Know Your Buddy Tag ft. Naemi @A Book Owl’s Corner

“The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive.”

First line in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

Yes, it’s Friday and not Saturday, my usual posting day, but that’s because I’m doing a very special tag today. I was tagged by Riddhi @Whispering Stories to do the Know Your Buddy Tag, so thank you very much, Riddhi! I was also so lucky that Naemi @A Book Owl’s Corner wanted to do it with me, so this post is full of Naemi’s answers (and my comments), while I answered the questions over on her blog. But as this post is about Naemi, she’s also the one who picked the first line above from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix since that is her favorite book. Let’s get into the tag!

Rules

• Tag the original creators of this tag – Tallblondetales and Proxywords – and tag the original posts from each of their blogs. If you do, you’ll be eligible for the roundup post and grand ‘Know Your Buddy’ tag winner! If not, you can still take part in the tag you just won’t be a contender for the overall winner. View original posts here and here.
• Thank the bloggers who nominated you (and your buddy), share the badge and rules in your post. 
• Pick a blogger with whom you’d like to do this tag with, answer the questions together, and share each other’s answers on both the blogs.
• Nominate 10 new Bloggers and keep spreading the love.
• Notify the bloggers (tell them you nominated them) by commenting on one of their posts.

What is your favorite blog post of mine and why? 

I’m sure this comes as a tremendous surprise, but all of your Lost in Translation posts!!! Harry Potter and languages are some of my favorite things ever, so stumbling across your ingenious combination of both was beyond amazing 😍 However, if I had to pick, I’d say I probably love the Chamber of Secrets one most, simply because of Romeo G. Detlev Jr. I was in hysterics after reading that, and, honestly, I’m still not over it…

Translation stuff aside, though, I also really loved your post about book blogging and social anxiety because I related to it on a very personal level. Or that post where you turned book titles into random questions because it was so wonderfully weird. Or the one where you talked about Danish Christmas because I always love learning about cultural stuff like that. Basically, I don’t think you could ever post anything that I won’t love!

You love my Lost in Translation posts and you’re not over Romeo G. Detlev Jr.? How could I possibly have known that? It’s not like you’ve told me that at least 30 times 😂 But thank you! I’m quite proud of the other ones you mention, too, and I loved writing them! 

What would you like to be known for – your name or your blog’s name? 

Truth be told, I hate standing in the limelight and am actually kind of terrified of fame… So my blog’s name might be something good to hide behind because people wouldn’t necessarily know it’s me!

Then again, some of my biggest dreams are to eventually publish a well-beloved novel or to prove a conjecture that mathematicians have been puzzling over for centuries, and I don’t think I’d be super thrilled to see A Book Owl’s Corner as the author of my book or paper. I guess I’m vain enough to want my achievements listed under my real name after all 😂

I’m picturing that math paper written by A Book Owl’s Corner and everybody else’s confusion, so besides the fact that that would be kind of hilarious, I also think your real name is the best solution. 

If you had to swap niches, which niche would you change to? 

I could totally see myself having a travel blog. Although I’ve barely gotten out of the country in the past two years, I’ve always loved exploring other cultures and places I’ve never been to before! And even within Germany, there is so much I have yet to discover!
Sharing my experiences with other people might motivate me to get out more and actually document what I’ve learned along the way, similar to how talking about books has allowed me to keep track of what I’ve been reading and discover an abundance of like-minded people. The only problem would be that I don’t exactly have a big budget or a ton of free time for traveling…

I could totally see you having a travel blog! You already include some of your own photos of snow-covered German forests in your posts sometimes, so I feel you’re already halfway there. And you know I’d want to read the post you’d eventually make about Sweden…

What is the weirdest comment you have ever gotten on your blog? 

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any truly weird comments. Not even spam ones, because those are usually either highly inappropriate or just consist of a whole bunch of links. So they always go straight into the trash without me even getting a laugh out of them…

However, I suppose you could argue that, taken out of context, some of my comments could be considered weird. Here are two of my personal favorites:

That one from Hermione made my head hurt 😲 

Do you think cereal is soup? Why or why not? 

NO. Any sane person should know this without needing additional evidence, but since there are also people like my youngest brother out there, who are convinced that it is, let’s have a look at the Merriam-Webster’s definition together:

I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to put vegetables, meat, or fish in my cereal. Nor do I cook it.

Of course you’re answering this by referring to Merriam-Webster 😂 But since I agree, I think you have a very strong argument here. 

If you had a controller with the power to rewind or fast-forward, which would you press for WordPress?

