Annual Review

/ November 12, 2014

Events have overtaken me slightly. I have only just realized that today is my second blogiversary. Yay! *throwsconfetti*

Wow, things have really changed for me over the course of the past 12 months. A look at my monthly blog stat reveals it (click each month to go the respective monthly archive):

Guylty’s Past

November and December 2013 are pretty indicative of what my blog looked like: An occasional post here and there, but you could count them on the fingers of one hand. And then *boom* January sees my previous monthly output tripled. Whatever happened? Well, I usually blame everything on Mr A. It’s his actions that necessitate reactions. So, any complaints to him, please. In this case, however, I probably have to blame Mr Guylty for the sudden surge in activity. To see why, I’ll give you my annual review with my personal favourite posts.

The Annual Review

photo 2The highlight of November 2013 was receiving a letter from faraway New Zealand. I have often cited this as the on-set of my fandom love: Maree from New Zealand sent me those much appreciated and drooled over Thorin stamps – even though we had never communicated before. How lovely was that?

Shrine openThe second instalment of The Hobbit trilogy came out in December 2013 and Mr A became real at the European premiere in Berlin. But the real highlight was some true RL love in the shape of Mr Guylty’s Christmas present. At that point, little did we know that this wonderful present was going to be a game-changer… I sometimes wonder whether Mr Guylty regrets what he did…

Guylty armitage weekly round-up tumblrOnwards into the new year. Guylty declared early on: “This is gonna be a great year.” And January 2014 certainly started off great with a fabulous idea by our much beloved fellow fan Agzy. She started me off on the Armitage Weekly Round-ups – tumblr edition. The weekly round-ups were split into three parts, designed to each provide a one-stop overview over the memorable, noteworthy happenings within the online community in the blog world (covered by Agzy herself), in the area of fan fiction (by The Arkenstone) and tumblr. Sadly, the blog and fan fiction round-ups were eventually shelved, but the tumblr round-up is still going and is continuing to draw a large number of views, averaging at about 350 views.

IMG_5906In February 2014 I was quite busy organising the first RAworld Valentine. But since that happened on an external blog, I can pick something else for my favourite post of the month. I’ll choose “Drooling on the Go” because that is the true watershed moment for Guylty on WP. The first ever RA Pocket Shrine got much attention. And I got much love. And the world got a new acronym. RAPS. I get a bit nostalgic, looking at the first RAPS – still a little bit rough around the edges. A prototype. But the one that started it – thanks to the warm reception it received from you.

this morning7The RAPS production fired up in March 2014 – several RAPSes saw the light of day, and many new friendships were forged because of it. My e-mail correspondence started taking up much more time than before as deals were sussed out and daily e-mails started flying back and forth. My favourite post, however, puts the spotlight back to the man who inspired the blog. For once Guylty was at the forefront of breaking RAnews when I screencapped Mr A’s appearance on breakfast TV show “This Morning” on March 31st.

Urban and the shed crew instagramNew verbs were also invented in 2014. “Shrining” became my new occupation, with an output of eight RAPS in April. I expect the Oxford English Dictionary to include “to shrine” as a new coinage in the next edition!  However, that went down at the cost of my series of photo analyses which I had moved by April from their former home on me+richard to my own blog. Hence I’d like to highlight one of my favourite *ooof*s as my personal favourite of April – I still love this image from April’s Emergency *ooof*, shot on the set of Armitage’s then project “Urban and the Shed Crew”, however incidental it may have been. (And btw, my old *ooof*s are still accessible on me+r!)

sarah dunn btsStatistics tell me that the number of posts shot up to 24 in May, I presented 13 RAPS, and my most visited post on Guylty was the little discovery of some behind the scenes shots of RA at a Sarah Dunn shoot in May 2014. I removed the actual images and replaced them with links, and so there is not that much to see on the post anymore. (Well, I have a sneaky featured image on the page, so you may still find it worth-while to click and look drool.) The pictures were part of Dunn’s “Wide-eyed” section on her website, and I remember wondering what that project might actually be, seeing that it consisted shots in a rather interesting format… I found out three months later…

June 2014. A month I’d rather like to forget. Due to my personal life, the posting came to an abrupt end. And yet I have a very clear favourite post of that month. Perversely it is the one where I announced my sad news. But it received such an overwhelming feedback, I could literally feel the love that was sent my way. Somehow tragedy can bring a lot of positivity to the fore. Thank you all, my dear friends, for your good wishes, your consolation, your messages, cards and e-mails. I will never forget this.

RArmytagedIn July 2014 I struggled to get in tune with my new reality. Posting the weekly tumblr round-up regularly and continuing to present the RAPSes to you helped me get back into the routine of normal life. A scan of the Sunday Times article about Armitage brought and continues to bring many readers to my blog. Blogging Armitage distracts, uplifts and forges friendships. It should be obligatory. And it certainly should not be belittled and made fun of. Confirmed: I am not only Armitaged, I am also RArmytaged.

The Stage DoorI propose that August is renamed Crucible month. I saw the play twice, enjoyed London, and got daily updates about Richard Armitage’s performance on and off stage. Seldom were we as fans so spoilt. It was almost too much for me. So much so that my favourite August 2014 post is my slightly snide fake review of a small independent production that was taking place daily after the Crucible performance. Interestingly it was my first person singular account of the same event that garnered more interest even though it was not all sweet smelling roses in that either…

RAPS (37 of 41)September 2014 was time to say good-bye to London-based RA. By that point I had obviously become so accustomed to my daily fix of Armitage that I decided to concoct my own scheme to generate lots of posting. Not only did I do a whole series of “deRAnged” posts on what I like to call “The Summer of Love”, I also started my little fandom identifier project: It just bugged me that there had been so many fans at the conversation with RA event and I had missed them all… The result was a for me staggering 26 posts in September. Oh, and I preached on copyright issues again – forever my third favourite subject *ggg*.

badges in situThe best day and post in October 2014 was when I counted up all the donations to the aforementioned fandom identifier project and finally donated 250 € (200 £/300 $) to Young Minds. How nice to be catching three birds with one stone: Fun for me, fun for the badge recipients, money for a good cause. I nearly forgot that I was once in this for Richard Armitage… I mean, really, his work here is done. I might as well move on to another guy… just kidding, of course 🙂

keep-calm-and-love-rich-699Which leads us now to November 2014. Two years down the road from my first post on me+r, a little older, a couple of new laughter lines on my mug, the third notebook in use. A total of 195 posts under my belt – with roughly a total 94,000 views and 10,000 comments. You know who you are. I doubt it can be topped. Thanks for a great year, everybody. Maybe *my* work here is done? Let’s see what the future brings.

Love and thanks,

Guylty ❤

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70 thoughts on “Annual Review”

  4. Congratulations. Wonderful to have you ❤ Und ich bin immer gerne bereit, mein Scherflein zum überproportionalen Anstieg der Kommentare beizutragen. Habe die 20.000 schon im Blick 🙂

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    • Wunderbar – genau das lobe ich mir. Ein Blog ist nur dann interessant, wenn es Austausch gibt. Sonst kann ich ja gleich ein geschlossenes Tagebuch schreiben. Many thanks 🙂

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  5. Wow, is blogging connected to some sort of time warp? It can’t be that long since your first shrine. Congratulations on all your wonderful writing and shrining. Shrine On! And just so you know, daughter with Darcy shrine has roommates who borrow it often. ‘I need me some shrine love,” they say while taking a long peek. You have fans you don’t even know about. Seriously, may the blogiverse shower you with love and fun until your next anniversary. Much love from the Jones girls.

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    • That’s a brilliant story, Kathy. Love hearing that. And lots of love back to you and your girls. Making that Darcy-esque RAPS was great fun. Maybe I should do more cross-overs 😉

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    • Glad to hear that, Jennifer. And I hope that the little one is getting better now… What a killer smile he has 🙂 Future heartbreaker?? Hope he is ok and the eye is clearing up.

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  11. ❤ Gratulation! ❤

    Was die Aussage angeht, dass "vielleicht dein Werk hier getan" sei: *DENK* nicht mal dran!!! *quengelquengelquengel* 😉

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  12. So we both fell through the rabbit hole around the same time? I clearly remember your posts being among the first ones I stumbled onto when frantically searching the net for all kind of information of Mr. A. I think it is fair to say that Mr. A. hooked me with his looks and lovely personality and made me cheer for him as an artist – but you shanghaied me into fandom. Something I never thought could happen to me. Thank you so much. 🙂
    Your blog is one of my happy places!

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    • That is a really nice compliment, i.f. – to think that I may have tempted someone to continue following. Would you mind giving me that on a piece of paper? I’ll send it in to Mr A and ask for commission 😉 Nah, of course not. But in any case, thank you for “mir die Treue halten” – it is nice to think that you are not tired of my ramblings, even after two years… ❤

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  17. Happy Blogiversary! I is hard to believe it’s been two years, time flies when your having fun. Here is to more years of blogging about Richard.

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  18. Happy anniversary then 🙂 glad i found out now the first shine eva’ came by the hands of My Guylty!! that is incredibly sweet and funny 🙂 lucky girl! 🙂
    i think keep going, keep calm and love Rich says it all 😉

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    • Yes, Mr Guylty has a lot to answer for. He received quite a bit of love back – from ladies he didn’t even know. I also think he should be a bit more lenient towards RA on account of the success he has had thanks to RA’s pretty mug in his shrine 😉

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  19. Quite a year! I knew nothing of Mr. Guylty’s pressie and was floored by its humor, sweetness and generosity. What a Beautiful Man, and I don’t mean Richard, though he is beautiful too. I don’t know how our Long-Suffering Ones manage all this, but thank heavens for them 🙂

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    • Yes, indeed. I occasionally get a bit of aggression back from the LSH, and I know he’s not overly enamoured with the idea of me attending the premiere, but he let’s me do it all the same. Clever boys… But yes, we are quite lucky to have such tolerant partners!!!

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  21. Felicitations Guylty. Before to know you I didn’t even know what was a blog but I have this huge desire to speak about RA so thank you to give me this opportunity. And by the way do you know what is the definition of a B.L.O.G. ?? Beautiful Love Of Guylty…….

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    • Ahhhh *giggles* – that is a sweet acronym, Katia. You really made me smile and giggle there!!! And I am more than glad to provide a platform and a reason for any reader to comment and express their admiration for (or even criticism of) RA at any time. After all it is the sharing of our interest that makes it so fun and worth-while. Thanks for being my faithful commentator! xx

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  23. Happy, happy blogiversary — it was a really momentous year. I was so happy about the turn your shrining took, both for you and for us. A highlight for me: meeting you and staying up almost all night talking! Here’s to the next year.

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  24. Pingback: My Richard Armitage fan blogging year 2014 | Me + Richard Armitage

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