Love/Hate Challenge

So I was tagged for this a long while ago by the good Crispian Thurlborn over at his blog. I've been working on this a while, and realized I should probably finally post this. So here you go!

I know I'm cheating by only putting 5 for each, but...well there it is.

Also, I tag...you! If you want to do this, go ahead!

Things I Love

1) Things that make me verbally respond in a positive way

We've all read a book or seen a movie that, for one reason or another, caused us to verbally respond. Granted, more often than not, I'm doing it in a negative sense, but I absolutely love it when something causes me to verbally respond in the positive.

One example is when I reading Clash of Kings, specifically the scene where a riot breaks out in King's Landing. As survivors gather back at the castle, some begin to wonder what happened to Sansa. Suddenly, in walks the Hound, carrying Sansa on his back. When that happened, I literally held up my hand up into the air and cried, "Yes!"

When you end up verbally responding to a work in a positive way, there's a strange feeling of connection between you and that work. It's difficult to describe, but I'm sure many reading this post know what I mean.

2) When a story makes an effort to put some realism in combat.

Whenever action becomes part of the story, you almost need to be resigned that movies will be movies, and books will be books. We all know the trope about people who jump into mud and come out perfectly clean, or the gun that never runs out, or the guy who can take ten bullets and shrug it off as a flesh wound (eg., Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai). It's pretty much expected.

That being said, I do appreciate it when there's some effort to put some realism into the situation, even if it's a little. One of the things I loved about the gunfights in Last Man Standing was that Bruce Willis had to reload his handguns every now and then. One of the things I loved about the climactic battle between Aragorn and the Uruk-Hai at the end of Fellowship of the Ring was that Viggo Mortensen played Aragorn exhausted, like he really had just fought an army of orcs.

Little things like this can add a sense of urgency, uncertainty, and suspense that otherwise wasn't there.

3) A strong father figure

Being a father myself (and of a little girl, no less), one thing I've become more aware of is the stereotype of the doddering daddy. If the MC is a teenage or preteen girl, then her father is often the secondary villain. You find shaking his finger at her vile shenanigans throughout the story, but at the end coming to his senses and shrugging off whatever it was she was doing, whether it was dating the social outcast at school or committing mass genocide. Dads get treated like bumbling, backwards idiots who need to succumb to whatever it is the manchildren and teenage girls want them to do.

That's why I adore it when you have a story that features a strong, or at the very least relatable, father figure. I don't necessarily mean something as extreme Liam Neeson's character from Taken; I just mean someone who you can understand is trying to take care of his family, and is looking out for the future generation. Heck, even Homer Simpson had that kind of appeal early on, before the new writers Flanderized the entire cast; as goofy and stupid as Homer could get, you also understood he was trying to make ends meet, and was just trying to be a good father to his three children (see, for example, The Simpsons Christmas special). Even Peter Griffith had some of this appeal early on in Family Guy, before Scott MacFarlane discovered he could make money off his fanboys by making five or six series based entirely around cutaway jokes.

Point is, having a father figure that isn't just a caricature to appeal to the sensibilities of teenage girls, and actually functions like a father is supposed to, is an enjoyable aspect to the story.

4) When characters actually care others have died

A pet peeve of mine is when a story has a character die, and the other characters either don't mourn at all, or mourn for maybe like a few seconds, then move on. I know that everyone responds to death and grief in their own way...but I'm fairly certain people respond to it somehow, let alone at all. The sheer nonchalance of some people after seeing their friend or lover die reminds me of that line from the MST3K Hobgoblins episode: "C'mon, Nick...oh yeah, he died. Oh well!"

On the other hand, I love it when they make reactions to death far more realistic.

One of the best examples of this I can think of is in the horror movie Abominable. A female character, after seeing her friends get brutalized by the title monster, has to be calmed down by the MC. She's weeping. She's distressed. You know, she's reacting like any rational person would after a hideous beast murders their lifelong friends. I give great kudos to Haley Joel and Matt McCoy for their performances in that scene, and filmmaker Ryan Schifrin for putting such a scene in his movie.

