Getting to Know You: The Answers!

All right.  You asked us a lot of (really, really good) questions, and we answered.  Twice.  See, we had the post completely finished and ready to go up a week ago, but then all the text disappeared.  We all secretly suspect that this is somehow my (Kate's) fault, as I am terrible with computers, but we've decided to be nice and blame it on Blogger instead.

There were a few questions that none of us could come up with answers for, so unfortunately we left those off, and we also removed a few more for brevity's sake--as this post got very long very, very fast.  I think you'll feel you know us much better after having read this--at least we hope you do!  And please, feel free to leave us a comment with your own answers to these questions if you'd like--we would love to learn more about our lovely blog readers as well!

To the answers!

Who is your biggest book crush, and what would your wedding to them look like?

M: Nico from Heroes of Olympus is mine! But I am a little tooo young to be thinking of weddings, right?

K:  Rhett Butler.  We would elope somewhere beachy and tropical.  I'd wear a scandalous bikini made from curtains (we'd get a good chuckle out of that), and he'd roll his pants legs up to the knees to play in the water with me.  I might also be interested in a Mr. Darcy who looked like Idris Elba--or an ANYONE who looked like him, for that matter.

Also, Mel needs an American grandmother to explain to her that her eggs are ALREADY DRYING UP HURRY AND MAKE BABIES BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

B: Roar from the Under the Never Sky trilogy by Veronica Rossi would probably be my biggest book crush, but I obsess over him and Trevor from the Pivot Point series by Kasie West often. (I also obsess heavily over both of these series, so if you haven't read either of them yet you must.) But, if I go with Roar, my wedding with him would have to resemble the utter gorgeousness that is the Still Blue. With Aria and Perry in the seats, watching us making our vows. And then next to them, my husband, wondering why I'm making vows to a fictional character.

Could you tell I may have thought this through before?

If you could live in the fictional world of one book or series, which would it be? 

M: Percy Jackson or Harry Potter. I highly doubt I'd survive in either as I'm no ass-kicking person at all. I'd probably die first thing. WHOO!

K:  Narnia, except that I would absolutely, 100% go to Narnia Hell like Susan.  Oh!  Thea Harrison's Elder Races series!  People turn into awesome mythical creatures, and everyone is very good in bed.  I'd turn into a unicorn, I think. 

B: Harry Potter, hands down. I would love to teach at Hogwarts. Although I'm pretty sure they don't teach English or AP Composition. Do they? Honestly, I just want to visit Diagon Alley. That's it. But I do want to be a unicorn...

In Divergent, characters must prove their bravery by facing a landscape of their fears, in ascending order of how bad they are.  What would your fear landscape look like?

M: I zero amount of bravery. Like, the flying fox (not the one's in children's playgrounds, the larger ones) freak me out so much. My landscape would be something like: I am running away from headless zombies but I reach a dead end cliff where my only choice is to jump where snakes and spiders (even daddy-long-legs) crawl. I am running out of oxygen and the landsape becomes narrower and narrower...

K:  What on Earth is a flying fox.  I have misophonia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, and arachnophobia. So I'm in San Diego.  I'm surfing alone, and the sky and the ocean start to push in on me, so I catch a ride in to the shore, but it's too big, and I tumble head-first, nearly drowning, cutting my head on some coral.  I make it to the beach, and I can't get my wetsuit off.  I'm covered in sand and salt, and the suit is stuck around my ankles.  A large man-shaped alien with an insect head tries to attack me.  So I stumble toward the city and end up in the convention hall during Comic-Con.  Everyone's wearing costumes, and I can't tell which of them is my alien attacker, and they're all bluffing together, and I'm stuck in a crowd that's not moving, but I couldn't move properly anyway because of the stuck wetsuit.  The crowd pushes me onto an escalator (I am TERRIFIED of escalators), and the wetsuit pooling around my ankles gets caught in it.  I struggle to get out of it, but I'm pulled under the escalator by my wetsuit.  In the space under the escalator there are huge, still spiders watching me from the corners.  the walls start to close in, and the spiders move their legs a tiny bit in anticipation of turning my insides to liquid.  The bug alien is still pursuing me, I'm sticky and stuck, the walls are closing in, and there are spiders.  Spiders.

Spiders.

