this thing of mine

~Yours in Armitage series~

When I first started this series of posts, the purpose was to document my mindset as I struggled with changing perceptions about my celebrity crush and to help me come to terms with the uncertainties. I think it’s served it’s purpose in that way but it’s also made me look more closely at my history of fangirling in general, the patterns of behavior I’ve exhibited through the years with various crushes, and the whys and hows of it all. I’ve been aware of the things that drew me to certain crushes and the role they were playing in my life at that time, but I never really explored the overall mechanics of why it worked for me, and what happened to me internally when I moved on from one crush to another. so in that way, these posts ended up encompassing more than just my Richard Armitage experience. it’s been interesting for me to delve into these things, and it’s brought up a lot of points that I will continue to ponder. because I know I will continue this hobby with actors other than Richard Armitage. but this introspection has taught me that I don’t have to leave one behind for another, that I don’t have to establish a hierarchy, that I can be as intense or as casual as I feel drawn to be.

Just a few weeks ago I talked about taking the casual route to fangirling, how I now find myself preferring to only know ‘just enough’ about a crush in order to maintain a healthy level for myself; only ‘so much & no more’ or things can get out of hand. I also said, just last week, that I will try picking & choosing what I like and leave the rest by the wayside. but in knowing myself like I do, I know there will be times when I crave the intensity, the days/weeks/months when I want to lose myself in the research of a new crush. and that’s okay too.

This thing of mine will continue because it works for me, even if I don’t fully understand how it does. from my prolonged admiration of Christian Bale, through the escapism of Robert Pattinson, to the intensity of Richard Armitage, and the casualness of Jamie Dornan; to every ‘crush’ there is a season. what matters right now is that, with the help of this blog, I’ve been able to sift through the feelings of confusion that I was experiencing for not being able to hold on to the intensity of this crush. and the conflicting emotions that brought about.

  • do I prefer intensity or ease?
  • must it be either/or?
  • is one better than the other?
  • is it the actor himself or what I’m craving at the time?
  • I haven’t been sparked in awhile, will it happen again?

I’m sure I will continue to ponder these things, but the goal of working through the Richard Armitage aspect on this blog has been met. I’ve found it extremely helpful. I’m now at a place where I can enjoy him again, without all of that baggage in tow. there is a better balance of positives and negatives now, concerning Richard and this hobby of mine in general.

I like to admire actors,

they give us those nice bright colors, they give us the greens of summers, makes you think all the world’s a sunny day.

Thank you for reading! and here’s to many more days/weeks/months(years) of fangirling ahead.

Yours in Armitage,

Kelly

 

15 thoughts on “this thing of mine”

  1. It’s been interesting to read, even if it’s been hard for me to figure out how to comment on some of the posts. My experience is just so much different than yours and I suspect yours is way more typical than mine. But I’m glad you did this. I feel like I understand much better where you’re coming from now.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. as far as being a serial celebrity crusher, I think I’m in the minority in this fandom. for a big portion of fans that I’ve come across, Richard is their first. some have had a previous ‘object of affection’ but they didn’t do the fandom thing. and most of them, regardless whether they’ve crushed before or not, are monogamous with Richard. in the two other fandoms I was involved in, there were many more fans who had multiple actor interests.

      Like

      Reply

  3. Is this the end of these posts? 😔 I have really enjoyed reading your self-analysis. There were a lot of things in your posts that made me think about my own approach – and I think it has been very valuable that you have summarised the main take-aways here again. But most of all I am glad that you will continue to enjoy Richard. 😘

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I kind of deviated from my original plan b/c I was using it as a form of personal therapy. I ended up coming to terms with my issues quicker than I anticipated, so I left out a lot of the subjects that I originally chose to write about. and in the course of picking the excerpts, I tried to stay focused on me, rather than fan opinion, which was a lot harder than I thought it would be! then things morphed a bit and it became more about fangirling in general than specifically Richard. I think it could be enjoyable to keep blogging in this way though, feature those ideas that I ended up tossing to the side. some of them were first impressions about his work or public persona that had changed for me over time, others were about fan perceptions and how that may or may not have influenced my own, and others were more controversial things that I didn’t want to touch upon b/c I thought it would be too much of a tangent in relation to me finding my RA ‘mojo’ again.

      would you like to continue reading?

      Like

      Reply

      2. Hehe, yes, I expected you to take longer to work through these ‘issues’, too. But I think you took the right approach, focussing on your own emotions rather than the fandom’s. You can still do that in another series of posts, because YES, I very definitely would like to continue reading what you have to say. I am always interested in hearing how you perceive his work or his public persona. (And methinks now is a pretty good time for that, again, judging by the latest storm…) And putting your own perspectives into comparison with other fans’ perceptions and activities, could be interesting, too. For me, it tends to be the behaviour of other fans that occasionally sours the fandom experience for me. It’s so much less about RA’s behaviour – or my own personal fangirling. I have come to terms with the fact that I am a mature yet hopelessly smitten fan girl, and I see RA as a typical, capricious artist, whose occasional gaffes are just par for the course. I find it much harder to come to terms with the tendency of the fandom to colour everything black or white… Anyway, so please do continue!

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

          1. when he retweeted a tweet from his Berlin Station costar, in which she referred to herself as the “N” word. it didn’t sit well with some fans and so they voice their displeasure, while others circle the wagons around Richard, and.. well, you know how it goes. I thought it was poor judgement, on both their parts, but it can be a sensitive issue here in the US that maybe those from other countries don’t realize.

            Like

            Reply

          2. It’s a situation that might even be more complex than a lot of RA’s fans realize. Apparently some people are now allowed to use the ‘n’ word while from others it’s a deadly insult.

            Like

            Reply

            1. yes, I run into this a lot with my kids. I have one in middle school and one in high school who, due to the way the school boundary lines are drawn, are pretty much a minority in their schools (we’re white, while most of the other kids are black or Mexican). so it gets confusing when their black friends call each other the ‘N’ word in lightheartedness but it’s taboo for them to join in (the same goes for girls who call each other bitch and ho). but then they come home & I go berserk if I hear that word, explaining that it’s a nasty, demeaning word that you shouldn’t use ever. in a similar vein I’ve had to stress that you don’t joke about hating Jews either (due to that whole ‘Pewdiepie’ Youtube controversy). the kids of today are getting desensitized b/c, for some reason I can not fathom, people want to erase history and pretend it never happened. if we’re going to move forward as a society, we need to learn from our past mistakes. if we erase the mistakes from existence, then we are doomed to repeat them.

              Liked by 1 person

              Reply

          3. Yes, that’s what I was referring to. It’s a minefield, and it varies from country to country and age to age what is allowable and how. This probably wasn’t the best tweet of hers to retweet, but given our fandom’s willingness to take offense at nothing, probably there wouldn’t have been any of her tweets that were safe.

            Like

            Reply

  4. You and I shared some of the same experiences at the beginning, although we ended up with quite different emotional responses to our fanning, so it’s been interesting to read this and caused me to relive some moments.

    Like

    Reply

    1. yeah, a lot of my reactions had very little to do with Richard himself and more to do with things that were going on with me internally. that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to work it out ‘in public’, to show that things are not always so black and white, and maybe we don’t always realize why we have the reactions that we do. overall, I just find fandom/fan behavior interesting 🙂

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment