#orangekittyenergy

Next set of attacks! 🤺

Oh noooo, this is the only message I received :(

And yes, that's exactly it! You really feel like now you have to be a marketing and a PR agent, just being an artist and a fan is no longer enough. And you're right about ~*the website*~, as I once got straight up told that yep, it is very transactional and that in order to get comments I ought to comment as well. Which is like.. I get the sentiment of being involved in the fandom, which I also believe in, but it feels like we pushed that good advice into the extremes where being in a fandom comes with people sort of.. keeping the tally of who comments on whose posts and if one person doesn't comment enough on your posts then you're not going to comment on theirs either. And in all honesty.. I feel like that's partially what led to the general decline in people engaging. It stopped being 'oh, I find this cool or beautiful or interesting so I will express my opinion on it' and turned into.. currency.

And I don't know if it's because the internet as a whole shifted into everything and everyone trying to get monetized, but it's almost as if that entire mindset just bled into everything. It's no longer just about actual money, it's also about attention, engagement. People operating with this mindset of 'well, I don't think this person has earned my comment/like' and the reasons behind that are wholly arbitrary. It's just.. such an unwelcoming space to enter and can leave one feeling utterly alone.

Which also made me wonder if fandom shifting from forum boards and journals and tumblr to more mainstream SM sites also contributed to this weird.. idk, fracturing? Clique mindset? Because now people can very clearly see who has what amount of followers. And that, unfortunately, also plays a role in how people interact (or more likely NOT interact) based on that metric.

And it's all.. interconnected! This sort of transactional mindset created the need for people to band together into groups to prop each other up, thus further feeding into that by creating this almost.. idk, a pledge? That everyone within the group supports each other no matter what, not based on the merit of their work, but the fact that everyone is in that certain group (which like.. on its own, a group of friends supporting each other is completely fine! it's just the fact that this phenomenon always existed to some extent but a) wasn't a pre-requisite to being part of the fandom b) didn't enforce this sort of.. tribalistic mindset where people stopped really interacting with others outside the group).

And that just further breed the sense of isolation if you're not part of one clique or another, so it's totally normal for others to either seek to be accepted to a group (through various means stemming from something as innocent as just talking to people OR something a bit more problematic and sucking up to people they want to be their friends (which happens!!!), becoming essentially doormats, thus creating this weird social hierarchy within the group where those who are new, or more on the margins, cannot freely voice their opinions or dare to say anything that would go against the grain (something I myself witnessed in certain discord servers) in fear of being ostracized). It's either that or creating your own group and thus feeding that loop where the community just fractures even further, creating more sense of isolation, forcing people to flock to one another ad infinitum.

I also think that maybe the fandom as a whole shifting with the new generation is also at play here. As I've noticed that the one thing that the younglings fear the most is cringe. I see this cultural shift where kids these days truly would rather be passive, cynical, and idk.. uninvolved? Rather than being passionate and earnest and whimsical, because that risks them coming across as cringe and that's like.. the highest crime of them all, it seems. So when you apply such a logic to a fandom, it starts to make sense why so many are just passively consuming 'content' in private, without getting themselves involved in any way.

It's really sad and makes me worried for the future. Especially in these restless times our world is currently experiencing, having an escape in fiction and fantasy and, above all, a community is SO SO important. And yet what was once a 'happy place' for a lot of people to feel like they belong in and can share their excitement and passion (which is something SO human) is rapidly becoming a cold, unwelcoming wasteland.

And as an old™ who (now looking back) experienced "the golden age of tumblr", I look back at that joy, that sort of.. "I'm in this giant playground and can run up to random people and tell them I really like their tshirt and then a day later a random group of strangers pass by and tell me they really liked my crayon drawing from yesterday" feeling and my heart just breaks. Not only because I personally experience only vague remnants of it at this point (and I do think that tumblr still has that deep down somewhere, just not on the scale it used to be), but because I realize that people entering now see fandom in a completely different way. They never got to even know how different it was. Instead, so many think that all this, all the cliques and performing for engagement, and the transactional nature is normal.

But yeah, I don't have all the answers either. I just try my best to keep creating, to bring even a little bit of that old spark into the community. But just the fact that I literally cannot function in discord servers really impedes that because I.. also do feel left out and isolated sometimes. I've seen people in this very fandom who liked my work drop me like trash when I didn't perform the correct dance for them, when I dared to disagree or speak up when I saw someone being cruel about other people's work. When I didn't comment enough on their work or didn't put my stamp under the 'follow4follow' and 'comment4comment' pledge. Maybe I truly am just a fandom grandma who cannot keep up with the times, yelling at the clouds while most try their best to ignore it.

But.. I am glad that we can speak about this. Discuss it. Express our frustrations and fears and sadness. I know for a fact that there are more people like us, feeling like that. People who are even more isolated and alone, thus even more afraid to speak up about it. Who know that something about this fandom climate is just not right, but don't know what to do about it.

And to end this on a positive note! Even with all of these problems and some of the worst people and situations I experienced in this fandom.. I am so glad I met people like you. People I can call friends. People that do not keep a tally on how many times I commented on their work or how much time I spent in their servers. People that create beautiful art, support each other. People who are there, not because they expect something in return, but because they care.

Ooooh no, how could you do this to me???

This is really hard tbh because I love everyone in their own ways. But I have to say

Zevran Arainai

Thane Krios

Dorian Pavus

Hiii :3 Thank you so much for the ask!! <333

Big Fat Domesticity Ask list here

36. Typical date night? Out or at home?

I do think most of their dates would be at home. They strike me both as a bit of a home-body couple. I mentioned before that cooking is something they really love to do together. Usually a date will be like - cook an elaborate meal, eat way too much, have some drinks, watch a movie, and fall asleep together on the couch then wake up sore the next morning because they didn't bother going back to the bed lol. Sometimes they'll go out to the bar and have a more 'traditional' date, but they have to mentally prepare themselves for the 'ooooo's' and giggles from other members of the Hex/RoundTable (Velimir won't stop calling them Love Birds and going on about Young Love....- one time he just ended up sitting with them and crashing the date altogether lmao).

37. do they celebrate birthdays, valentine's day, anniversaries?

Yep! They try and celebrate all the holidays together. It gives them a sense of normalcy in an otherwise pretty insane situation. Although Locke doesn't have a birthday that she remembers, the Hex kind of unilaterally decided that they would just celebrate her 'birthday' on the day that she came to them -> Dec 31st 1999 haha. She's very curious about the holidays from the past, and never misses an opportunity to learn a bit more about them. It helps her feel more connected to what Arthur's life must have been like before all the stuff with Entrati went down.

38. what would they get each other for gifts?

Locke obviously gets to know Arthur pretty well. She tries to get him practical stuff that she know's he'll use. She keeps a mental list of all his equipment -kitchen related or otherwise, and if she notices something start to chip or break, she'll look for a good quality replacement. She'll also sometimes bring him back food/ingredients from the future to try since he's very curious about that.

@orangekittyenergy had a lil giveaway that I won, and this is the piece that she drew for me!!! 😭❤️

I am absolutely IN LOVE!!! I HC that Andromeda and Astarion started reading and cuddling together on their lil tadpole adventure and it became part of their every day routine. I asked if she would be able to draw that for me and she did such an AMAZING job.

NOT MITCH?? Okay, fine. 🥲

Rogue Amendiares. I love Rogue for a lot of reasons, but the biggest is for surviving Johnny and reinventing herself. She's a badass.

Carol Emeka. She cracks me up! She's funny and smart and she does not take shit from anyone. Plus, the way she hits on Judy while V is right there in front of her? The balls on her!

I need everyone to behold the CUTEST EVER THING that @orangekittyenergy has created for me! I requested Devi and Gale cuddling in his Waterdeep tower with little newborn Tiawyn, AND SHE DELIVERED. I love everything about this picture! Gale's proud look! Devi leaning against her hubby's chest! The way they're holding hands while holding their baby girl! The sunlight in the window! How cozy little Tiawyn looks!!