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🥭MANGO FLOAT🥭

A modern Reylo au comic

Coming February 3rd to AO3, Instagram, Tumblr, Bluesky & Twitter

“You have to understand what this feels like…I haven’t heard anything for 12 years. From anyone. Not you, not Leia or Maz or-,”

“There are answers Rey. But they’re not mine to give.”

🥭angst with HEA

🥭childhood friends to strangers

🥭grief

Thank you all for waiting for me to finally do right by this story. First 4 pages will be out next Monday. ❤️

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I want to talk about productively hating a fictional character!

After a discussion on one of my recent bluesky posts, I thought it would be interesting to facilitate a conversation on why I believe you can find insight in disliking a fictional character while also not letting it ruin your day and making it everyone else’s problem.

A largely disliked part of online fandom tends to be disagreements on what characters you love and which ones you believe deserve to rot and burn. Most often I find that this is why friends (as well as myself) don’t interact in certain online fandoms/spaces.

I tend to avoid this aspect only because I never find that the person I’m in conversation with ever cares to look deeper than “I just don’t like them”, “they were mean to a character I like” or, commonly in fantasy/scifi “they killed people and that’s wrong”. Yeah, they did do something bad. But isn’t it interesting to think about why they do it?

Are you wrong for not liking a character? No, not really. You can meet the coolest most genuine person there’s ever been and I guarantee someone out there vehemently disagrees with you and prays on their downfall. The important question is why do they dislike them.

So my question: why can hating characters be insightful? My thesis: you’re just not going to like everyone and you should explore why and be okay with the answer.

Because it’s more interesting to know what makes people different, to understand why they react the way they do. I think it’s stupid to refuse to consume, as well as condemn others for the consumption of certain media because you happen to dislike a character contained within it.

Because isn’t that interesting? Doesn’t it get boring when everyone is likable and exactly the type of person you’d want to be best friends with? Earlier this month I was on a panel for screenwriters where we discussed building characters. An audience member asked what our one piece of (character) writing advice is. My answer was that you should write a character that you’d hate. Someone who, if you met them at a party, you’d loath. You can’t see yourself making an effort to reach out to and spend time with them.

Because not everyone can be perfect and good. It’s not a good story if that’s the case. You need an antagonist, and sometimes the main character is that person. Sometimes the villain draws you in because they’re well written and complex. And sometimes the character is neutral. They aren’t better or worse than anyone else, they just make different choices than you would.

Two of my favorite pieces of media in the last two years had main characters that I HATED. I read a book where I wanted to bare knuckle brawl both protagonists in a Denny’s parking lot. It was my favorite book of 2023. None of the three main characters in Challengers are necessarily good people and I left the theater thinking “God I hated all of them. This is one of the best screenplays I’ve seen in years.”

Because it forced me to think! I spent days wondering what about them was so interesting to me. At the end of the day it was always that I got a glimpse into thought processes that I don’t naturally gravitate towards. Because a well written character feels like a real person and not everyone is the same.

To me the spice of life is opposition. It’s standing nose to nose with something/one that I disagree with. It’s finding out someone thinks Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a pile of steaming hot garbage when in reality they’re wrong and it’s an achievement in low budget genre film making. That doesn’t make me want to cuss them out and leave. It only makes me want to talk to them more. The real insight is found in the conversation, either with yourself or others. “Why?”

Kylo Ren is a bad guy. He’s killed people, he is given multiple opportunities for redemption and waits until the last possible moment to stick out his hand. Much of that is poor story organization on the part of DLF, but if you move past that and explore motive he’s suddenly so much more.

He became the villain because he had his weaknesses exploited at a vulnerable age and mental state. He’s related to three of the galaxy’s greatest heroes and one of its greatest evils and is always choking on the shadow of this legacy and all it entails. THAT is fascinating to me. Hate him, but don’t deny that there isn’t something there to explore.

This is all over the place, but in the end it’s my belief that disliking a character isn’t bad, it’s condemning others for diving into what’s presented to them and having a natural curiosity to explore humanity in all it’s vastness. It’s being adverse to dynamic characters and the complexities of life and another person’s authenticity.

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And if I said canon-verse Kylo???

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Hello everyone a friend on bluesky asked for brush recommendations so I made a quick guide to what brushes I use as well as a step by step process for my art. I threw this together very quickly so I’m sorry for the quality of the drawing 🫠.

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Not Pansy Parkinson in a fuck ass wig in my alien apocalypse network tv show???

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Back when they announced the Rey movie I started coming up with what I would do if I was making it and then never finished drawing it. Al look forward to some post canon continuation art in the next little bit 👀

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Tattoo x flower shop AUs are OUT. It’s time for funeral home x flower shop AUs to rise!🪴⚰️ (Inspired by a funeral gone in my town that shares a lot with a cute little flower shop) :3 dedicated to my love @okapi-jones 💚

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I was chatting with a Chinese girl on red note and we were showing each other our art. I was explaining AUs as best I could (idk if there’s a name for it in mandarin) and she said

“it’s like they travel under your pen”

HELLO??? POETRY???

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Apocalypse AU 🧟‍♂️ pt 6: a little R&R after Ben gets her all stitched up…again. (fr this time guys this might be the last one unless you give me new ideas)

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She defo follows him to work after this

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Apocalypse AU 🧟 pt 5: Return and Relief

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MY SHAYLA 😭 (Leia sent it to her)

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Made a little artist wrapped collage! Please don’t look at my face! I’m really proud of how far my coloring has come in just a year. Here’s to another year of being proud of my work & drawing what makes me happy :)

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Baby nerd Benny

Working in the cover for Mango Float (currently uploading to patreon)

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Silly Rey casually showing back up hours after the dumbest plan she’s ever conceived (there was no plan) Apocalypse AU pt 4 🧟‍♂️

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“Try not to miss me too much, Solo” 🧟 Apocalypse AU pt 3. Getting in a bit of a scrape while out on a supply run.