I’ll Stand By You

Fan A to Z Challenge

I.) What made you come out as a fan and participate in the fandom online?

I came into this fandom with the intent to participate. at first I thought that might happen on fan forums but the more I looked around, the more the blogging community appealed to me. it was scary to make those first few comments but once I did, I realized how welcoming the blogs were to newcomers. before long, the itch to open my own blog became almost overwhelming. once I checked into WordPress and saw how user friendly the platform was, I set about brainstorming what kind of blog I wanted to have. I decided to stick to the basics and just tell my own story, how I discovered things within the fandom and what I thought of them. I borrowed the gif caption concept from a Robert Pattinson blog that I used to love reading and the rest I let come naturally. so it wasn’t any one person or any one blog that made me decide ‘hey, I can do that!’ but more just a welcoming community atmosphere. I didn’t befriend other fans and then open a blog, I opened a blog to befriend other fans.

how you doin?

 

J.) Are you outed as a fan among your family and friends?

yes. my kids, husband, and parents are always pretty much aware of which actor I’m crushing on at the moment. even if I don’t mention the person out loud, my family starts to see a pattern in the movies I’m suddenly watching.

what? I’ve always liked fava beans & chianti.

 

K.) Have you met RA? Where? Have you got a photo to share? And what did you say to him?

no, I haven’t met him. not in the traditional sense, but this blog is filled with my pretend interactions with him…

*insert swoony scenario here*

 

L.) Dealbreakers- what would make you stop being RA’s fan?

This is a hard one.

that’s what she said!

Is there anything he could do that would make me stop being a fan completely? because as much as I whine about him not being who I thought he was and not choosing the kinds of projects I want to see–I’m still blogging about him, aren’t I?

Truth.com

I guess the dealbreaker would have to be something in his personality, like he became outspokenly racist or something? I don’t know. if he did suddenly do a complete 180, I’d probably just feel sorry for him and try to figure out what horrible thing happened to him to make him that way. I’m loyal to a fault.

~*~*~*~

and everything changed

Fan A-Z Challenge

E.) Which of RA’s audio chARacters do you think he should play in a film adaptation?

I’m going to skip this question because I’m not a fan of audio books. I liked A Convenient Marriage, Venetia was okay, Lords of The North put me to sleep, and I quit Hamlet 20 minutes in.

 

F.) Name a play that you wish RA would do.

I’m not a big theatre goer. not that I don’t like plays, I do, I just haven’t had the opportunity to see many. my grand total is 8, most of which were musicals.

 

G.) How long have you been in the fandom, and how has your attitude to the fandom changed during that time?

The answer to this one is so long winded, it makes up for skipping the previous two!

get comfy, this is going to take awhile…

I started lurking in this fandom in January of 2013, before starting this blog 4 months later. I announced my decision to stop blogging about Richard Armitage in late August of 2016- only to go against that decision and create a temporary blog to work through my confusion. I deleted that blog and moved those posts to my Getting Caught Up In The Mechanism blog, where I now blog about actors and fandom (Richard included). even after I stopped blogging about Richard here, I still kept a toe in the fandom by continuing to lurk on other blogs. so I’ve been a part of this fandom for 5 years, a ‘superfan’ for 3. truthfully, I started wavering during year two but something kept pulling me back in.

In the beginning, fandom was a dream come true for me because talk centered around one subject above all others and pretty much stuck to that subject throughout. I’ve gotten to know many of you through discussing Richard. sharing our experiences in relation to storylines, character traits, aesthetic preferences, etc. this is how my brain works, I learn through story telling. give me a text book and I will fall asleep after page 2 but give me a movie/book/song that is fiction-based-on-fact, and I will eat it up in record time. I had been a member of 2 small groups in 2 different fandoms before this one, so I just assumed I would do the same within the RA blogging community as well. except the community reached farther than I thought it did. there were more blogs to read and comment on, more content to catch up on, more opportunities to interact with other fans…more frustration when the community became distracted by personal issues, opinions, and opposing methods of dealing with conflict. I didn’t sign up for that. I had a lot of positive experiences within the fandom but the negativity seemed to dim their light. I am highly sensitive to underlying tension. some fans are able to shake that stuff off, ignore it if it doesn’t touch them directly; I am not one of those fans. I feel it in every wink and eye roll. I try to escape it by finding greener pastures, only to step into it again.

a glitch in the Matrix?

