The time has come for me to bare my soul in this tag of brutal honesty. XD
Let it begin!
THE RULES
- No lies allowed. If an answer is too shameful to expose you may substitute the answer with a gif/image of someone drinking tea.
- There are optional bonus additions to questions but these are not for the faint of heart.
- You complete the tag having answered every question + the bonus additions (no gifs used), you are dubbed a certified tea chugger, and you deserve a badge to show the world that you are not afraid of a steaming hot cup of TRUTH.
- Tag at least one other person (a tea party with just one is not very fun. trust me.) Untagged persons are more than welcome to fill it out as well (nothing cooler than crashing a tea party).
THE TAG
What is a ‘bad’ (generally disliked) movie that you actually love?
I know that many people love Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man now, but I think that his solo movies (particularly the second one) still get a bad rap. So I’ll just say it: I love The Amazing Spider-Man. And I like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 more than I dislike it. I do wish Harry had been the main/only villain, but oh well.
What is your most shocking reading habit?
This isn’t a habit, since I don’t personally do it, but I really see nothing wrong with dog-earing pages.
Tell us the number one lie you write in your posts.
I try not to lie in any of my posts. On occasion, I will hype up a book or movie a tiny bit more than I really feel like doing. (As in, I may have felt a bit more meh about a book than I let on in the review.) But I do really try to be honest with my reviews! Especially since I’ve been gypped by gushing reviews. (Don’t get me started…)
Tell us the worst character name you’ve ever thought up. {Bonus: share a character name you find ridiculous in a book/movie.}
I’m sure there are bad character names I’ve come up with, but I’m drawing a blank.
Okay, okay.
I wrote a western once upon a time where the main character’s name was ‘Edward Smythers.’ Not the worst, but what is that last name??
As for another author’s character name that I find ridiculous, Charles Dickens has a lot. But they’re meant to be ridiculous, so I doubt that counts.
What is the real reason you procrastinate writing your work in progress?
Laziness. And probably some fear of failing to write perfectly.
What is a genre of music you secretly love?
I don’t know about genre per se, but I’ve enjoyed songs from ABBA despite not listening to their music/that genre in general.
If you’re a plotter, what do you really think of pansters? If you’re a panster, what do you really think of plotters?
I’m a hardcore plotter. I don’t understand pantsers at all. But if it works for them, who am I to say nay?
Share at least three lines of dialogue from one of your first writing projects. {Bonus: give us the good stuff. your most gruesome butchering of the English language.}
From an extremely juvenile horse story I wrote a decade or so ago:
“This horse is pretty bad-looking,” Mrs. Smith was talking. “But if anyone can pull him through, you can Mr. Hardy.”
“Well Mrs. Smith, we’ll do our best.”
“Do you want to keep the horse once we’re finished with him?” Burt asked.
“Do you think he’ll be any good as a saddle horse?” Mrs. Smith queried.
“I think there’s a fine horse under all this dirt, and I’m determined to get that horse out. Just leave it to us.”
” ‘Us’, what do you mean ‘us’? I thought it was a one man operation here.” said Mrs. Smith.
“No, I do the actual training and that, but my daughter brushes and talks to the horse, winning his trust you know, and my wife is kind of the treasurer of these stables.”
Oof.
Tell us the title & artist of the last song you listened to.
‘Rubber Ball‘ by Bobby Vee.
Which beloved book/movie character do you dislike & why?
Samwise Gamgee.
But before you unfollow me, let me explain!!!
Although I do dislike Sam more than I probably should, I also recognize how wonderfully self-sacrificing and loyal he is. (And please note that ‘dislike’ does not equal ‘hate.’)
My dislike of Sam stems from a couple things. I resent him because he gets all (or most) of the praise from the fandom, and Frodo (my favorite!) is generally and unfairly overlooked. I recognize this is quite petty. XD But my second reason? Sam is actually horrid to Gollum time and time again. He undoes all the work Frodo has done with/for Gollum in trying to bring Gollum back to the side of goodness.