B:  Maybe flying foxes are an Australian thing? Because right now I'm picturing like literal foxes with wings swooping down and terrorizing village people. (EDIT: HOLY SHIT THEY'RE LIKE BAT FOXES.) Also, Kate just scarred me for life with her fear landscape. My fear landscape would likely be laughable to you, but honestly, this would be the worst thing in the world for me. (Jenni is so going to use this against me at some point in the future.) My first and foremost fear is of fish, and my second fear is of Michael Myers, all thanks to my father letting me watch Halloween with him when I was a very young child, thinking of it as "bonding." I am also afraid of drowning, which goes hand and hand with my fear of fish. So my fear landscape would be that I, in some strange turn of events, swim out in the ocean at the beach. Suddenly, I realize I've swam too far, and am in the middle of the ocean with no one surrounding me. Seaweed grabs my legs and pulls me down into the ocean, where fish of all shapes and sizes wearing Michael Myers masks circle me. Then a shark appears wearing a Michael Myers mask. The shark just looks like it'd be an asshole, you know? Anyway, instead of the Jaws music, I hear the Michael Myers music. I drown. I suspect the fish all eat me. FIN.

Who is your favorite character in Harry Potter?

M: Ron. I love his character. He makes me laugh.

K:  I don't have one.  I love everyone in those books.  Please watch this series of videos.  It's one of my favorite things ever.  It's Sorcerer's Stone narrated by a weirdo.

Also, I have a Harry Potter story to tell you:  I went to see the movie of the one with the Tri-Wizard Tournament with my ex, right?  So when Harry was flying and the big scary dragon made him fall down, barely avoiding toppling to his death, my ex yelled out, "YEAH, RIGHT!"  everyone in the theater laughed at him.  Because in real life, a teenage wizard being chased by a dragon would never be able to catch himself on the roof of his magical school.

B: Like Kate, I really do love everyone in this series (at least the good people), but my love for Molly Weasley is extreme. For starters, a mother who is both badass and incredibly, incredibly sweet? Win. Secondly, if you know me really well, you probably know that I am a HUGE sucker for non-family members (ie: Molly) acting as a family figure for another character (ie: Harry), so I loved her a lot for that.

If you could live anywhere in the real world, where would you live?

M: If my parents were to take me to Paris, I'd probably won't sleep until I am there surrounded by Paris' beauty.

K:  I can't imagine ever leaving Los Angeles at this point (I've lived all over the country, and LA really does have the best of everything.), but if I moved out of the country I'd probably go for Paris.

One place I will never ever ever live again is Chicago.  It's the best city in the world until winter hits and you spend all day every day wishing you could just die already because at least then you wouldn't be worried about losing your toes to the cold.  I cried every day that fall/winter/spring.

B: Spain. I've already lived in Spain for a few years after graduating college, but I would love to live there again. BUT, if I'm not allowed to choose somewhere I've already lived before, I would live in either Italy or Croatia, since, aside from Spanish, Italian and Croatian are the main languages I'm able to speak fluently.

Where would you most like to go on vacation?

M: I have been dying to go to the US as I really want to go to the BEA to meet all my bloggy friends.

K: I prefer tropical destinations.  I love St. Lucia and Kauai (where my husband and I eloped).

But on our honeymoon we spent a week in Copenhagen and three weeks in Paris.  On the day we were supposed to fly home, a volcano erupted in Iceland, and because of the ash in the air we were stranded in France for another ten days.  Friends of friends have an old farmhouse on The Seine, 45 minutes north of the city in Lavacourt, from which Monet used to paint Vetheuil, the town across the river, and they let us stay with them while we waited for air travel to resume.  This is the farmhouse:

 

So now it's a tradition--every other year, we go to Paris for a week or two, and then visit with our friends for a few days.  Being stranded there was probably the best experience of my life.

B: I, like Kate, really prefer tropical destinations. So I would love to visit Bahamas or similar islands, like Turks & Caicos or Aruba again. I would also love to visit Alaska--I've heard it is beautiful.

What was your favorite book as a child?

M: A few years ago, the 'Thing' was Go Girl Books and Rainbow Magic. I suck, I know.

K:  It varied WILDLY from year to year, with The Last Unicorn and some version of the Sweet Valley books--University, High, Twins, Thriller, whatever--carrying throughout.  And if I read one book I liked, I would read everything else ever written by that author, no matter how terrible that author was.  I also jumped right into adult books pretty young, so I missed out on a lot of the great classic children's literature.

Second Grade:  The Black Stallion books, Babysitters Club, Encyclopedia Brown
Third Grade:  The Wind in the Willows, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia
Fourth Grade:  Gone with the Wind, The Lord of the Rings, Danielle Steel, Clive Cussler
Fifth Grade:  Ken Follett, Agatha Christie, Ender's Game

B: The Goosebumps series. I've found that RL Stine is an awful writer in my adulthood, but I lived for that series when I was a kid.

Are you a mood reader?

M: I tend to stick to a schedule so my blog doesn't go all bat-shit crazy but if one day I end up not feeling for fantasy then I'll defintely pick up something more appealing. It's fair for the book and myself then.

K: YES.  And I binge.  When I'm on my period I read ALL the romance novels.  When I discover a new author I like, I must read all her books NOW NOW NOW.  I'm especially bad with series--and thriller series are the worst, good lord.  I read my first Karin Slaughter novel and within about a week I'd read everything she'd written up to that point.

