#dont know why im this way but always been like this so sorry about that akjbcjk

[chjroptera]

this is going to be a long one, but i feel like you'll understand my point of view: i sent you an ask like 2 or so months ago wanting to hear your opinions about how you do/don't separate the content creators from the characters on the dsmp. at the time i held a very opposing belief to you, now not so much. your original response made me think a lot about it. it was well worded. especially that these characters had foundations set with who the content creators actually are (wilbur and tommy being brothers at the time, dream being dream. the list goes on). at the time i didn't want to think about it at all, because not doing so allowed for complete separation between the horrible people behind characters that i love/loved (still love, but in a different and sadder way now) to continue. now, with more and more information coming out, with things getting less and less obscured and content creators being more blunt about their awful time spent with the dsmp, i find it nearly impossible to enjoy these characters at all. save tommy's and tubbo's, and quackity's when i don't think about his shit ending lmao. it's sort of like a fog has lifted from me if that makes sense. and the dsmp feels like this media that can't be understood like anything else can. it's so specific to what it is and the discussion surrounding it and how lines blur between character and creator. you have people that hold this steadfast blind belief (which i understand a lot of it is so they can continue loving something that they've loved for a while in a way that's unchanged, even though it's changed so much, i've been there) and then there are people like you, who seem to still have love and appreciation for the story but understand that nuanced middle ground. idk, i was wondering if you could talk at all about how you still enjoy these characters. or if you have any further thoughts about how the lines blur and the foundation that was set by the creators that their characters were laid on top of. sorry again that this is so long. been thinking about it a lot

thanks for sending this, i know its kinda jarring to realize dsmp is more like a blurry memory than a concrete story, and i totally get why you can't find that middle ground/enjoy it anymore. i also appreciate you wanting to hear more from me, i really enjoy talking about this stuff.

at least for me, i always saw dsmp as a story first. i dont know if you followed me on twitter but dude i was making threads on threads of theories, breakdowns, character analysis, everything. i enjoyed the ccs content too but from the first lore stream i watched (the dawn of the 16th) i always saw it as a story with intentional main and side characters, foils, character arcs whatever. as it went on, it became more scripted, which worked well for me because in my eyes more development made them less connected to their actual cc. tftsmp also made the divide wider because now characters had reincarnations, soulmates, and descendants/ancestors. tftsmp added so much original shit to the dsmp that it really did feel like a concrete story.

its kinda unavoidable that the ccs would use their own personalities and traits as bases for characters, a lot of them weren't writers or had personas. like for the longest time it was assumed that c!drm and c!spnp were childhood friends solely because the two are in real life. in reality it wasn't confirmed till the prison break stream which brings me to another point: a lot of dsmps canon depends on if you were even there or not. i explain in here and my best example would be cc!spnp saying his favorite headcanon was c!skpy and c!bad being his dads, which bad had already confirmed and then had retconned because of spnp saying it was a headcanon. its really fcuking dumb man.

i still love the story. im still super passionate about it if you didnt see how pissed i was about quackitys dumb merch commercial. i love the characters and i still do write analysis for them, watch the streams, make fan art but it IS a lot harder now. posting those c!wils took a couple minutes of back and forth with myself but i know that the only people here are dsmpers aka the only ones who Get It. karlnapity is literally my favorite ship ever and i cant bring myself to draw them most of the time because its feels so weird. i don't want to make them ocs (tbh i already have and shifted shit around lol) because they're already characters with development and backstories. i love them as they are, and theyre eternally suck in stasis.

i just kinda accepted that i really love this web series and surround myself with people who are willing to talk about it critically. acknowledging that the characters are an extension of the character who played them soured my experience a lot, it took me 2 years to draw c!drm again because i just dislike the cc that much. as someone who was literally there since 2020, dsmp is ours now. the ccs dont care about the story and neither does anyone concerned with the drama right now. you look up "dsmp explained" on youtube and youre getting thousands of videos regurgitating the same timelines and news updates on the cc drama, nothing about the narrative or the complexities of the media itself.

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

heeyyy gaaanggg

the pose and the background of the album version (left) are based on oingo boingos only a lad album art. not cause i think he has anything to do with it but just cause ive been wantin to draw that pose for like. weeks and i didnt know who to put there. so why not my latest bug man.

[ghost-bard]

something has possessed me i think bc why am i in the year 2024 thinking about merlin/gwaine but also merlin/lancelot but also gwaine/merlin/lancelot. what have i done to deserve this

[greasydumbfuck]

also just for the record. no matter how much utterly stupid shit i say or draw about him, frank actually makes me so deeply sad. this old man should be picking up his grandkids but he cant. i think about him too much and im so sad

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sorry if you've already mentioned but what (re?)ignited your love of comics/x-men/cherik? curious because there are so many different adaptations of them

i think im gonna speak for a few (or a lot of) people when i say that TL;DR the wolverine x deadpool movie that came out this summer is what pulled me back into comics and i COULD leave it there but i will go into excruciating and unnecessary detail instead because i love an origin story and i love oversharing.

