It is known that one of the collateral effects of fandoms is the explosion of creativity. Suddenly, from who knows where (ehem!) a spark lightens and the result is a previously unexpected need of writing, video editing and photoshop playing. Then you meet other members of the fandom, you realise that you are not as crazy as you thought (or rather, that if this is madness, there’s a method in it) and more recreational activities develop. A number of them can be united in a general category: the Virtual Artist Agency. The main games can be the following:
- Great Expectations. It is played when the object of admiRAtion is about to finish his current works and he makes vague hints to future probable engagements, that unleashes a deep study of the Internet Movie Database and specifically of those projects labelled as “On production” and without a definitive cast. A very brilliant and professional example is this post of the Anglophile Channel. Needless to state that an over use of this game may lead to a high degree of frustration for fandoms unrelated with Cumberbatch – Fassbender – Hiddleston (in alphabetical order).
- Agenda management. This includes also the sub-game “spot the date”. When the projects of the object of our fandom are official, the Virtual Agent has to organise them… It is not an easy task to plan our fandom object’s agenda, most of all if different time zones are involved: an interview in London followed by a black carpet in New York and then go back to the theatre in London jumping just one show, for instance. The most conscious players have a complete list of daily and weekly overseas flights, destination airports and time of transfer between them and the city. For lazy players (ehem… Barsine raises shily her hand) there’s an easy version, the “spot the date”: you just have to guess the release date of a given work.
But, my absolutely ever favourite game is the…
- Fantasy casting. This game has two versions, Basic and Extreme. Needless to say that I prefer the extreme one, but let’s start with the Basic. It is a less frustrating game than Great Expectations and implies also FRRA crossover. For instance, watching my last purchase in DT Henry IV part one I wondered how wonderful will Richard Armitage look in the Globe’s stage. As FRRA activities are like, I guess, a bulimic crisis, I opened hastily photoshop, took the below tweet, a picture of The Crucible rehearsals and… i giochi sono fatti.
- Nevertheless, the main characteristic of Fantasy casting is that it is funnier if played in company. It develops soon into what Linnett has brilliantly named “Two Martinis Casting”: one person suggest an actor for a character, the other another one and in less than four e-mails you’ve built the most unbelievable cast never seen. I remember that I’ve made one myself with Linnet but I can’t find the post (sono una rincoglionita), but this is another good example, after a gif I posted in tumblr The Extreme version of the fantasy casting implies a complete absence of logic, for instance, you can hire actors or actresses already dead in the prime of their youth. It is probable that this version of the game finishes in another FRRA crossover, under the form of a fanfic.
Wormwood Scrubs 
Bad fan here who has never heard of any of these games *ggg*. Very funny, though 🙂 I can see how you could while away many a boring afternoon with that…
Oh, I replied to this comment with my mobile phone and it has disappeared!
Guylty, if you had time for any of these games after the ****oof**** emergencies, badges deliveries, tumblr round ups, ficlets, pocket shrines, photography, family, and so on, I’d be honestly worried about you (it would mean that you don’t sleep at all)
😀
LOL *phew* I have been absolved 😉 I feel like a good fan again. Thanks…
“Built the most unbelievable cast never seen” Lol. Guilty as charged. Funny how every project contains the same key element in our light occupations. We do now have a relatively new game that I particularly enjoy: Hashtag Analysis. =)
Oh, but you are courageous! 🙂
I define his tweets as Egyptian hieroglyphs before Champolion and, the hashtags, after the first doubts regarding the blank spaces (to leave or not to leave?), as cryptic as John Dee’s shopping list (self quote). I declare myself defeated regarding that area of FRRA and ask directly for translation of every single tweet and hashtag 😀
There is also the ‘replace the a actor’ gamet in which everything you see xout imagine/wish to see with him 😀
Welcome and thank you for your comment! Ooops, apparently I have a comprehension problem beyond certain hashtags 😦 I have not understood perfectly what that game consists in 😦 I’m sure is funny! 🙂
BTW, I’ve peeped your blog and I’ve added it immediately to my WP Reader, I’m fond of opera also, but I must confess that I’m quite distRActed lately to follow new singers or learn more about it, your blog will be very helpful!
oh, just me being silly sorry, to give an example; I’ve got a ticket for a Hamlet with actor X but immediately thought.. oh i wish i was seeing this with RA 🙂 wishful thinking, nothing else 🙂 and thank you 🙂 hard to juggle everything, work, music, fandom, etc 🙂
Oh the “swap the actors”, then. A classical of the distRActed mind. 🙂
I’m commenting to say I love your art — but omg, do I despise fantasy casting. I can’t say how much. But I recognize it as a fandom standard. I used to see a lot more of it than I am at the moment, mostly because Armitage has been so busy the last year.
Thank you for the art part 😀 Well, I’m not fond for instance of the “wardrobe spotting”, another fandom standard. First of all, being the woman who spends less money in clothes in the Western Hemisphere it would be something quite illogical, as I don’t understand a word of stylists and fashion.
yeah, I wardrobe spot. But there are camps even within that activity — people who like fashion / designer identifications (not me) and people who like to talk about cut, style, tailoring and body shape (definitely me). I don’t spend much on clothes, either …
But I get the impulse to tune stuff out — there are possibly interesting casting discussions I miss because I see it’s a casting discussion and think uch and click away.
Your photo really caught my eye! And I am having a chuckle over John Dee’s shopping list 🙂
As you know I enjoy Two Martini Casting, the object of which is to let the imagination run free. Any role, past, present, age- or gender- inappropriate, is fair game. It’s a bit like what they do in acting school. I suppose I am not likely to fantasize about Himself portraying an oak tree or a giraffe (though he could), but I do like to imagine him in various Shakespearean roles, even now that he has aged out of many of them. And I have always said that he would make an ideal Agamemnon (in Aeschylus’ version especially, but I would accept Euripides too!).
thank you Linnet! I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to read any of his hashtags…
#hegotaferrarri
#takingaloadoff
#nobathroomprivacyinerebor
#yeahyouwannapieceame
#youknowwhatimsayin
#therebeenafarmerinere
#notheavyhesmybro
😀 😀 😀 Which, as time goes by, become more intelligible; the whole tweet anyway would turn John Dee’s hair black (as he had it already white 😀 )
OMG, I must confess that I actually see Mr. H as an Oak as long as Posca plays the Owl sat in one of his branches commenting each and every sentence Mr. Oak says. 😀 I see that the fantasy casting related with the ancient classics is a classic itself… I keep on dreaming with RA as Ulysses.
I like his hashtags very much! The art of the tag is one I have not mastered…
Totally in love with your vision of the oak and the critical owl. Indeed, the oak image was lurking in my subconscious with regard to Himself. I also pictured him as Farmer Oak from Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd. It’s the steady, enduring quality…
Would like to see RA as Odysseus in the Circe and Calypso episodes especially 😉