Oh, and I re-read things based on my mood all the time.  I have no idea how many times I have read Pride & Prejudice, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Good Omens, The Last Unicorn, and the short fiction of Frank Stockton and Ray Bradbury.

B: *sigh* I am not. I'm like Mel and I tend to stick to the blog schedule and release dates. BUT, I've been a mood reader lately due to being in an epic slump. But that hasn't really been working well for me. And now I'm extremely behind schedule, so it looks like I'll be reverting to my old 'reading-for-the-blog' methods.

What is your favorite food?

M: Anything yummy that fills my forever hungry tummy.

K:  I have this super douchey perfect meal in my head--you know, I know which dish from which fancy restaurant and my grammy's fried chicken blah blah blah--but I actually just really love sandwiches.  A real favorite is a Thanksgiving leftover sandwich, with cranberry sauce, turkey, and dressing in a big ball that falls out the other end.  I also really like jambon burre--just ham and butter on french bread.

BUT--and this is important--I hate mayonnaise.  I can't even eat ranch dressing because it has mayo in it.  I'll talk about this all night if you want.

B: You guys aren't nice with this question, and the next two to come. MY FAVORITE FOOD? I think choosing my favorite child would be easier. Because I only have one. I love Italian cuisine and pasta. Particularly Fettucine Alfredo and Penne a la Vodka. THERE. *breathes heavily* That took a lot out of me. I hope you're all satisfied.

What are your favorite TV shows?

M:  My Little Pony, Pretty Little Liars and Under the Dome.

K: Of all time:  Buffy (except season 7), Friday Night Lights (except season 2), Jem and the Holograms, the Tennant/Davies seasons of Doctor Who.  I watched The Wire, but I decided to skip the last season because I wanted to tell my own story about how it all ended, and that story did not involve the death of a certain beloved character I've heard dies in the final season.  My husband ran an animated show called Teen Titans a few years before we met, and I love watching old episodes of that.

New shows I like are Breaking Bad, Orphan Black, New Girl, Mindy Project, Comedy Bang-Bang, Scandal, Vampire Diaries, Luther...I don't know.  Pretty much everything.  Almost all of my friends work in the television industry, so I watch A LOT of tv.  My husband writes for Person of Interest, which I think is really good.

B: If you follow me on Twitter, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to answer this question for me. In no particular order: One Tree Hill, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Buffy, and Ringer, before it was RUDELY cancelled by the CW (which really has a pretty high tolerance for shittiness, and should have never even contemplated canceling that in the first place). Yes, I'm still really bitter over that show being canceled. Really, really bitter. And Big Brother. Even though this season pretty much sucks.

What are your favorite movies?

M: Pitch Perfect, Finding Nemo and Inception.

K:  Jurassic Park, Hellboy II, Clueless, The Women (the old one), His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, Beauty and the Beast, Jaws, The Princess Bride.  Anything with The Rock in it--I've even seen Tooth Fairy seven times.  I loved Fast Five Six.  I particularly appreciate movies where he is shrunk down and has to interact as A Tiny with things he could normally crush--like a cat or a bumble bee.  They should re-make Gulliver's Travels with him starring.  That would be awesome.  And Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

I love monster movies REALLY A LOT, and I cannot watch movies with ghosts in them.  Like, haunted houses and Japanese girls with really long hair?  No thank you.  It's funny, because in regular life I am not afraid of ghosts.  But my heart will explode out my chest if I try to sit through a movie with them.

B: I really love movies, so this is not a nice question. But my favorites most certainly include Easy A, Finding Nemo (despite my fear of fish--I'm as confused as you are), Monsters Inc AND Monsters University, Sinister, Insidious, and Nightmare on Elm Street (the original and the remake (even though most people hate it, I think it's freaking awesome)). I have a lot more, of course.

What are your favorite book genres?

M: Anything really. But MG and YA are what I mostly read. However dark contemporaries, murder msytery and Greek Mythology are what I usually prefer.

K:  Everything.  Fantasy/Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction (I really love Hard Sci-fi), Romance (especially Historical and Paranormal), Thriller, Mystery, Pulp.  The most important thing for me is the voice of the main character.

B: Horror, dystopian (yes, I'm not sick of them like most people are...yet), mysteries, thrillers, psychological thrillers, classic murder mysteries, and also paranormal romance and contemporaries. I don't read very many things with historical roots, though.

Do you have any interesting or unusual hobbies aside from reading?

M: Nothing unusual. I play piano, Netball, stalk authors and have emotional breakdowns and mood swings worse than Taylor Swift and her 'boyfriends'. My friends video me doing this on their phones and blackmail me with it. Fun stuff.. really.

K:  No.