Now of course there are extenuating circumstances. They’re in dangerous territory, Gollum really is quite a fiend, and Sam feels a big responsibility to protect Frodo from any danger. All well and good. But Sam antagonizes Gollum a LOT when he could have just held his tongue and followed Frodo’s example of mercy and kindness. He didn’t though. And the fandom all but ignores that side of Sam, which really bugs me.
Anyway, just take a look at what Tolkien said in Letter #246!
Sam is meant to be lovable and laughable. Some readers he irritates and even infuriates. I can well understand it. All hobbits at times affect me in the same way, though I remain very fond of them. But Sam can be very ‘trying’…If he had understood better what was going on between Frodo and Gollum, things might have turned out differently in the end.
For me perhaps the most tragic moment in the Tale comes in II 323 ff. when Sam fails to note the complete change in Gollum’s tone and aspect. ‘Nothing, nothing’, said Gollum softly. ‘Nice master!’. His repentance is blighted and all Frodo’s pity is (in a sense) wasted. Shelob’s lair became inevitable.”
If no one agrees with me, it’s okay. Tolkien would have. =)
Tell us the title & topic of a post you have left in draft.
‘The Christian Themes of A Quiet Place‘
Will it ever see the light of day? Who knows!
What is a book you pretend you’ve read/would like to read but know you never will? {Bonus: share a time when claiming you’ve read a classic/well-known book didn’t end well}
I don’t pretend to have read books. (At least not anymore.) There’s no shame in not having read a book!
Tell us the title & topic of the most embarrassing post you’ve ever written. {Bonus: include. the. link.}
Too many to choose from, hehe.
I TAG…
I’m not going to specifically tag anyone. It’s open to anyone who’d like to answer these questions, as indicated in the tag rules, and I’ve included a ‘clean’ copy of the questions below, for your convenience. 🙂
What is a ‘bad’ (generally disliked) movie that you actually love?
What is your most shocking reading habit?
Tell us the number one lie you write in your posts.
Tell us the worst character name you’ve ever thought up. {Bonus: share a character name you find ridiculous in a book/movie.}
What is the real reason you procrastinate writing your work in progress?
What is a genre of music you secretly love?
If you’re a plotter, what do you really think of pansters? If you’re a panster, what do you really think of plotters?
Share at least three lines of dialogue from one of your first writing projects. {Bonus: give us the good stuff. your most gruesome butchering of the English language.}
Tell us the title & artist of the last song you listened to.
Which beloved book/movie character do you dislike & why?
Tell us the title & topic of a post you have left in draft.
What is a book you pretend you’ve read/would like to read but know you never will? {Bonus: share a time when claiming you’ve read a classic/well-known book didn’t end well}
Tell us the title & topic of the most embarrassing post you’ve ever written. {Bonus: include. the. link.}
What’s a genre of music do you secretly love? A movie you adore that critics despised? Let me know in the comments!
Eva-Joy
THE CAFFEINATED FANGIRL 
I always thought Harry should have been the main villain in the Amazing Spiderman too, would have fixed everything. Sam can get annoying it has to be said. Great answers!
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I would have loved for more of the focus to have been on Harry, for sure.
Thanks!!
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I occasionally dog-ear pages. Books are not sacred objects to be worshiped or revered.
Fakely gushing reviews are so awful. Finding something nice to say about a book that you overall didn’t enjoy isn’t the same thing — you can genuinely like the book’s characters without liking the whole book, for instance.
Edward Smythers kind of sounds like a Dickens name. Hmmmmm.
You seem like a very sane sort of plotter. Not the sort that shakes fingers at non-plotters and tells them they’re doomed to badness/failure/misery for not plotting. I like you.
It’s so funny that you see Sam as getting all/most of the praise in the LOTR fandom. Maybe this is a more recent thing? When I got into LOTR, lo these 20 years ago, almost no one cared a fig about Sam. It was all Legolas this and Legolas that, and Frodo this and Frodo that. Once in a while, you could stumble over an Aragorn fan. But Samwise? Who cares? And now, you’re right, it’s kind of a thing to praise Sam to the high heavens. Weird.
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I’ve had that happen before! Where I liked a character in a book, but not the book itself. It’s kind of a weird feeling…
Still don’t understand pantsers at ALL, but I’ve seen first-hand how it works for, say, Katie. So I have to believe it’s A Thing.
