Win or die?

[joyeuses.livejournal.com]

Name: Arielle
How did you find out about the community? If it's through an LJ user, please tell us who it is (individual user if possible, not just a community name!): pitselly
Age: 20
Location: Arizona
Occupation: College student




All About You

1. Describe your ideal house/home. Please go into as much detail as possible, and be sure to include your ideal geographical location in the description!.
I'd like a house in a vaguely modern, minimalist style, with huge windows and dark wood accents. Inside, it would be open, with sweeping lines and weird, colorful decorations to complement the otherwise neutral look of the place. When I look at the exterior, I want it to seem clean, serene, even Zen-like in its simplicity; when I go inside, I want my personality to be evident, though I don't want clutter. I'd also have a room or two - probably a computer room or somewhere to work - where there would be overstuffed bookshelves, paintings and batiks and odd wall hangings everywhere, the sort of place that's a mess but I know exactly where everything is. As much as I like order and tranquility, I can't be neat and calm all the time. As for location - somewhere cool in summer and chilly in winter, where the skies are mostly grey but there are definitely days with sunshine, next to the ocean and fairly isolated, maybe in a small town (yet still within an hour's drive or less to a metropolitan area). Maybe somewhere on the Oregon or California coast, with the forest pressing against my back, or somewhere in Britain or northern France.

And you know, I wrote this and then thought I'd be equally happy with a Creole townhouse in New Orleans or a ramshackle Victorian in San Francisco that I share with a friend or two, where the interior decorations are chaotic and messy and the city is right outside my door. Clearly I should just have two houses!

2. Imagine you’re given the classic opportunity: a genie granting you three wishes. What would you wish for? Please be as elaborate as you can. Wishing for more wishes is not permitted!
1) Acceptance for all. It's tempting to wish for world peace here, but you know, I'm not sure world peace is possible while human nature is what it is. Getting rid of poverty, curing disease, all those things would be wonderful; but in the end, we would still have politics and religion to go to war over, and without these, some of the oldest concepts in human history, what would we be? I don't know if it's possible to fit people into those constraints, so I will compromise with an end to discrimination, which will at least alleviate some of the problems in the world. (God, I sound like I just stepped out of Philosophy 101, don't I? Presume that if my navel-gazing is inaccurate, I'd go with world peace.)

2) The ability to speak, read, and understand any language I want quickly and fluently. I want to be Hoshi Sato. This would be wonderful in my travelling, should I ever manage to do so, but I'm also fascinated by the way language works, its little quirks and colloquialisms, all the varied dialects and why it works the way it does - the sort of things I could understand intimately as a fluent speaker that I wouldn't be able to without years and years of study. I'm also too impatient for the learning process and would just like to speak these languages now, dagnabbit!

3) Perfect health. Pretty self-explanatory, no? It's hard to go into more detail without oversharing, but yeah, suffice it to say that perfect health would be awesome.

3. In your life so far, what accomplishment are you the most proud of? Why? You can list more than one if you have trouble deciding. ;)
I think probably what I am most proud of is stepping out of my shell; I've always been an introvert, and I used to be extremely shy, but I took a few big risks in my teens that I was incredibly afraid to make - from auditioning for school plays to going to Europe on my own - and they changed me for the better. I still look back on my quiet, terrified fourteen-year-old self and think of how amazing it was that I managed to do what I did at that point in my life. Not the biggest or most impressive thing that could be listed here, but certainly the most influential for me, and if I hadn't done that there would probably be no room for big, impressive things in my future. So there you go.

4. Which of the following is most important to you: Love, Money, Knowledge, Family, Friendship, Adventure, or Pleasure? Which is the least important to you? Please explain why for each choice.
Family is closest to me; they, along with my closest friends whom I consider family, have been my support through every difficulty I've had in my life and have been there through the good times and bad. So yes, they're most important.

Knowledge/Pleasure: I ranked these together because they're so closely entwined for me. The ultimate pleasure is the discovery of new things, whether they be facts in textbooks, new worlds in novels, or even finding all the little, sensual things that make your partner squirm.

Love: This is kind of redundant, isn't it? You need to love for these things to matter. But I suppose you mean in an interpersonal way, which makes sense. I like to love and to be loved. Romantically, platonically, a mix of the two, whatever. All you need is love! (But a girl has got to eat, or she'll end up on the street! Love is just a game~)

Friendship: Like I said, I'm a person to have a few extremely close friends and a wide circle of acquaintances; those close friends I've known for years, and I consider them family. The acquaintances? Not so much of a priority.

