Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

Fan A-Z Challenge

B.) Which of his chaRActers do you think RA is most like? which is he most unlike?

I’m going to go in another direction here, because I have a hard time using Richard’s film characters to answer this question. I find a little bit of him in every character he plays.

Richard Armitage: potty mouth

I think that Richard (and most actors) have personas that they adopt when doing press and promos. not that they’re pretending, necessarily, but that they play up certain parts of themselves in order to get the job done.

what will it be today, adorkable or intimidating?

Unfortunately, I think that the Twitter Richard persona is probably the closest to who he is behind closed doors. I say ‘unfortunately’ because I have issues with his approach to using Twitter.

incoming criticism, arm yourselves!

Case in point: the recent brouhaha where an entertainment critic used Richard for her own gain, banking on the fact that his fans would come out of the woodwork to defend him. instead of passing on by, Richard chose to reply to her remarks. I understand the urge to confront a remark like that, truly I do (I’ve given in to it myself a time or seven) but in my opinion, Richard responding to baiting like that shoots his cyberbullying ambassadorship all to hell.

Richard, wondering where I hitched the horse I rode in on.

And then there’s the constant self correction. I’m a fan of Richard Armitage, I happen to think he’s pretty swell and so do a lot of other fans, many of whom follow his example in everything that he does. so when he apologizes for being himself, that’s not a lesson I want others to replicate. if you regret saying off the cuff things publicly, then curb that habit of saying them. if you constantly find yourself removing tweets because you regret that you posted them, think long and hard about what you decide to tweet in the future.

Laurel or Yanny- do I want to go to war today?

Or if you’re like me and remove things because you can’t stand your own grammar mistakes, then petition Twitter to add an Edit button. start several petitions, I will sign them all.

me, constantly rethinking my choice of emojis

Moving on to ‘least like’ character: Photoshoot Richard. I’m not saying Richard never smolders in his everyday life, I’m sure he does in certain circumstances

 

but generally speaking, I think Photoshoot Richard is much too confident.

boots don’t belong on furniture, mister!

I’m glad he’s not as confident though because that is part of his appeal, regardless of all that stuff I just said about Twitter…

I know I’m confusing, Richard, you should try living with me! no, seriously, you should live with me.

So yeah, I have conflicting feelings. Richard does that to me. I like that he does that to me- I can’t really explain why that is. I do know that he makes me feel, and he makes me think, and that’s why I keep coming back for more.

and this. I keep coming back for this too.

 

Mulligan

Once upon a time I labeled the character of John Mulligan as a cad.

who, me?

but also defended him with the opinion that he was a former bad boy just trying to get by.

yeah, let’s go with that

John confused me with the way he seduced the emotionally vulnerable Ellie by playing on her confidence issues. he’d talk down to her, reinforce how down on her luck she currently was–how far she had fallen from his previous conceptions of her– then flirt and build her back up again in the same conversation. that kind of manipulation never sat well with me but, ironically, I felt manipulated by the way the story was told through Ellie’s eyes, and so I fought against it. 

 

I was adamant that the pivotal scene when the drugs were found in her luggage, was not a set-up by John: he may have been hiding the drugs from her but he wasn’t using her to transport them….I was riding high on Mulligan charm.

it’s the layers. chicks can’t resist all this fabric!

somehow I misunderstood when Ellie said they should just use one suitcase for their trip instead of two. I was under the impression that they were sharing the same suitcase and thus the drugs she found were not intended to be transported by her alone. 

distRActed

I must have also missed the part where John urged Ellie to go check and see if she had enough gas in the car, leaving him alone with the luggage–which was in actuality two separate suitcases–giving him the opportunity to either switch the drugs from his case to hers or to purposely place the drugs in her case as he intended to do all along. 

distRActed-part 2

so, my opinion regarding John’s intentions has changed. I feel better about it now because I was fighting the creepiness before, the mental abuse John was exhibiting through his emotional manipulation of Ellie. I didn’t like it but I overlooked it because it didn’t fit in with what I wanted to see. but before you let out that breath you were holding in fear for my sanity, I must confess: I find prison John the more enticing of the two.

neck porn

once he’s caught and gives his speech to Ellie, knocking her down a few pegs by pointing out that all the nice things she currently owns was bought with his money; the difference between the two personas is more apparent. it’s clear to me that prison John is the real him, and I dig his confidence. even though the jig is up, he’s resigned to his fate. he’s not blaming anyone for putting him there, he got caught and that is that.

 

before, I thought the look in John’s eyes at the end was regret because he really did like Ellie and he was sad that he lost what might have been.

Danger! Danger! do not look directly into the eyes!

but now I don’t see that look as loneliness or disappointment, but rather irrelevance: he just doesn’t care. I can respect that more than the smooth talker I thought he was before.

emptiness is the new sexy

truth, even if it’s not the good kind, is preferable to a lie.

unless it’s delivered while wearing this jacket- then all bets are off.

Real

Blog Introspection Challenge

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.

once you are real you can’t become unreal again.

it lasts for always.

 

❤

Playing the Part

55 Reasons British Men are Bloody Gorgeous

3.) the way they manage confidence without cockiness

Confidence can be a tricky thing. Sometimes those who appear the most confident are actually very insecure, and those who hang back from the spotlight, surprisingly have a strong sense of self. Richard has a nice balance of the two.

I got that boom boom, that (both genders) chase

He often appears relaxed and at ease, but sometimes little clues to the contrary peek through: the nervous clenched fists or the vulnerable hands-in-pockets.

yeah, my (Mum) she told me don’t worry about your size

I think if Richard knows the kind of atmosphere he’s going into beforehand, then he is more able to embrace and relish the experience.

all the right junk in all the right places

At other times, it’s really helpful to have something to hide behind

’cause every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top

Richard is quite serious about his craft. When he’s focused and unaware, the confidence is there for all to see.

I can shake it shake it, like I’m supposed to do

this applies to “Photoshoot Richard” as well

I like how Twitter is bringing “Playful Richard” more to the forefront too.

if you got beauty beauty, just raise ’em up

In any case, Richard seems to have a handle on how this fame thing works. There is a special confidence in owning who you are, in all your different forms.

*all captions are lyrics from Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass”, because I would never say such things…