westerosorting | Win or die! - by peer review -edited to remove spoilers

Name: Sereq ieh dashret (snow on the Red Land) aka Laura
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!): Through Deviantart: Thetourneys was listed as a Westeros community on LJ in Cersei Golden Boxing Medal by guad. I tried to access Thetourneys to see more hylarious Olympics art, but couldn't, because I'm not sorted I guess, but then I stumbled upon the whole sorting process and decided I might well give it a try, because it looks fun. And then I saw you have fanfic, and my destiny was sealed...
Age: 24
Location: Reading, Berkshire, UK (but I'm an Italian in exile beyond the Narrow Sea ^__^)
Occupation: PhD student, cancer studies. I study how cancer cells work so that we may find a way to stop them more efficiently.

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!.
Ah, that's quite easy.I'm looking for a new apartment so I have some clear ideas about the topic.

First of all it should be on the seaside or near it, somewhere warm, possibly near a nice surfing spot but also to some scientific facility. Lisbon and outskirts should be OK. I love Portuguese food (especially sweets and bacalhau) and I speak the language, so it should be perfect. You can get a bus from Lisbon to some wonderful surf beaches such as Praia Grande and Praia do Guincho and there are biotech centres nearby as well.

As for the house itself, it need not be very big, just a one-bedroom flat. The bedroom would have white walls, a high ceiling, a big double bed,in some light-coloured wood, a wardrobe (without access to soppy magical kingdoms, please) and a bookcase. On the walls, I'd hang art deco posters and prints or paintings from my significant other who is a graphic designer. The coverlet would be blue or turquoise. The window should look on the sea, but it should have blinds, I can't stand waking with the sun every day.

The bathroom should be tiled in blue or azure and the washbasin should not have two taps for cold and hot water. (My current bathroom has one such washbasin and I hate it). A shower would be better than a shover-over tub setup.

The kitchen should be spacious enough to accomodate a rough-hewn table big enough to seat a select number of friends over dinner or brunch.I want it to have an oven, because baking vegetable quiches saves a lot of time and you can carry slices to work as a packed lunch, plus I love baking cakes. The tableware would be ceramic in prouvencal style, and the tablecloth would be prouvencal as well, with a print of lavander, olives or herbes.

The living room would have a sofa bed to accomodate guests (brothers and sisters mainly), another, bigger bookcase, and a desk near a window, where my love could draw and paint at will. Television is not indispensable, but a wifi internet access is.

A garden would be much appreciated. I would grow prouvencal herbes to add to the food, a couple of trees, probably an orange and a lemon tree, and Vladimir, my loquat tree, which is 7 yo and has not borne fruit yet (it may take up to 15 years...). I would also hang a hammock to sleep in the hot afternoons lulled by the breeze.

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!
That is actually hard as nails.I'm usually content with what I have and what I do not have either I can get through hard work and a bit of stubborness or is too ideal to be had for real (like an ideal egalitarian society, peace in the world, etc...). Anyway, let's try.

#1: My significant other here with me now, with a satisfying and rewarding job. We've been living apart for a year now, seeing each other a couple of days every couple of months and this is not living, this is bare survival.

#2: Not to go bind in my old age. This needs explaining: both my grandmothers have macular degeneration, a chronic illness of the eye that progressively reduces eyesight. One of them is almost blind and the other has lost a great deal of vision. Both were voracious readers, as I am, and now that they cannot read anymore they have become quite depressed. I do not want to end like this.

#3: (this is a silly one) For Martin to take less than 5 bloody years to finish the next book. Pretty self-explanatory, isn't it?

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. ;)
Well, I managed to get a PhD scholarship in the UK. That's a bloody achievement, isn't it? Now I live on my own, in a foreign counrty and I'm thriving, mostly. I'm pretty proud of myself.

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.
Most important: Knowledge and love both. My job is all about the advancement of knowledge, about working hard to push the boundaries of what is known in order to better help people who suffer with cancer. The results may not always have a direct practical application, but in the long run, every little detail helps. Also, I'm very curious and I have several pet topics I investigate in my free time, which are useful as cool conversation topics and give me fantastic ideas for my writing (details later). Such topics are the wars between the Ottoman Empire and Europe, the French revolution and revolutions in general and, weirdest of weirds, Kemetic mythology.

As for love, I've decided to move to the UK to be able to live with my significant other away from our families. It has not worked as we had hoped because my love is still stuck in Italy completing the thesis, but our love has resisted and we will get through this at the end.

Least Important: money. It is not even a value. It is a social convention, a means to an end. I do not value money, but some of the things it can be exchanged for: museum and gigs tickets, cinema screenings, books and comics, good food, and most of it does not require vast amounts of coin. I do not want to be obsessed with it so much that it becomes an end in itself and I wouldn't want a job that pays very well but doesn't give me the time to enjoy the rewards of my work.