5) Actors who put great effort in a historical role

We all expect good acting - that's pretty much a given. What I love, however, is when an actor or actress puts such an effort into a historical role that they're able to repeat all the nuances and intricacies of that personality.

One example is Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland; after watching some documentaries on Idi Amin, seeing Whitaker play him was like seeing Idi Amin live on the screen. He probably didn't look as much like Idi Amin as other actors, but he was able to capture the mannerisms, the ways of speaking, etc.

An even greater example is Robert Carlyle in Hitler: The Rise of Evil. My wife probably remembers washing her hands in the bathroom while I watched the movie, and suddenly hearing me leap up and say, "Robert Carlyle is a great actor!" Why did I say that? Because of a scene where Robert Carlyle, after finishing a speech, lowered his head and rubbed his mustache. Why is that so significant? Because I've seen videos where Hitler did that, either out of nervousness or in-between thoughts. I've rarely seen other actors playing Hitler imitate that motion, but Robert Carlyle did.

Things I Hate

1) The Third Act Break Up

This is the nickname given to the cliche most often seen in a romantic comedy where, either around or after the climax of the story, the couple breaks up. (The Nostalgia Critic referred to this as "The Misunderstanding," since it's often based around a misunderstanding between the two characters.) Granted, this scenario can happen in general romances as well, but I've seen it the most often in romantic comedies.

And it's one of the primary reasons I rarely watch romantic comedies.

I might compare this to the James Bond cliche of the villain leaving Bond and the girl to die. It doesn't give us any suspense - we all know that Bond is going to escape. It's not like they're going to pull one over on us, have Bond and the girl die, and then cut to the end credits. We all know Bond is going to break out and go on to defeat the villain. Similarly, we all know the boy and girl are going to get back together. The movie isn't going to end with them still broken up. The movie isn't going to show them with other people, and then cut to the end credits. They're going to realize they were idiots, get back together, make up, and end happily ever after.

Some people try to defend this because it makes us care about the characters. No, it doesn't. It just drags the film on for another ten minutes until we get the conclusion that we all saw coming. I've even seen films where it was completely unnecessary; there was absolutely no reason for the couple to break up, but the writers had them break up anyway, because...reasons.

2) When a horror/monster story becomes a string of killing scenes

Something that gets old real quick is when a story just sort of becomes a string of murder scenes tied together for no other reason than they all involve the same killer. At some point, it becomes episodic, and you just sort of watch one killing after another. I've seen this in serial killer and monster stories. Amazing as it sounds, I end up getting bored and disinterested. Halfway through I end up thinking, "Yeah okay, we get it, he kills things - let's move on."

Some people might find this a ridiculous contention, as a string of killings almost comes with the territory of anything involving a monster, be they human or not. However, plenty of entries into this have managed to keep it interesting by having something else going on. One example of this is Predator 2: even though you have the Predator going around killing people, you still have the parallel story of Danny Glover figuring things out. My point is, so long as the storyteller gives us some other reason to become emotionally invested in the story besides a rising body count, then there's a reason to continue being invested until the end.

3) Endings that ruin everything

There have been a few times when I've sat through something, either a book or a movie, and thought, "Hey, this is pretty cool!" Then something happens. Something occurs that ruins my entire experience.

Maybe it's like the movie Cube, where they randomly decide to kill off most of the characters for absolutely no reason, and in a way that leaves plot holes so big a semi could drive through it. Maybe it's like The Village, which is an otherwise good film destroyed by the worst plot twist ever conceived in film history. Either way, the payoff ends up being one that leaves a bad taste in the viewer's mouth.

4) When the military is absolutely incompetent.

Let me qualify this by adding that I'm well aware not every serviceman (or woman) is perfect. I'm not making any claim of perfection. However, many stories take potential military fallibility and make it extreme. Maybe my being a military brat has a part in this, but it's a major pet peeve of mine.

One of the most infamous examples of this is in the Italian horror film Nightmare City. In that film, the military is told that shooting zombies in the head will kill them. Guess what one thing no soldier does for the rest of the film? That's right. No one shoots the zombies in the head. Most of the time they shoot them in the chest, then stare like DERP DERP and permit the zombies to kill them. Two-thirds into the movie you find yourself screaming "SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD! SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, SHOOT THOSE BUGGERS IN THE HEAD!"

