#I didnt wanna make things shippy lol

[wifiwuxians]

just a random guy who really loves your art. i noticed you made the cute doodle asking peeps to reblog your art and i just wanted to share why i dont? i really love your art and i absolutely wanna reblog it but im a songxue shipper and lowkey you seem kinda grossed out by that ship. which is totally oki, i know its not everyones cup of tea, but sometimes it seems like you'd be offended if a shipper reblogged your art i guess? and i dont rlly wanna bug you, i love your art and i adore your content. i think your likes and dislikes are valid as hell and you're totally allowed to have them. i just wanted to say that i do want to rb your stuff and i do love your stuff and im sorry im not supporting your art in that way, i just really didnt want to cross your boundaries. thank you for sharing your art and drawing so much of the guys (they're my blorbos, thats why i ship them and you're basically the only person who draws them ic imo). you're a wonderful artist and your art regularly impresses the hell out of me. your sense of humor, expressiveness, color pallet, creativity, and just plain Skill are all so freaking amazing and you deserve accolades. im sorry for being a weirdo who likes one of your squick ships but your art is fabulous. maybe i'll make a sideblog where i hide my ship tendencies and just rb you a lot there, you deserve the support :)

hey now,,, this is very sweet lkdhlkh and i really appreciate it + am glad you enjoy my art so much and think it's in character LOL i know i make things that are completely silly and absurd so it fascinates me (in a good way) that it's still seen as in character

also thank you so much for reaching out, i've been having a really rough time (depression! YAY) and honestly didn't expect anyone to say anything ;; (which is totally fine, people don't need to say anything! but it feels really good to be acknowledged)

i guess i'll take this as an opportunity to address this in general! i don't mind if people ship something i don't like/a notp as long as they're not making me engage with it, i don't track people down at gunpoint like HEY SHIPPER SAW YOU TOUCHED MY ART! no! all i ask is people don't /tag/ my art as whatever if i don't want it tagged as such (and don't ramble on about ship ideas in there either lol please), but i'm making an effort to make that obvious in the body of the post itself :) lots of my friends/followers ship things i don't and we coexist just fine!

but as for your ship, i've made mention to it a few times i think that it doesn't really bother me that much! in fact, the more i draw them together, the more chill i am with people taking away whichever kind of interactions they want from my art of them! they're my blorbos too and i love drawing them together, and although sometimes i am explicit about not wanting them tagged as a ship (so like, if they're drawn as family, xy is a child and sl is not for instance, lol), and sometimes i wish not everything were seen as shippy, it's very unreasonable i think for me to expect people not to see it that way. does that make sense? that's why someone requested i tag it a certain way so they wouldn't have to see it anyway OTL

anyway, you're totally fine! if you want to reblog it go right ahead, and if you wanna slap that tag on it, go ahead too (WITHIN REASON, see above). it's the other ostensibly more popular xue yang ship that i'd rather not get wrapped up in, haha

don't hide who you are! don't try and bottle things up for the sake of making someone else feel better. i've been doing that for too long and regret it immensely. maybe this year i'll finally put that to rest too

[phlondie]

okay ik this is an opinion no one asked for but now im thinking about the whole dan and phil joint branding as opposed to Dan Branding™ and Phil Branding™. also this is fully adding onto posts on @ browncesario and @ demonetisation’s blogs and i feel too awkward to tag them bc i dont wanna make anyone feel obligated to read this lol but if i repeat anything they said or their anons said its not on purpose!

but like, full disclaimer while i love dan and phil i feel like its always been kind of obvious that they were marketing their relationship to us? obv not so much anymore but like... as much as people who dont keep up w dnp like to pretend that their only awareness of us as a fanbase was creepy objectifying shippers who should feel ashamed for harassing them etc etc, they’ve always been way more tuned into their audience than i think people realize. like they’ve *known* what we’re like, and i dont even mean just the bad parts. like they *know* that a lot of their fanbase is queer and genuinely has looked up to them as queer role models long before they were out, and a lot of that hinges on us understanding they were a couple. and ik they resented it and i wasn’t really part of the fanbase until a few years ago but hearing stories of how dan would react on liveshows sometimes and the like, barely concealed resentment for the fans sometimes shows that while they definitely had issues with it (which like,,, is fair), they also knew they were kind of stuck in a rut. because if their primary source of fans are people who like seeing them together, that meant that their success as youtubers/creators/etc depended on keeping those fans right where they were.

