In this forum tradition we give a specific member a thread for a week in which they can share whatever information they want about themselves, then answer whatever questions the public asks them. It's sort of an expansion on the "Let's get to know each other" thread by, well, giving one member the spotlight. More information on the concept can be found here.
This week's participant is [member=7422]Ryvius[/member], who has elected to share the following information:
Yo
I go by Ryvius on much of the interwebs. I am not that active here but I do lurk sometimes and tend to post overly-personal serious or philosophical word walls, helps me collect myself an' shit. I was actually a very active member of ACF years back and it was my first forum so it left an impression on me.
I am a 20 year old woman, have had a rather eventful young life, and grew up mostly in New York (Bronx and Yonkers, ie da hood), spending the last 5 and a half years in a... rather desolate town of around 10k people in Arizona. I have spent time around a lot of different types of people and have lived a variety of different lifestyles, so I'm a bit of an mish-mosh and I've always been wanderlustful. My family consists of my mother, my brother, and my grandmother. My mother is the only one local, but I am very close with all of them.
So I'm into the usual nerd crap, vidya games, anime, etc. I used to be heavily into singing as well as art (painting, usually designs or landscapes, also calligraphy and street art) but I sort of gave it up after high school because I didn't have room or supplies to do it after I graduated. But now I do so no excuse. I play the keyboard from time to time and since I live alone I like to dance like an idiot to dubstep and other such music that induces idiotic dancing, such as 80s synthwave. I listen to many different types of music. I would probably have a kitty by now if I wasn't extremely allergic. Gradually I have started to get into cooking.
As for other things I am pretty heavily into computer geekery, I've got a certification and am trying to break into the field (my destiny as I have spent way too much of my life on the internet), so I'm always up for long winded discussions about technical crap. I like to tinker with things and in general I'm really into immersing myself in/reading about anything mentally stimulating, hence the word walls. As for entertainment tastes I like me some sci fi or very heavy cerebral or emotional stuff. Humor is nice as well. When it comes to TV I don't watch much other than sitcoms and Anime.
You're convicted of a crime you didn't commit and sentenced to death, what are your last words, last person you ask to see, and last meal?
Top 5 anime?
Top 5 books? (Or series)
Pick any one character from FF7 (and/or the compilation) for a room-mate, tell us why them?
What's your ultimate dream job?
What's one big life dream you would like to achieve, but realistically have come to accept is unlikely, due to your own choices/circumstances/talents/etc.?
What's one big life goal you want to achieve, and think that you still can?
If you have to entertain yourself for 1 hour using a stick, a spring, and a bowl of water, what would you do?
Tough choices section - pick only one (these might not be tough for everyone, ):
FF7OG and ACC, or CC and Last Order?
Star Wars Odds, or Evens?
You are now captain of your very own airship/spaceship. What do you call her?
You are tasked with forming a party to save the world. Which 4 classes do you pick for your team (Mage, Gunner, Thief etc. Can be from any gaming/fantasy abstraction)?
Ooh, that's a big topic for me now as I hope to relocate within the next year or so. Each has their appeals and drawbacks. Big cities are intense, they'll make you really mad, but are also very invigorating. Small towns make you feel peaceful but bored and are more socially awkward imo. It also depends on the particular city or town. I don't actually know anymore, because after going to a large comic con a couple months ago I realized that although I never used to have a problem with it, I don't like large crowds anymore. So I'm thinking the middle ground is probably the best. Huge cities are more stress than they're worth and the conveniences are redundant and reversed by the inconveniences associated with having too many people.
I work at a Public Library by Gina Sheridan
It's a cute little book of funny short stories and I related to it a lot as I work at a public library, so I have some crazy patron stories of my own.
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates The Jungle by Upton Sinclair The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Various non fiction works by Carl Jung and Henry David Thoreau
Basically anything where there is always more to learn and where social interaction is periodic rather than constant, where I can spend individualized attention on an issue or a client but then not have to take it home with me too much. Stable, with health and dental coverage and a little PTO. Wage doesn't matter much. A job where I can take a dump and not have everything go to hell while I'm gone for 5 minutes.
What's one big life dream you would like to achieve, but realistically have come to accept is unlikely, due to your own choices/circumstances/talents/etc.?
I would say that I would really like to travel a lot in my life, which is something that is hard to be able to do and if it involves relocation is even harder and also probably lonelier than I might consider it if it ever were a thing.
Tough choices section - pick only one (these might not be tough for everyone, ):
FF7OG and ACC, or CC and Last Order?
Star Wars Odds, or Evens?
Uhhm, Licorice I guess, because then I'd get to be well traveled and a talented fiction writer.
I would like to be Alice from Pumpkin Scissors and be involved in one of her shenanigans for a day and get to overcome challenges and help people and stuff.
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates The Jungle by Upton Sinclair The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Various non fiction works by Carl Jung and Henry David Thoreau
What is your favourite element on the periodic table, and why?
What do you like about cooking? What is your favourite dish to prepare?
Seeing as you like cerebral forms of entertainment, do you like cerebral types of visual art as well? If so, do you have any particular favourite artist in that regard? If so, what do you like about their work in particular?
1. That's hard to say. I'd like to see more places before forming an opinion on that. Living somewhere is completely different from reading about it.
