And another thing about Rogue x Magneto (feels like the old man screaming to the skies)! Another reason why, in the past few years, they’ve grown on me is their personalities dynamic. Besides how mature they are when they acknowledge one another, they kinda just balance each other so well.

Rogue is an atom bomb. She knows what's missing, but she never lets her pain and her craving for a normal life take her down. She knows she has one life and nothing can stop her from living it, even if she has to punch her way to happiness. Magneto is solemn, always burdened by his past, his pain, his ideals. There isn't a single part of him that exists just for himself. He carries the weight of responsibility, both as a survivor and as a powerful mutant whose abilities are channeled either towards destruction or creation.

And in the face of all of that Rogue is a constant reminder to live. She doesn’t tell him how to do it, doesn’t preach it or show him. She just does it, every day. And when it's in his presence it’s just impossible for him not to feel it. We see that in the comics. We see it in the unconditional, open love he has for her. We see it in the way he is pursuing her or the reasoning behind him pushing her away. We see it even when they're arguing, even when they're saying goodbye, in the way he values her happiness outside of himself. I adore how utterly in love he is with her because her sheer will to feel alive is magnetic (pun intended). On her end, in all of the arcs/stories where they are around each other, it feels like Rogue is empowered to be herself, to own her opinions and thoughts. She actually gets the space to own her mistakes, most importantly, in a way that is not syphoned through his presence in her life (which hurts my romy heart because it’s one of the biggest flaws in their relationship - or at least the way it’s been written and rewritten).

Rogue is volatile and full of life. Magneto is grounded by his troubles and responsibilities, real or self-imposed.

He says ‘the world is bigger than any one of us.’ And she answers ‘the world is each and every one of us’. And that’s that.

drank too much

[ID: Digital Art of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. Vash’s body is turned slightly away from the viewer as he holds a staggering Wolfwood by his shoulder. He has one foot ahead of the other, the foot in the back used to stabilize himself from tipping over. Wolfwood is tethering into Vash, his weight pressed into him with his arms wrapped around Vash’s waist and his face is hidden away as he leans against Vash’s shoulder. Vash’s expression can be seen, his eyes wide and mouth tight-lipped, and his face is flushed red. A speech bubble comes out from Wolfwood, saying a drawled “Spikeyyy...”. The background are desaturated pastels of blue and green, showing night time, as they stand in the middle of an empty street that is also lit by the moon not depicted. Yellow light is seen coming from the inside of a saloon. End ID]

i always get a little sad when people tell me they like scollace from just my fan art and haven't checked out any of the source material because like nothing i make is going to ever fully represent their dynamic and the joy of shipping to me is really engaging with the canon material and going crazy over breaking down the crumbs of content. and it's a nice comic series! even just watching the anime you're missing out on a lot without context from the comics.

so i guess for the record for anyone who's interested but don't know where to start, /especially/ if you're just here for roommate yaoi. start with the comics. it's the most "scollace-heavy" and it's only 6 books. starting with the anime would probably leave you really confused on why anyone ships them (or what's going on if this is your first exposure to scott pilgrim media) the movie is a fine entrance piece also, imho. like it lets you in on the dynamics between each character and the general plot (even though the characterization is pretty boiled down, but hey a lot of shots are 1:1 to the comics so that's fun.) but yeah. don't let my silly gay drawings dictate your shipping takes. read the books yourself! they're fun and if you're a fresh adult that still feels perma-14 you'll probably find it fun too.

also they're stupidly domestic all the time

"i happened to not find this character very interesting or likeable" doesn't automatically mean they're an objectively bland and boring character it just means you have a personal opinion

Still, as always, thinking about how Veth's story is such a complex look at womanhood and motherhood and what it means to be a woman and a mother who wants things. Because Veth's story is about wanting, just as much as it's about learning to be brave. Veth presumably comes from a very traditional small town, married her (effectively) high school sweetheart when she was quite young and had a child almost immediately, which, while based on love, might also have been an effort to fit in and become an independent adult in her town, away from the mockery of her brothers. The things people in town didn't like about her were her strangeness and her collections of bits and bobs and oddities. The shiny things that she wanted. In some ways, that was the wedge between her and her community, the strangeness of how she desired things and wantonly kept them. Even marrying and having a kid so young could be an extension of this. Veth wants things and strives to get them

All of that in heightened after she's turned into goblin. It becomes "the itch" to steal and to horde shiny, beautiful things, which is particularly poignant considering how ugly she finds herself, even uglier than she thought of herself when she was still a halfling. She wants to surround herself with beautiful things. She wants to help Caleb. She wants to be her again. She wants.