Was everyone obsessed with Legolas because of Orlando Bloom? I’m guessing so. 😉 It *is* pretty interesting to see how fandoms change over the years–who knows, maybe the pendulum will swing again and Sam will be forgotten. (Which I don’t want to happen! Balance, people, balance.)
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I have pantsed short stories successfully. I just can’t do novels without a plan.
Yeah, Orlando Bloom was a big part of Legolas’s popularity. Same for Elijah Wood being considered very cute at the time the movie came out and making Frodo super popular. And I was just over in my corner going, “Do you people not have eyes? Can’t you see how gorgeous and amazing Boromir is?!?!?” Lol.
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Um, yes. Boromir is easily the most attractive member of the Fellowship, in my completely unbiased opinion.
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What is a ‘bad’ (generally disliked) movie that you actually love?
Considering I’m a fan of hilariously bad movies, there are too many to count.
Also, I wouldn’t feel guilty about liking Amazing Spider-Man. The first movie has a lot of fans, and the second does have its defenders. As far as I’m concerned, the second movie is a pretty good romantic comedy hidden inside a rushed, overstuffed superhero movie. That’s far from the worst superhero movie ever made.
What is your most shocking reading habit?
Don’t know if I really have shocking reading habits. I guess the closest thing is, I get annoyed when someone interrupts me when I’m in the middle of a chapter. Not really an issue anymore when I’m living on my own.
Tell us the number one lie you write in your posts.
I don’t really lie. Sometimes I understate things, or exaggerate things as a joke, but I feel uncomfortable when I put lying into writing.
Tell us the worst character name you’ve ever thought up. {Bonus: share a character name you find ridiculous in a book/movie.}
Agent Bulfner, or Bulfnar, depending on which sentence his name appeared in. A character in a series I wrote back in my early teens called Body Count, which was pretty much a ripoff of Mission Impossible, James Bond, a video game called Perfect Dark, and probably several others. Every now and then I consider posting part of some of these stories as a way to make fun of myself.
In another series I wrote not long after (in which i finished one story, and never finished the second), there are a couple characters with the last name Haraphebian. No idea where that came from, but it yields no results on Google … so there’s that.
What is the real reason you procrastinate writing your work in progress?
My most usual form of procrastination when I’m writing or editing is, when I do spontaneous research, I stumble into a rabbit hole of mildly related topics. One of my personality traits is that I just like to have a lot of general knowledge about stuff, whether I’ll ever need that knowledge or not.
Perfectionism can also slow down my writing a bit, as I tend to fix any spelling and grammar mistakes I notice even when I’m writing a first draft … not that I catch everything.
Share at least three lines of dialogue from one of your first writing projects.
I’ll just give you one.
“Our new laser gun we have invented has it all,” Agent Bulfnar explained. “Laser intensity/Speed adjuster, tracking system only responding to our receivers, high tech cooling system, temperature gages responding to both inside, and outside temperatures. But the best feature is it’s recharger, you won’t have to charge it up because it charges up itself.”
Yeah … I included a slash in dialogue, multiple spelling mistakes, and some sort of magical recharge device that requires no external power source, embedded into a laser gun. This story takes place in 2021 by the way. Here’s a bonus paragraph from an action scene in the same story that I cannot even begin to make sense of.
The gunfire of the terrorist’s own machine gun was scary. Which kind of gun do you know about can shoot 35 bullets per/second, shatters wood like glass, and hardly shakes around at all? That’s what the terrorist’s gun was like.
This specific story’s subtitle is, Operation Red Hot, and I even imagined up a rock theme song (like how most of the James Bond movies have a theme song in the opening credits) to go along with it. Yeah, I was a bit of a weird teenager.
What is a genre of music you secretly love?
I’m not all that secretive about my music tastes. There are few genres I don’t like at least on a casual level, one of which being yodelling rock (which is kind of big in Scandinavia)
Not saying I dislike it, it just doesn’t interest me. Like with a lot of my other interests, I enjoy variety.
If you’re a plotter, what do you really think of pansters? If you’re a panster, what do you really think of plotters?