I mean, eventually someone is bound to come up with something that works better than what we currently have, right? There are so many annoying things about the WordPress reader – sometimes it chooses to just not show me posts of blogs I’m subscribed to, it always insists on using a weird mixture of German and English, and then it keeps recommending my own stuff to me:

Look, WordPress, I think you can safely assume that I’ll have read my posts when I’m the one writing them! And don’t even get me started on your editor, where something as simple as trying to justify more than one block of text at once or setting something to cursive is a task in and of itself…
So fast-forward it is! (Also, does this mean I get a sneak preview of my future posts before I’ve actually written them?)

The WordPress app also mixes Danish and English for me and I’ve tried everything I can think of to change it! Haven’t been recommended my own posts though, but I’m with you in hoping a fast-forward would change some things. 

Your blog is chosen to sponsor a charity. If funds were not an issue, which charity or issue would your blog choose to support? 

I am fairly certain we can’t keep destroying our planet without horrible consequences – you know, mass extinction of species, natural disasters, global wars over resources, further pandemics – and personally, I am not really looking forward to any of that… That’s why my favorite kinds of charities tend to be ones that combine environmental protection efforts with education, like The Ocean Cleanup  or Rainforest Trust. So those would probably be the ones getting my money!

Such charities can never get enough money so I’m definitely with you on that! I could do without all those things you mention as well. 

If you two were to be buddy characters in a movie, which characters would you be and why? 

I have come to the conclusion that we are simply so unique that no movie characters could possibly do us justice 😇 However, since I apparently have to come up with something, I’m just going to give you the best I’ve got, namely that I don’t think we’d do too badly at being Kristoff (you) and Sven (me) from Disney’s Frozen. And before you laugh at me, hear me out!

Reasons why I think you would be Kristoff:

1. He’s from a Nordic country.
2. He drives a sleigh, which can be used to deliver stuff. Like mail, for example. That’s almost the same thing as working for the postal service!
3. He’s very creative and writes songs that are full of humor, just like you continuously bless our community with unique and funny blog posts.
4. He isn’t a huge fan of social interactions, overthinks everything, and would rather keep to himself. But once you get to know him, he’s genuinely one of the nicest people out there and you couldn’t ask for a better friend!

Reasons why I think I would be Sven:

1. As a reindeer, I am sure he has traveled extensively, but due to logistical issues, he probably hasn’t strayed too far from where he lives. Just like me, who loves going to new places but has, unfortunately, never been anywhere outside of Europe and the United States.
2. He loves music, but prefers to stay in the background and let others take the lead during performances.
3. He is bilingual. He speaks Reindeer and understands Human, even though he doesn’t really talk much. But I, too, am terrible at talking in my foreign languages – I much prefer listening, reading, and writing.
4. He also likes keeping to himself, but once he gets to know people, he is very loyal and enjoys spending time with them.
   (Also, he likes food.)

I’m dead 😂😂  I didn’t know Kristoff was such a relatable character but you sold it! (Although, the one connecting a sleigh and the postal service might be a bit of a stretch 😂) And you’re a reindeer! A bilingual and music-loving reindeer which I just think is the perfect choice! Reindeers are better than people after all 😉 

Which is the most boring part of writing blog posts for you, or what part of blogging are you laziest about doing? 

Honestly, the worst part for me is actually starting to write the posts 😅 I always have this beautiful idea in my head of how I want them to turn out, but then when I start typing, everything just seems like horrible word vomit and I keep deleting and retyping the same sentence over and over again. And since I know this will inevitably happen, I always put off the drafting stage until right before the post is supposed to go up, and then things get really stressful… Once I have something down on screen though, I actually love editing it and whipping it into shape!

(Also, I am extremely lazy about making my posts look pretty and designing my own graphics for them, but since I don’t even attempt to put effort into that, I can’t claim that it’s boring. My laziness is so extensive that I just have ZERO experience in that department.)

Yeah, if it’s going to be a post with a lot of text, I also hate starting them because it’s so hard to come up with a structure to all the random thoughts I have. Tags are so much easier (unless they ask you to compare yourself and your friend to movie characters…)

What are the unwritten rules of your blog? 

Ummm… that I talk about books, that I post every Friday, and that my first post of the month is always my wrap-up of the previous month? I honestly have no idea. My whole blogging experience is so chaotic that I’m sure I’ve probably broken any rule you could come up with at least once. To keep things varied, I do try not to post the same kind of content in a row all that often – there’s a reason why I have about fifty tags in my drafts folder – but in the end, I usually end up writing whatever I want. As long as I think it’s interesting, it deserves to be written, regardless of whether I expect it to be popular or not!

