#andie rambles

[starberry-jam]

Kinger Theory?

There's a direct parallel in the tape in the cellar to Kinger. Yes, the hunter is talking about how he shot his wife and became the "monster", but if we put Kinger in the man's place. Remember when he said the line "7 years of computer science for this?" Bro fucking worked on this game. He is literally a king piece. Maybe dude got sucked in his own video game. Or at the very least he worked at that company. Therefore, he got him and his wife trapped in the circus. And then when she abstracted, he probably blamed himself, seeing himself as the "monster"…..thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

[stevesbestgirl]

Hello to everyone who's still here, and to the new faces who have joined me during my time away. You might have seen a ghost of me- I've stopped in a few times to lurk and can never resist a couple of posts. I thank you all for the kind messages I've received in my absence and the continued outpouring of love you've all shown my work 🥺

For those of you interested in my personal life, I hope to share a little in a follow up post soon. For those of you who are just here for my work (no shade, game respects game), I have good news and bad news. I am still writing. Writing has been a coping mechanism since I was in middle school and it isn't stopping anytime soon. Their Girl is far from over because that journey is one I'm still on.

However, to make a long story short, I am working through some mental health struggles. Other coping mechanisms are working better right now (I've taken up crochet, who knew) and I need to pursue writing as something fully within my control- not as a product I want to create for others. So if you really love my work, I hope you'll hang in there. I have more to share with you. Thank you for staying for this long. ❤️

[nancydriew]

i love watching nancy drew pretending the 1 year timeline isn't a thing because it makes no sense for the amount of things that happen to happen in just one year

[rileyissapphic]

my new favourite hobby is to come on tumblr and snort sapphic art like c0ke

[whichie]

haha don't mind me just posting links to all the fics I posted/updated in the past few months...

[stevesbestgirl]

This is so eloquently and kindly put, I almost wish I could go back and unreblog all of the salty-sounding ones I've reblogged before because they expressed it more effectively than I could- this is the only one needed.

Hello, I hope you don’t mind me asking but why is there so much hate towards people who like posts or liking posts in general? I understand that people value reblogs more because it gets them more notes, but every time there’s a post about how much creators love interaction it never includes likes. If I like a post, it means that I liked it but I’ve been blocked, gotten hateful dms, called a “post murderer”, and told I didn’t value creators as humans—even though I’m a writer myself—because I like posts and I don’t think I or anyone else deserve that kind of treatment for pressing a button that literally means I liked your post?

As a writer, I’d feel worse knowing someone was only reblogging my stuff because they felt forced to and not because they actually liked what I wrote. Also it makes me happy to see likes as much as it does other kinds of interactions, but people act like liking something is akin to spitting on the creator and I don’t understand it?

I’m not saying this as an attack on you or anything, I don’t think you’re like any of the people above who’ve been rude to me, I’ve followed you for a while and think you’re really nice. I only saw your reblog of the post talking about interaction and how much it means to creators—which I agree with 100%—but I noticed in posts like that likes are always left out and I don’t really get it? But I’m also newer to tumblr so I realize there might be something I’m missing here as part of tumblr culture or something?

You totally don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to either, it’s just something I’ve noticed and was wondering about and you’re one of the few writers I follow who’ve reblogged the nicer posts that don’t yell at me for liking things so I feel a little safer asking you 😅

Hi anon, thanks for reaching out! I'm always happy to share fandom perspectives, and I'm glad I can be a safe space to ask questions. I want to always cultivate civil discussion, and it's so nice to see someone reach out in such a genuine manner!

So it sounds like you are fairly new to tumblr, and that you may not fully understand how the site works yet. The short answer to your question is: Likes do nothing to build a fandom community.

The long answer is a little more complicated.

I'm going to go back to my fandom is cake analogy here.

Fandom is a lot like being at a potluck. Lots of people show up, not everyone brings a dish but everyone does enjoy a bite of something or the other, people talk, chat, and have a good time. Now, if you are a writer, and you brought cake, you brought it because you want to see people enjoy it. Reblogging something is the equivalent of grabbing a slice of cake, wandering over to some friends, and when they say 'Oh, what a wonderful slice of cake Who made that?' You point to the baker/writer and possibly say something like 'Oh I love this flavor/trope!' so others may be compelled to also enjoy the cake

Liking, however, is when someone wanders up to the dessert table and goes 'Yup, that's a cake' and then vanishes. We can't assume that you liked the cake and just didn't want to share, of if you saw the cake and went 'Ugh, vanilla, gross'.

Reblogs are inherently community based. Likes are not.

Reblogs are designed to share, to reach out and expose works to others. By doing so we cultivate communities and fandoms, expose artists to corners of the fandom not yet reached. This isn't necessarily for an ego boost on the part of writers or creators, it's because we post things to connect with people, because we want to make friends, to share ideas, to participate in fandom.

Likes, by contrast, are inherently isolationist. They don't expose works, they don't foster connections. They are the equivalent of a hundred people at a party looking at you without saying hi or introducing themselves, without introducing you to friends who are there at that party for the same reason as you: because you all love and adore the media you are there for.

Reblogs, comments, and comments in the tags are how I've meant 90% of my friend group. I didn't passively like things until they noticed me, and frankly if someone is trying to be friends with me in that manner? Chances are I will not notice them, because likes tell me nothing. For all I know they could be saving my fic for later, they could be saying something I can't understand because I can't read minds, and the only way for me to know is if you take a slice of my cake and show it and say 'What a neat piece of cake!!'