and to be clear! i know ive never been here primarily for their relationship; i started watching them bc i thought they were funny together and had a good dynamic, which wouldve been possible even if they really were just friends. i didnt get emotionally invested in the projection part of it until later. but even so, i was always aware as a fan that they were selling to us the speculation of their relationship.

and this is def pulling from other posts ive seen today but considering the fanfic part of tatinof, the fact that they wrote fanfic in tabinof and incorporated shippy fan art into the youtube versions, giving the people what they want, even little things like the conjoined baking challenge vid.... they wanted us to stay curious about their relationship. Even if on a very real level it was literally bringing back trauma for them, there was this weird cognitive dissonance between “im angry at people for speculating about us” and “look here, dont stop speculating about us! look we’re sharing a sweater! look we’re being ~domestic~ in ditls!”

which is also why i thought the hiatus wouldnt last long tbh, like i was genuinely shocked that after the success of ii they would completely separate their brandings from each other in 2019. and i wont @ this person but someone said it best years ago when they said that joint branding had to die for dnp to come out. bc it really did; how could they keep up the speculation if we have literally almost all the puzzle pieces laid out? when they’ve primed their audience to actively hunt down these pieces (even if again, they would rather have not, esp given what they each talked about in their coming out videos), but they dont *want* us to put it all together, how could they sustainably make joint content while keeping the speculation fanbase there? bc once the speculation is over, people are gonna keep wanting more. (and disclaimer i really dont think this applies to like....anyone i follow on here tbh bc in general i feel like we’re fine w them keeping their boundaries where they are, but we’ve all seen posts like that that indicate that people *will* want more, and thats something that they’re unwilling to give and understandably so).

anyway this all goes to the main thing that brought all this on today lol, ever since 2019 they’ve been trying to cultivate their own separate branding from each other, and while i’m here for it tbh, surely they know that they’ll never escape their old joint branding. Which also means never escaping the spectre of relationship speculation. so i have mixed feelings about seeing dan act shocked that people could ever speculate about his private life once he became famous bc like 1) thats literally just what happens when you become famous, and 2) ....he and phil egged it on up to a point, and that doesnt mean it didnt upset them but it definitely feels off for dan to always be so pikachu face about having had fans that speculated about his relationship. like dan you literally wrote erotic fanfiction about you and phil, pieced together fan art illustrating it that showed you and phil in a homoerotic lens, and yet you’re *still* acting shocked and indignant that fans got invested in your relationship/the possibility of your relationship?? idk man. its confusing bc at the time i took things like that as “oh, we’re in on the joke,” but ever since 2019 they’ve made it more clear that we’re not, but we’re also not *not* in on it to an extent (looking at you, cah phan edition)

so im def still excited for dan’s book (like the subject doesnt terribly interest me tbh but i do wanna see what he does with it and read whatever highlights inevitably get posted on here), but as always w the end of regular joint content, im lowkey here for the over-analyzing about the relationship between dan, phil, their fans, and their content bc dear god we never run out of material to rant about

[askguyslikeus]

((answering questions under the cut!))

i do actually plan on a little story! nothing too huge ahah but i do want this to be mostly run as an askblog! i might leave yall hints in the tags of important storyish posts but for the most part just sending asks should keep the ball rolling

eastern time zone! i have a weird work schedule and usually get out by 10 am - 1 pm or have weekdays off so my posts are kind off all over the place aha!

legit whatever strikes my fancy TBH haha sometimes i get asks that i love but i cant think of anything for them and i save them for some other time if something stikes my inspo. but usually if i can think of something that has more than one word answer and makes me smile i pick that one! sometimes i even come back to an ask i didnt wanna do cause i RANDOMLY THOUGHT OF A GOOD SCRIPT or somehting hahaha

ahhh i love exploring characters different from myself!! i mean i love writing these awkward boys who use silly lingo cause i too am super awkward and use silly lingo BUT i dont play overwatch or listen to the smiths or wanna major in music theory but i feel like michael would like all these things sooo,,, its been fun exploring new things because i want to know more about them for this blog specifically. i dont want to settle on something being their fav just cause i know about it i guess and im having fun with it

it also is nice to explore thingS ive dealt with myself through these boys in a healthy way using what ive learnt about myself and others. i deal with dependency issues and i always read michael as having them as well? but i didnt deal with them in a healthy manner for a while and ive learnt how to be better about it. and just ,,, being able to help these fictional boys in a way i struggled with is really refreshing and helps me a lot

aaa sorry i mostly just, enjoy exploring issues that i can grow in myself while also trying to get a grasp on these boys if that makes any sense?

at the moment no, i already reached out to a few people to ask them to do asks, and i do have a kinda story i wanna get to so,,, at the moment im all set on guest artists! i might do another round a little later tho!

i have not been intentionally but i have a lot of friends on the spectrum and am all for headcanons for michael and jeremy as well! i base a lot of my scripts and way of speaking and how they deal with situation on how ive seen friends of mine and myself react so!! i myself am not on the spectrum but i can see both jeremy and michael being autistic !! rock on anon

usually around an hour or two since i do multiple panels ahaha but if its one like the michael in the bathroom one or the childhood one i defs spent three or four hours on those bad boys,,,, i chose a very easy to do art style for this blog so i could work on my expressions and scripts and poses and get them done quick without worrying too much about how finished things look and hoo wee go past me cause ,,, i would not have as many posts as i do now slash i PROBs would have gave up 3 asks in hoooo boyyy

ye lol

like,,,, only a month ago woops i saw a cute shippy headcanon and i was like oh wait fuck these boys are cute. then i listened to the musical and was very blindsided by the entire plot omg but!! im glad im here!!

mostly because i wanted u to be able to tell who was talking! soemtimes my handwriting is small or my pic is big so jeremy ans michael will talk like this back to back

i ate a big corndog the other day HE SURE DID why do u sound proud im the one who ate the big corndog IM JUST A SUPPORTIVE BRO

and when they talk like that i needed a way to show who was speaking? aaaa i made theirs contrast the most since they are in the most asks together! as for everyone else i kinda just do whatever im feeling hahaha

i was gunna do something like a winky face or be like maybeee~ but imma just say ye man. i love boyf riends and im workin on a little plot to get these boyos together and happy!

ALSO I DIDNT GET AN ASK ABOUT IT BUt peopl have dmed me their headcanons or post ideas and im going to say it now in bold and caps

I DONT DO ANGST FOR THE SAKE OF ANGST if i end up posting sad things its because its what the boys are feelin in a story line but for the most part this is a happy happy blog. i have a lot of shit going on in my own life and i know some people use their ask blogs or art to draw out their venting and that is very good and healthy usually and i support you! but that isnt my way of coping and this blog will not have angst. dont prompt me for angst homies and stop trying to throw triggers out there to make me make a sad post. there are a lot of good blogs than can fill ur bmc angst needs!! 

AND LASTLY CAUSE YE IMMA POST A BUNCH CAUSE THEY MADE ME SMILE :

I am SO OVERHWLEMED AND EMOTIONAL ABOUT ALL THE SUPPORT IVE GOTTEN ON THIS BLOG,,,, i went into this fandom in a really bad place and really lonely and really hating my art and idk it wasnt good but!!! making this blog is helping me grow a lot on my own as an artist but also everyone else enjoying it as much as i am ??? i die every timeee aaaaaa yall what th heckkkkk,,,,, 

THANK U SO MUCH EVERYONE I APPRECIATE U ALL A LOT??? im glad ur enjoying my silly askblog idk im emotional im sorry aaa

hope i keep u guys entertained and u enjoy where i take these two!

there were some asks that were sent to me that i plan to answer soon in the form of asks so i didnt answer them but thank u for sending me questions guys!! 

