Thursday, 19 January 2012

FanstRAvaganza 3 - 2012 (Announcement)

 (Image created by the unimitable bccmee with her wonderful blog FanVideos.)



FanstRAvaganza is coming
from 12th - 18th of March, 2012.
Be prepared and watch out.



The following 'anchor blogs', including this one, with a wide range of further RA-bloggers will share in Fan-ExtRA-vagance around the actor Mr. Richard Armitage in March.

Anchor blogs of the event are:

Me + Richard  (by Servetus)

FanVideos (by bccmee)

RA Viewers Perspective  (by Mulubinba)

The Squeee!  (by Traxy)

RA Frenzy  (by Frenz)

The RA Fan Blog  (by Nat, the founder of the event)

Confessions of a Watcher (by Judiang)

CDoart  (by CDoart)

DistRActed Musings of One ReAlity (by Fanny/iz4blue)

Jonia's Cut (by Jonia)


Invitations go out right now to include all RA-bloggers and make this an open and collective fan-event. Should you like to participate and did not get an invitation (we most likely could not find your contact details, so please excuse that), please get in contact with Servetus (refgeek[at]gmail.com) at Me + RichardArmitage, who kindly will co-ordinate all participation.

A list of the articles of last year's event can be found here: FanstRAvaganza 2011

You can follow current events and the posts on a collective Facebook page: FanstRAvaganza

The related Twitter Hashtag is: #FanstRA


So have fun and enjoy a relaxed and wonderful FanstRAvaganza 3 !



Can you tell me, how I should possibly be able to select one announcement banner, when bccmee made such a wonderful variety?








I already think about further possibilities, how best I could use those banners as often as possible ;o)



Monday, 9 January 2012

Fandom and What it Means to me


You will most likely have found the message, which has triggered the following blog post, much earlier than me.
Calexora is leaving RA-blogging.
She received just absolutely wonderful and encouraging comments and I want to add my encouragement, like
RAFrenzy already has done in a wonderful post.

But first of all, 
I want to thank Calexora for lovely to read and wonderfully enjoyable blog posts.



I found Calexora's blog posts lighthearted and full of humour. Not at all like an obsessed fan, thinking only with the one remaining 'grey cell' focused on the chosen idol. [Forgive me, I have watched too many Hercule Poirot films in my childhood ;o) ]

Someone who can laugh about himself is not obsessed. Obsession starts, where the humour ends. So in my view, Calexora never was in danger.
Though, I understand, that Calexora feels uncomfortable right now and needs to find her way again.
I am waiting for her to come back to bloggosphere again, in whatever form she decides to do so and am looking forward to her new writing ideas and blog.

Her decision also made me think about my own attitude towards fandom.

I know that I draw back from for me uncomfortable situations and if I cannot draw back, tend to get quite fierce about the things I think are right. So in case something goes too far for my comfort zone, you wont find me around, as it is better than the other option.
I for myself would have never watched the TV interview, which triggered Calexora's reaction to extreme fan-following. For one, I have no TV set, but still I could have found the show on the internet. For another, I am no fan of GB [I am, of the storage space, but not of the actor who is shortened here, as I am in general no fan material] and normally not that interested in finding out about actors. RA is the one exception, where I do read some information which is provided openly. But as soon as it goes into private details, I most likely bow out of being interested and far from searching for more. [Sorry, if you erroneously follow me to find some revealing news. Here I absolutely must disappoint you, as this will never come forward here on this blog.]

Fotunately, I am convinced, as RAFrenzy also writes, that RA does not read our blogs.
So I can continue to find out more about the one thing, which really motivates my blog. The healing, soothing and encouraging effect, RA strangely has on me, which helps me through life, encourages me to be brave, when I would like to draw back and to discover new things in and around me.
The general rule therefor here for me is, the blog is not so much about RA, but about what he does to me, what effect he has on me. In the end that somehow means, the blog is in some way about me [though I normally don't like to talk about me].

Is RA the catalyst, the method to reflect upon and cope with myself, as a kind of therapy and medicine or more in a way of engaging the 'grey cells' like Hercule Poirot would have done to train his mental abilities?


I must research some more about those aspekts of fandom.
For example, would I need to consult a doctor for RA as medicine ? The last medicine I got from my doctor had exactly the opposite effect as it should have and I got the illness the doctor tried to cure. Fortunately symptoms slowly fade by not taking the medicine any longer.
RA's effect in that case is much more healing and effective, so quite a medical remedy ;o)
Also RA's effect to encourage creativity of all kind is undenied, so a certain aspect of encouraging 'grey cell' activity is present as well.

