win or die
Name: Adie
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Age: 27
Location: Washington, DC
Occupation: Psychology student and freelance writer
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 don’t actually need that much space, although I’d like to have enough room to have a garden and a birdfeeder. And I need to be in the center of activity. I currently live right near a highway, and I don’t mind it at all-too little noise freaks me out. So I’d ideally like to live in an apartment in a big city (probably New York, since I know I love it there) with neighbors that aren’t too noisy but where I can hear sounds like traffic and trains and weather and occasional human voices. Brightness is also essential, both in décor and lighting. I like old-fashioned furniture; if I had infinite funds I’d decorate everything in French Empire style with a touch of bohemian and Arts and Crafts. I adore bright colors and bold patterns. If you’ve ever seen pictures of Nureyev’s homes, that’s exactly what I’d want to have-I’m obsessed with the mix of patterns and colors and all the amazing details. And I’d have to have big, comfortable chairs for reading, and a ton of space for all my books.
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. I’d wish to be able to make peace with my brain. I have ADHD and depression, and I’d like to be more motivated and less impulsive and able to get over the obstacles that I put in my own way.
2. I’d like to be guaranteed a stable income, enough to live comfortably and travel and buy the stuff I want.
3. I’d like to be successful at writing. But more than that, I want to build fictional worlds that other people want to inhabit and characters that people can’t stop thinking about whether they love them or hate them.
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’m proud that I’ve had the courage to leave multiple situations that were bad for me, even if other people told me I shouldn’t do it. I have become much better at advocating for myself, telling other people what I need and not letting irrelevant opinions sway me.
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.
Friendship is really important. I don’t have a great relationship with most of my family, but I’ve been lucky to find a few friends that have stuck with me for years, and they’re as important if not more than the family I was born with. Love is important because, as trite as it sounds, nothing good can be accomplished without it. It’s really important to make time for the things you love, if you can, even if they’re not what you do for a living, because if your job sucks or your life falls apart in some other way at least you’ll have that.
5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain.
“the red of the red rose is its own, and something no man can divide”-it’s from a Tori Amos song, and it’s important because it reminds me to remember that there is an inviolable essence to me that’s been there since childhood-for me, it’s my imagination, my passion, my ability to create new worlds, and that’s what I really have to offer. And the times I’ve been derailed from that passion have been the times I’ve been the most miserable and angry and unkind.
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’m really not good at managing money. If I see something I want, especially a book, I buy it because I feel like it’s more important to have the experience than the money. Which really isn’t true. And financial security is important; I get horribly anxious when I know I don’t have much money in my account, but my impulse control SUCKS (ADHD and I guess I’m also just a bit spoiled).
7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
Studying languages (I speak Russian and read French), reading (especially sci fi/fantasy), taking long walks, playing instruments, making jewelry
8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.
1. Dying without having done something important. I’m really afraid of not being famous for SOMETHING, which is kind of sad I guess.
2. Being weak or helpless.
3. Being wrong.
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 QUALITIES:
1. I’ve generally been pretty good at going after what I want. I’ve performed music live several times, given poetry readings, submitted to a lot of poetry journals (even pretty big ones-and with pretty encouraging results), and if there’s a fandom or a group I’m interested I dive right in, make friends with people, and start posting fics and opinions.
2. I am able to put myself in other people’s positions and understand how my behavior might affect someone else, or why someone else might not see something the same way I do. I didn’t always have much empathy-up until I was in my early twenties I was pretty oblivious to what other people thought, and it was good in some ways but bad in others. It took some really painful experiences to realize that the world didn’t revolve around me, but now I am able to empathize even with people who do fairly awful things (even though I firmly believe that understanding doesn’t equal excusing).
3. I’m imaginative. Since I was very young I’ve been creating fictional worlds and creatures and telling stories, and people often tell me they envy my creativity and seek me out for help with plotting when they’re writing.
WORST QUALITIES
1. I’m terrified of making a mistake or being wrong. When I do something “wrong”, I either tend to avoid the situation completely (with pretty bad results) or I get sulky. Even if it’s just a difference of subjective opinion, I can get defensive if someone else sees something a different way. It’s awful.
2. I have a spiteful, jealous streak. I’m really envious of people who are more successful than I am, and rather than reaching out to them I tend to try to pretend they don’t exist, which backfires on me because these are people I could possibly befriend and whose success could somehow help me. That isn’t to say that I don’t have friends who are way more successful than me or that I’m constantly jealous of them. But I also have a real fear of having to be in a position to “suck up” to someone else, or seeming like I am, which is why I’m sometimes afraid to give people compliments.