And it's okay for Nott the Brave to want things, because Nott the Brave exists outside of social contracts. She's already a monster--there's no need to pretend to fit in. It's freeing, to be able to want things as much as you want and people won't bat an eye. As much as she hated that body, she loved the freedom it gave her. The freedom to be transgressive in a way she was unable to be as Veth Brenatto. Because, much as she loves her family, isn't being a woman and mother something of a cage to her? Those labels put her in specific boxes, they determine how she should behave. So much of later development hinges on these questions: "What does it mean to be a good woman in this society? What does it mean to be a good mother?" She is SO hard on herself for not being with Luc enough, which is absolutely understandable, but she also wants this life of adventure. Does that make her a bad person? A bad mother? To want something that isn't her family?

And then Caleb. Probably the most unfortunate thing she wants, something she knows she can never have. Because she has Yeza and she loves him and he's her husband. They have a social contract that she must abide by. But Caleb's right there and she wants him. Does that make her a bad woman? Does that make her a bad wife? It's just one more thing that makes her different from her peers, her inability to be content with what she already has. And, at the end of the day, I think this is what we should think of when we talk about Veth's relationship with motherhood and womanhood. How transgressive it is for her to so deeply desire when clearly, from the way she grew up and the messages she internalized, it wasn't a woman's place to want more than she was afforded, nor was it a mother's.

I’ve always loved medicine bc it’s the perfect intersection of science and humanity—the two things I value above all else in this world. Truly adored it since I was in the cradle. But now I’m thinking about how so much of my journey to neurosurgery will have to involve KILLING my feelings essentially bc how do you survive otherwise

mommm white people on tumblr are misconstruing my posts again despite the post being entirely about how important wording is + how i don’t feel comfortable posting large statements when i haven’t fully processed them yet.

I`ve been rewatching the car scene from episode 4 and there`s that moment just after “Alone And Forsaken” starts to play when Joels face changes completely. There is something so soft about this expression, he`s not quite smiling, but his face relaxes, he closes his eyes and he looks like he got lost in a memory. And you can see it’s a good one, a safe one. To me that would suggest that it was something from way before.

Because thats a face of a person that got reminded of something from his childhood. Something half-forgotten until someone brings it up and you remember it as vividly as if it was yesterday. Every texture, every sound and every smell. And you can’t help, but smile, cause it was so long ego, but also not really, you`re still the same person. And music is like magic, it`s the only time machine we have, works every time!

And that got me thinking! If this music is from before Joel`s time, is it possible it`s something his father used to listen to? His favorite road trip music maybe? And Joel was the one in the backseat, just like Ellie is now, going crazy from boredom, asking a million questions, waving at the passing cars or making crazy faces and then hiding? And then when Tommy was old enough was it both of them playing or fighting and driving their father mad in a process?

It breaks my heart in the best way because this is just the beginning of Joels journey and hes changed so much already, to the point hes able to access this small part of himself and it makes him feel soft, even if just for a second.  Makes him think about a time everything was simpler, sweeter, kinder? Somehow those memories survived all those years completely unscathed, as if they`ve existed in a protective bubble untouched by anything that came after. They`ve formed their own little universe where Joel`s small hands knew nothing of violence or survival yet, just toys and ice cream cones. Nothing of the nightmares to come, just a moving car, his dad`s favorite song and his little brother annoying the hell out of him. A small moment preserved forever on the Hank Williams cassette tape.

he's just a baby.

seven sentence sunday

tagged by @daffi-990 💖

making more progress on alive shannon yaaay! this fic is gonna be such a mix of angst and fluff, and I hope i'll get the angst part right bc I'm not good at it, and so far a lot of after-accident stuff is turning out too cute lol (gonna fix it soon with the bombing lol) here's a lil buddie moment finally haha (they're not in love here yet but obvi there's always been something - and it's so hard to write them not in love and pining bc in my fics they're always in love already haha)

prev snippet

___

“So, it’s weird, isn’t it?” he asks, then takes a huge gulp of his beer.

“What is?” Buck asks carefully, grabbing the second bottle and opening it.

“This whole thing.” Eddie shrugs. “Shan being here. Was it weird?” he nods towards the living room, indicating Buck hanging out with her before Eddie came home. Buck thinks for a moment, not really sure how to answer.