under the cut tho because im nice sometimes (there's also wxdp doodles in here. if you want to see that)

ironically (and probably commonly), growing up i was more of an avengers kid. Kinda. Loosely <- binge watched the cartoons and movies and read copious amounts of comics and fics and i am hoarding fanart in my old dresser as we speak ok 'loosely' is a modest lie.

embarrassingly i remember getting into discus cause of captain america LMAO so yeah needless to say i was a Humble Fan- me joining my school's comic class/club didnt help either (shoutout to my teach from that she was the realest one out there for. A Multitude of reasons). she definitely is was inspires me to even draw still and make comics and i often think bout the tips i learned from her class tbh she was great

back to the movies t and comics tho, i got into em because my brother would offer to take me and that's how we'd hang out (i rarely saw movies in theaters and i even more rarely went anywhere as a teenager. still kinda like that today tbh ooops) and yk. it just snowballed after that.

my brother and i have always liked comics- he just more than me for a while (though he still very much loves comics and As We Know From My Posts we still talk about them whenever i see him To An Exhausting Degree)

durin then i was really into stony and i have a few surviving doodles i made but those are between me and god. and anyone who asks tbh LOL

'snap can you make this related to x-men again this is long' ok so fast forward to This Summer again I Still Don't Really See Movies but my brother offered to take me and this was the first time i'd actually seen an x-men movie in full

as a kid i only remember seeing the 'perfection' scene between erik and raven in first class while i was channel surfing. pretty sure i changed the channel after seeing mystique naked cause i was scared my parents would get mad at me if they caught me watching it LOL

BUT MOVING ON As A Kid i think it's also natural you'll sometimes watch 92 if it's on And I Did though evidently it didn't stick too hard (i do remember really liking beast and gambit though.... still do really): my knowledge of x-men was. INCREDIBLY sparse. like diabolically so so i didnt have too much expectations (aside from the fact i vaguely liked deadpool beforehand).

tbh i dont know why my bro never took me to see any of the x-men movies. it's not like he doesn't Also like x-men (90% sure nightcrawler's his favorite but my brother will be caught dead saying he has absolute favorites like that)- he owns a bitch load of deadpool comics/omnibus sets too (of which ive read over the years and reread this year) but Shrug moving on

Much Like Most Of The Internet i fell down the rabbit hole that way. i have some doodles i made a couple days after seeing WxDP that i now have an excuse to throw at all of you Look And Perceive

and so. As I Do. i got curious and told myself i'd binge watch all the x-men movies the week before i went back to school And Then I Did ft. My Brother Sometimes and then i said i'd binge watch all of '92 and And I Did That ft. My Brother Sometimes But Less So and now we're here. currently watching Evolution...

once i got to school i realized i lived near a comic shop and started getting into the comics that way (the first ones i got since going down this rabbit hole was Magneto Was Right!, The Resurrection of Magneto, and The Trial of Magneto. if you were curious !!!!! clearly i didnt care too much about context i just needed to see My Guy jelvejlkvj i have no regrets and Evidently ive read more since)

i'm pretty sure what dragged me into cherik specifically was the fact i saw a clip of The Famous ending to 92 where erik's aghast at the notion jean even has to question his love for charles. i think that was what officially had me refocus my lens on them: not a single poolverine thought after that LOL (all the cherik posting i saw on twitter definitely helped too but that was the nail in the coffin for any other interests i had: i was locked into cherik and x-men in general now)

that clip specifically, i was surprised at the fact they- frequently even- have the x-men franchise say erik loves charles and vice versa so bluntly. even if it's not meant to be romantic, i fear im just a fan of how casually the word's thrown around with them two and i got tender bout it all. Then Yk. i just live for the drama. the hilarity even. the sincerity .... they make me sick if i think of them too long so im gonna end it here

before i go tho ironically enough, the first x-men issue i owned was This one (story a this is that while stuck in some wacko dimension charles accidentally gets himself trapped in logan's mind while utilizing his astral projection. if you were curious). pretty sure i got it for free with another comic set i got years ago since our old comic shop loved to do that, but it's poetic aint it. maybe ill doodle something referencing it..

i should probably look into finishing this arc someday im Dummy curious to even know how it started and how it ends.....

[itsseriouslyridiculous]

I really hate how my physical body looks so so so much. unfortunately there isn't much I can do about it.

[floralovebot]

helia is obv meant to be androgynous and bishounen but I get why people would think he was designed to be a woman initially because his name is a woman's name actually. helia is a girls name. also, compared to avalon or other long haired characters, he's also somewhat more different.