I think it's unfair for people to say things like 'post murderer' and such, or spread vitriol. Shaming people into reblogging does not foster meaningful connections, and frankly accomplishes the same thing serial likers do- isolating people. It's inherently detrimental to fandom. Does this mean I'm not frustrated with the current climate of fandom? Far from it. I could sit here and write essays on fast fandom culture burning through works and creators and leaving burnt out creators behind as people gobble up and spit out fandoms with short attention spans and limited investment into fandom building. It's very disappointing, and I myself am fairly burnt out trying to keep this blog and active space only to be met with this:

This is my top post of the month. Out of the reblogs with tags, maybe two or three have genuine comments and/or feedback. There's so so many missed connections here and it's incredibly disheartening. The only way to fix this is to reblog and add maybe a nice tag. Even something as simple as a few emojis or a 'I enjoyed this!' goes so so far for us writers, and encourages us to stay within the fandom and continue building and fostering new connections with readers, writers, artists, and other creators.

Reblogs are the foundation of fandoms. Artists need fandoms to thrive, and without new works/art/creations, fandoms will die. Every reblog counts.

[chronicowboy]

i love that andy weir never kills his protagonists. it would be so easy to. at so many points. by all means they Should be dead. mark gets stranded on mars and the planet works against him at every turn. jazz's suit fails on the surface of the moon and she feels herself begin to die. ryland is sent on a suicide mission then gives up his chance at return for his friend. they should all have died. multiple times in some cases. but they don't!!! because weir isn't writing tragedies, he's writing stories of hope and humanity. they survive even when it should be impossible for them to because of connection. simple as that.

[zaahvi]

the next two of my evanuris designs: june and sylaise! their outfits are so much more colourful than the twins' it's actually hilarious to me. again additional design notes are below the cut :)

my other designs: [dirthamen & falon'din] • [andruil & ghilan'nain]

so, as with the twins, i realised june and sylaise are like two sides of the same coin, and to show that i wanted their overall themes to be similar but to take each of their designs in two different ways. june, having being credited with making eluvians, seems more of the artificer/tinkerer type, and therefore more chaotic and experimental; while sylaise, the architect credited with building elvhenan's cities, is orderly and more of a perfectionist.

first off, june. when i say he's chaotic i mean it like... he seems chaotic to everyone else but to himself he's just doing things in a particular way that works for him. picture someone who wears odd socks everyday just because they pick the first two from the top of the drawer and didn't even notice they're not matching - that's him. are you staring in horror at one of his feet having the toes out while the other is fully armoured? well, he doesn't care and probably hasn't even noticed, sorry. honestly the only reason that his outfit even has some semblance of style is because sylaise wouldn't let him in public otherwise.

anyway, soo for each evanuris i try to think of a trait that'll make them look unique, because even though they're "just" elves, i want them to look special because they are proclaiming themselves to be gods after all. i didn't think june would alter his appearance to simply look cooler, BUT he would make enhancements to help with his work, hence the arcane prosthetic (it was originally supposed to be mechanical when i first drew the busts 2 weeks ago but this idea made more sense tbh). his face was also looking a little bare though, so i gave him the lyrium affected eye (ik his body is made of it, so i figured he wouldn't get poisoning, but it would still affect him physically). the lens he is holding is a lyrium lens that he can put on his other eye to even his vision, and he has another orange-tinted lens for his affected eye.

okay, onto sylaise, who was a little easier to figure out! i always had this image of sylaise in my head of someone who just is so stunning and stylish that she completely steals the show everytime she's in the room (see the "song for sylaise" and her mask codex). she's also an architect - an artist, a designer, who built elvhenan's cities which were gorgeous as hell, so she definitely has high standards - and being a conceptualiser, she doesn't do much practical work so a long gown fit her perfectly. i chose a palette of red/orange/yellow (because fire) which worked nicely with the browns and golds. it's a smoother colour palette that contrasts june's. her gown also uses more rounder shapes and floral motifs, while june's robe has sharper edges and the motifs are instead embroidered on.

also yes i believe in short king june <3. well... actually i wrote him down as 6'3'' which is tall to most of us lmao but to the evanuris he's the shortest. sylaise here is 6'8'', the third tallest of the whole bunch (only elgar'nan and andruil are taller than her) :)

[veo-queenofcards]

Shout out to my comfort characters who happen to be ai of any variety!

(They're freinds and they're roadtripping to indigo park, ramblys driving, andy's worried per usual, kinito and Monica are info dumping in the back and bucky is listening to music in peace for once)

Og image under cut:

[starberry-jam]

THEY'RE HEREEEEE

Thank you to the sweet lady on marketplace who shipped them to me, im glad they could go to a loving home

[stevesbestgirl]

Please consider supporting my brother's top surgery ❤️❤️

https://gofund.me/4e3f76c7

[racmune]

hello everyone! i am normal about this!

[rileyissapphic]

my birthday is coming up and i subtly asked for the book Carmilla for my birthday since its IMPOSSIBLE to buy a copy in the bookstores where i live. he got the hint (even screenshotted the google page of Carmilla for later lol) but do you guys think when he reads the synopsis hes going to get a hint

[eccentricallygothic]

I am not saying I want Steve Rogers to bend me over his desk and whip my ass to get me to do/finish my homework but that's exactly what I am saying.

[karlachx]

andy plays ▸ gta v online [1/∞]

[daiisiy]

instead of a kremy x gideon compilation i need a compilation of andy reacting to them