voice.

mommybird is short and round, with round glasses and dark, thick, wavy hair.

bettyp is sort of Nordic-looking -- thick pale hair, ice-blue eyes, broad cheekbones. And younger than her writing voice would suggest.

ellen_fremedon has very thick medium-brown hair. She's solid, muscular, a very reassuring physical presence.

I disqualify myself from imagining cesperanza, liviapenn, thete1, spike21, and miriam_heddy because I've seen pictures of them. And ivyblossom, jacquez, ukcalico, and mauralabingi because they have self-portrait icons. (I always see nopejr's icon as a self-portrait, too, though it may not be intended that way.)

Comments

[fabularasa.livejournal.com]

fabularasa is tall and has unusually good posture. Her hair is reddish, and because she scrabbles her hands through it when she's thinking, it's usually in disarray.

You're. . . a little uncanny. Which I'm sure you will take as the compliment it's intended to be. Tall, but not awkwardly so -- enough to look a man in the eyes when I need to, which is three or four times a week. Red hair a tangled, curly mop. I bob it but it still floats in my eyes. I think it literally grows facing forward, if that's possible. Or perhaps the rest of me is on backwards. And I secretly love it. Pale skin, green eyes. A Roman nose that was the plague of my adolescence. Enough oddness to me that I'm the one that gets called striking, not pretty. And yes, I do take care with my posture, as a matter of fact.

[hya-cynth.livejournal.com]

I wish I had a Roman nose :( lol. Instead, I have a flat typical Chinese nose that is perhaps the plague of my existence... *sniff* (and...I don't have an icon and don't know how to make one...)

[destina.livejournal.com]

A Gibson girl? How lovely. :-) I don't know what people who've met me would say, but I'd say I'm more plain tomboy on the outside, Gibson Girl on the inside. *g*

*obnoxiously posts AIM transcripts in your lj*

[tradescant.livejournal.com]

Me: Resonant thinks I look like Princess Leia.
hirsch: what?
hirsch: WHAT?
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA
Me: tradescant looks a bit like Princess Leia, only younger and a little less harsh around the mouth.
hirsch: hahahahasdfhl;kasfd;ljk234qoupifdsalj;k432
Me: *coils braids over ears*

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

darthfox has light-brown hair with a bit of a reddish tint to it. Light eyes and pale eyelashes.

don't get too excited about that uncanniness fabularasa was talking about. it's possible you could have been more wrong, i guess, but not a lot more. [g] (okay, granted, you've only got four things, here, so it's not like a major catalog of features. but still.)

i have rather dark brown hair, actually, with a bit of reddish tint to it; it gets redder toward the ends, but up at the roots it's really just dark. that's the natural color, anyway. the current color is the natural color supplemented with shades called "cherry cola" and "merlot" -- the result being a slightly darker brown and a slightly redder red. (red in the sense of those non-hair-colored reds we were talking about that one time. more like burgundy.)

i have brown eyes and dark eyelashes. but i never wear mascara except under duress, so maybe compared to other dark-lashed people my eyelashes look pale. :-D

[axiom_of_stripe]

well, considering that she pictures you as human, i'd call that pretty close. :)

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

point. i forget if it was res or ellen who had to take a second one evening, when i said in chat that i'd just scratched my ear, and remind herself that the ear in question wasn't pointy and i'd scratched it with my hand and not my hind leg. :-)

[mctabby.livejournal.com]

I prefer to picture all online friends as disembodied brains. It's less confusing that way. :)

[switchknife.livejournal.com]

*nods* Indeed. Although some of her descriptions are so lovely, they make me want to write fic. Egads.

... Ah, but what if brains look different too? Would my brain wrinkle differently from your brain?

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

ellen_fremedon has very thick medium-brown hair. She's solid, muscular, a very reassuring physical presence.

Well, the hair's more of a light toffee-brown. The rest... maybe. I can't really speak to how reassuring a physical presence I am *g*.

And I tend to picture everyone on my friends-list as looking exactly like their current icon.

[http://users.livejournal.com/ari_/]

I do that with some people as well.

...which means that I always have to convince my mind that no, you probably don't look like Mr. Spock.

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

LOL - so does that mean I'm a penguin or a little, courier 'm'?

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Hee. I also imagine everyone to look exactly like their icon.

[eliade.livejournal.com]

I love this! And I also picture people looking like their icons, if they're, um, iconic. :) Oh, and then too, sometimes I picture myself looking like my Elijah Wood icon...and then it strikes me that I'm delusional.

Ahem...

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I actually do resemble at least one of my icons (no, not Bug *g*).

I've got a postcard of the "Orientale" painting (see the current LJ icon on this post, and a smaller piece of it on my webpage), and my son always points to it and says, "Here's a picture of Mommy!"