[phlondie]

@sxlllxx oooh thats a really good point tbh and its honestly one of the pitfalls i fall into when thinking about literally anything about dnp, like it wasnt really until draw my life part 2 that i realized i’d been picturing them meticulously planning everything, when in reality a lot of the trajectory of their careers has been on a whim/just by happenstance (ie they got the offer for the radio show out of the blue, and that whole thing about how they were gonna move to america at one point??) like okay im gonna try not to ramble again (bc i *know* im just procrastinating from hw at this point lol but also i do really like talking about this! and im honestly down to hear people’s opinions like i used to never shut up about dnp irl for awhile so like. its nice letting myself talk about them lmao)

and like in all fairness, i think with regular content like the gaming channel they didnt meticulously plan their mannerisms, esp bc phil’s talked a lot about how he cant work with anything scripted. like joint content really is just the two of them vibing. but that said, i think the structure of their videos is where it gets a little more calculated. like obvious examples are The Urge and conjoined baking challenge. So take The Urge, like dan had to write that fic knowing just what nods he wanted to make to the phandom (ie the trope of phil dying in every fic), as well as where he wanted to pull back (keeping it clear textually that phil is his friend, “his friendship with phil was personal and with every word of comfort they would only hurt him more” or smth like that. which was also a nudge back imo, like ‘yeah im writing this fanfic to play the role of a fan but im also letting you know i have boundaries’). but the biggest moment of pandering (okay manipulation feels a bit too malicious to use here but i def think its pandering) was in choosing which fan art to incorporate into the video. Like he had to go through fan submissions and choose which ones to include, and he chose ones that played up the homoeroticism of phil pinning dan against the tree and biting him. like i dont wanna do a whole play by play of that video but at the biting scene like.... he chose some really gay fan art, and i def think it was intentionally to raise the question of “am i just doing this in homage to the fans or am i Saying Something? 🤔”

And conjoined baking challenge, like okay this one isnt as solid of an example as The Urge, but planning to make a video where dan and phil are sharing a sweater and moving around a lot and are clearly shirtless underneath..... yeah it could’ve just been the logistics of the challenge, but it also felt like Something. Like they did that video bc they knew it would get a lot of rewatches. But then again! it also gets a lot of rewatches bc its funny and speculation aside they’re both honestly just funny people and their fans watch their videos bc they’re hilarious.

like i dont think dnp are some scheming masterminds, and i dont even think they’ve ever planned to ~queerbait their audience~ (bc you cant queerbait if you’re actually queer, and honestly as a rule i just dont think real life people can queerbait so it bothers me when people push it that far and say they have). but its the little things, like deciding to play up the shippy fanfic/fan art aspect of them before they were out, and mentioning every now and then their *domestic antics* that are meant to draw people in on the basis of “we live together :) isnt it cute?” (Or to quote interactive introverts: “dan and phil: super best friends and soulmates forever, right? 🥰”) that lowkey show their hand.

also again disclaimer: i dont actually think any of this is bad! but it is wild that they do all of this and people who arent fans and even dan and phil themselves to an extent are like “how DARE you wonder if we’re together?!? :O” Like idk man!! maybe bc you keep dropping just enough details about your personal life to suggest you are without ever really confirming or denying it!!

also i love how i said i wasnt gonna ramble but here we are, im so sorry lmao

okay ik this is an opinion no one asked for but now im thinking about the whole dan and phil joint branding as opposed to Dan Branding™ and Phil Branding™. also this is fully adding onto posts on @ browncesario and @ demonetisation’s blogs and i feel too awkward to tag them bc i dont wanna make anyone feel obligated to read this lol but if i repeat anything they said or their anons said its not on purpose!