I don't think it's too far fetched. some language groups like greek fans could have other pov. in latin american spanish his name was changed to helio for this very reason.

i know his name is feminine. that still means nothing tbh

sky is a popular girl's name in the west. does that mean he's automatically a girl? like no of course not. no one is arguing that sky is a woman just because of his name. griffin is a masculine latin name. don't see anyone questioning her. if his name is the Only proof people have that helia was meant to be a girl, that's weak when other characters also have feminine/masculine names that don't align with their canon gender.

also, you need to ask yourself, what is different about helia? like actually answer that question. what exactly makes helia different from characters like palladium, valtor, or avalon. it's not his body - helia has the same muscular body the other specialists have and he's one of the few male characters we see shirtless on screen. it can't be pacifism - he's not a pacifist and pacifism is not a feminine trait. it can't be art or poetry - neither of those things are feminine traits/hobbies. it can't be his fashion - he's just wearing a shirt and jeans. if anything his wardrobe would be considered more masculine compared to the crop tops the other specialists are wearing (even for the time). it can't be his personality - nabu is also wiser and gentler, timmy is also a simp, brandon is also caring.

so what exactly makes helia different from other long haired male characters?

nothing. that's your answer.

the only thing that makes helia So different is that other long haired male characters are often coded as white Or specifically have darker skin, so fans don't feel the need to question their masculinity (which is a Whole other discussion). helia is not coded as white. even fans who don't consciously realize it are still picking up on that coding. these white fans then feel comfortable questioning his masculinity because they've done that to men of color for decades. it's not just asian men either. white people love to question the masculinity of all men of color, regardless of race or skin color. that's how they demean them. how they separate them from white men. they uphold certain racial and gender stereotypes and then demean any man who "doesn't fit that". which in their eyes, is all men of color.

it's like this: man of color doesn't adhere to western/white/european cultural standards > white people realize, don't like, insult them, and try to make them feel like they need to adhere > white men prioritize the patriarchy and feel the need to glorify it > in order to insult men of color, they specifically call out and question their masculinity > white people around the world think this is genuinely innocent because it focuses on gender instead of race > white racists get away with it

listen, i know at first this seems like a really harmless and maybe even amusing topic. "oh helia is so pretty people think he's a girl ahahah". and for some fans it is genuinely harmless. they just think he's too pretty to be a man. and then they realize, laugh it off, and don't question it again.

unfortunately, that's not the case for a lot of other fans. it's not innocent. it's not harmless. it's white people picking up on racial coding and questioning his identity because of it. you guys don't do this to other characters. you don't do it to sky, who also has a "feminine" name. you don't do it to palladium, who is slimmer and has a gentler, nicer personality. you don't do it to saladin. or nabu. or ogron. or gantlos. or anagan. or tritannus. or nereus. or king neptune. or king teredor.

all of those names are male characters with long hair.

i know it's nice to assume that this is innocent and genuine. but unfortunately, that's not the case. this is an example of something that isn't innocent for a majority of adult, white fans. even if they're not doing it On Purpose. subconscious bias is called that for a reason.

[tytonnidaie]

i love to read meta of knives as an abuser and nod my head thoughtfully at all great points and then once the post ends i go back to considering him as my darling son who never did anything wrong ever

[crescentfool]

beaming everyone on the dashh with good brain day vibes!!! i hope that you all can remember to extend self-compassion to yourself whenever you're feeling down about something 💙

[enden-k]

Hi ! I saw your art on my dash for some time now and just wanted to ask, do you read fanfic ? Cause of yes, I think you could greatly enjoy heartslogos' works on AO3, since they do a lot of Haikaveh with great characterisation ! Anyway, I hope you're having a wonderful day, don't forget to stay hydrated and take good care of you. You're doing so much great work for the fandom, it's really appreciated. May the Muses gives you inspiration for drawing as you intend to ! - 🎐Anon

uhh yes i read a lot. however, mostly kavetham (but also haikaveh sometimes) thanks tho

also thanks for thinking so, have a nice day as well

[natjennie]

sorry i havent been very active lately I've been having a real shit couple days idk why

[thewhizzyhead]

being a busy ass student with student journalism gigs on one hand and comm academic shit on the other is very interesting because with the jam-packed life I live I only really get to breathe at like late lAAATE night when no one can bother me about my responsibilities other than myself. that being said that's also when creative brain goes into overdrive and now misfits finally has the final draft of its opening number woo

[gobstoppr]

and btw im in my hater arc rn. as time goes on the more i find a lot of 'fandom' stuff insufferable (i like art n stuff. just the way that fandom refits every media to fit a single mold and set of boring archetypes is exhausting.)

i just get really easily annoyed lately. and have been unfollowing people on a whim a lot. its not personal i promise

[romeoslaughter]

more bullshit

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Shout out to the folks at work the other day that enabled/encouraged me to go on a lil infodump about being transgender and who had genuine questions and listened to my answers. Obviously it's not something queer folks should be expected to do but I love being a point of information for people! I love talking about my experiences and my understandings of philosophies that intersect with that and I think alot of cishet people are maybe uncomfortable asking blunt questions? But so long as they're posed in good faith and with willingness to think about the response, I enjoy answering those weirdly specific things. How else to we dispel the willful ignorance that places of power want to foster towards us? I refuse to he a scapegoat and am deeply grateful to the people that are receptive to experiences outside their own

[ljuerlav]

how do you ask your roommate to leave surfaces generally in a clean and working order. not even talking about clutter but like oil and grime and shit