Richard Armitage - Powerful Remedy and Inspiration

Saturday, 31 December 2011

Happy New Year







I wish you a happy and joyful year 2012 !


May it be full of fan-tastic events with and for our now officially certified 
"King of Hearts", King Richard Armitage !
(Certificate, 'found' and posted by Lynn Roberts on Facebook.)



Last year's New Year's message ;o) (Sorry to repeat myself, but I just can't get enough of RA's Christmas messages and had to smuggle in the link on RichardArmitageOnline.com to all his messages somehow ;o)

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Christmas Message


As last year, I copy in the lovely Christmas message by Richard Armitage here. (I still did not figure out, how I could link to the message directly on RichardArmitageOnline.com)

Dear All,

So my feet are finally on UK soil, back in Blighty, nose to tail traffic and the usual Heathrow drizzle. But it's good to be home for Christmas. I think the jet lag might give me a sneaky glimpse of Santa this year as I am wide awake at 2am!

 It's been one of the most memorable years I have ever experienced, the big birthday (which I tried to ignore, by sleeping through it!) and the privilege to be in NZ working on The Hobbit has make this year unforgettable. The places we have been to and the things we have seen, have surpassed all my expectations. I was very choked up as the plane left Wellington on Weds, it really has become home and to all my new friends there and my old friends here I would like to raise a glass for the festive season.

 Thank you for the continuing support which you all lend as part of our community of 'friends', it really has an impact on me personally, I feel very much supported and I hope that waiting for the film isn't too frustrating. I haven't quite had the time to attend to all the signed photos that people were requesting as Christmas gifts for family and friends and I apologise for dissappointing them, I will get on the case as soon as I can.

 I think next year will be like that last turn of the corner when you think you have reached the summit, only to find you are miles from the top and the climb is even steeper, but we are gearing up for an exciting ride. I even might step off the treadmill and put my dumb bells down briefly to scoff some turkey on 25th!!

 Thank you all for the continued generosity on the Just Giving pages which in total comes to more than £14,000.

 I would like to say Happy Christmas to everyone who drops in to catch up on the news and further across our online 'party' of friends, have a great holiday, and a cracking New Year. Just think this time next year, we'll all be crossed eyed from all the 3D movies we will have watched, and by 2013, technology will have advanced so much, we won't even have to go the the cinema, it will be transmitted directly into our imagination by a WIFI/Bluetooth microchip which we will have all had installed into our Hypothalamusesl! (Hypothalami?)

 Enjoy the typos!

 Peace and goodwill (and I really mean that, be willingly good, extra good, extra peaceful and extra forgiving)

RA
The links to RA's Just Giving charities are here.


Have lovely and enjoyable Christmas days, wonderful food, good company and friends around you and hope and joy in your heart!


Friday, 23 December 2011

My Christmas Wish


I found this picture some time ago, shortly after Christmas last year. And whereas last year, it was quite clear to me, who this 'Him' is, it is not so clear any longer.

You will ask, "What, CDoart does betray her dream man?"
No, I don't, not really. He still is the one and only for me ;o)


Edited - Source: RichardArmitageNet.com
For me this 'Him' is certainly RA, but in what form?

* As himself, (oh no, he would have quite great objections to that, so, reluctantly, no ;o)

* as Lucas North no longer is an option (perhaps as Al Delarmy ;o)

* as Thorin Oakenshield (not overly much, as one does not see too much of him, but when he sings that certainly is of no importance any longer and the intensity of his eyes alone mesmerizes the audience (certainly me ;o)
His acting even in the short snippets and the fulminant trailer revealed so far, show his great talent and an intense aura and let expect really great things.)

* as King Richard III (Oh yes, most definitely and without any doubt ;o) King Richard, as far as we know, did not even have a beard. We would really see RA in that role and I am sure we could smuggle in the one or other song for him ;o)


Fortunately, Santa decides, which wishes he grants or as we here in Bavaria would say, which our 'Christkindl' grants. (We don't have Santa.)
So Christkind, I leave it up to you, what you think might be the right present for me. Thank you!



I wish you, my supportive and wonderful readers, a joyous and merry Christmas time and enjoyable holidays!






P.S.: On bccmee's blog I mentioned that I had very strange feelings when I first heard RA sing in the new "The Hobbit" trailer released on December 21st, 2011. Yes, indeed they were strange, as I had the immediate feeling, that I want my husband to sing in that way to our child in the crib. (This immediate association is especially strange, as two requirements for this feeling are missing in my life ;o)


Friday, 16 December 2011

A Year Comes to its End ...


As with every year, I take account of the passed year and try to start a new one with new plans and a fresh impulse.
Source: RichardArmitageNet.com

The last year, as I have revealed on various occasions, was not an easy way for me. So I really hope for a new and better year to come. But what lately revealed itself was, that the negative developments were after all positive. It is only the perspective and being in the chaos at the moment, that made them bad, but the overall picture now more and more reveals them as a life saving catastrophe ;o)

The new year especially holds promise, as it makes my b-day more nonsensical than it already is ;o) So I hope for a really funny year to come ;o)

The one thing of this past year I would never want to miss or change and would like to re-live over and over again, is my fandom for Richard Armitage.
It showed me, that there is more to life than struggles and problems, but a wonderful community of friends and supportive co-fans! Thank you for being there and enduring my struggles with coming to terms with fandom and life !


I had a very 



this year with

Wonderful Presents:

Swoon-worthy Guy of Gisborne created by bccmee (Train your memory and don't miss the video!)
And have a closer look, under what banner Guy of Gisborne is hiding in bccmee's game!

Source: "Robin Hood III", ep. no. 10 "Bad Blood"
I am never sure who is falling in this film sequence, Guy of Gisborne or I.
I would like to be able to fall like this. The last time I fell, I spent one week in hospital ;o) (Don't worry, was a long time ago, but since then a fear of falling remains.)
Perhaps that is a further reason, why I absolutely adore his elegant way of falling and showing that his body loses control.

Bccmee and our anonymous fan-artist of this post on KingRichardArmitage know me very well ;o)
See what our fan-artist has done for my birthday !!! (Happy sigh...)




My resolution for the coming year:



I will continue my work to support a filming of "King Richard III". I hope that project will work out as it would be a dream come true for me.


I will continue with "Intrigue". I promise I won't leave you hanging as I currently did with Al Delarmy, dumping him in a hotel in Hamburg (he deserved it a bit for playing with his author ;o)
I am already working on further parts of the story, but need a few more quiet days to really get ahead with my writing down the story swirling around in my head.
Al is a bit unruly and intriguing himself and does not leave me in peace, so you can rest assured, that I will come back to him, my secret love full of mystery  ;o)









Friday, 25 November 2011

Are We Fan-Bloggers the Minstrels of Modern Times?


For some time now I wonder, if the Medieval minstrels and the art of minnesong has quite some similarities to fan-blogging, especially RA-fan-blogging of our times.

Abaelard and Eloise (by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1882)
Source: wikimedia.org
Some special signs of Medieval minnesongs were:

* that the singer had no chance of gaining the direct favour / love of his admired woman.

* that the woman was beyond reach and his own station.
(It was even a requirement to search for an admirable woman well beyond one's own station.)

* that the woman was good and had admirable qualities (at least after the minstrel searched long and wide for them or created and invented them himself. [No comparison to RA-fan-blogging in the later case, as here the admired qualities quite obviously exist for real!]).

* that the minstrel defended and advertised the good qualities of his chosen lady.

* that the lady was most important, who had the most minstrels singing her praise. (Quite obviously a strong element in fan-votings, when even illegal methods are used to enhance the number of votes to show the importance of the admired 'star'.)

* that the minstrel polished and enhanced his art and artfulness by describing the qualities of a certain lady. (Who in my opinion sometimes even took second place compared to the art itself.)

* that the minnesongs were created to form one's own character and develop genteel ways of behaviour and to strengthen the ability to observe and find human qualities. This technique to better one's character and judgment was especially encouraged in lawyers and diplomats, so you see, in branches were truthfulness was not that important [No or indeed pun intended, but only at the right places and not regarding RA-fans or fan-bloggers ;o)].


Quite obviously beyond my station ;o)
Source:
(Captain America Premiere, New York 2011)
www.richardarmitagenet.com
The only evident difference I see between Medieval minstrels and modern fan-bloggers is, that most (or all?) known minstrels were male and it was an especial recommendation for men, to practice this art of character building and self-enhancement. (Women were generally thought not to need such refinement ;o)
Today's fan-bloggers, especially in the RA-world (which is the only one I know ;o) are (mostly or all?)  female.



Please share with me, what you think about modern fandom and female self-betterment by being a RA-fan ;o) 
I am quite eager to learn, how you see this comparison and modern fandom.



P.S.: I know that Abaelard and Eloise are not the right example for platonic love, but at least, Abaelard wrote a lot of love poetry for his adored Eloise, so I hope you might forgive me for my lapse and rudimentary memory of my former studies ;o)