Money: Despite my answer to #6, I would not be unhappy without money like I would be without almost everything on this list, hence its position at the near-bottom.

Adventure: It really depends on what you mean by adventure. I like to travel and experience new things; I do not like to run out of money in a foreign city and have to gamble my way to a plane ticket. The former I'd chuck in with knowledge; the latter is what a lot of people call ~adventure. Not my thing.

5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain.
"If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them." - John Waters. Okay, I'll be serious now. I dislike running into this question because I don't think it's answerable. I have come across books, songs, poems, and films that all speak to an aspect of me, and I have cried and laughed and been consumed with emotion for all of these things; but they each represent facets of who I am, not the entirety of me. (Of course, it's probably impossible for a quote to neatly sum anybody up, but I like being the special snowflake who complains about it.) If I had to choose, however, it would be the lyrics to the Grateful Dead song "Uncle John's Band". They're a good representation of…my perspective on life, I suppose? Not the core of my innermost soul, but what I say to remind myself of the reality of life - that it is full of coincidences and doesn't fit into arbitrary categories, so the only thing to do is live it the best you can.

Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry any more
'Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me; let me know your mind
Whoa-oh, what I want to know is, are you kind?

I also agree with the John Waters quote wholeheartedly, though.

6. How do you manage your money? On that note, how important is money/financial security to you? Go into as much detail as you can.
My best friend and I always joke that we need to marry rich so we can have the money to fund our hobbies. Obviously, I wouldn't actually do that (unless I lived in Westeros! :D), but yeah, money is pretty important to me, not for the sake of it but because it gives me a way to achieve the things I want to achieve - a good education, the ability to travel, good healthcare, a mansion on the beach…well, that last one isn't necessary, but you know, would be nice.

Right now, I manage my money by keeping a very tight hold on my bank account and tracking my purchases closely; I used to be an impulsive shopper and always ended up with no money for the things I need, so I had to set strict boundaries for myself or continue falling into the trap of the clearance racks. I buy necessities, and once a month I'll use a set amount to indulge myself - books, cosmetics, random junk I find at thrift stores (I have shelves full of the crap, I swear). If I go above my limit I take it out of next month's spending money.

7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
I love writing. I'm not big on plot - I mean, I can write one, but I don't write for anyone but myself, so I generally don't force myself to come up with an overarching theme; I stick with vignettes and character pieces because I know exactly what's going on - but I love worldbuilding. Love it. Coming up with characters, interesting, multi-dimensional characters, or exploring previously-made ones if it's fanfic I'm writing, is probably my favorite part; figuring out what makes people tick is fascinating, and sometimes things fall together so naturally it feels like the characters come alive on the page. Writing like that, when it's organic and comes straight from the soul, is almost a spiritual experience. It's so lovely. I'm also big on camping and hiking; I live in the mountains and am surrounded by pine forest, which is perfect for this. I take my dog and my gear, drive an hour, and end up in the middle of nowhere, where it's peaceful and calm. I like to hike out until I either get tired or find a good place to rest, and sit and just let my mind go. It's kind of a form of meditation for me. And probably the third thing that takes up my time is nail art. I collect nail polish and I really enjoy creating tiny designs and small paintings for my manicures. It's just really fun! And as a bonus, my hands always look great. :D

8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.
1) Intimacy. I keep myself close and hidden, and have a very, very difficult time showing anything but the most surface emotions to anybody. The thought of baring myself, my innermost thoughts and feelings as well as my physical body, to anyone is frightening. I hate being vulnerable and sharing parts of myself with someone is the riskiest thing I can do.

2) Losing control, mostly emotionally; I try to be all steely logic and piercing wit, and I really hate it when my emotions get the better of me and gallop off to somewhere emotional and unquantifiable where I can no longer control things. This sounds strange when taken in conjunction with my affection for poetry, music, art - generally things that move people to strong emotion - but even those still give me some element of control, since I am the one who decides to experience them. What I hate are emotions triggered by things I can't control, like unreasonable fear or that rush of adolescent infatuation.

3) Cars and driving. Again with the loss of control thing, but this time with statistics to back me up! I drive because I have to - where I live has no public transportation and very long distances between places - but really, cars are giant hunks of metal whizzing around each other at speeds exceeding common sense. I'm amazed there aren't more accidents, to be honest.