Also, I always try to include a bit of what is going on in my life in my posts. Blogs that sound like they were written by personality-less robots aren’t really my thing, so I want to give my readers the opportunity to get to know me. However, I do have some rules in place here: 1) I would never share anything that I wouldn’t be comfortable with people in my real life stumbling across, and 2) Other people are off-limits – I might mention that I went hiking with a friend, but that’s the extent of detail you’re going to get.

As someone who used to be a personality-less robot, I really appreciate that your posts are so much about you and I definitely felt inspired by that. And hey, your chaotic blogging has worked quite well so far, so no rules is probably a good thing (although I could never 😄)

If you could transform into any animal, what would it be and why? 

An owl.

1. I could fly.
2. I would have amazing head-turning skills.
3. I could sneak up quietly and listen in on conversations without actually having to engage in them.
4. Owls are the best animals ever.
5. Why do I even need to give you a reason? Look at my blog’s name; that should tell you everything!

I’m thinking the head-turning skills are the real perk here. 

If your blog had a superpower/magical element, what would it be? 

I think it would be beyond interesting if my blog could tell me what the people who clicked on a post of mine really thought while reading it. I’m just super nosy, okay, and there are not that many people who actually take the time to leave long detailed comments! So I am always left wondering: Did this person who liked my post actually read it? Did they like it because they enjoyed it? Or because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings, even though it was actually really boring? Or possibly because they want me to visit their blog in return? And what about all these ghostlike people who are viewing my posts without any kind of interaction at all? What do they think, and who even are they?

I desperately need this to be real! Not because I’m super nosy but because I naturally assume people hate me or the post if they don’t tell me differently 😅 Even if they do hate me, it’s nice to get confirmation. But yes, I would also love to know if the person who liked my post 2 minutes after it was posted actually read it and if so, how they got their superpower of speed-reading 🤔

What reminds you of me? 

Soccer 😜 (I can already picture your reaction to me calling it that, so I think it’s safe to say you’re obsessed.)

Seriously, though, getting to root for Denmark together after Germany’s horrendous performance in last year’s Euros turned out to be way more emotional than I was expecting, and if you ever need someone to fangirl over things like Ukraine pulling off a last-minute win over Sweden or England failing spectacularly at penalty shoot-outs again, just say the word!

You probably pictured that reaction correctly since I apparently remind you of the worst word in the English (or should I say American?) language! But then you reminded me of Sweden’s glorious defeat and England’s major failure so it’s okay. I’m always ready to fangirl over football with you! 🥰

If you were given the power to exchange blogs for a day, which thing would you change or adapt first?

Please don’t hate me for this, Line, but… I kind of detest the color pink 😅 And pinkish purple, too, if you want to argue about shades. So if we exchanged blogs, I’m afraid that color would be in grave danger of annihilation.

Realistically speaking, though, I am so bad at graphic design that whatever changes I tried to implement would make things look about a million times worse, so instead, I would probably just go back to all of my old comments and use my newly gained editing privileges to fix any typos there and make myself look smarter than I actually am 😇

But pinkish purple is my favorite color! I can’t imagine having a blog without a tiny bit of it. However, you would be allowed to change my featured image because that IS a lot of purple. And I don’t think you make that many typos in your comments. Is it because you already have this ability and are keeping it a secret? 

What new username would you give to my blog?

None! I would never change your username. It is such an ingenious pun!!! And if there’s anything I’m an absolute sucker for, it’s puns. Even when they’re genuinely terrible, I will be over here cackling. And since your username is a simply awesome pun, it is in no danger whatsoever!

I AM quite proud of the creative abilities that popped up when I created that name so it means a lot that you’re that much of a fan 😄 Even if you would have loved any pun.

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Now it’s time for tagging other bloggers to do this tag, and even though the rules say ten, I’m just going to do five. I feel like a lot of the people I know have already been tagged for this anyway.
I tag:

• Ariana @The Book Nook
• Kristin @Kristin Kraves Books
• Lotus @Pages of Starlight
• Maria @The Character Study
• Peat @Peat Long’s Blog

You absolutely don’t have to do this if you’re not into it. I just wanted to share your blogs because I really like them.

This was so much fun to do!! Thanks again, Riddhi, for tagging me and thank you, Naemi, for doing this with me! Remember to check out my answers for these questions over on her blog and of course to follow her while you’re there. How can you not when you now know that she’s an owl-obsessed math nerd who’s basically Sven from Frozen? I promise you, you need that in your life.