B: *spends ten minutes thinking of hobbies or anything interesting about me*

What you have to know is that I'm not an interesting person. I love learning languages, and speak several, so I guess that could be an interesting hobby? Yikes. That makes me sound boring. (Also, I totally snorted at the bluntness of Kate's answer.)

Why did you start blogging?

M: I have been blogging for nearly 7 months and I am loving the experience. The story of me getting into blogging is rather confusing- even I get confused and ponderous on how I ended up in the midst of this. Basically, this time last year, I detested reading (cue gasps) my mother forced me upon it, borrowing 10 books from the library each week, hoping I'd pick one up. Eventually, I got fed up and read one book from the endless pile that caught my eye, Evernight By Claudia Gray, I was caught in this magnificent world of paranormal and soon enough, by the time I finished the 3rd book, I was addicted. So when I couldn't find the last installment, I went online and found Goodreads, from there on, I was borrowing books myself. Then how did you end up blogging? I found that the reviews on GR was extremely helpful pretty awesome, and for a 12 year old girl, I TALKED WAYY TOO MUCH. So instead of ranting my head off to my mother or school friends, I decided to make a blog.

K:  I read at least five books a week, so I started writing reviews as...well, it was kind of like writing book reports in grade school, you know?  I used to write a lot, and I was editor of my high school newspaper, so this was a way to get me back into that.  Get in my 10,000 Malcolm Gladwell hours or whatever.  Then a friend asked me to start guest reviewing on her blog because she was getting really busy, but I booked an acting job and then she went out of town, and it just hasn't happened yet.  So a few months ago I saw that Blythe was looking for guest reviewers, and...that's that.

B: This answer will make me sound like an ultra-stalker, but basically what happened was that one day I was on Goodreads and visited the page of an upcoming YA novel I was really looking forward to reading. There I saw multiple reviews for it all ready, and I was quite bewildered, so I clicked on the profiles of the people who had reviewed the novel. And I saw they each had blogs. So I visited their blogs. And then I visited their Twitters, which were linked from their blog, and I saw them interact with others in the blogging community. And I realized I wanted to be a part of that. So I created my blog. Granted, I really began to put myself out there and interact with the community months after I created my blog, because I was afraid I wouldn't be liked and would be ignored, but I didn't realize how amazing this community really was back then.

What is your desert island book?

M: Probably not Percy Jackson as Percabeth may just rip my heart out in a reread of The Mark of Athena. I mean, that ending. GAH.. However, I think All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill would be perfect- it's full of everything I love in books.

K:  Either Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett or something romance-y like Easy by Tammara Weber

B: Any of the Harry Potter books, or Through the Ever Night, or Pivot Point. Or any of Stephen King's novels.

What is your favorite quote from a book?

M: From Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, “I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”
and
“A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.”

*continues to quote entire book*

From John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, “What a slut time is. She screws everybody.” 

K: I have at least four billion favorite book quotes. "You have to look with your heart; the essential is invisible to the eyes" (in the original French) from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery is tattooed on my left shoulder, so obviously that's up there.

I also love, from Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater: "Hello babies.  Welcome to Earth.  It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter.  It's round and wet and crowded.  On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here.  There's only one rule that I know of, babies--God damn it, you've go to be kind."

B: I'm just like Kate; I have so many favorite quotes. One of my favorite quotes and openings is “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed," from Stephen King's The Gunslinger, mostly for spoilerific reasons. I also really love this quote from The Diviners from Libba Bray, among many other quotes:

"Evie replied with an eye-roll. “Do you think you can manage to not steal anything while I’m gone?” 

“The only thing I’m trying to steal is your heart, doll.” Sam smirked. 

“You’re not that talented a thief, Sam Lloyd.""

OH, and some more brilliance from Stephen King for you, courtesy of The Stand:

“Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.” 

Kate: What episodes of things can we see you acting in?

I'm not actually super proud of any of the work I've done that is available for normal human eyes to see, but it's all listed here if you're curious.  I've been in some really good stuff, but my roles have always been too small to really do anything with.  It is MUCH easier to play the lead in a movie than the waitress, because the waitress has no arc.

I have some good stuff coming up, and you will not be able to escape my plugging it when it does.

Mel: What is your favorite subject in school?  Least favorite?

English! Creative writing, reading, debating and poetry study are all there! Not essays though, EWWW.

Blythe: What rituals are involved in the worship of Jesusblythe?

For starters, you must buy prayer candles with my face on the side. HOWEVER, you may not burn any part of my face, because it acts similarly to voodoo. Maybe. I wouldn't know, because no one's ever done it before. I just say that. Secondly, you must read a good book. Or a really bad book, if you want my snarky self to visit you in spirit form. You must also chant "Jesusblythe!" while you read.

Or not. You don't really have to. 

Really all you have to do is read a book.

The other things are plusses, I guess. 

#preach

Describe yourself with a gif.

M:

K:

B: