What is the dealbreaker …
Been thinking a lot about this post yesterday and today. Tulpa is on acute life support.
Me + Richard Armitage
a frequently irreverent and occasionally cerebral feuilleton of richard armitage studies
Charities Richard Armitage has supported [click this photo]
Click on the image to see a list of charities Richard Armitage has supported, with links!
Fan Sites
- C19
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- Richard Armitage at Reddit
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- Richard Armitage Discussion Board [Chinese]
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Me + Richard Armitage 
Ok I have a question. This post (linked) is from 2012. And the Mr. Crush in question, is it RA ?
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I have the same question. And Mr.Crush’s wife is mentioned in the post. What is it all about ?
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it’s not RA. the blogger is giving some background on her own experiences with fandom. the first part in the series is here: http://www.jagrant.com/watcher/why-ra-part-1-are-you-sitting-comfortably/
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Thanks for clarifying that. Judi was discussing her trajectory through fandom at the time. I think Mr. Crush was her second crush, maybe.
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Thank you for clarification
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my Tulpa has flatlined. I have fond memories but that’s all I have at this point. I continue to be interested in Richard’s career, but detached. it’s been a rocky transition.
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I see. Thanx for the clarification. I’m new with following his work so I’m missing big parts here and there. From what can be read in these posts, for some of you the “tulpa” has tarnished a little, because you happened to learn something you’d rather have not ?
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in basic terms, yes. I had a “version” of who RA was to me. of course I knew that I didn’t actually know the man and that he was only showing us part of who he really is. when he started posting on Twitter and showing more of himself to us, I had to tweak my version of him a bit to comply. as time went on it became more and more apparent to me that he was no longer embodying my version, or Tulpa, of Richard Armitage. I became a fan during the press tour for the first Hobbit movie. that person isn’t who I see now. that’s not to say the current person is horrible or anything even close to that, he’s just not who I surrendered myself to. so I’ve had to dial it all back a lot, view things on more of a superficial level. I was in there deep for awhile, climbing out of the rabbit hole isn’t as easy as falling in.
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I think that’s very succinctly put.
We all have dealbreakers and the obvious offputting ones are easy to identify. I think that those of us who are in this of being occupied with it enough to blog about it regularly also have an additional group of emotional structures attached to the experience. This isn’t to cast aspersions on those who leave comments, just to note that the creative (as opposed to spectatorish) aspect of fandom usually involves something slightly more complicated. There are things I was afraid I would discover, for instance, one of which I actually did discover.
I guess I wouldn’t have anticipated this particular point but I should have seen it coming after CyberSmile. I kept riding that out but maybe I shouldn’t have made the effort. Time will tell.
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I am glad you realized he is just some bloke whose profession in acting. IMO, he would be a difficult person to relate to since one would never know if he was genuine or fake with his modesty and gratitude towards his fans.
I always hear how much people like working with him, but he could be just doing it as part of his work. Others who have met or saw him on the street or airport about he evaded or shunned them when they recognized him.
In any case, I still like his work. No matter what kind of person he is, I would never step over the line and confuse him for someone I actually know in a personal level. He is just an artist whose work I just want to admire.
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Excuse me? I have no idea what you are talking about, or how you know what is in my mind, since I haven’t stated what I am thinking.
You only come here to piss me off, and you always succeed. Hence, per the comments policy, you are now blocked. Bye bye. I won’t miss you.
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I’m stupid. Who is Tulpa?
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Tulpa is a concept in mysticism of a being or object which is created through sheer spiritual or mental discipline alone.
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it’s a concept I’ve been using for about a year and a half now to talk about the way that a fan may construct an image of a crush. more posts on this topic: https://meandrichard.wordpress.com/?s=tulpa
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Ah. Okay.
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Well I’m glad that I like RA in quite a different way. I find him attractive and from all his letters and tweets he seems to be a very good person.
I don’t care much about his opinions on anything of importance. He is not that important to me. But I do love him and I want to keep seeing him on all my screens. 🙂
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Well, I’m glad you did it right and I did it wrong. How pleasant that must feel for you 🙂
I’ve never thought he was a very good person. I’ve always thought he was an average person, myself.
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Well, Servetus, maybe you didn’t do this wrong. Is there a right or a wrong way to create a Tulpa ? The way you’ve created yours led to this very interesting blog, and what I like is that you take a situation or event for face-value. I do think there is always two sides of a medal, in every situation. 🙂
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Oh, I have zero regrets. I’ve learned a lot doing this and I would never undo it, even in awareness of certain negative externalities. That was a sarcastic use of an emoji on my part in response to the sarcastic use of the emoji in the comment I was replying to.
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I’m with Kelly. Tulpa has been intubated for the time being, but I may pull the plug any time. And it makes me kind of sad.
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I hear you.
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I have had several potential deal breakers, but when the line is crossed, I don’t break the deal. So I move the finish line a little further down the road. I think at this point my attachment is to members of the fandom and the fun it brings, more than to the man himself. I don’t want to give those friends up. I would hope friendships would survive my jumping off the RA bandwagon, but I don’t want to take the chance. So I must admit, when it comes to RA deal breakers, I am a wishy-washy whimp.
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I don’t want to give up the friendships either.
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I won’t if you won’t. 🙂
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Deal. 🙂
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I don’t think you’re wishy-washy Kathy! Your comment reminded me of my first husband. If he does this… that will be the end. He kept crossing the line and I kept moving it until one day I couldn’t move it any farther. It’s a similar feeling for me being a fan of Richard (while not nearly as devastating.) I too am most invested in the friends I’ve made and the great conversations. I have this fantasy that we all find a new crush and move there together 😉
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LOL! Who would you propose?
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I check out every actor that I enjoy in a movie or show but so far no one has has the same impact. I’m open to ideas or suggestions 😉
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Not sure whether this is the way a tulpa should work, but mine is constantly changing… I am making excuses for the tulpa, because I am unwilling to let go of the “peripherals”. Looks as if the peripherals (i.e. the fandom friendships) have become more important to me than the tulpa himself. In any case, Judi’s post resonated with me, and I am wondering which lessons are to be learnt from it…
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I think that is the way it does work. I’m using the term loosely, but what I understand about it from the original context is that you use your mental and emotional powers to create a being that then exists in a life-like way. (It’s akin supposedly to what writers experience when they take on lives of their own and so on.)
In line with my post about Cumberbatch fans — I wonder how much one has to contort to keep a tulpa alive (or if it has to be rebuilt, or just gets abandoned). In essence, if fandom = building a tulpa that survives a lot of dings, the conspiracy theorist fans are actually the most “successful.” Seen from a particular perspective.
My impression from Judi is that the social aspects were always more important to her than the crush itself. Her own fascination with Armitage was primarily focused on Gisborne (and then to some extent on Thorin), and it was always very oriented toward his appearance. Not that she didn’t think he was a good actor or whatever but that wasn’t her priority. For me, I think that if that had been my issue (appearance first), I’d have been gone long ago. I was always more focused on the question of “how does this person do this?” and that question hasn’t been answered. So I suppose the answer about lessons depends a lot on what the crux of the fandom was in the first place. Right now Judi is at a place where she is interested in what he is doing but she’s not fascinated enough to be involved on a daily level.
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There is definitely some contortion going on when it comes to my tulpa. I am willing to make concessions for him – and willing to overlook things.
Good on Judi for having found a way to enjoy being a fan of Richard’s that makes her happy. I am sure it has helped her that she had previous experience. With 4 years under my belt, I am not exactly a novice, and yet I still feel as if I am negotiating my way through this thing. Never had a fangirl crush like this. That’s probably why I also find it so difficult to let go, despite certain disillusionment…
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As a fan I like a lot enjoy the friendships I have made, with RA I keep telling my self hes a man, he’s just a man, in a profession that presents an image to the world that he wants to. I love his acting and his gorgeous looks and I know I will never know the real “him”, There are times I adore him and times I think what is he saying and doing? But hey it is hard enough to know the people we live with, everyone hides a part of themselves. We never completely know anyone, so I am definitely not going to try to say I know the in’s and outs of some actor. So I will just keep going along and see what happens and enjoy it as I can.
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If you believe Montaigne (cough), you can’t even really know yourself 🙂
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This is all pretty sobering…. I ask myself if I make excuses for Richard in a different way than how I basically try to see what everybody does in the best light (until I can’t anymore, or my gut screams at me & that’s it)- I don’t think I do. But maybe I’m just kidding myself. If I have a tulpa (and I probably do) it might be “Richard the sweetheart”, and he’s already admitted he has the kind of temper you can’t apologize for. So there you go….while at the same time he can’t be anything but a real live fallible person, just himself. Just like I have to be myself, as disappointing as that may be at times for those who might expect more of me. In some sense, I think for me Richard represents the path not taken. Not regret per se, but aspects of myself or interests I thought were gone, but I’ve come to realize really are not. Sorry, I don’t expect that to make a lot of sense ❤ And I’m not saying the way I feel is the same or different from what anyone else feels…. I guess I’m just thinking out loud. Judi’s post was very thought provoking.
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Yours is a very interesting reflection.
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