win or die
Name: Tasmin
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!): Idly browsing through the ASOIAF tumblr tag.
Age: 20
Location: UK
Occupation: Maths 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 grew up in a small village in the countryside, but I go to university in London and love it there. My ideal home would be rural though, even remote - maybe at the bottom of a hill or valley, so it's downhill all the way home. I adore walking and riding, so I'd want easy access to interesting and challenging paths and gallops. The woods where I grew up were perfect in this respect, you could walk in any direction for however long you wanted and still get home without a map, though I suspect this may have been more due to the 20 years I've spent exploring them than any innate sense of direction on my part.
As for the house itself, the most important thing is that it's large enough to entertain in but not draughty, and filled with my various hand-me-downs. I'm no Michelin chef, so as long as the kitchen's bright, with a back step I can sit on and shell peas I'm happy. I'd compromise on the house if it meant I had a wonderful garden, sheltered but sunny, where I could sit out and read or work and watch the birds and butterflies.
Geographically, I don't really want to leave the UK. But not too close to where I grew up, either.
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. Right now I'd wish for a first in my degree. It's hideously selfish, but I'm slap bang on the border, with my exams looming next term. I'm not stressed about them, but I'd certainly be far happier if I knew I wasn't about to crash and burn. It would just be one less thing to worry about.
2. Enough money to go travelling next summer, when I finish my Masters. I'm very lucky to have been born into a very comfortable family, and my parents have been wonderful about supporting me through university, but I hate asking them for money. There are still some places I want to see.
3. I'd like the genie to visit my best friend next.
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. ;)
Getting into to one of the best universities in the world for my subject was a pretty big deal for me, and then being in the top 25% of my year was an even bigger one. Knowing that you, for all your flaws, are one of the best of your generation at something is quite powerful. Also when popular people follow me on tumblr.
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.
My family. My family is small but close. The others do matter to me, especially friendship, which was vying for the top spot, but ultimately without my family I could never have any of the others. None of these things annoy me quite like my family does, which is perverse but actually quite a good metric.
Money is probably the least important to me, which is so cliche and actually pathetic given you can't do much without it, but I think if you have the rest in abundance the money will roll in anyway? That's kind of my career plan so it'd better be true.
5. What's one quote (or passage, song lyric, etc.) that effectively describes you and your values? Explain.
This is tough, man!
I know that two and two make four - and should be glad to prove it too if I could - though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure. Lord Byron.
Picking a quote about mathematics is a pretty lazy way out - which is me to a tee, really. I've always loved this quote/idiom/musing, and although I don't have a "life philosophy" this is my mathematical one; what if it's not true?
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 feel kind of uncomfortable talking in detail about money. Let's just say I'm comfortable and, thanks to my circumstances, I always have been and probably always will be.
7. Name (and elaborate on) some of your hobbies. What are your favorite things to do outside of school/the office?
I spend a lot of time on the internet, which isn't the kind of hobby you can put on your CV beneath your Duke of Edinburgh award, but it's safe to say that Buzzfeed is a big part of my life. I'm active on tumblr, and I've wasted a decent past of the last five years in Photoshop, which is probably the kind of skill I could make marketable, if every other sheltered girl of my generation hadn't done exactly the same.
In terms of actual hobbies, I like walking, and riding, and drinking. Preferably a hike or hack that culminates at a pub.
I have also drunkenly agreed to run a half-marathon in September, so I should probably list running here if only to save face.
8. Name three things you are afraid of. Explain.
1. Slugs. There's not a huge amount of explaining to be done here. They're gross - I once went camping with my friends and like five bazillion of them got inside the tent and now I've had a slug on my face I don't think I'll ever be clean again.
2. Not getting a job next year. I've been relying on my parents for too long, it's time I started giving something back to them and society at large.
3. Failing an exam this year because, chances are, that automatically leads to the above. Also I really don't ever want to tell people that.
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.
1. I'm good at arguing. Although I'm terrible at dealing with conflict, I'm very good a winning arguments logically and calmly, which I guess comes with being a mathmo who likes to bicker with her loved ones. When I know I'm right, or (more accurately) that you're wrong I will prove it, but I'll do it with a smile. I consider this an asset.
