I certainly take the things that I like and admire from other bloggers and adapt them to my own style, but I wouldn’t say I have specific role-models in that regard. there isn’t one blog or one blogger that I like or admire above all others; I just soak it all in like a sponge. I tend to like the blogs that take a more personal approach to things though, put a bit of themselves in there alongside the subject they are blogging about.
me, giving of myself for Richard
I can get news and updates anywhere, but I can only get you on your blog.
..and I’ve finished another Challenge! woo-who!!
I enjoyed this challenge immensely because it really helped me look back at where I’ve been in relation to my own blog, not just my interactions in the fandom or my interest in Richard. I’m a very introspective person by nature and had been doing a lot of soul-searching prior to this challenge in regards to what direction I wanted this blog to go, as I headed into my third year of blogging. it’s been very helpful and I’ve enjoyed answering the questions a lot! I did a much more compact version of it on my non-Richard Armitage blog too.
I said “non”. I know it’s hard to fathom but there is such a thing!
Next time I’ll start looking back at all the RA characters, until then, here’s a fanvid of my favorite “character” to carry you through the weekend:
Plans. hmm. what’s that saying? “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” yeah, I’d rather not plan too intently. I have a habit of starting things and then abandoning them once the excitement wanes.
here’s your coat, what’s your hurry?
This blog is important to me, for so many reasons. I’m proud of it– proud of the posts that I’ve put out, proud of the reputation that it has. just looking at it some days gives me the warm feelings I need to take me through the day. there have been times these past two years, when I’ve become disillusioned with the fandom, so much so that I just wanted to throw in the towel. but I couldn’t bring myself to turn my back on this blog: the positive way it makes me feel, the easy interactions I have here with others, the fun I have creating the posts. I’ve had very few negative experiences here. as long as that continues to be the case, I’m going to keep wandering along this path to Nowhere in Particular.
I have a horrible sense of direction, wandering is inevitable!
My intention, at the moment, is to look back at each of the Armitage characters and see how my impressions of them might have changed. that, along with Challenge questions from series that I haven’t finished yet, are the only things I’m planning outright. what I said in my very first post still applies
I never walk a straight path, you discover more when you wander!
That’s a broad question! I could either go the technical route or the more emotional/mental route. seeing as how the latter is ever-changing and I keep relearning things I thought I already knew, I’m going to focus on the former; the more boring of the two but the easiest to tie down.
easy, you say?
One of the first things I learned from blogging is what bandwidth is and why hotlinking is not always polite. when I first started this blog I wasn’t uploading the images I use to the blog’s storage area but using the url‘s from a picture-sharing-site instead. I wasn’t sure how much storage space I had on this blog or how quickly it would fill up, so by linking to the photos instead of uploading, I didn’t need to concern myself with the storage space. I soon found that the free account I had on the picture-sharing-site gave me a monthly allotment of bandwidth though, and if I ever went over that amount then all my pics would not be viewable until the allotment reset itself for the next month. ohhh, now I understand why some people bitch about hotlinking.
fe-fi-fo-feef, I smell a bandwidth thief!
some sites and blogs have unlimited bandwidth through their hosting company (as I do, now that I’ve switched most of my images back over here) , but others have a set amount that they can’t go over. so if I use the url from a pic on someone else’s site and post it on mine, then every time it gets viewed on my site I am eating up their bandwidth. not cool, if they have a limit or pay for their bandwidth. it’s something that I didn’t really understand and took for granted before I started running my own blog.
Another thing that I learned through blogging is that it’s really annoying when someone (me) inserts actions into their sentences repeatedly, like *laughs* or *blushes*. it’s fine to do sometimes but not constantly like I used to do; that’s what smileys are for! but then again, one can go overboard on the use of smileys too. be a responsible smileys user.
[“responsible” smiley doing laundry–what I should be doing right now…]
this reminds me of when I found a handy dandy list (oh shit, another Blues Clues reference!) of how to make the various smileys while browsing through the WordPress help section one day. I was so excited to finally know how others were accomplishing this! I may have made myself a little cheat sheet.
now I’m ready for any situation. bring it on!
Recently I’ve even dabbled in HTML code to better format my posts (the Matrix is real! ) when making a post, we have the option to use the visual editor- which essentially looks the same as it will appear in the finished post, or we can use the text editor- which shows the HTML for the post. every color, image placement, font, text size, alignment, etc. is part of a command that tells the computer how to display it. I’m sure it comes as second nature once you learn the language but I only know bits and pieces, so it’s slow going. it seems to use the same part of my brain that handles math, if that tells you anything.
Math= Temper Tantrum x Infinity
it’s all an ongoing process. there are things that I already knew before starting my own blog that I’ve learned how to do better, and there are things that I always wondered about but didn’t quite grasp. I’m constantly learning and improving what little skills I have in the techie department. it feels good to finally be able to follow computer conversations that my husband has with me, without catching flies in my mouth. and it feels great when I know something that he doesn’t!
me, basking in knowledge
note to self: do not trust Urban Dictionary to give reliable definitions
12.) How- if at all -has blogging changed your life?
It’s given me confidence, helped bring my creative side back out again, and given me the freedom to express the funny side of my personality through the image choices and captions that I use in my posts. we tend to get stuck in the labels that were given us in our childhood, and I was never the funny one. I was the contemplative one, the mediator, the do-the-right-thing girl. my mother was the cynical one, my brother the witty one, those roles were already taken so I only showed those aspects of my personality to a select few. my style leaned more towards teasing sarcasm but all my pop culture references tended to get lost on those around me.
crash & burn!
fast-forward to my early adult years when I was the first to have children in my circle of friends and extended family, which meant we generally did not share the same cultural references–like my crush on Steve from the children’s television program Blues Clues.
I…don’t know what to do with that information.
The people I came into contact with everyday were generally older than me and so I felt like I needed to work my way up, skipping the wandering post college years and heading straight into upright responsibility, since I was already married and having children. it wasn’t until I hit a low point in my life and found a refuge in the lighthearted atmosphere of the Twilight fandom that I started to let myself be me, instead of what I thought everyone expected me to be. it was an ongoing process but by the time I came over to this fandom, the metamorphosis had already begun.
more butterfly than evil incarnate, but no less pretty!
It’s scary to put yourself out there in blog posts, especially in the beginning, and definitely when you’re still a newbie in the fandom. something unexpected happened when I did: suddenly my playful nature became an asset instead of something to explain away. I had readers who shared my sense of humor and got most of my references. this gave me a certain kind of validation in my off-line life as well, to just be who I am and to like what I like.
Dorks ‘R Us
I brought the humor out into my everyday interactions more, instead of just saving it for home, and found that it builds bridges in ways I never imagined it could. You did that for me. every time you laughed along with me. every time you encouraged my uniqueness. every time you acknowledged that I had a voice. you made me real. and it has changed my life for the better.
When I see others enjoy, or benefit from, something that I made. while I primarily blog for me, as in the topics that I choose or what I say, it wouldn’t be nearly (if at all) as fun or meaningful without all of you.
friends don’t let friends fangirl alone
As a commenter, I often feel a sense of relief when a blog post opens the door to talk about things that I have been pondering. as a blogger, I hope I can provide an atmosphere where others are able to do the same. the tone of this blog is generally light, but maybe things won’t seem as scary to discuss because of that– like we’re just throwing around ideas, instead of solving weighty matters.
weighty matter: how to discipline your child when he breaks your mother’s fine china
As different as we all are, we come together in our enjoyment of the characters that Richard portrays. some of them we relate to, bond with, while others leave us scratching our heads. the ones I see myself in may be the ones you can’t wrap your head around. in sharing our simple likes and dislikes we’re often hearing the other side without realizing it, considering things we may have never given much thought to before. comment threads that start out admiring the eyes, debating clothing choices, questioning story arcs etc. can transform into sharing personal struggles regarding failed relationships, body image issues, career changes, and any number of things that we wouldn’t normally offer up for discussion.
all Mullets are not created equal
I think the majority of the time we’re just having a laugh or a smile together, which can help free us from the stress that weighs us down on a daily basis. so when I see others say that they like coming to this blog because it’s a friendly place or that they look forward to my posts because they make them laugh and that makes them feel good, I’m like the Grinch whose heart grew 3 sizes, giving him the strength of 10 Grinches plus two!
Nowhere in Particular RA 