By contrast, one of the things I liked about movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the remake of Invaders from Mars is the very fact that the government and military characters are competent. They figure things out, they handle things in a rational manner, and while they aren't perfect in everything they do, they aren't so over-the-top stupid that you wanna bang your head against the wall.

Perhaps a slight addition to this might be when civilian characters, for no previously established reason, are far more competent or powerful than the military characters. It's hilarious in movies when a full-time nurse suddenly knows how to handle an assault rifle, or a desk clerk can suddenly beat up a team of special forces, or a small town sheriff knows how to drive and fire an armored personnel carrier. Seriously, unless there's good reason these characters can do those things, it's just ridiculous.

5) When something bad happens to a baby.

Chalk this up to me being the father of a little girl - a father who held her in his arms when she was a newborn and realized what it was like to have a precious little life in your hands. Whenever I see an infant on screen, or hear about one in a story, I think about my daughter. I know my wife feels the same way.

I'm fully aware life isn't fair, and that, sadly, bad things do happen to babies in this world. However, as far as the world of fiction and storytelling goes, I can't stand it when a story takes the cheap route for tragedy or suspense by putting a child in danger, or even kills them. It's like killing off an adult character or letting a female character get raped for nothing else but "muh drama." It's tasteless, unnecessary, and goes for shock value rather than any kind of development.

If you want an example of this, I recently watched Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. There's a scene where the "PredAlien" (yes that's a thing) rises up in a hospital amid dozens of crying newborns. You don't see anything, but the implication is that, off screen, the PredAlien killed them. I was already hating the movie beforehand, but at that point it completely lost me beyond any point of redemption. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one who found that scene tasteless, and Requiem is considered by many to be the worst in the series (though granted, for a host of other reasons).

10 Least Favorite Screen Characters

I was tagged by my wife to do my Ten Least Favorite Screen Characters (ie., characters from a TV show or movie). Like my wife, I'm going to provide a brief explanation so that if I offend or shock anyone, I can explain my position. I'll tag people on the Twitter post for this.

There are maybe a handful of spoilers throughout this post, but probably not any huge shockers. Just a fair warning.

Topanga (Boy Meets World)

You know what's funny? I like Boy Meets World. It's a fun series, and there are plenty of good episodes that resonate with me as much as an adult as much as they did when I was a kid. But when I watched it again, I found that I could not stand Topanga. Part of the problem is her self-righteousness and pushiness, which never (in my opinion) gets addressed or rebuked sufficiently. The biggest example of this for me was the one Christmas episode where she stays at the Matthews' home, and starts pushing her family's Christmas traditions on them; then, come the end of the episode, it's Cory who has to apologize?! Excuse me? Are we not going to address Topanga's manipulation of a family to which she was a guest?

It didn't help when it became a trope how, every season, Cory and Topanga would break up, become drama llamas for several episodes, then get back together. It made the series annoying for me. Partly this was because I've had friends in real life who have gone through such relationships, where they break up with someone three or four times before they finally break up for good. Partly this was because it just made the story lines so predictable. I didn't care whether or not they got back together, because I already knew they would. It's kinda like when people die in Dragonball Z; I'm not gonna mourn for them, because I know by the end of the story arch they're just going to be resurrected. More importantly, it seemed like a lot of times the break up was a result of either something Topanga did (though Cory was certainly guilty a few times), or because of some shallow reason Topanga had for said break up. Cory's interests in her at some point seemed more like an obsession, and in my opinion he had broken up with girls in previous episodes for less legitimate reasons than he did with Topanga.

In fact, while re-watching the first few seasons, I started wishing that Cory had ended up with Wendy rather than Topanga. One of the few times as an adult I've been tempted to write a fanfic, really...