All of this was a constant push and pull to me, then Richard jumped into fandom himself, affecting a significant part of my fandom experience. I struggled with how big of a part that was. fandom was fandom and Richard was Richard and never the two shall meet. when they did meet? I cannot put into words how much that threw me off kilter. I could no longer separate Richard from fandom. when I finally came to terms with it all, observing from the outside instead of participating from the inside, the good memories overshadowed the bad and I was able to let the bitterness go. but that part of me that was damaged never recovered.

August 22, 2014-a date which will live in infamy.

I have such happy memories of my interactions on this blog. the silly captions and all those reaction gifs, the sometimes deep and sometimes shallow but always enjoyable discussions in the comment section, the familiar avatars of my readers and the warm feeling I get when I still see them on Twitter. it’s easier to let the hurt go now that I’ve opened myself up to other actors. I don’t regret this blog, I don’t regret the fandom friends I made, I don’t regret falling for Richard. it’s shaped me and helped me grow as a person in ways I didn’t anticipate but greatly value.

❤ ❤ ❤

 

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.

 

Fan A-Z Challenge

A new blogging challenge, woo hoo! Guylty has created the Fan A-Z Challenge and I just had to come out of hiding to participate, because you know I can’t resist these types of things!

me, trying to resist a fangirl questionnaire

There are some really good questions in this challenge that aren’t just the same old ‘favorite outfit’ type

not that there’s anything wrong with favorite outfits…

The questions about fandom are what really intrigued me. a few of the questions don’t apply to me but I think I’ll be able to answer most of them. so without further ado, let’s tackle the first letter.

A.) if you add up all the money you have spent on DVDs, cinema tickets, accommodation, theatre tickets, fanart, audio books etc, how expensive has RA been so far?

Compared to other fans, I haven’t spent a lot of money on my RA fangirling.

you keep telling yourself that

I have purchased relatively little merchandise and I haven’t gone to a premiere or any kind of event. after sitting down and adding it all up, this is what I’ve spent money on:

• cinema tickets for all three Hobbit movies (The Desolation of Smaug twice) and Into The Storm
• DVDs/Blurays for all three Hobbit movies
• rented film version of The Crucible and interview
• Funko Pop! Thorin
• Red Dragon Plushie
• An Inconvenient Marriage and Venetia audio books on CD
• North & South novel
• North & South DVD
• A Heart For Milton ebook
• Harry Kennedy episodes of The Vicar of Dibley on DVD
• Photobucket add free plans for 2 years to house my collection of gifs

That’s about it! anything else I have was gifted to me.

Gift.

It doesn’t seem like much, as far as fangirling goes, but it adds up to a little over $300 over a five year period. quite a steal for all of the enjoyment it’s brought me ❤

 

because looks can be deceiving

a #CelebRAteLove contribution

if you follow my posts on Twitter
you might think that I’ve moved on
that I’ve lost that loving feeling
found a new bae to dote upon

well, you’d be wrong.

140 characters makes it really hard to impart
what’s in my heart!

and if you’ve stumbled upon my skewed attempts
at personal enlightenment
but just can’t seem to figure out
what I’m blathering on about

well, that makes two of us.

but I think we can agree
that Richard is da bomb diggity!
(top that, WikiRhymer!)

so I may not post his pictures
quite as often as before
or squee, and swoon, and sigh
about all that I adore

but rest assured, when all is said and done
Richard’s still my number one.

❤ ❤ ❤