5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain.
When I was younger I used to keep a record of all my favourite quotes. I had loads of them, most of which were of the badass kind.
I have complex values, so that they cannot be described with just one quote. It needs at least three.

The first one is from the "Silmarillion", via Blind Guardian's song "Nightfall" (I've read the book, it is just that BG's wording sounds even more badass): How long shall we mourn in the dark?/the bliss and the beauty will not return/ say farewell to sadness and grief/ though long and hard the road may be. Feanor's words after the Darkening of valinor are basically a badass way of saying that when things start to go downhill,crying over spilled milk won't help, but kicking ass may.

The second one is from a videogame, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2. "Men fear what they do not know, and hate what they fear." pronounced by a quite nice blue-skinned person just moments before a group of religious zealots kills him messily. It basically describes the ground-state process of racial discrimination and racial hatred. That is one of the reasons why I value knowledge so much, because ignorance leads to fear and hate and violence and, as Combeferre of the Amis de l'ABC says, the only way to truly free the people from oppression, is to teach them.

The last one is in french and at least two centuries and a half old: "Liberte', Egalite', Fraternite'." the words that inflamed the world and changed its shape forever, the values that should drive a just society. Continuons le combat!

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.
I tend to spend little and still live life to the fullest. I do not deny myself little pleasures every now and then, such as books, comics or milkshakes, but I try to save for emergencies, such as broken computers/cells phones, unexpected trips home and basically the little emergencies of life. Most of my hobbies, such as reading, writing and parkour are free of charge anyway (thank the gods for public libraries).

7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
Parkour: an extreme sport originated in France. It basically is a cross between gymnastics and free climbing with a dash of martial arts and jogging, practiced in an urban setting, using parts of buildings and natural obstacles as a gym. It is one of the badassest sports ever and it is very fun, once you get the hang of it. Expect bruises, cuts, scrapes and occasional major injuries until you learn enough, but when you manage to get a trick right and you feel like flying, like the world is at your feet and you can do just about anything, man, this repays every bit of pain. I've started practicing it in the UK, last March, and I'm still pretty rubbish at it, plus, I've managed to knacker an ankle while konging a wall, but I'm better now, and I'm not giving up.

Reading: 56 books last year, 38 so far this year, the last being Dance :). I read on the bus to work, at the toilet, at the park during weekends, just about all the time, mainly fantasy and mistery. My favourite writers are Victor Hugo, GRR Martin, RA Salvatore, Daniel Pennac and Terry Pratchett.

Writing:a bit of fanfic here and there in english and portuguese (even one on Westeros), but mainly original projects in italian. #1: a novel-length urban fantasy project well into one third of the plot now, which unfortunately has spawned lots of one shots and a collateral storyline as I tried to define the personality and history of the characters.#2: an heroic fantasy novel, about a republic fighting against a theocracy, almost completely scrapped due to lack of inspiration and time. #3: a collection of short stories on Egyptian mythology, covering most of the "Contendings of Horus and Seth" plus extra bits before and after.

Music: I cannot play any instrument for the life of me, nor can I sing properly, but I love listening to music, from medieval and baroque stuff to metal, going through folk, rock and punk. I usually listen to music while doing househiold chores or data analysis and, when I can, I sing along at the top of my lungs. favourite groups? Disturbed, Three Days Grace, Amon Amarth and Blind Guardian.

8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.
Spiders: I mean, who is not? It has got worse since reading Resurrection, the last book in the War of the Spider Queen saga (Forgotten Realms). I mean, ewwwwww! Skinny, long-legged spiders are OK, they are safe and kill midges and flies, but as they get bigger... shiver.

Failing a trick and crashing into a wall/the pavement while doing parkour: quite likely and has already happened on occasion (sigh!), but it does not deter me, most of the time, it just gives me an edge of sanity when training and keeps me from trying stuff I'm not confident with.

Splitting up with my significant other: we've been together for 7 years and a half now, it is a frigging lifetime. I would not know what to do with my life, alone. Our relationship has been the leitmotif of my adult life. I would not have a reason to stay in the UK anymore, because it was our shared dream. It would be an absolute nightmare. It is unlikely, but sometimes it keeps me awake at night.

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 three:
#1 Academic prowess: I read fast, have a good memory and a certain attitude to making connections between facts and constructing testable hypotheses, which are the the center of scientifical investigation. Sometimes I come up with hare-brained ideas, sometimes they work. I have always enjoyed studying and learning new facts and theories and this sometimes got me the label of nerd. Research, however, is all about continuous education, about keeping abreast of new theories and discoveries so, what was considered a flaw during my school years has turned out to be a strong point. That's to all the smartly dressed girls in my high school, who thought I was too school for cool: :P

#2 Determination, aka stubborness: when I have to do something, if I do not succeed, I keep trying to find a way of making it work. That goes from transfecting stubborn bacteria to commuting on crutches for a month in order to waste as few days of work as possible, to re-trying the same parkour trick for an hour a at least every sunday training until I got it right.