Bella Swan (Twilight film series)

Granted, I don't like Bella Swan in the book series either, but unlike Edward (whom Robert Pattinson made somewhat more likable...creepy stalking aside), Bella is even more unlikable in the movies. It goes without saying that Kristen Stewart's acting in those films is some of the worst acting I've ever seen in cinema history period. She makes Steven Seagal look like Ian McKellen. Read this line out loud: "Whoa, what is going on?" Congratulations, you just read it with more depth and feeling than Kristen Stewart did. I seriously believe that every scene with her was done in one take. It didn't help that every other actress in that movie did a good job in their respective roles, causing me to repeatedly think, "Okay, why didn't they get the role of Bella?" Say what you want about Anna Kendrick, I think she could have done a better acting job as Bella than Stewart.

But acting aside, the character is just completely unlikable. She goes through the film with a perpetual "Woe is me, my life sucks" persona. I don't like girls who behave that way in real life...why would I want to spend 2+ hours with a fictional main character like that? Her obsession with Edward is equally as mystifying in the films as it was in the books, and her ability to just go from Edward to Jacob made me doubt if she fully understood what romance really was. She seriously ranks among the top least liked characters in literary or film history for me.

Hermione Granger (Harry Potter film series)

Some of you are probably shocked by this choice, since I've talked on Twitter about being a fan of Harry Potter; I also follow JK Rowling on Twitter, and have used her on this blog as an example of how a good author behaves. So let me tell a little story to explain myself...

I saw the first Harry Potter movie as a late teen, and had never before read the books. I thought it was okay as far as movies go, but I just did not like Hermione as a character. Then my wife introduced me to the books, and as I read them, I discovered something amazing...I liked Hermione. No, I loved her. I found, as a character, I could relate to her in so many ways, and she came across as someone I would have loved to hang out with if I'd ever gone to Hogwarts. She actually became one of my favorite characters in the book series.

In the movies, most of what made her enduring was removed, and the bits that made her human were amplified to the point of annoyance. Her initial unattractiveness (frizzy hair, buck teeth, etc.) was removed, and her studiousness was treated more like snobbery than a character perk. A lot of scenes that made me sympathetic to her were changed so that she was more of an unlikable character. For example, the scene where she throws birds at Ron: in the book, she did it because Ron was a jerk to her; in the movie, she does it because she's a jealous twit.

While Emma Watson can be a good actress, her portrayal of Hermione also hurt my opinion of the character. A lot of her lines are delivered in an unnecessarily dramatic fashion, so that even ordering a salad sounds like she's in some great peril. Her rebuking of other characters, treated in the book as her being the sole voice of reason, is in the films treated more like nagging. By the later films, I found myself absentmindedly saying "Shut up, Hermione" whenever she got upset. It also didn't help that Emma Watson acted with her eyebrows - no, I mean it. Look at her in most of the films, and you'll see she lifts her eyebrows at every other syllable in her line. In some scenes it became so prevalent that I would start counting out loud. Miniscule as this may sound, that part became distracting about her character. If you still don't believe me, start a drinking game over it, and watch any of the movies. I promise you'll be wasted thirty minutes in.

Danny (The Shining, 1997 version)

I'm not going to go into a debate over which version of The Shining is closer to the book, better as a film, etc. I can understand where some of the frustrations Stephen King had with Stanley Kubrick's interpretation, and why he might have wanted to see a different take on the story put to film. People are probably divided on this issue, and I know there are valid arguments on both sides.

That being said, I absolutely hated Danny in the 1997 version of The Shining. That nasal, congested voice of his got grating after about ten minutes. I think they were trying to make him a cute kid that would be enduring, but they overdid it. I started rooting for the hotel, I ain't gonna lie.

Olivia Benson (Law & Order: SVU)

I could probably write a whole blog post on all the problems I have with L&O:SVU, but one of them is the character of Olivia Benson; in a way, she represents everything I find wrong with the series.