but like, full disclaimer while i love dan and phil i feel like its always been kind of obvious that they were marketing their relationship to us? obv not so much anymore but like... as much as people who dont keep up w dnp like to pretend that their only awareness of us as a fanbase was creepy objectifying shippers who should feel ashamed for harassing them etc etc, they’ve always been way more tuned into their audience than i think people realize. like they’ve *known* what we’re like, and i dont even mean just the bad parts. like they *know* that a lot of their fanbase is queer and genuinely has looked up to them as queer role models long before they were out, and a lot of that hinges on us understanding they were a couple. and ik they resented it and i wasn’t really part of the fanbase until a few years ago but hearing stories of how dan would react on liveshows sometimes and the like, barely concealed resentment for the fans sometimes shows that while they definitely had issues with it (which like,,, is fair), they also knew they were kind of stuck in a rut. because if their primary source of fans are people who like seeing them together, that meant that their success as youtubers/creators/etc depended on keeping those fans right where they were.

and to be clear! i know ive never been here primarily for their relationship; i started watching them bc i thought they were funny together and had a good dynamic, which wouldve been possible even if they really were just friends. i didnt get emotionally invested in the projection part of it until later. but even so, i was always aware as a fan that they were selling to us the speculation of their relationship.

and this is def pulling from other posts ive seen today but considering the fanfic part of tatinof, the fact that they wrote fanfic in tabinof and incorporated shippy fan art into the youtube versions, giving the people what they want, even little things like the conjoined baking challenge vid.... they wanted us to stay curious about their relationship. Even if on a very real level it was literally bringing back trauma for them, there was this weird cognitive dissonance between “im angry at people for speculating about us” and “look here, dont stop speculating about us! look we’re sharing a sweater! look we’re being ~domestic~ in ditls!”

which is also why i thought the hiatus wouldnt last long tbh, like i was genuinely shocked that after the success of ii they would completely separate their brandings from each other in 2019. and i wont @ this person but someone said it best years ago when they said that joint branding had to die for dnp to come out. bc it really did; how could they keep up the speculation if we have literally almost all the puzzle pieces laid out? when they’ve primed their audience to actively hunt down these pieces (even if again, they would rather have not, esp given what they each talked about in their coming out videos), but they dont *want* us to put it all together, how could they sustainably make joint content while keeping the speculation fanbase there? bc once the speculation is over, people are gonna keep wanting more. (and disclaimer i really dont think this applies to like....anyone i follow on here tbh bc in general i feel like we’re fine w them keeping their boundaries where they are, but we’ve all seen posts like that that indicate that people *will* want more, and thats something that they’re unwilling to give and understandably so).

anyway this all goes to the main thing that brought all this on today lol, ever since 2019 they’ve been trying to cultivate their own separate branding from each other, and while i’m here for it tbh, surely they know that they’ll never escape their old joint branding. Which also means never escaping the spectre of relationship speculation. so i have mixed feelings about seeing dan act shocked that people could ever speculate about his private life once he became famous bc like 1) thats literally just what happens when you become famous, and 2) ....he and phil egged it on up to a point, and that doesnt mean it didnt upset them but it definitely feels off for dan to always be so pikachu face about having had fans that speculated about his relationship. like dan you literally wrote erotic fanfiction about you and phil, pieced together fan art illustrating it that showed you and phil in a homoerotic lens, and yet you’re *still* acting shocked and indignant that fans got invested in your relationship/the possibility of your relationship?? idk man. its confusing bc at the time i took things like that as “oh, we’re in on the joke,” but ever since 2019 they’ve made it more clear that we’re not, but we’re also not *not* in on it to an extent (looking at you, cah phan edition)

so im def still excited for dan’s book (like the subject doesnt terribly interest me tbh but i do wanna see what he does with it and read whatever highlights inevitably get posted on here), but as always w the end of regular joint content, im lowkey here for the over-analyzing about the relationship between dan, phil, their fans, and their content bc dear god we never run out of material to rant about