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Hi! My name is Danika and today I have the Booktuber TMI tag. I was tagged by the wonderful
Monica of sophisticated blueberry.
To start off with in this tag, I have to make a confession that I have a terrible memory
and I'm not a visual person, so a lot of these questions I just didn’t have an answer with.
So I skipped those ones that I can't even answer, because... a fictional character's
style? I don't know. I don't pay attention to their clothing, and if I did, I probably
would have forgotten it by now.
So I'll start off with Your "book boyfriend" or fictional crush?
So this is a super presumptuous question to start out with [laughing]. Because all booktubers
are heterosexual females, I guess. I’m going to count Tara Maclay because she's in a graphic
novel, and she is my fictional love for all time. This ones even signed by Amber Benson.
Ever loved a character and then started hating them?
I had a really love/hate relationship with Harry in Harry Potter. So I loved him at first,
and then for a while I bought into that buzz of “Oh, Harry's so annoying, he's so whiney,
he’s a terribly person”. It wasn't until I reread it multiple times that I realized
that that's not true at all. Harry is just a complex, interesting character that is flawed
character but is ultimately trying to do the right thing, and is actually pretty great.
He is sarcastic, he's funny, he's loyal, he's genuinely trying to do the good thing and
help people around him. And just because he's flawed doesn't mean he's terrible, so, I've
come back around on Harry. I appreciate him a lot more now.
Biggest/longest/heaviest book on your shelf?
I think Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is my longest book, which is over a thousand
pages. But this Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage book is heavier, because it's a hardcover
and it's also really wide.
Next is Do you have any book posters?
And yes I do. I'll take you on a little tour. Here's kind of my Hufflepuff banner. I've
also got this Harry Potter that I switch out the pages of every once in a while. Here's
another Harry Potter poster that I got from my work, because my bosses found it in their
attic and gave it to me. It's actually on cardboard, so you can carry it around. And
this is my handmade Hufflepuff poster from the first bookstore I worked at. On the release
date of the last Harry Potter book, one of my coworkers made these posters for each of
the houses, and she got me to take this one home and I've had it ever since. And my last
Harry Potter poster/flag thing that I also got from my bosses, who I think also found
it in their attic. And this is a painting one of my friends did for me. Oh, and I can't
forget this one, which is my lesbian pulp poster slash painting that I got for Christmas
and is hanging out with all my other books. I think it complements well.
And then Do you have any book themed jewelry?
I'm actually wearing one right now. It's my Harry Potter necklace that has Hermione and
Crookshanks, and I got this at Leakycon. Another Leakycon find was this Hufflepuff necklace
with a little key. Then I have this kind of steampunk book locket.
The next quesiton is Your book OTP?
I’m not usually a big romance person when it comes to books. Looking through my favourite
books, most of them, if they do have a romance, are not really the best romances. I'm more
the individual characters than their relationship. But if I has to choose, it would be a relationship
in Tipping the Velvet. Mild spoilers, look away, skip if you haven't read Tipping the
Velvet yet. My OTP would be Florence and Nan. Because when I first read Tipping the Velvet
this was a really important relationship to me. It is still pretty influential on me.
I love that it's not her first love, and that maybe it doesn't start off really romantic,
but that it can be better, even, for that?
The next question is Favorite book series?
And, I mean, c'mon. It’s Harry Potter. And I fully recognize the many, many flaws in
this series. Mostly that it relies on the metaphor of oppression without actually representing
oppressed groups of people in the real world. But this is such an important series for me.
It’s just such a touchstone, I know it so well. Harry Potter has just been so important
in forming my own identity that I can't really separate myself from it.
My favorite stand-alone is Tipping the Velvet.
I don't remember when I started reading. I know it was young, it was before I started
school, but I have always loved books. They have been a passion of mine ever since I could
pick them up.
Which Hogwarts house are you?
I think you might be able to guess. I am such a proud Hufflepuff. I will defend Hufflepuff
to anyone at any time.
Quality I look for from a book?
Beautiful writing is a really big plus to me. The thing that really makes a book my
favourite is if it makes me look at something in a different way, if it's got a really powerful
message that I hadn't considered before. Those are the ones that really stick with me.
Favorite book quote?
There's one quote that I keep coming back to [laughing]. And I just think is amazing
every time. And it’s kind of funny because I haven’t actually read the book that it's
from, I've only read the quote. It’s from a letter that Virginia Woolf wrote to Vita
Sackville-West. And I haven't read her collection of letters, but I love this one.
Look here Vita — throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the
river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle
of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions,
myriads — They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw
over your man, I say, and come.”