3. I can be very cold. Usually I have a long fuse, but if I feel like someone has embarrassed me (especially in front of others) or slighted me, that’s it; we’re completely done. And once someone (even a family member) has crossed the line, it’s very hard to start caring again. And then I can get a little nasty.
A Song of Ice and Fire Related
1.How many books from the series have you completed?
All except the Dunk and Egg books.
2.Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?
1. Asha Greyjoy. Yes, she’s incredibly badass, but she’s also a responsible military leader and a woman who has strong connections to her family and protects others without being coded as “maternal” or “nurturing”. She’s also brave enough to stand up and offer an unpopular idea, to propose making peace with her people’s historical enemies even though her position, as a woman, is already precarious and she risks being seen as “weak”. She’s rebellious and uncompromising without fitting the clichéd definitions of either of those words; for her, she is a true woman and a true Ironborn because she fucking says so, not because she fits some pre-approved ideal of either of those things.
2. Arianne Martell. In so many ways she’s very ordinary-she’s not a fighter or a scholar or a master politician (at least not yet-she may well become the latter of the three). But her true power is in her ability to connect with and persuade people, whether sexually or rhetorically, and we see glimmers of this ability very early on. She’s someone who has yet to live up to her potential, and she knows it; the first time she tries to become what she thinks she should be, she fails, and painfully. Unlike many of the other young characters in the novel, her painful coming-of-age isn’t just about terrible things that happen to her that are out of her control, but about her making a mistake and learning from it. And she does learn from it.
3. Jaime Lannister. His POV chapters are among the wittiest and most entertaining, but he’s also a very broken person, still reeling from the effects of adolescent trauma and deeply confused about his place in the world. And he’s a study in contrasts; he can push a small child out of a window and barely regret it, but he can also look out for the safety of a lowborn, sexually active woman with no “virtue” and think nothing of it. He can be unkind to Brienne, but then defend her life and her honor. He can see himself as nothing but a fighter, but then prove himself a capable negotiator and administrator. Jaime is one of those characters who’s very mutable and very hard to get a read on, and I’ve seen widely varying interpretations of him; this is why I think he’s so fascinating.
3.Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?
1. Aegon/Young Griff. I know we don’t know much about him yet, but what I’ve seen I really, really don’t like. After I read ADWD for the first time, all I remembered about him was him knocking over the cyvasse pieces and forcing Tyrion to pick them up. Maybe I’d like him better if we got his POV, but I just don’t feel anything for him at all.
2. Victarion Greyjoy. I actually dislike him more than I dislike Euron, even though Euron objectively is probably the bigger creep; to me, Victarion’s “villainy” seems depressingly ordinary-to me he’s like Randyll Tarly, who is similarly “badass” but the only thing that sticks out in my mind about him is what a cruel and abusive father and rape apologist he is. He’s a murderer, a homophobe, a rapist, a guy who killed his wife but then acts as if he’s the victim, and there’s nothing interesting about him to make up for all of these terrible things.. (And by “make up for” I mean as a character, not a human being-there are characters, like Euron or Tywin or Ramsay Bolton, who are pretty monstrous but who are also so theatrical or so psychologically fascinating that reading about them interests me.)
3. Rhaegar Targaryen. I know we don’t know that much about him, but I really cannot stand the way people talk about him as if he’s the greatest guy ever even though his running away with Lyanna is what started Robert’s Rebellion and caused thousands to die. Obviously we can’t discount the roles of Aerys, Robert, Tywin, Brandon Stark, Jon Arryn and others, but all of those people are generally kept accountable for their roles-Rhaegar never gets blame from anyone except Robert, and that only because Rhaegar stole the woman he loved and Robert can’t deal. And he just sounds like a real scumbag-crowning another woman Queen of Love and Beauty in front of his wife, then running off with her and leaving everyone to think she’d been abducted (even though she may very well have gone willingly), and leaving his own wife and children to be killed. I can’t fathom why people don’t consider him horribly dishonorable. Maybe I’d like him better if I wasn’t constantly being reminded of what an “awesome guy” he was.
4.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?
The moment when Theon is given the option of taking the black, but it ends up being too late. It’s just such a heartbreaking moment because his desperation and stubbornness have already closed one exit off to him and now he finally decides to take the second but…nope. It just clinches the sense of Shakespearean tragedy that I got when reading his chapters.
5. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why?
I’d like to see Stannis on the throne. He’s a hardass, but he’s not completely uncompromising, and he allows women and lowborn people to ascend to high positions. Plus he’s determined to make Shireen his heir, which would allow a woman to sit the Iron Throne eventually. I think Dany might make a good ruler with some more maturity, but not in Westeros (nor do I think she’d be impressed with the country)-I can see her ruling over some sort of confederation of slave-free states in Essos. And I want Asha to rule in the Iron Islands.