For one, she has a self-righteousness, so prevalent in a lot of cop shows today, of "I'm always in the right, even when I'm breaking the law, let alone the US Constitution." Her character will violate police codes of ethics, then get upset if the federal government or another department does the same to SVU. Um, hello? Pot calling the kettle black, much? Is the NYPD's Special Victims Unit somehow immune to checks and balances? There was one episode where she and other officers stalk a suspected rapist - who had been acquitted in court of all charges, mind you - and embarrass him at his workplace and in public until he finally confesses of his crime. Look, I'm not minimizing the crime of rape, and rapists should be brought to justice, but that isn't how our legal system is supposed to operate. If someone is found innocent in the court of law, they're declared innocent unless better evidence comes up. When you reach a level of stalking and public embarrassment, you're breaking the law. Yes, police investigators, try doing that in real life - I'm sure Internal Affairs would be very happy to tell you what happens next after the guy you're bothering sues the city.

For another, her character randomly arrests people at first suspicion, and then is shocked - shocked, I tell you - that she has to let them go because they have nothing more than circumstantial evidence. WHOA! No way! Dang! Curse you, "reasonable doubt"! If only we, I dunno, lived in a dictatorship or police state where the slightest bit of evidence could get you executed! In one episode she had a man convicted of rape, and after the man is found guilty he commits suicide. Then, later on in the same episode, she discovers...oops, he was the wrong guy! Yes, that's right, because of her shoddy police work, she arrested, got convicted, and publicly humiliated the wrong man, and was the catalyst for his suicide. Does she show any remorse? Does she show regret that she drove a man to kill himself due to forever being marked by the law as a suspected sex offender? Nope. Of course not. She's a member of SVU, and they're above all moral and legal rebuke and correction. Remember, they're always in the right, even when they're in the wrong.

Finally, Mariska Hargitay is immensely overrated as an actress. She has the Milla Jovovich problem of having perhaps two facial expressions: slightly concerned, confused look; and smug, cocky look. Granted, once in a while she does a regular smile, but that's when we're lucky. I don't mean to continually focus on the actor behind a character rather than the character themselves, but even if they had chosen someone competent to play Benson, I would still hate the character.

Jimmy Sands (Bats)

Bats is a terrible horror movie overall, and one of the things that makes it so bad is it has perhaps one of the biggest examples of a "token black character" that I have ever seen. It's not that Leon (yes that's his full name) is a terrible actor, it's just that the movie doesn't know what to do with him. His purpose is to literally be a black character and say wise cracks every now and then. What's more, about 99% of his lines are ignored by the other characters. You could literally remove almost every scene of him, or line said by him, and you would lose nothing of substance. If someone wanted to teach a group of film students on what a token black character is, Jimmy would be the archetype.

Big Bird (Sesame Street)

 
Like Boy Meets World, I enjoyed watching Sesame Street as a kid. Most of the characters were fun, and are still enduring as an adult. However, the one character I could not stand, even as a little boy, was Big Bird. Most of the characters were portrayed as simple minded in the sense of being naive or child-like in their thinking, but Big Bird took things too far. Sometimes his stupidity just got aggravating to the point where I was amazed the other characters tolerated his antics. Even to this day, when I watch the Christmas Eve special, Big Bird's concern about how Santa gets down the chimney receives no sympathy for me (given Santa's supposedly done it for like, y'know, the past 2000 years with no problems).

I also watched all the Big Bird films as a kid, and every single one made me, at some point, want to smack Big Bird over the head. The only part I enjoyed was a part of Big Bird in China, where Big Bird goes to a restaurant and asks the host to give him and his dog friend the samples from the front window. The host keeps telling him (in Chinese) that the samples are plastic, and hence not edible (something that a regular person would figure out, even without speaking Chinese), but Big Bird keeps demanding they be served. There's a part in that sequence where the guy turns to the camera and gives a look of utter despair for his situation. I remember seeing that as a kid and thinking, "Yeah, man. I feel your pain. I'm with you."

Nathan Algren (The Last Samurai)

Again, I could probably write a whole post on all the problems I had with The Last Samurai, but a large chunk of it is because of Tom Cruise's character. In fact, Nathan Algren is probably a good examination of all the problems of what I have in the vast majority of Tom Cruise's film characters. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Nathan Algren comes across like a bit of Tom Cruise Mary Sue. Given Cruise's egotism, past accusations of editing films behind a director's back to make himself more of a film's focus, as well as the fact that in every role it just seems like Tom Cruise acting like Tom Cruise but under a different name...that charge could probably be valid.

