Tagged by @hweanaro for the question meme thing! I’m not going to ask any questions of my own because I can’t think of any right now :’) but here are my answers, and thanks for tagging!
1) What book would you always suggest to read no matter who’s asking?
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It’s such a mixture of genres (incorporating historical fiction, crime thriller, real-life absurdist comedy, and far-future scifi) and yet it somehow all manages to gel together into a twisty, multilayered, but beautifully complete and cohesive story. Also, David Mitchell’s writing is stunningly beautiful in itself and he’s so good at complex, morally grey, incredibly compelling characters. Seriously, go read this book (don’t be put off by the movie adaptation :/// ) because it’s so rich and has so much for everyone of basically any taste in literature.
2) Who were your favourite and your most hated professors, and why?
My Latin teacher in school was the most adorable cinnamon roll of a person. She was a sweet old traditional Scottish lady, and had a tiny classroom (she herself made up the school’s entire classics department) into which the few of us taking Latin all had to squeeze in, and it was jam-packed full of books and tiny replica classical statues as ornaments. She was such a glorious nerd about all of classical history. The way her eyes lit up when she told myths and stories (often getting off-topic from what we were actually learning) was so heart-warming, and she had so much enthusiasm and love for the subject that she even made the complex, difficult grammar stuff a joy.
Least favourite... I guess that would go to a physics teacher I had when I was maybe 15? He didn’t seem to care that much about the subject (I think he was just one of those people that comes across as bored and impatient 100% of the time) was really bad at explaining stuff. Also, he told my parents at parents’ evening “well, she’s remarkably good at mechanics... for a girl”. Ugh. Did I go on to study physics at uni out of sheer spite? We just don’t know
3) Which is your first literary crush (as in character)?
The first major one was Éowyn, probably! I used to draw her all the time, when I was about 11/12. I used to come up with fanfiction about her (not that I ever wrote it down) a lot too. She was such a fave, and even though I don’t talk about her much she definitely still is :’)
4) There’s always one topic that gets us very incensed when in a discussion. Which is yours and why?
Just one??? Probably when people try to bash millenials and claim that our generation is The Worst because we have the internet and it’s supposedly rotting our brains and making us lazy and violent and selfish, etc. etc. You know the sort of thing probably. That’s one of my biggest rage buttons. (Also the thing when older feminists lament that the Youth Of Today are ungrateful to them and ~undoing everything they worked for~ by fighting against different issues (supposedly more watered down, petty things) because... I don’t even know? We face somewhat different problems? It’s a different time? I don’t understand? But it makes me annoyed and defensive of my generation though.)
5) Do you obsess over only one thing at a time or do you pursue various interests with the same amount of passion?
HA I have literally no self-control when it comes to acquiring ALL THE NEW INTERESTS at once. I’m reading/watching a whole lot of different things at once, writing 35840829 WIPs in various states of abandonment, and thinking of more that I will probably never write. And that’s only the fandom/fictional side of my weird intense interests. So yeah :S
6) What would you say to your teenage self if you had the chance to meet them?
“Hey! I know you’re feeling like future you will hate you now, because I remember being fourteen, and I remember that letter to my future self that you’re writing in tiny handwriting in secret under the covers, before tearing it up because you can’t stand to look at it. I remember being fourteen and imagining twenty-year-old me as having her life so wonderfully together and also hating and regretting the person she had been, that you are now. I remember destroying that letter (as well as anything else I tried to write down) out of a combination of self-disgust, fear of my parents finding it, and the feeling that I didn’t even deserve an outlet for these feelings because they weren’t valid. That I wasn’t even a valid person whose take on things was important. I’m here to say, fourteen-year-old Daniela, I’m twenty-three now, and nothing is at all like that. That you - exactly as you are now - do deserve outlets for your feelings, and moreover you need them, like you need to breath. Write stuff down. Learn to stand the sight and sound of your own words. Learn to let yourself take up space, and to talk to people. It’s hard, I know, because I’m still in the process of doing it. But know that your future self, at least, will not hate you. She is you, I am you, and I’m not that different really. Sorry if that scares you. It scares me a bit too. But I hope, at least, that I’m learning.”
7) Link me to three tropes from tv tropes. Why do you like them so much?
Icarus Allusion. If a character fits this there’s a 99.99999% chance I will fall (heh) for them and their plot arc, especially if it’s super tragic. As it usually is. TRAGIC HUBRIS 5EVA (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧
Reluctant Mad Scientist. Particularly if they start out a bright-eyed idealist and slowly realise that what they’re doing is terrible/the people they’re working for are the villains. But it has to be a slowly-dawning, drawn out realisation, it can’t be too quick. And it has to absolutely shatter their heart into pieces when the thing they love so much and care passionately about has come to this. They probably end up helping the heroes after this and end up dying in a moment of heroic sacrifice. There goes my heart, every single time.
Casual Danger Dialogue, simply because it’s just so much fun :D
8) Are you the kind of person who keeps their books as intact as possible or that likes to underline them, “use” them, give them that vintage feeling?
I tend not to write on books (I never have) but I definitely do read and reread my favourites until they fall apart. Also after they fall apart, having taped them back together probably.
9) Have you ever tried to play an instrument, or do you play one? If not, why? Or why did you stop?
I used to play the violin, for quite a while actually? Between the ages of about 7 and 16, maybe? I stopped having lessons because it was stressing me out too much with my school work (actually now in hindsight I see that being in an orchestra and playing with other people was probably the more significant factor in stressing me out, but anyway...) I still ~theoretically~ do play the violin though, even though my violin itself is not here with me at uni :(
But I also realised at some point that I definitely prefer singing and am better at it anyway, so there’s that too!
10) Would you be able to solve an equation of second degree?
....As in a quadratic equation? Or a second order ordinary differential equation? Because yes and yes :)