2. Just English. But I've always liked to do accents.
3. 5'2"
4. Rash/inconsistent people. Being compared to others rather than being compared to my own personal benchmark.
5. This little thing, was free and had it for about a year and a half but the battery is going south. I actually am in the market for a smart phone right now but I'm having trouble making a decision. It has to be CDMA if I ever want it to be more than an mp3 player/computer and turn service on.
6. There are some celebrities I think are hot but they were all only hot in the 80s and 90s for some reason.
7. I stand corrected, Ryan Gosling is still very young looking. Unfortunately even with his face I still can't get through The Notebook.
What is your favourite element on the periodic table, and why?
What do you like about cooking? What is your favourite dish to prepare?
Seeing as you like cerebral forms of entertainment, do you like cerebral types of visual art as well? If so, do you have any particular favourite artist in that regard? If so, what do you like about their work in particular?
Chemistry is something I don't know much about (yet, but my interest is kind of budding lately), but I guess I'll just go with the generic answer of Gold because of how useful it is. And my favorite compound is Dihydrogen Monoxide, which can kill you if you inhale it.
I like to make new things that taste good, and I also like inviting people over for food. I like making burritos because you can really get creative with them and I also like to do a lot of things with potatoes.
I actually don't have any particular artist in mind, no.
If you have to pick only one for the rest of your life, what is it?
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Various non fiction works by Carl Jung and Henry David Thoreau
This is something that most people seem to take for granted but: get my driver's license. I've renewed the permit about 3 times and never had consistent access to someone else's insured vehicle. Walking everywhere is great during the fall and spring but the summer is too hot and it's prohibiting my employment options.
Shoot the spring into the bowl a couple times, dump the water out, spin the bowl on the stick for a little while, and then take a nap.
You are tasked with forming a party to save the world. Which 4 classes do you pick for your team (Mage, Gunner, Thief etc. Can be from any gaming/fantasy abstraction)?
When I play an RPG I usually go with a Black Mage, White Mage (or Sage and a Dragoon if available), a heavy hitter, and a tank (or ranged). Depends heavily on "game" mechanics. Like I would mix and match specific classes from different games to apply to RL, but how would they all fit into one mechanic?
What is one issue in the world you are interested in, and how would you go about fixing it?
One problem in the world and in America (especially Arizona, a retail state) that effects me and the people I care about is the underemployment crisis. Many people don't know if they're going to be working 34 hours and then suddenly get switched to 18 at the drop of a hat, and institutions with fixed budgets are hiring two 20hr/wk employees in lieu of hiring 40hr staff even though part timers are more difficult to manage. I do believe that there should be regulation to reduce this, but it runs the risk of putting more people out of work due to the cost of benefits and cause an uneven access to labor and increase unemployment, especially in circumstances where two part time positions are merged into one full time position. Maybe introducing ratio quotas of full to part time workers on a sliding scale of company profit so that it restricts highly profitable corporations like Walmart from abusing their employees but doesn't murder smaller businesses. In theory this would work, but clever tax filing says it might not. So fuck if I know, maybe there is an ingeniously simple and creative alternative.
It's generally a good place to work, yeah, though don't expect promotions. I work in the AV (optical media) department. I enjoy my job most when I'm doing reference and helping people find what they need (especially if it's educational), describing services the library offers (more than you think), taking individual attention to each patron. I try to be a local resource and keep up on where to find goods/services in town. Also, crazy patron stories. We are a poor library but we all work hard to bring in really high statistics and 3rd party grants. I don't enjoy it on days when my entire day consists of the checking the condition of discs for checkin/out part of my job without ever doing anything a machine can't do (and it's ruining my wrists) and it's basically an assembly line except I have to say hi to everything on the conveyor belt. We're the only library in the system that does the disc checking thing, though, and our discs are in much better condition. Since I'm AV... sometimes it bothers me and I feel a little expendable because of how you can find most things free online, including educational material, unlike books, which are most accessible at libraries.
I should start writing all of them down so I don't forget, but I've got a couple on my facebook, like: So there was this cute little old lady in her 80s who comes in in a pink nightgown (she ended up coming back multiple times on different days, in the same gown) asking where she can find gold. As I'm about to mention a couple pawn shops she clarifies that she has a metal detector and really wants to know of any historical gold deposits in the area because she's "really broke and needs money." I ask her if she's interested in finding other relics and she said no, she only wants gold. Then she asks me to give her directions to ____ Public Library so she can go there and ask them instead. I give her the directions and she asks some random patron behind her if she's the head librarian and that if she is that I'm a great person.
Then there was the bikini in the middle of the computer lab in January 2014, and the obesity fetishism porn tape in the AV drop box outside... Yeah it's basically like Walmart except it's a better job.
I do think ebooks are a good thing. Means that people are using their electronics to read once in a while. OverDrive distributes books legally with DRM to patrons of hundreds of thousands of libraries across the world. I think it's a good thing but I don't think anything should ever replace print, it's too dangerous for many reasons.
Since I'm in AV there are movies that I like to recommend, yeah. Favorite in the collection is V for Vendetta. We have a large collection, relying mostly on generous donations, and after working here 2 years if someone spouts off a movie I can generally tell them if it's in the local collection or not.
Usually that's when I sort of break out of my shell and discover new things on the internet. Whenever I crash at a friend's place it usually involves staying up until 4 am.
I play the keyboard from time to time and since I live alone I like to dance like an idiot to dubstep and other such music that induces idiotic dancing, such as 80s synthwave. I listen to many different types of music. I would probably have a kitty by now if I wasn't extremely allergic. Gradually I have started to get into cooking.
