Time to get Spooky!: Real Neat Blog Award

It’s that time again, folks! It’s award time!

And, no, I’m talking about the newly-launched AGAHA Awards (although you should totally check that out). I’m talking about the Real Neat Blog Award which Pinkie nominated me for! Now, I know what you might be thinking. Pinkie nominated me for this award over a month ago. I know. It’s bad practice. However, the past month or so hasn’t been great for me in terms of productivity and motivation, for reasons even I’m not sure of. Regardless, I’m here now. I’m motivated. So let’s do this.

This is the third time I’ve been nominated for this lovely award! Actually, looking back at the other times, I seem to have a track record for not doing these awards on time… One day, I promise you, I will write and publish a response in less than two weeks.

Nevertheless, it’s always lovely to receive these awards. They certainly boost my confidence and motivation levels somewhat. So, I’m going to give a very big ‘thank you’ to Pinkie for nominating me. Pinkie is an absolute sweetheart and you should totally check out their blog, especially if you like Pokémon!

Although it’s the third time I’ve been nominated for this award, I should probably give myself a quick refresher on the rules and start answering some questions!

• Display the Award Logo.
• Thank the blogger who nominated you and post a link to their blog.
• Answer the questions of the one who nominated you.
• Nominate 7-10 bloggers.
• Ask them seven questions.

So, Pinkie went for a spooky theme with her questions (considering her nomination was before Halloween!) and it’s certainly time to get a bit creative with them as well! Let’s take a look, shall we?

1) What is the thing you fear the most?
I do have quite a few fears. Heights, spiders, thunderstorms… But none of these is what I truly fear the most. It may seem a little overdramatic to some, but I would say that two of my worst fears are actually being alone and also failing. Honestly, I would say that being alone is probably the one thing I fear the most. I have to have company. To sound quite like an anime cliché, I need my friends to be strong. They don’t have to be with me in person, of course, that is quite impossible these days, but as long as I’m in contact with them regularly via Discord, for example, I’m quite happy. I hate being left out of things, which is arguably why I struggled so much whilst I was in China. My family are important too, but that should go without saying. I might not see a lot of my family regularly, but as long as I have the support of my parents, I’m happy. As for failing, well, perhaps that’s just fear as a result of constant rejection from companies during this current period of job-hunting, but considering that my most wanted thing is stability and happiness in life, I would argue it’s quite justifiable at the moment.

2) You are a character in a horror film, a teenager. What troupe would you be?
I don’t watch horror films, so I’m not too sure on the different troupes with them specifically, but I’m just going to go with somewhat typical troupes that I can imagine being in a horror film. Ideally, I’d want to be the intelligent sidekick that tells the often rather, bluntly speaking, stupid protagonist what not to do. There’s just something about them that’s cool to me. However, I suppose I should be a little bit more realistic. I would probably be the one supporting character who’s scared at the littlest of things. Honestly, in mind right now, I have Ron Weasley in my head. I know the Harry Potter series isn’t exactly a horror series, but Ron is certainly the one character I can see myself acting like in a horror film set.

3) What do you think comes after death?
Man, I have no idea. I’d like to think that’s something after death. This is something I’ve ended up speaking about countless times with a variety of different people, but I’ve never actually settled on an actual answer for myself. I always liked the idea of reincarnation to be completely honest, but perhaps that’s just as a result of my romantic way of thinking.

4) You are now a horror villain. What is your backstory and what is your main weapon?
wish I could answer this without relying on my very limited knowledge of horror. I’ve never been great at creating scenarios for horror fiction, so this is difficult for me to answer! Honestly, part of me wants to go down the poison route, similar to that in Snow White, I guess, but that’s not really horror, is it? I guess by recently reading GOTH by Otsuichi, I am influenced to say something along the lines of a knife as well, but it’s at least more horror-y than poison. The answer is, I don’t really know. I’m bad at imagining horror scenes and I’m not really a scary person. Can a villain’s main weapon be kindness? Could I be in a horror where everything is slightly inverted? If I was a villain in a world where positive things were classed as evil (kindness, happiness etc.) then I would probably say that my background was something along the lines of me being completely fed up with the evil in the world. Wait- Actually, that sounds a little too close to reality…

5) What is the weirdest/most mysterious thing you have ever experienced?
Another tricky one, to be perfectly honest. I don’t think it has anything to do with ghosts or aliens, but every now and again I remember a time when I was younger. I can’t remember if it was a part of a dream or whether it was just a figure of my imagination, but I seem to recall having a clownish figure in my room, just above my curtain rail. Even though I can’t ever seem to remember the full details, I do sometimes have flashbacks to that day and it’s always been weird to me!

6) You have become a ‘classic’ monster. You can choose between a vampire who sparkles and has to drink to death, a werewolf who loses control at moonlight and will hunt, a green skinned warty witch who eats children or a regular zombie. What do you choose?
Ooh, this is a hard one. Well, to a certain extent anyway. I can immediately rule out becoming a children-eating, green-skined witch simply for the fact that I can’t imagine children to be so delicious. I can also rule out becoming a werewolf, for I certainly don’t have the energy in me to go hunting every time the moon is out. So, for me, it’s between being a sparkly vampire or a regular zombie. I would say that I would be the zombie as I think it suits my somewhat lazy personality a lot better than being a vampire, but anyone who knows me knows I love my vampires and, well, a lot of my usernames has the word ‘sparkles’ in them, so… I guess by process of elimination it simply has to be the sparkly vampire. Let me join the Cullen family now!

7) What is your favourite scary movie?
I don’t really know! I don’t watch scary movies because horror doesn’t really seem to affect me like it does others, nor do I find them particularly entertaining. However, after a quick Google to try and refresh my knowledge on what ‘scary movies’ there are, I’m going to have to give a shoutout to The Babadook – an Australian psychological horror from 2014. It was a film that was constantly recommended to me by someone in my Film Studies class during college and I finally got round to watching it the other year. Even for me, this was a great, entertaining film.

Bonus Question: What is that weird thing standing behind you?
Oh, that? That’s just my shadow. I promise.

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Heh, although Pinkie gave me some difficult questions, this is by far the most difficult part of awards. Every single time, I have difficulty selecting people to nominate. However, this time I’m nominating the following bloggers:

1. Keiko from Keiko’s Anime Blog
2. Megan from A Geeky Gal
3. Annie from Annie-Me
4. OtakuBrit
5. Rayz from MirrorPurple
6. Lynn Sheridan from The Otaku Author
7. Irina from Drunken Anime Blog

As always, I realise some people don’t like doing nominations/tags, but it’s been a while since I’ve done one and so I forget who likes them and who doesn’t! Apologies if I’ve tagged you and you don’t like them! Also, even if you don’t mind them, please don’t feel obliged to participate! This is simply my way of telling you to keep up the good work you’re putting in and that you (and your blog) are awesome.

So, Pinkie gave me Halloween questions because I was nominated in October. It’s now December and we all know what theme corresponds with December…

1. What’s your favourite food?
2. What would be the ultimate gift to give you?
3. Name three characters you’d love to spend the holidays with and explain why.
4. What’s your opinion on snow? Do you like it? Do you not like it?
5. Tell us about a fond memory from the holiday period.
6. If you could collaborate with an artist at karaoke, what classic Christmas song would you sing and who would it be with?
7. What are your plans this holiday period?

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And that’s my Real Neat Blogger Award post all done! Thanks again to Pinkie for nominating me! You certainly made it one to think about!

Until next time!

– Amelia xo