I’m usually a hardcore plotter as well. I once tried to partly pants a novel for NaNoWriMo (with an anarchist villain, it made sense), but I still haven’t finished that book, as much as I like the general direction it took, and the planned ending I had for it. I can’t fully understand pantsers, but I have respect for those who can write a book without a plan and actually finish it. Usually I don’t start the first book in a series if I don’t have at least a general idea of how it’s supposed to end.
Which beloved book/movie character do you dislike & why?
Iron Man, but more the comics version than the movie version. Long story short, Iron Man in the comics can be such a jerk that he makes the worst of Iron Man in the movies look like a biblical angel.
Tell us the title & topic of a post you have left in draft.
I planned on writing a blog post long ago called “What I learned in England”, which was basically a summary of some of the things I learned when my family went to England in 2015. Yeah, that will most likely never get published at this point, and is basically a personal journal now.
What is a book you pretend you’ve read/would like to read but know you never will? {Bonus: share a time when claiming you’ve read a classic/well-known book didn’t end well}
I don’t remember ever pretended to read a book that I’ve never read. I’m always upfront about books that I’ve researched, but never read.
Tell us the title & topic of the most embarrassing post you’ve ever written. {Bonus: include. the. link.}
That would be one of the many posts I uploaded on my old blog, which I still link to on my current blog (I’m not sure if I’ve ever updated the links on the right side since I started my blog). I’m frankly embarrassed by most of the movie reviews I ever uploaded there, and even more embarrassed by the lists I posted early on. Especially if it was in within the first couple months of the blog, when I was too ambitious for my own good. i even advertised a couple of those blog posts in hostile environments, which in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have done.
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I mean, Amazing Spider-Man 2 is nowhere near as bad as Fan4Stick. =)
Haha! Those writing excerpts were great. Obviously not in a ‘good’ way, but it’s clear you had a lot of fun writing that series.
I didn’t know that Iron Man in the comics was such a jerk! Have they ever started writing him to be more like MCU Iron Man, with the success of the movies?
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After the first Iron Man movie came out, they started writing him in the comics as close to his movie version as possible. The art also started looking more like Robert Downey Jr. But here are some of the terrible things Iron Man did in the comics before the movie came out.
1 – tricked the Hulk into being sent to another planet, where they hoped he would stay. This would eventually lead to the comics event, World War Hulk.
2. Faked his own death and never told any of his closest friends (back in 1983)
3. In the comics Civil War event, the US government came up with a bill requiring all superheroes to register for the government. He helped build an inter-dimensional prison to hold any heroes that didn’t register without any due process, created a psychopathic clone of Thor that ended up killing the hero Goliath, pushed Peter Parker into revealing his identity to the public, only to not give him any protection in the aftermath (which ended up getting Aunt May shot), and more.
4. During the Demon in a Bottle storyline (which dealt with his alcoholism), he intentionally put on the suit while drunk, and ended up causing a lot more problems than he solved. It’s actually a very good story, but still.
5. Early in his superhero career, he gave the iron man suit to a boxer, who happened to have brain damage from boxing … which risked the boxer’s life.
There’s plenty more, but that’s probably a good way to summarize things.
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Wow, yeah, he sounds like quite a jerk. I’m not sorry I’ve only seen the movies. 🙂
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I don’t know what’s bolder… your not hating dog ears or your disliking Sam!!! 😆
Honestly though I enjoyed that critique of Sam. I had forgotten that part of his character, and I totally see it now. That makes me want to read the books again. When I last read them (ummm like half a lifetime ago 😮 ) my favorite characters were Gandalf, Frodo, and Sam, in that order. 🙂
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Haha! I mean, I like Sam and I don’t like him. If that makes any kind of sense. I think I more dislike the fandom’s discussion of him than his character itself, y’know?
I want to read the book again too!
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For the record – I am a fan of Sam.(Why does his name always remind me of the Dr. Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham? I Am a Fan of Sam I Am). “Green Eggs and Sam” or “Sam Stan” Sounds like the birth of a meme! Not a fan of Gollum though.
The genre of music that I secretly love is Vaporwave. It’s weird to listen to at first but overtime it becomes soothing.
I also like a little lofi music by Yoni Charis. (Specifically by him because some lofi music out there is not appropriate).
