#also i'm not gonna mince words here the dynamic begins showing alex/des being like the lame uncle/older brother for a *7 year old*

[miralyk]

wait, even though you draw yourself, you don't want to associate yourself with f/o or selfshipping communities? genuinely curious, and want to be respectful of boundaries drawing gift art for you

had to look up what "f/o" means but yeah i think i get an idea of what you're asking... i have a bit of a nuanced and long-winded answer wrt the Topic, which will be under the cut for convenience, but to start for for Fanart, i'm still very conflicted about my appearance both irl and in art, so i'm cool w something like drawing something like my trainersona or my pokesona/foxsona, but not art Directly Of Me, My IRL Self Showing My Bare Face, hope that makes sense!

as for the Specifics since this ask seems to be in response to a recent tag i did saying "i don't want to tag art of myself as self-insert or selfship", no, i don't selfship myself with al*x m*rcer or d*smond m*les, if that's what you're trying to indirectly ask LMAO;; it's just "guys being dudes", an older friend who babysat a little kid under their wing (eg axel and xion's dynamic, or "my coworker/college classmate that's super older than me" LMAO) sort of thing.

(full long-winded answer to this question and broad topic:)

i don't have a problem with selfshipping or self-inserts; any criticisms i have are just core "fandom issues" (out of character writing/art, ignoring serious themes/topics in the source material to flanderize or sanitize fanworks, excessive spam in tags, especially unrelated to the post and/or without proper blockable tagging, etc) that selfshipping/self-inserts can perpetuate like any other fanfics or fanart mediums.

for me personally, i technically do have "self-insert" stuff like trainersona/pokesona art and lore to even a selfship with riley called brilliantaurashipping, but i just try to keep it quiet and not bother anyone tbh. i don't have much confidence with my appearance or overall qualities as a person and the last thing i want to do is be ignorant and pretentious, which i feel like would be hypocritical just. constantly drawing myself. especially in a rose-tinted goggles and mary-sue "oh i'm perfect and nothing's wrong with me i have all the superpowers and plot armor in the world and i'm besties with EVERYONEEEEE" shticks,, it makes me wince for canon-compliance and "oh god i don't want to be someone shitty and ignorant like j*lloapocalypse" reasons.

i also don't want to risk annoying or bothering people... if you're autistic and/or a person of color too you may understand this struggle better, but i've had a lot of ""friendships"" where it turned out people who i thought mutually considered friends actually hated me the whole time and only held their tongue out of societal obligations, laugh behind my back as the "mean girl's autistic pet" thing, fail to communicate properly because of various social cues i couldn't process, and so on. i'd rather have up front, honest communication that doesn't sugarcoat anything or beat around the bush, so here i am doing the same with elaborating my thoughts and hope i'm not misinterpreted or have people make assumptions making things up based on lack of information too. this got a bit long but... yeah, overall i do like drawing, even of "silly" stuff like this, but there's a reason why the word guilty is in "guilty pleasure"