The Thessaliad, Tumblr Edition

3: If you could get a Sharpie tattoo on your back, what would it be?

I’ve always had a yen to get a tattoo, actually. But if we’re talking relatively non-committal … I think I’d like to have sheet music to a song I like. Maybe ‘Leliana’s Song’ or something.

6: What kind of smoothie sounds really good right now?

Mango-raspberry.

9: Most embarrassing moment from your high school years?

The day I got stomach flu. I had a Spanish teacher that year who didn’t like me very much for some reason, and he was really strict about two things: people speaking only Spanish in his class, and people being on time to class. I was late into his class because I’d had to stop at the bathroom to throw up, and when he stopped me at the door and asked me why I was late (it was all of two minutes, but…) I didn’t want the kids to overhear (a few of the people in my class were the biggest bullies I had to deal with at school), and I wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase it in Spanish, so I murmured “Yo este malado” - literal translation, “I was sick”. He turned around and announced to the class, “Just so you know, the Spanish for ‘to vomit’ is ‘vomitar’. Then sent me to the nurse’s office. Which was good because I could not have faced my classmates after that.

12: Did you like swinging as a child? Do you still get excited when you see a swing set?

Not overly. My main memory of swing sets is when a friend of mine accidentally hit me in the face with a wooden swing, resulting in a trip to the emergency room, a thankfully unbroken but badly bleeding nose and two black eyes that made me look like a raccoon. I always preferred the monkey bars.

15: What’s your most favorite part of your personality?

My ability to keep my brain entertained.

18: Answered.

21: Whole, skim, 1%, or 2% milk? (Did you know they make 1 1/2% milk?)

Neither. Lactose intolerance. I take soy milk the few times I take it at all.

24: Answered.

27: If you had to have a cow or a pig, which would you take? Why?

Cow. You have to slaughter a pig to get anything useful from them, whereas I could keep a cow for milk (which I’d have to sell, clearly) until it died of natural causes.

30: Answered.

33: Favorite kind of bean? Kidney? Black? Pinto?

I’m not really a bean sort of person, but I suppose kidney beans, generally in Mexican cooking.

36: Have you ever eaten Ethiopian food? Vietnamese? Korean? Nepalese? How was it?

All but Nepalese. Ethiopian was okay but it’s not a favourite; Vietnamese is awesome; and I like Korean enough to actually have a favourite Korean restaurant.

39: Do you eat enough vegetables?

I think so. I like veggies.

42: Do you swear in front of your parents?

Not that I talk to my parents much these days, but … not so much my dad; I was young enough to actually care about the proprieties. I’ve sworn in front of my mother and got glared at for it, but not enough to stop.

45: Do you want to get married? Have kids?

Not really. I wouldn’t mind someone to snuggle, but kids are pretty much off the cards for me.

48: Have you ever used something other than “makeup” as makeup? (Like paint? Markers?)

No, but I have used “makeup” for something other than its intended cosmetic purpose. When I was two or three, I got it into my head that I wanted to redecorate my mother’s bedspread. In my defence, it was a 1970s blue-and-yellow monstrosity. So I picked up her bright red nail varnish and my mother found me happily painting the bedspread with it. She screeched; I didn’t know she was there so when she started making all that noise, I jumped a mile. Loaded nail varnish brush went one way, bottle went the other way … bright red nail varnish everywhere, including on me and my spiffy new dress. My mother was unthrilled.

(All the Puppygeddon for Reg!)

It was the perfect sandwich. Thick slabs of boar, roasted to perfection, and three different types of cheese, all piled between two slices of herb bread with cheesy crust. Alistair, who had spent most of the morning teaching new Warden recruits the not-so-gentle art of the Holy Smite, had been waiting for this sandwich all day, and it met each and every one of his exacting expections, right down to the utter lack of vegetable matter and the use of cream cheese instead of butter on the bread. Perfection had a shape, and it was THIS SANDWICH.

He spent a moment watching it, admiring and anticipating, and even rubbed his hands together in glee. “I am going to enjoy this,” he said.

Then he heard the little whimper, off to his left. He looked down to find Duncan, admittedly his favourite of his five loving, persistent, infuriating little mabari pups, looking up at him with huge, pleading eyes. Those eyes flicked, just for a second, to his sandwich. Then Duncan turned his puppy-eyes back on Alistair, sat up on his hind legs, and begged.

Alistair sighed. “Oh, come on. The kitchen’s full of boar. And you don’t even like cheese.” A thought occurred to him and he asked, “You … don’t like cheese … do you? Is cheese good for dogs? Then again, Finbar used to eat anything that didn’t run away fast enough, including deathroot, so…” He shook his head. “Oh, Maker’s mercy, can I just please have my sandwich?”

Daveth trotted up behind Duncan, gave his littermate a quizzical head-tilted look, then looked up at the sandwich. Immediately his little stump of a tail started wagging and Daveth joined Duncan in the begging. Jory, lolloping along behind Daveth as usual, joined in on the basis of the smell alone. Alistair, confronted with three sets of puppy eyes, groaned. “Andraste’s flaming sword, can’t I just have this one sand—”

He looked over at his sandwich to find Rowan, the troublemaker of the bunch, on the table, with her little jaws locked on the edge of a slice of boar. As she dragged the meat out of the sandwich, the towering structure of bread and meat and cheese tilted in a precarious manner, and eventually fell over onto the plate, a shambolic ruination of the epitome of sandwichness.

Alistair’s whimper of disappointment matched that of his puppies. “Oh, come on…”

Wynne, the last of the five, struggled up onto the table … but instead of raiding the disarrayed sandwich debris, she gave him a compassionate look and licked his face. With a sigh that was as much fondness as regret, he handed her a slice of boar before distributing the sandwich equally amongst the pups. He could make another sandwich, but making his pups happy was its own sort of satisfaction.

…Though he felt differently five minutes later when his pups thanked him by covering him with kisses redolent of cheese-and-garlic-tinged dog breath.

1. In general, they tend to be enthusiastic people, one way or another. I guess they kind of have to be, to understand, condone and even somewhat approve of my hopping up and down in various shops, hugging a book/game box/DVD/whatever to my chest and going, “SQUEEEEEEE!”
2. In general, they have senses of humour that are somewhat left of centre. Humour of the absurd, if you will. Again, I figure that’s the only way they’ll put up with me, never mind actually LIKING me.
3. Generally, they like creating things. They write, they draw, they design … they go out and they make something beautiful, or funny, or heartwarming, or heartrending, or some combination of all those things. And I love them for it.
4. They are open-minded. While they have their opinions and beliefs, they are willing to listen to and accept, if not adopt, the opinions and beliefs of others. Where some people would have arguments or flame wars, my best friends turn differences of opinion into informed debate, intelligent essays, fanfiction or meme wars.
5. With very few exceptions, they live too far away. With absolutely NO exceptions, I don’t see them in person enough.

Likewise, hon. All the likewise. *snugs*

Well, I think I’ve met more of them than you and I’d get stink-eye from Joker if I actually made mention of sexiness, but here we go. Garrus is, like, best friend ever - I know that some of the things I do make him crazy but he puts up with me anyway which speaks well for him and sometimes I even make him smile. That’s worth a lot the way things are going right now. I like his sense of humour, though; it’s dry and witty.

Wrex … I love Wrex in that ‘older disapproving uncle’ sort of way. I’m pretty sure I made him smile a few times too. I hear he’s on Tuchanka - planet of the krogans, girl you are going to be SURROUNDED by krogans aren’t you lucky? - so I’ll get to see him again soon yay! I wonder if he’s heard I’m not dead.

Tali … man, I hope she decides to come along when we find her on Haelstrom. She and I are pretty well sympatico, y’know? At least when it comes to poking our heads into bits of equipment to see what makes it go and pull out any useful bits that no one seems to be using. Though she gets a little confused when I make things sing or dance or tell jokes. We’re going to have to work on that. Still, she sings quarian fix-it songs while poking around the engines and I have missed that so much you have no idea.

Liara … such a sweetie. A little awkward with people, but she seems to have found her niche with the slightly-creepy. Besides, she is the most loyal person I have ever met and would move heaven and earth for me. Pretty much literally. You’ll see.

There are others, but I hear you’re not quite there yet so ask me again in a few weeks, or whenever you get to the point I’m at. :)