Nico Robin Doodles

The last part really resonates with me because recently I've disconnected almost entirely from franchise movies, current releases, anything in "the industry". At this point, the wells of Hollywood and big-budget videogames have been irreversibly poisoned for me and the only way I can connect with art anymore is either when it's something created by individuals, small teams, anything independent, or it's something I've created myself (and I am an individual). I think once you take that step back you really see how bad it's gotten. I feel like corporations have taken such insane steps to commodify and reduce what is, at its core, the very medium of human expression. All the talk of "IP" and "content" and "canon" and "consuming", is so sterile and lifeless, and I feel like the normalization of this kind of language is seriously affecting how people relate to anything creative. Someone else said it better than I ever could- "why on earth do you let a company buy the right to determine what you think and feel? Make them "the legal owners of what happens in your mind?""

I love the practice of requisitioning, remixing and reworking books, comics, movies etc. through any means you like, but I hate hate hate the way so much vocabulary that used to be rooted in individual creativity has been taken over by this kind of fucked up deference to mainstream publishing and ip.

easy example: everyone calls the characters they work up for their projects 'OCs' now. that genie is out of the bottle, I'm not even going to try and cram it back in. it's universal terminology. but I do want to reflect - why is the default position to assume that when someone says 'my characters' they mean something derivative, unless they specify 'my Original characters'?

similarly, all character relationships are 'ships'. but what's wrong with that? you say, it's just short for 'relationship'. and you would be right, by merit of completely ignoring the fandom ancestry and common understanding of that term in order to win an argument. because you know as well as I do that 'ships' aren't 'relationships', they're hypothetical romances that the speaker is rooting for. so why do I keep seeing people talk about shipping their OCs? why is a hypothetical relationship entertained and enjoyed by the creator of the work described using fan terminology?

I have for real no joke seen people talk about their 'headcanons' for their own characters, in their own stories. that's not a headcanon babe, that's canon!!! that's YOUR WORK. moreover, why are we even talking about the canonicity of your personal original writing? this isn't the star wars extended universe, why are international franchise IPs setting the baseline for the relationship you have with your writing and the terminology you use to conceptualise it?

tbc this is not a 'fandom brainrot' post. because I don't think it's fanwork that's the root of the problem. I think it's the insidious creep of capitalism and the ever more draconian weaponisation of copyright law that has rewritten our capacity for talking about creative work so that it revolves at all times around ownership and precedent. there is a deep learned anxiety about describing fictional works as fictional properties, that echoes in our vocabulary as we constantly make clear what is owned and what is not, what has been established on the record and what exists in the realm of speculation.

the reason 'fandom brainrot' is such a compeling stand-in for this issue is that it's really just one step downstream from all that voracious rent-seeking behaviour by publishers. if the only things you ever read or watch are in the milieu of those franchise copyright lawyers, that is the understanding of fiction-as-property you develop. if you're not exposed to a broader spectrum of art and artists, living and dead, who talk about their work as work - as expression, as experimentation, as a personal process and as a shared space with their audience - you will quickly be alienated from your own creative practice by design.

the point i want to make is this: going off the beaten track, exploring outside the franchises and bestsellers and box office babies, is not just a matter of good taste. imo it is a necessary act of solidarity with artists who still live, work and speak as individuals. it's a healthier environment for you as an artist. you deserve a relationship with your own work, not a ship.

*shuffles shyly into your ask box*

Hello! Your writing is so fun and juicy and I was just wondering if you'd be willing to write a Hero x Villain where Hero is trying to deny their feelings for Villain and Villain is just flirting relentlessly. Maybe Villain kidnapped Hero just to have them alone??

"You think I have feelings for you?" the hero demanded. "You kidnapped me."

"Are you telling me that the big, bad superhero can't break free of a pair of cuffs?"

"That's not the point."

"Isn't it?" The villain smiled, coming to a stop between the hero's splayed legs. "Because if you can break free, gorgeous, it means you're choosing to stay."

The hero swallowed. Cuffed to a (admittedly comfortable enough) chair, they had to tip their head up to meet the villain's gaze. They shifted, slightly. They refused to call it squirming.

The villain's smile grew to a wicked grin.

"That's not the point," the hero said again, voice cracking a little. "It's still kidnapping!"