2. I'm generous. I love buying gifts for my family at Christmas and birthdays, and for my friends. I'm not as generous as my best friend, which always makes me feel a bit guilty, but I try to be and I genuinely enjoy the act of giving. I always want to tell the person what I've got them straight away though, especially if I think they're going to love it. For this reason I take Christmas shopping to the wire.
3. I'm quick-witted. I'm good at making connections between things that many others miss (though I can be smug when I do so). I enjoy lateral thinking and problem solving, though my best moments are these flashes of insight rather than consistent genius. This is great for flooring your friends jaws, not so good when the deadline was ten minutes ago.
1. I'm impulsive. I've already mentioned that I agreed to enter a half marathon, and I'm prone the the same kind of actions when I'm sober. My lecture courses this year were picked based on where I happened to be when the first lecture took place, than any kind of careful fore-thought.
2. I have a pathological need to prove others wrong. Whilst not the best trait in anyone this is fatal in a mathematician. I'm also quite sarcastic whilst doing so. I can be quite patronising when I manage to do so, as well. This is hugely hypocritical - I cannot bear being patronised.
3. I put off things I don't want to do. Everyone does it, I know, but that doesn't stop it from being a bad quality that leads to me crying and stress eating and generally being unpleasant to be around.
A Song of Ice and Fire Related
1.How many books from the series have you completed?
All of them, and I cannot wait for the next one ughhhhh, I'm too impatient to love this series.
2.Who are your favorite three characters in the series? Why?
1. Sansa Stark. She's who I'm rooting for, at this stage. She's the pinnacle of Martin's character development in my eyes, but more than that - I like her. She has been witness to dozens of horrors, and subject to yet more, and she's still all the things she should be; kind without agenda, courteous, restrained. A lot is made of Margaery's parallels with Anne Boleyn, but if anything I love the Sansa <-> Elizabeth I isometry more.
2. Stannis Baratheon. He's probably going to die, and I'm probably going to cry when he does. Leaving the Targaryen claim aside, he is the rightful King of Westeros, but he's slowly stopped fighting for that, and started fighting for his people. And that is what a King should do. And he's an adorable grump who smiles only for Shireen.
3. Bronn. This is probably my insane attraction to Jerome Flynn talking but I think he's great. He starts off amoral and accidentally becomes one of the most loyal characters, only to skip back off into the metaphorically setting sun in quite a nice subversion of the trope. I hope he makes an appearance in The Winds of Winter. GRRM needs to stop killing off the funny ones, god.
Honourable mention: Joanna Lannister. Anyone who could make Tywin Lannister smile. YOWCH.
3.Who are your least favorite three characters in the series? Why?
1. Jon Snow. I just... couldn't care less? Which is a shame because he's probably endgame and the whole Lyanna/Robert theory is, in many ways, interesting and in others is the most cliched direction the books could go in and no.
2. Daenerys Targaryen. Daenerys' arc has failed to grab me, which is, again, a bit of a bummer because she's probably going to be one of the last ones standing. Her set pieces are usually pretty stunning, but there's not enough politicking in her arc to grab me.
3. Ramsay Bolton. I want to find him interesting, and instead I am just continually repulsed. Which I guess is the idea, but still.
4.#1 Favorite moment in all of ASOIAF so far? Why?
The Purple Wedding is obviously very fresh in my mind, but I want to say Ned Stark's death. It's the first time ASOIAF shocked me, and it set the bar. Beyond that point you knew Martin would go there, and though this didn't lessen the impact of the later events I think that Ned's downfall was the original and best.
I also loved the Moon Door scene though, and I can't wait to see that.
5. In your dream-world, how would you like to see the series end, and why?
Westeros is too big, I think we've learnt that now - with one Kingdom you only have one King, and look where that grand plan's got us. Splitting back into seven is not viable, though, as the incentive to be expansionist is too great. I can see GRRM carving Westeros into five laterally, with the Starks restored in the North under Sansa, the Tullys in the Riverlands/Iron Islands/Vale, the Westerlands/Crownlands by..whoever's left alive, the Reach/Stormlands by the Tyrells, and Dorne by the Martells. It'd be a fragile truce, and one which would take many generations to stabilise but it may just have half a chance with good counsel, sane leadership and honest diplomacy. That is to say: Petyr Baelish must die.