#3 Imaginativeness: it saves my life, really. When I'm bored I start making up stories, it is an habit I've always had since my childhood. Sometimes these stories find their way to paper, sometimes they do not, but I'm never without company. Admittedly, it is noisy, riotous company, but I walk with gods, dragons and vampires in my head and I'm happy for it.

Worst three:
#1 Anxiety: I'm very fretful, on occasion. When things go wrong or during exam time or when I have to travel, stay away from me, I'm likely to explode or to make your life miserable. When the bus is late, I'd rather walk than wait. I' almost always early at meetings of any kind, I pack my suitcase two days in advance and arrive at the airport at least a good hour later than I should, because I'm wary of delays.

#2 Lack of self-confidence: I'm always thinking that people are overestimating me, both from a personal and a work-related point of view. I take every failure personally, maybe because I work so hard to get results, and I'm a bit amazed when my superiors do not berate me for them. If I were them, I would. Plus, I have quite a few issues with my appearance. My school life as a kid has been a bit hellish: I was too tall, big-boned and tomboyish and I didn't dress up to fashion, so I was called ugly and somehow it stuck. Later on, a mock-fight ended in disaster left me a scar under an eye; it is absoultely not noticeable, but for years I was convinced that it would be the first thing people saw when they looked at me. Despite what my significant other tells me, I'm still convinced I'm nothing special.

#3 Bad temper: I swear in a few different languages, sometimes at once, especially when things don't go as I whish, when experiments fail or when playing rounders and losing miserably (always, so far). I am also quick to anger and slow to forget and go totally ballistic when my principles and values get mocked. Racism and fascism will get me almost to the point of physical violence. Compound this with the fact that, when people start assuming the worst from me, I'm more than happy to oblige, and that nasty piece of work will be me.

A Song of Ice and Fire Related

1.Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?
#1 Oberyn Martell aka The Red Viper: despite being a short-lived character, he is unforgettable. A short-tempered, witty, sarcastic sexy warrior, what else could you hope for? Oh, and his "Inigo Montoya" moment is simply awesome. A pity for how it ends.

#2 Sandor clegane: a deeply cynic, tormented man, who tries to find salvation in innocence and fails. A tragic character. I loved his rant about knights and about the gods. I see him as a man who sees so much evil and suffering around him that he cannot do anything else than fight, because he will never be a victim again. I hope we have not seen the end of him.

#3 Tyrion Lannister: if he was real, I'd marry him (Creepy, I know, but if people are allowed to fangirl the Phantom of the Opera, who has no nose, I should be allowed a bit of fangirlism for Tyrion, he still has half a nose, at least). He is cultured, intelligent, a strategist, brave and witty, but he is a little person and nobody seems to see farther than this. His leading the charge during the Battle of Blackwater and the speech he gives moments before are two real Crowning Moments of Awesome.Plus, with wildfire and the chain, he saved the city. I really hope he makes it until the end.

2.Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?
#1 The Batstard of Bolton: do I need to explain? He is not even a character, just a violent plot device, on a par with Ser Gregor Clegane.
#2 Walder Frey thee Older: no honour at all, just a self-serving, treacherous, opportunistic @#*$%£. I hope all the House Frey goes up in flames or something equally drastic.
#3 Tywin Lannister: cold, ruthless, without a shred of compassion and empathy. Everything he ever did was a reaction to real or perceived slights to his honour or reputation. He mistreated his younger son to the point of infamous psychological cruelty, betrayed people left and right and, despite his aura of integrity, deep down he was no better than anyone else. He deserved the end he got.

3.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?
A tie between Dany's conquest of Astapor (Dracarys!), because of the sheer badassitude and the liberation of slaves, and the Battle of Blackwater, because of everything Tyrion does in it.

4. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why?
I'm a fan of Earn your Happy Endings and a bit of a romantic, you've been warned.

I think, by how the characters are developing, that Dany and Jon Snow are well on the way of becoming Enlightened Monarchs, so I hope to see at lest one of them on the Iron Throne at the end.

I'm quite confident that in the end the best way to control dragons will be skinchanging and to hell with cursed horns and the such. I hope Victarion Greyjoy would not have much more than an istrumental role in the plot, because he is quite a flat character.

I also whish for Bran to help save the world and for a bit more of Three-Eyed-Crow screentime. I loved him and almost had a heart attack when I realised who he was. Screentime for the Sand Snakes would be great as well.

A bit of detail about Summerhall would be great as well, since I have an inkling that may things began then.

I know I am soppy, but I wish for a happy ending for Sandor as well...

As for the Others, I do not think they have any motivation. They are the nothingness that fights against creation, a motif common to many mythologies, such as Egyptian Mythology, where Apep tried to swallow the sun for the world to end by default. I hope they are defeated or destroyed, by dragons? That would be cool!