My favorite author is obviously Sarah Waters.
For favorite book cover, there’s a Tipping the Velvet cover that I don't have, it's for
the hardcover, it's got oysters on the cover. I really like that one, but I don’t have
it. So I'm gonna say the cover that I got blown up as a poster. The lesbian pulp one.
That's pretty good.
Action or romance?
I don’t really seek out either in books, but I'm gonna say if it’s straight romance,
I'd rather have action, and if it is *** romance, I'd rather have romance.
Where do you go when a sad moment happens?
I will usually just cry wherever I’m reading. I'm a crier. If I'm in public, I'll try to
blink them away.
How long do you need to finish a book?
I guess about three or four days is my average?
How long is your mourning period?
I don’t actually know what this question means... I'm going to assume it means how
long until you start a new book after you finish one. And I don't usually start a new
book on the same day that I finish one, unless it's a readathon, but other than that I'll
just keep going.
Least favorite book, I'm not going to name, because it was a self-published book, and
it was sent to me for review, and I spent the whole time I read it just dragging myself
through looking for one positive thing to say. That was a rough read for me.
Turn on in a character?
I love complex characters: multifaceted, layered, flawed characters.
Turn off in a character?
It's just... *** male protagonists. I'm so done with sexist, bigoted guy main characters.
I don't care. I've had too many stories that I've absorbed that have these people as the
main characters and have people still rally around them, and I--I can't. It's okay for
a character to be flawed, but when it's that same flaw celebrated over and over and it's
not really questioned, I can't take it.
Reason I joined Booktube?
Well, I'm always looking for another place to talk about book, but also because even
though I fell in love with Booktube, there wasn't a lot of *** books that I could find
on Booktube, so I wanted to add my voice.
Name a scary book: The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan is one I read I think last October.
And I loved it. It's kind of this creepy haunted house story. And it also have this amazing,
like, "unlikeable" female character as the protagonist. She's so snarky and bitter and
I loved it.
Last book that made you cry?
I don't know, I cry at commercials/ I probably cried at the last book I read. I can't keep
track.
Last book I gave 5 stars was the first book I read this year, which was The Color Purple
by Alice Walker. though I also read The Truth About Stories by Thomas King, that was a reread,
but I also gave that one five stars.
Any favorite book titles?
The first one that came to mind was Sara Farizan's Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel. All
the time I was reading it, I would look over at that cover and be like "Right? Right?!"
Also when I updated my progress on goodreads and it posted on facebook, one of my facebook
friends tried to click through because she thought it would be like an advice article
and was really disappointed when it wasn’t.
Last book you read?
The last book I finished was an audiobook and it was Flight by Sherman Alexie. I highly
recommend that one, especially as an audiobook, because the narrator does a fantastic job
with it.
Book you're currently reading?
That's Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. I'm really enjoying this, but I'm taking longer
to read it than I thought I would, because it's a lot of really big ideas, so I don't
want to race through it.
Book world you want to live in?
My first instinct is to say Harry Potter, but I don't think that’s true. Because A)
I would definitely want to be magical. If you were a squib or muggle in the wizarding
world that would suck. And B) it would have to be after Harry’s time. I don't want to
be there during the war. So you know what, I'm going to say the world of Boy Meets Boy
by David Levithan, because it’s like a little *** utopia.
Book world you would least to live in?
I’m going to say the world of Feed by MT Anderson because it’s basically our world,
but with capitalism taken up another notch.
Last time you smelled a book?
I don’t really smell books that much to be honest. Unless I am pricing them at my
job and then I'm smelling them to see if they smell weird or if I’m just imagining it.
Do you write?
No. I am a reader, not a writer.
Favorite magical item?
A wand, but only if you're magic. It's gonna be pretty useless if I'm still a muggle.
My quidditch position?
I would say spectator, but let’s be honest, I probably wouldn’t even make it to that.
I’m not a sports person.
Name a song you connect to a book.
I listen to quite a bit of wizard rock, so there's quite a few. I’ll just shout out
Lauren Fairweather in general and "Home" in particular.
Favorite book fandom will still have to be Harry Potter, because it’s just massive.
You can find pretty much anything in the Harry Potter fandom. You will find your little corner
that you'll enjoy. And I've gotten to actually go to physical things created by the Harry
Potter fandom like cons or the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It's so huge that it's actually
manifested physically.
How many books do you own? I think it's about 600.
Who do you tag? I'm not going to tag anyone, because this is a really long tag, but if
you do want to do it, feel free to. And thank you for watching! Bye!