The Mary Sueness of Nathan Algren shows throughout the film. In just six months of training (part of which was spent going through alcohol withdrawal and recovering from a serious wound) he is suddenly a talented samurai warrior, and is even able to take down ninjas. Yeah, OK, Miyamoto Musashi spent his whole life perfecting the craft of swordsmanship, but Tom Cruise can do it in under six months...yeah sure whatever. Then at the end of the movie, he gets shot umpteen times by a Gatling gun, but then appears later in the film perfectly fine; I half expected him to say to the other characters in a John Cleese-ish voice, "I got better!"

Perhaps the biggest offense of all is the fact that Algren kills off a samurai, then said samurai's wife, upon meeting Algren, says he smells like a pig...and then, in literally the very next scene, she's gazing at him with loving concern as he's getting beaten up. By the end of the film, not only will she be in love with him, but her kids (the children of the man Algren killed) will adore him and laugh and play baseball with him. I'm not saying if someone killed my father I would never learn to forgive him, or treat him with human decency...but I can promise you I won't be treating him like my dad after a few months, let alone will my mother be falling in love with him.

So yes, he becomes a great warrior in a short span of time, and everyone loves/fawns/adores him, even those whose family members he's bumped off...Algren totally is a Tom Cruise Mary Sue. And like every Mary Sue, he's unbelievable and unrelatable as a character.

Belle (Once Upon a Time)

I liked Belle in the original Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast. In the ABC TV show Once Upon a Time...not so much. Whereas Belle in the animated film could be strong and independent while still being a likable character, Belle in the TV show is just annoying. Part of it is her bookworm trait seems more like something attached to her character because it was part of the original canon, rather than an actual part of her personality. She also does some amazingly stupid things, like try to trap a monster in a village full of lots of innocent people. The fact they teamed her up as the love interest of my favorite character, Rumpelstiltskin, didn't help matters.

Have you ever had a character you hated so much in a TV show or movie that, when something bad happens to them, you respond with cheers rather than tears? Belle was one of those characters for me. There's an episode where Captain Hook shoots her. Even though she doesn't die, I literally cheered when that happened! That, along with Rumpelstiltskin going ape-crap and Hook getting hit by a car, led me to tell my wife, "This is the greatest episode ever!"

The Entire Cast of Ghost Writer

OK, I'll admit, I'm cheating here; I'm including an ensemble cast rather than an individual person. However, given these kids acted as a bit of a single-minded organization centered around their literary demiurge, I'm including them as one.

I tried watching Ghost Writer as a kid. I really did. I liked the concept, and I've always been a fan of mysteries. However, these kids are rock stupid. No, I'm not being mean. Really. I'm serious. These kids were dumb. I'm sure in real life all these actors are nice, intelligent people, but the characters they played were dumb as bricks. It took them a week to solve a mystery I think the real police - or any real detective - would have resolved in a day. The biggest example to me was the episode where they came across a container with these words, with some of the letters covered up by dirt:

WA**ING
HAZA*DO**
*UBSTANC*

I remember watching this episode as a kid about the same age as the characters, and immediately thinking, "Oh, it says Warning Hazardous Substance." Did the kids in the show get it right away? Nope. They were like, "Wow, we need to record this and figure it out later!" Then when they get back to their headquarters, they were still stumped as they mulled it over. Finally they were like, "Wow, this is so hard! We need to get out the dictionary!" I was literally yelling at the screen and throwing stuff - one of the few times in my life I've ever done that. I just could not believe anyone would be that incapable of figuring out something that was so freakin' simple. And these kids want to be detectives?

God help us all...

10 Favorite Screen Characters

I got tagged by CL Schneider to do a "10 Favorite Screen Characters" blog hop. Basically, list ten of your favorite characters from a movie or TV show. I'll put the people I tag on the Tweet for this post.

Now let's get down to it...in no particular order...

The Third Doctor (Original Doctor Who series)

"You, sir, are a nitwit!"

Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)

"I'm a mean green mother from outer space!"

Doc Holliday (Tombstone)

"I have not yet begun to defile myself."

Number 5 (Short Circuit)

"Your mama was a snowblower!"

Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood)

"Did you think your song and dance and superstition would help you, Eli?"

Elsa (Frozen)

"Don't let them in, don't let them see..."

Nabeshin (Excel Saga)

"It's Nabeshin!"

Nekron (Fire and Ice)

"I must admit that until this moment the idea of mating with her filled me with loathing..."

Theoden (Lord of the Rings Trilogy)

"So it begins..."

Crow T. Robot (Mystery Science Theater 3000)

"Kids, today's word is booger!"

Lo! A Blog Hop

Introduction

So I have been tagged in a blog hop by CL Schneider, over at her blog. Here is how it works, as she explained it:

This blog hop is designed to show our readers a more personal side to ourselves. We've been challenged by another author/ blogger (somewhat like the 'ice bucket' challenge) to list seven interesting facts to help cast light onto that tough writer’s/blogger's persona we all like to project. But we want to show that behind every story is a story, our story, my story, and like everyone else I have dreams, hobbies, problems and goals. This blog hop is a way to share some of them with you, my readers.

The rules are that I share 7 Lovely Facts about myself, and links to at least 15 blogs that I enjoy reading. If I’ve nominated your blog (see names below) please don’t feel any obligation to join in but, if you do, please link back to the blog of the person who nominated you...share facts about yourself and nominate 15 blogs (or as many as you can).

Now, without further ado, seven fun facts about me (in no particular order).

1. I visited the Waterloo battlefield for my twelfth birthday.

Being a military brat, I grew up surrounded by a lot of military history books. So one day, when I was about ten or so, I started to read some of them. One of the first ones I read was The Limits of Glory by James McDonough. It was a book about the Battle of Waterloo done in the style of Michael Shaara's famous The Killer Angels. After reading it, I became an instant Napoleonic, and a lover of military history. Not too long after, my father was stationed in Germany, which meant I had access to a lot of foreign countries all along the border. One of them was Belgium, which was of course home to the Waterloo battlefield. So, for my twelfth birthday, my mom took myself and my sisters to Belgium, where we toured the battlefield, watched some light shows demonstrating the phases of the battle, and toured some of the nearby museums. It was definitely one of the best birthday experiences I've ever had. Some kids say they went to Chuck E. Cheese; how many could say they stood on the spot where Emperor Napoleon was decisively defeated and Europe was saved?

2. I am a huge Akira Kurosawa fan.

When I was thirteen, my dad showed me the movie Seven Samurai. I loved the movie, and it's one of the few films over three hours that I've watched many times over (the only other one probably being Gettysburg). I loved the movie so much, in fact, that I went out and looked for other films Kurosawa had done. I encountered Rashomon and Kagemusha, and after that I was hooked. This spring boarded me into other things: it was Kurosawa and his films which got me into studying Japanese history (especially the Sengoku Jidai), Japanese culture, and the Japanese language.

To this day, I have an extensive DVD collection of virtually all his films, as well as a few VHS tapes of those films not yet available on DVD. Kurosawa had a major impact on me in terms of visualization and how to make respectful filmmaking. I think it is also fascinating that he is one of the few filmmakers where you can see the growth of his persona from his earlier films (which were all about young earth shakers looking proudly to the future) and his later films (which were all about older characters looking mournfully back on "the good ol' days"). His films could be artistic without being indulgent, and could be emotional while being subtle. They have just as much an impact on me today as they did the first time I got into them.

3. I was present for the San Francisco earthquake of 1989.

The 1989 earthquake, made famous for taking place during the World Series, happened while my family was living there at the time. I've seen video of the earthquake on YouTube, and one thing I definitely do not remember is the earthquake building up so slowly. The way I remember it was I was in the living room with my mom, watching her play the original Zelda on NES (yes, my mom was a gamer, believe it or not - I think she beat most of our games). Suddenly, the house began to shake, and the TV went out. My mom and I rushed to the hallway, where we met my sisters, and we all huddled together while it went on. The funny thing was, in the midst of the house rocking back and forth and all this chaos, the only thing I remember thinking at the time was, "Oh no, the glasses in the kitchen are breaking!"