Funny thing with Abba, I had never heard of them until high school. Someone uploaded The Monkees tv series on YouTube and to avoid copyright they implemented Abba music over The Monkees music. I was mortified that someone would DARE to place Abba songs over the Monkees, but I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Abba’s music videos. That was my introduction to Abba.
A movie that I adore is more of a short film – The Crime of The Age(1988)
I still quote it to this day and it reminds me of the board game Clue. It’s one of those cheesy mystery movies that you need to see at least once.
The name ‘Smythers’ sounds like he’s about to creep into your house and steal all of your cookies from the cookie jar and slither/slide out like the Grinch on Christmas.
Great tag!
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*Seuss* I was typing too fast to notice that
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Sam is a good guy, definitely! And Gollum…is not. XD Though he *could* have been.
That’s so weird/funny about the Monkee episodes! And The Crime of the Age sounds interesting. I’ll have to check it out.
LOL. That’s actually true about the name ‘Smythers.’ XD
Glad you enjoyed this tag!
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ABBA over The Monkees? I don’t mind either one, but some things shouldn’t mix. That person ought to be hunted down and arrested!
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Yesssssssssssss! I’ve been waiting for your tag answers! And they did not disappoint 😀
I’ll be honest (heh heh heh…) Our discussion of Sam’s flaws actually made me like him more, not less. Because the way the fandom usually talks about him, “An Angel who has Never Done Anything Wrong, Ever,” sounds boring and unappealing to me. Let him be human! Let him have faults! Let him make choices that aren’t perfect!
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I’m glad they met with your expectations. 😉
Yeah, I get your POV about Sam! I think discussing his flaws can be a good thing, leading to interesting conversations and a deeper look at his character, for sure.
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Oh, my, I may have to do this to keep myself honest. I have to agree about Sam, mostly because of what you cited about his treatment of Gollum. Nobody’s perfect; he’s still a good guy, but that always bothered me. But you like Bobby Vee! Nobody I’ve ever met likes Bobby Vee! I thought I was alone.
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I’d really like to see this tag from you!
Sam IS still a good guy, definitely. But yeah, he could have treated Gollum better.
I’ve only listened to a couple Bobby Vee songs–but he’s a fun singer!
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I might just do it, then. Keep an eye out!
I suppose I can see where he’s coming from. He’s protective of Frodo so he doesn’t want anyone to take advantage of that; he doesn’t trust Gollum or anyone else. But it was pretty uncharacteristic for such a nice guy to act the way he did!
Vee is a lot of fun to listen to. I never realized a lot of my favorite songs were covers of things he did.
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OKAY THANK YOU BECAUSE I’VE BEEN THINKING THAT ABOUT SAMWISE FOR YEARS AND IT SEEMS LIKE NO ONE ELSE SEES IT
Man, I’m so glad to have someone else who doesn’t absolutely adore Sam. Like, I do love him, but I also don’t, if that makes sense? For one thing, I’ve noticed that characters whose main personality trait is loyalty will more often annoy me than not. And then, like you (and apparently Tolkien!) said, he really treats Gollum awfully and I don’t like it. 😛
“Now of course there are extenuating circumstances. They’re in dangerous territory, Gollum really is quite a fiend, and Sam feels a big responsibility to protect Frodo from any danger. All well and good. But Sam antagonizes Gollum a LOT when he could have just held his tongue and followed Frodo’s example of mercy and kindness. He didn’t though. And the fandom all but ignores that side of Sam, which really bugs me.”
^^ This! Exactly this.
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You agree with me??? XD
I’m glad, in a way, that someone else shares my take on Sam (which I don’t think should be controversial, because Sam’s flaws are clear for all the world to see). Your comment made my day!
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I definitely do, lol! Sam is my least-favorite hobbit, no question, so I mainly just keep quiet about him. xD
I think the thing that bothers me most is, as you pointed out, how often Sam deliberately goes out of his way to antagonize and undercut Gollum when there’s no need to do so.
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Yeeeeah, he’s my least favorite too. Though, funnily enough, I don’t love Pippin as much as most other people do (though I still do love him) and I think Merry gets really overlooked when compared to Pippin, just like Frodo being overlooked.
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