9. Name (and elaborate on) your top three BEST and top three WORST qualities (personality-related, not physical). Please answer as fully as you can, as this is an important question.
Best:
1) I'm creative. In the past, my interests have varied from writing to knitting to acting, but in truth, I just like experiencing things: thinking about them, analyzing them, and doing my best to interpret them in a way I haven't seen before. My passion is storytelling, though, and because of that I'm also very good at making things up on the fly (an advantage for a college student!); in fact, when I was a kid, I used to lie all the time because telling stories was just so fun! Luckily, I grew out of that phase, but that desire to create new worlds and think up new characters stayed with me.

2) I'm logical. I am very good at being objective and at examining situations from all sides. I try to reason through my problems to make sure I'm making the right choice, and usually end up happy with my decision. This has kind of made me the problem solver among my social circle, since I can step outside my emotional constraints in ways that a lot of my friends can't, and give good advice from there. I sometimes joke that my desire for logic in a chaotic world is my way of compensating for not having been born a Vulcan. ;D

3) I'm kind. I like helping people! I'm very courteous, I rarely if ever gossip, and I never do things specifically to harm others. I also really like animals, and do my best to treat them with kindness and love as well. Generally speaking, I follow the golden rule, and treat others with the same kindness I would want to receive.

Worst:
1) I can be apathetic, or maybe simply pessimistic. I used to call it laziness, but that's not quite it; instead of not wanting to do things and then feeling bad about it, I tend to...not care, or assume that they wouldn't be any good even if I tried. I often think I'd be content to just exist and let life pass me by, rather than make the effort to go out there and live it to its fullest - there are a lot of fun things I could make happen in my life, but I often go eh, probably won't be worth it, and continue on the way I always have.

2) I'm insecure. I tend to assume I'm mediocre in all regards, and if people tell me otherwise, I assume they're either deluded because they're my friends, or they're lying to try to inspire confidence in me. I'm usually okay with my looks, but I have a hard time accepting that I actually can do things well - while my social skills are good, I'm always worried that I've said the wrong thing or am being too weird, etc. etc., and I usually think that my successes are either due to others or are one-off events. It's one of those cases where logic doesn't work too well on my feelings, much to my chagrin.

3) I can be cold. People have told me I'm stand-offish before, or that I'm intimidating, and I think this probably ties in with my tendency to analyze people; it's hard to make friends or seem approachable if you're looking at them like you'd rather study them than talk. Usually this changes completely once I get to know someone, at which point I'm a very warm, loving person, but that involves breaking through my initial chill, and that can be difficult.





A Song of Ice and Fire Related

1.Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?
1) Sansa Stark. She starts out as the stereotypical adolescent girl, the type people mean when they use "thirteen-year-old girl" as a pejorative, and grows and evolves over the course of the books into a survivor. Even in the beginning, when she is immature and selfish, she can maneuver around court better than your average eleven-year-old would know how to do. She is brave; she tried her best to keep her family safe, bargaining for her father's life and begging for mercy from Cersei and Joffrey; and after she thought they were all dead (or, in Robb's/Catelyn's case, inaccessible to her), she did absolutely everything she could to keep alive and relatively uninjured, even if it meant complying with the agenda of people she despised. And yet she still manages to remain so naïve! Her idealist view of the world is so totally at odds with reality and with her own actions, but as she says, courtesy is a lady's armor; if she let herself acknowledge how unfair and horrible life actually is, she'd probably shatter completely. Like her accepting the Alayne Stone identity, it's a defense mechanism, and it's a very truthful one, neither perfect nor unbelievable. I think she's one of the most real depictions of a teenage girl I've seen in a fantasy novel, and I'm very drawn to her character. As you might be able to tell!


2) Daenerys Targaryen. How do I begin to explain Daenerys Targaryen? Daenerys Targaryen is flawless. I hear her hair is insured for 10,000 gold dragons - or is that three real dragons? I really, irrationally love Dany, because she is a compendium of every trope I love. But all joking aside, I think she's an incredible character. What draws me to her the most is how she went from being a woman traded to buy Viserys an army, no more than chattel, really, to being the Dragon Queen with sheer bullheadedness and brute strength. I love that she truly did think she was doing what was best for her people, and how she couldn't stand to see people as slaves. (Even if fixing that didn't exactly work out well for her.) I love that she puts the queen ahead of the girl and that she struggles with balancing her responsibilities and her desires. And I love that when she has her inevitable downfall, the result of her perceived invulnerability and, yes, her arrogance, she comes out humbled and that much more aware of who she is and what she needs to do. I think she will come out of it stronger and more in tune with herself; she is always growing, always adapting. I think she has the potential to be a great ruler one day. Also, you know, beautiful, slightly magical, badass princess with silver hair and violet eyes. Irresistible!