It really does sort of resemble me (not pregnant, of course *g*)--or anyway, some gypsy-version of me. I've always thought she could have been a very distant imaginary relative of mine.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Fascinating stuff, Res. FWIW, I realize I picture you as -- well, I don't have all the details clear, but as someone of great composure, a bit soft-spoken but very articulate (and with a lovely speaking voice, which is probably the literal meaning of your pseud infusing my image), dark-haired, not flashy or showy, the kind of person someone in haste might overlook until they paused to notice the really exquisite cheekbones, and the expressive hands, and the acute and discerning eyes.

(And yes, I do use the young Patti Smith as my default icon. Love that photo.)

[beledibabe.livejournal.com]

carlacoupe is tall, with chin-length reddish-dark-brown hair, a mischievous face, and an unusually deep voice.

Interesting, res. Pretty close, except that I'm not particularly tall -- only 5'6".

And like so many others, I tend to picture people as their icons, which can be a tad disconcerting at times.

[laurakaye.livejournal.com]

Hee! I've always thought that my Victorian scribbler girl looked like my spirit, if not my body- and you'd be surprised how many people have confessed that, upon meeting me, they had a brief moment of surprise that I wasn't wearing corsets and overskirts.

[axiom_of_stripe]

think I may be picturing cmshaw when she was seven, because I see a brown-haired, sun-browned, freckled girl who's all knees and elbows.

that's a fairly accurate description of the mental picture i keep of myself. there's a photograph of me somewhere at about that age, sitting up to my armpits in the middle of a pile of leaves in my favorite striped shirt, grinning madly, that i work toward whenever i catch myself getting too stressed out about grown-up stuff.

...of course, you realize that you've just cemented yourself in all our minds as a strong-jawed houseplant, right?

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Half-right!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute. There were three things on that list. You mean one and a half of them are true?

[giglet.livejournal.com]

You described three things with six adjectives. Half your adjectives were right. (And I'm being somewhat of a smartass, if that wasn't already obvious.)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Edit:

giglet has short brown hair and sparkling eyes and strong square tanned hands and a big smart mouth.

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

You've got me mixed up with kassrachel, much to my advantage.

She's the one who's tall, willowy rather than wiry. She has the long fingers and the sunbleached brown hair.

This is me, in all my apple-cheeked glory. Don't let that stop you from thinking of me as tall and willowy, though.:)

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful picture of you, Kalena! Was your hair that red when I met you two Escapades ago?

Anyway -- Res, this is a fascinating and entertaining thread. Kalena's got me described pretty well -- tallish, on the thin side, black-framed glasses, hazel eyes, hair that ranges from mousy brown (in winter) to dirty blonde (when I get some sun).

I don't know that I've had a distinct mental image of you. I have a very clear mental impression of how your voice must sound, both speaking and singing -- as Kat said, a very clear tone, but also warm. That honey-colored alto sound. If sounds can be said to have colors.

:-)

My default icon is my cat, Thorn, because I wanted an icon that had something of me in it, but have been too paranoid about blurring my fannish and non-fannish identities to use an actual photo of my face...

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

No, but I was on vacation anyway, so I went nuts.:-) I've since found a happier medium where I don't look so much like Little Orphan Annie.

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

After thinking about it I realized that I do have a mental picture of you, but in it you're always wearing the ugly sweater you got for Christmas that didn't fit anyway. I don't remember what you really said it looked like, but in my mind it is browns and oranges, which actually looks quite good with your fair skin and your short, straight brown hair in a pageboy cut.:-)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing so hard.

They sent me a nouveau-peasant blouse for my birthday. Beige with navy blue flowers, gathered under the bust with a mock-suede thong. (Recall that I am approximately dumpling-shaped.) The sweaters usually make me look like a couch; the blouse, for variety, makes me look like curtains.

brainmirror!

[kormantic.livejournal.com]

kormantic -- I can't see her face, but I can hear her voice. It's a nice rich alto speaking voice, slightly rough (smoker?), talking veryveryfastwithoutevenstoppingforbreath.

Don't drink, don't smoke... Goody-two-shoes! I think I sound young and dippy on the phone-- so you've got the veryveryfastwithoutevenstoppingforbreath. bit right. ::beam::

I too have that been-on-the-phone feel for you, but I see you as a solid little person with rosy cheeks and light eyes, a little cloud of shortish curly red hair. A little pink mouth and chewing on your pen's cap in a thoughtful way, always wearing a nice blue turtleneck sweater. Go figure.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I actually don't chew anything except my cuticles. Not even gum.

Maybe we'd have more luck abandoning the visuals and trying to guess each other's nervous habits.

[mz-bstone.livejournal.com]

I missed this, in the wayback. I have auburn red hair. It was more coppery until 2003, then a sudden colour shift. And very grey-blue eyes. But 5'3" and curvy.

*g*

B