#arcsi posting

so uh any ideas or prompts for the dads/their surrounding circles would be swell and awesome

take the headshots anyway though bc it’s been ages and yall dndads fans deserve some food from me after being subjected to my Other Vices

of not being able to reverse something, of losing something you can never ever regain.

glenn not only losing his relationship with nick (which he can regain to an extent) but his entire life with nick, nick’s childhood and everything him and morgan and nick went through can NEVER be brought back

grant losing his childhood, his stability, something irreversibly shifted in his mind to the extent that it changed him enough as a person to get rid of the curse. a change that haunts him as an adult and makes you think of who grant could have been if that had never happened.

henry’s relationship with lark. there is an actual magic barrier that prevents lark from ever truly loving henry again, and that is impossible to break (besides specific magical means, ofc). henry is helpless to fix his relationship, because he physically can’t do it

and him and lafawnduh are just ron and samantha

okay folks, this is going to be a long one, but it’s been on my mind. let’s get started with

The Source Material

You will virtually never run out of content, even now that it’s ended. You have 30 streamers who each streamed for god knows how long each day during its height and a massive amount of content from the same creators outside of the SMP itself. A lot of this content isn’t canon compliant, of course, but it scratches that same itch.

As for canon content, you still have that massive well to draw from. You know each perspective will be interesting, leading to my next point:

Everyone was their own main character.

Yes, it is pretty unanimously decided that Tommy was the main character of the SMP, but every single streamer had their own character that was most important in their minds. Therefore, they included nuance, interesting storylines, and cool narratives in EVERY CHARACTER. Each streamer interacted with different people and wanted their character to have distinct relationships with each member of the server, and therefore the web of relationships is incredibly complicated and nuanced.

The amount of character dynamics and character arcs is incredible, and there’s always something to explore with different combinations of characters at different points in the story. You can find a deeply complicated and unique character within every member.

Because of the improv nature of the server, it also helped prevent characters from becoming caricatures. Very often in planned and structured stories, people can fall into stereotypes when writing a character. However, the way that streamers had to adapt to their environment introduced a level of real character development that allowed for a much more interesting character. They could not structure their character to follow a trope, and instead had to adapt like a real person would to situations, making their characters all the more realistic.

All of these, along with the sheer amount of time we had on our hands in 2020 led to the second section of the fandom:

Fan Content

Because of the pandemic, people had far too much time to dedicate to this fandom. There is a more wide range of fan content in the DSMP fandom than I have ever seen in my life, something that I hoped would be recreated for the QSMP but clearly couldn’t because of the state of the world at that time.

Fan songs, animations, fanfiction, cosplays, and fanart are all 5 times more than you could even begin to guess. Any trope, medium, or idea you could have has been explored by incredibly talented artists, and it made navigating the fandom (even today, as a seasoned fan) an exciting experience. The amount of creativity that people exhibited is frankly inspiring, and I wouldn’t be nearly the artist I am today without seeing all of that content.

It also certainly helped that the creators of the thing you adored so much were such big supporters of the fan content. You often would see them react to animations or songs on stream, leave kind comments, or repost your art. This was so apparent in one of the biggest fan content creators, SADist, who was frequently mentioned IN LORE STREAMS because they had such a big impact on the creators.

The creators cared about their fans and their fan’s experiences and deeply appreciated the fact that people loved their content enough to make art for it, and everyone could feel that love.

From simply a character design perspective, the fact that the character designs were so simple (minecraft skins) left so much room for people to be insanely creative about designs while still keeping true to the character. seeing so many interpretations of the characters and how people changed their designs throughout the story was so interesting, and made fan content not get repetitive or boring.

The base of minecraft gave a great jumping point for world building and environments, while also allowing for lots of insanely cool expansion and exploration from artists. Using the mobs, items, and builds in the server once again made fan content connected and recognizable but also gave artists room to make a world and interpretation of their own, and made the world a lot more interesting and deep than if it was created with everything in mind from the beginning. Finding ways to include seemingly silly minecraft mechanics into your fantasy world allowed for really cool world building.

Even now, I cannot stop thinking about the fan songs. For me, audio (particularly music) is some of the most impactful content in a fandom. Having something to play in the background that expresses the story sticks with me far longer than anything visual. To this day, the songs from the character playlists I made invoke such intense emotions in me that I sometimes have to sit down and just. Listen. Songs created especially *for* the SMP only increase that sense of nostalgia and emotion.

Yes, the fandom has its rough spots (as every fandom does). Yes, many of the creators were not who we thought they were during its peak, and yes there is a lot of controversy and drama.

However, I don’t think that takes away from the Dream SMP as a whole. I think it is one of the most incredible time capsules and, even to this day, is a great fandom to join. Whether or not you were a fan while it was at its peak, I still think it is something that can inspire you, give you endless entertainment, and make you think harder about the nuances in people around you, and improve you as an artist, a consumer, and a human being.

like it wasn’t a ship that didn’t happen because they weren’t gay.

like maybe eddie wasn’t confirmed to be in love with richie explicitly but.

RICHIE WAS. EXPLICITLY. this isn’t a byler situation where they queerbaited and dropped the ball last minute