3) Theon Greyjoy. Stay with me now! I used to be neutral on him, my main impression being "wow, this guy makes terrible choices!", and then I read ADwD and it made me wonder where the hell this interesting, conflicted character came from. When I went back and read his chapters in the previous books, it gave me a new view of him. In the end, like Sansa, he feels very real to me; he spends most of the series as a sort-of smart guy with a skewed moral compass who gets in way over his head and thinks he has to make these awful, terrible decisions to save himself and to earn the respect which he thinks he so desperately needs. And of course these actions damn him, and he ends up where he ends up (avoiding spoilers here). Don't get me wrong, I see why people hate him; but I like morally grey characters, and I like characters who make bad decisions and have to live with the consequences.

2.Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?
1) Ramsay Bolton. OH MY GOD THE RANTS I COULD GO ON. Look, I really like villainous characters, all right? I even like crazed madmen who torture people for fun, but not when they don't have a reason, you know, like wanting to rule the world, childhood trauma, twisted life philosophy they're trying to impart - hell, even just making sure they are always number one works for me. But Ramsay is just a monster for the sake of it, and really, he's not much more than a plot device (or a reminder of how grimdark the series is); his character is so flat, remarkable only for how despicable he is.

2) Victarion Greyjoy. Man, his chapters are boring. I do not care what happens to him in the slightest.

3) Tywin Lannister. Mostly because I couldn't think of anyone else, and when I list central characters in the series who did genuinely awful things without being one-dimensional (Gregor, Ramsay), somewhat redeemed or understandable (Theon, arguably, and Sandor), or interesting (Roose Bolton, everyone else), he's really the only option. Seriously, what an asshole.

3.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?
I…don't know. I have quite a few! The scene where the Hound, drunk and illuminated by green fire, tells Sansa about his burns and demands she sing for him, for one; another would probably be the Red Wedding. Sansa/Alayne building her snow castle out in the cold. Probably my absolute favorite would be Dany burning Drogo and Mirri Maz Duur, then walking into the flames and coming out with her dragons; a cliché answer, yes, but I thought it was incredibly important to Dany's evolution as a person. To me that was when she stopped belonging to someone, whether Viserys or Drogo, and started belonging to herself and, in a way, to Westeros. It's where she began to come into her own as a character and as a person. What really draws me are the scenes with a huge amount of emotional impact; a lot of the time they aren't happy or pretty, but if they're the sort of scenes that make me pause in my reading, ones I remember even if I've not read the books in ages, then they're the ones I love. Sadly, this usually means bad things happen to characters I love (see every Theon chapter in ADwD), but like I said, it's the emotions that count!

4. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why?
Oh god, not this question! I have no idea. If I could plot I would write things over 5000 words more often. ;) As it is, three disconnected, unlikely things that would be cool to see:

I would like a female Martell to be one of the heads of the dragon. More tough, savvy women in a story is always a good thing, and they all have Targaryen blood, right? And since this is my dream-world, it could be Arianne, and she and Dany can have a love/lust/hate relationship while trying to keep a balance between Dany's rule of the united Seven Kingdoms and Dorne's semi-independence. Includes bonus femslash!

I want Sansa to have her happy ending. I don't know how, because it seems impossible, but at least something not awful. I'd settle for bittersweet, with a touch of hope.

And, last but not least, I would really like for Azor Ahai and the Many-Faced God to tie in together somehow. After all, one is the god of death, the other the god of light who seems to despise the very concept of death - it could be either their entire religions clashing, albeit quite subtly, or their respective adherents fighting (Arya and Jaqen H'ghar versus Stannis and Melisandre? Could be awesome!). Failing that, I just want more on the religions of Westeros; the ins and outs of spirituality in fantasy worlds are some of my favorite things to read about, whether the gods are declared as real or not. The people who worship them are just as interesting.

Comments

Lannister

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