Thankfully, no one in my family was hurt, nor were any of our neighbors, and though we camped out that night, by the next morning it was clear that the house was safe, and we went back in without any problems.

4. I nearly died at birth.

When I was being born, the umbilical chord was wrapped around my head and arm. When they began to try to pull me out, the chord would wrap tighter, and cut off my breathing - as a result, my heartbeat would begin to slow down. The funny thing about all this was that no one noticed anything was wrong until a nurse happened to study the machine monitoring my heartbeat, and informed the doctor about it. In the end, my mom had to have a c-section.

5. For a brief period of my life, I was deathly afraid of the toilet.

When I was four-years old, I had a series of dreams in which the toilet, chanting "PEANUT BUTTER! PEANUT BUTTER!" came out of the bathroom and ate me. This was compounded with an incident where, hearing my own breath echoing off the bathroom walls, I mistook it for the toilet breathing. This convinced me, in my youthful imagination, that the toilet was not only alive, but out to get me!

Now some might ask here, "Did you stop using the toilet and go back to diapers?" No, not at all. If I had to do my business, I still went to the little boy's room. However, the minute I flushed, I would run like a bat out of hell out of the bathroom. Over time, I just grew out of this fear, and the toilet and I have had an understanding ever since. Also, don't ask me why the toilet was chanting peanut butter in my dream. To this day I have no idea. It is a hint at just how non sequitor my subconscious can be at times.

6. I have an unhealthy fascination with My Immortal.

For those who don't know, My Immortal is a Harry Potter fanfic written by a girl named Tara Gillespie, and is considered the worst fanfic ever written. No, really, it's that bad. It's basically about a Mary Sue character who is a goth vampire attending Hogwarts. While there, she engages in a relationship with Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, then goes back in time to seduce Voldemort and hence keep him from becoming evil (I'm not making this up!). Everything about this fanfic is bad. Aside from the main character, who is obviously an author self-insert, virtually every aspect of the Harry Potter world is canon wrecked: Snape and Lupin are buddies; Draco Malfoy owns a flying car his father Lucian gave him; McGonagall is a villain; Umbridge and Fudge admit early on that Voldemort has returned and actively seek to stop him; the list goes on and on and on. Oh yeah, and Hedwig is transformed into a human who becomes Voldemort's bisexual lover. Did I happen to mention this fanfic has a lot of canon wrecking?

On top of this, the grammar problems make for some of the most humorous mistakes ever seen in literature. Tara warns readers that, due to the scariness of a certain chapter, viewer "excretion is advised." Snape's name is misspelled every possible way, including "Snake" and "Snoop". Lupin is described as "masticating" to a sexy video. I could literally write a book on all the grammar and spelling errors found within the forty-four chapters.

There is still debate to this day on whether Tara was writing seriously, or whether this was meant to be a trollfic. Either way, there is some level of brilliance seen in My Immortal, whether one wishes to attribute it to admiring a trollfic author's handiwork or reveling in schadenfreude. Yet despite myself, I cannot help but going back to it over and over again. The bad grammar, canon wreckage, and completely incompetent descriptions of sex ("he put his boy's thingy in mine" - let that sink in for a moment) make me literally L-O-L every single time.

If you want to know more about this fanfic, there's the My Immortal Wikia. I would also highly suggest the dramatic reading by LRMReading, who are three Scottish guys that read bad fanfiction - their reactions alone are worth the listen!

7. I currently have a side project to translate the Gospel of John into dovahzul.

Dovahzul is the dragon language found in the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It entered my mind a while ago to attempt to translate the Gospel of John into Dovahzul (since they already have a Klingon project in the works for the whole Bible). It's an on again, off again project that I mostly do when I get bored and then remember that I started it

A friend also encouraged me to translate it into Dunmeri, but...first thing's first.

Blog Listing

As other people have said in regards to blog hops, I really don't follow too many blogs out there. So I'll just make a list of those that I'm familiar with in the indie writing world, with links to their blogs or websites:

CL Schneider
Adam Dreece
Jennie Davenport
Briana Morgan
SA Hunt
Willow Raven

My tagging will be done on Twitter.