"And of course nothing in you finds it hot that I can get the better of you. You're above such things. The way you shivered when I walked in was pure terror. Is that right?"

"I'm not scared of you! We just established I can get free of these cuffs at any time."

The villain raised an eyebrow.

The hero coloured and looked down. Their mind reeled. They didn't have feelings for the villain. They didn't. Because that would be wrong. It would be morally heinous. It would be...

"Mm." The villain trailed their finger up along the hero's heaving chest, tip tip their chin up again, and the hero's breath gave a treacherous hitch. "So why are you staying, then?"

"You might give an evil monologue and reveal all your plans. Your kind like to do that."

The villain laughed. "Oh my love. You've never met my kind. Maybe if you had, you'd know what to do with me."

"Arrest you?"

"Pin me down and tell me I've been so very naughty?"

"Yes! No - I mean no!" The hero's face was on fire. They glared at the villain.

The villain brushed a thumb over their cheek, almost soothing. Like they wanted to reassure the hero that, if they were mocking, it was not to be cruel.

The hero belatedly realised they should have recoiled from the touch a long time ago. They swallowed again, but they still couldn't quite seem to get any moisture into their mouth. They felt suddenly infinitely aware of their tongue.

No clever comebacks came to mind. Only the image of the villain pressed writhing beneath their hands, breathless and wild and grinning in that way of theirs.

"So. Here you are." The villain got back on track, though perhaps not mercifully, after another all too telling moment of silence. "And it's absolutely not because you have feelings for me. It's all..." They waved their free hand, "strategic. It's not for the fact that part of you knows..." The villain leaned down, close enough to kiss. "That kidnapped and alone with me is the only time you would ever allow yourself to truly act on what you want, instead of playing perfect. If you were brave enough to take it, that is."

"I-" The hero faltered.

Their gaze dipped to the villain's lips, cataloguing the minty puff of their breath, their closeness. They cleared their throat. Something in them ached. Longed. Yearned. Reinvented new synonyms for craning hopelessly, helplessly, for the thing that they were not allowed or able to have.

The hero shook their head.

"Okay." The villain straightened abruptly. They pulled back. Their fingers fell away, leaving the hero bereft. "Sorry for pressing. See you out there, maybe, gorgeous."

"I-what?"

"You're free to go. Far be it from me to inflict myself where I'm not wanted."

"What? No!" The protest left the hero unbidden as the villain turned away.

It was a trap. It was so obviously a trap, and yet the hero stepped in it anyway because...because...

"You are such an asshole," the hero said.

"Villain, darling."

"It doesn't change anything even if I did have feelings for you. I can't."

"Ain't no one here but us to find out about it."

"It will get messy."

"Life does that, gorgeous." Still, the villain's voice was softer than before, quieter. Less the purr, or teasing lilt. "That's what makes it life."

After a beat, the villain moved back over to them again. They slipped one finger beneath the hero's chin.

"You're tied to a chair, kidnapped by a supervillain," the villain said. "So just this once we can pretend you don't have a choice. Can I kiss you?"

The hero nodded, heart pounding in their chest.

It was a mistake, another trap of as much as any tale of honey and flies, because they immediately wanted more of the sweetness. The villain's mouth on theirs was a more perfect thing than any of the pedestals that the hero had made a home on.

When the villain pulled back, the hero broke the cuffs thoughtlessly to chase, to slip fingers into the villain's hair and drew them back in closer.

The villain's breath hitched that time.

The hero wanted more of that too. They just wanted.

"Tell me again," the hero said, as they recklessly kissed the villain deep, "that I don't know exactly what to do with you, asshole?"

The villain laughed again and it was one of the best sounds the hero had regrettably ever heard.

Somehow, when the two of them were alone, the villain was a choice that the hero kept not making after that.

once-beloved plush dolls

palette is nanner pancakes

Some HDG art I drew recently :)

The Beginning.

the professor layton series takes place in the 2010s england is just like that

I think Papyrus in Dark World has super cool armor and in UT he tries to replicate it with homemade methods that's why he's dressed like that

How many times has this been said because I haven't read the theories in a long time

Here’s some older Lylei drawings that never showed up here while I work on dealing with burnout