“I mean, I guess a little bit? Not as much as I expected, we just watched TV.” It’s Buck’s turn to shrug. “It was fine. It is fine. A little awkward, but we literally just met, so hopefully that changes. Since, you know, she’s here to stay, and I’m- I’m, uh- I guess I’m here often enough, so I don’t want it to be awkward and stuff-” he stumbles over his words, suddenly not sure why it’s even important for him and her to get along. It would be so easy for them to just not see each other. It’s not like Eddie and Shannon are gonna hang out all the time now, after she’s better and gets back to her own life. All that’s gonna connect them after the divorce is Chris. So, really, Buck has no reason to want to get along with her beyond her staying here for now. They don’t have to be friends, and if it’s weird for a couple weeks, so what?

“Buck.” Eddie interrupts his rambling, his eyes softening. “I know what you mean. I- I kinda hoped you guys would get along, is that stupid?” he chuckles. And, well, it’s settled now, Buck has to make friends with her, doesn’t he? “Since you’re, you know, Christopher’s best friend.” he adds with amusement, and Buck beams. But then Eddie sighs and shakes his head. “And he’s so happy to have her around.”

“I noticed.” Buck smiles.

“Yeah. He loves being able to just go into another room and hug her, talk to her, have her help him with his homework, play games with him. Just have a relationship with her again. He’s actually-” he laughs. “He’s teaching her to play his favorite video games, and she sucks at it. So bad. He’s determined, though.” Eddie gets that look on his face he always gets when talking about Chris, so much love and fondness and adoration. It might be one of Buck’s favorite expressions of his. Not that he has any favorites, of course, that’d be weird. He’s not analyzing his best friend’s face and looks and smiles, and he’s definitely not making sure to remember every single one, mentally filing them carefully in the rapidly growing drawer with Eddie’s name on it in his mind.

___

no pressure tags: @elvensorceress @gayarthur @diazass @thebravebitch @silentxxsoul @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @arthursdent @diazblunt @911onabc @eddiediaztho @housewifebuck @lover-of-mine @gayhoediaz @rogerzsteven @watchyourbuck @hoodie-buck @monsterrae1 @hippolotamus @ladydorian05 @forthewolves @honestlydarkprincess @wildlife4life @spotsandsocks @eowon @theotherbuckley @weewootruck @thewolvesof1998 @disasterbuckdiaz @spotsandsocks @jesuisici33 @callaplums @loserdiaz @fortheloveofbuddie @underwater-ninja-13 @thewolvesof1998 @giddyupbuck

Building off of what I wrote in my fic "Sparks," I'm really compelled by the idea of Ford genuinely no longer being interested in sailing around in a boat with Stan by the time they were seniors in high school.

I like the idea of it not being just a symptom of the resentment that had been building between them, nor it being a dream of Ford's that only paled in comparison to west coast tech, but it being a genuine loss of interest on Ford's end. I think it complicates things even further in some really juicy ways.

Like, imagine going through high school slowly losing more and more interest in the dream you've shared with your twin and only friend ever since you were little kids. How do you break it to him? How do you explain it to him without making it sound like a rejection of him? Without it making him hate you?

How do you explain it without it feeling like a spit in the face to all the hard work he's put into a plan that started out as a way of him comforting you by telling you "it doesn't matter what people say about you, you're going to be an adventurer who sails away into the sunset and never has to hear their mockery ever again, and there will be babes and treasure and heroism, and then they'll all see how cool you really are!"

And all through high school you think to yourself, "he's going to move on to more realistic dreams any day now, and then I won't have to say anything about it!" But no matter how many times you mention something else he could do with his life that he seems interested in, or bring up the challenging logistics of traveling around long-term in a boat, he sounds just as committed to the childhood dream as ever, and completely oblivious to how apprehensive you sound.

So resentment grows, little by little. Because that's easier than confronting the soul-crushing levels of guilt that are building up inside of you, every time you don't take an opportunity to tell him you don't want to do the plan anymore. You don't have a single person in your life who modeled how to have difficult conversations for you. As far as you know, having this conversation with Stan would crush him into tiny little pieces and then he would hate you forever, and you can't stand the idea of losing the only friend you've ever had.

So tensions grow. A lack of interest turns into a bitter resentment that, if you were really being honest with yourself, is directed more at yourself than it is at Stan.

And then the falling-out happens, and it seems like you were proven right. Stan hates you now, and he's never going to forgive you for giving up on his dream. But two can play that game, so you try to hate him too. Because if you hate him too, then maybe it won't hurt as much that he never came back. That he never even turned up at school, or by the boat, or in through your bedroom window in the middle of the night. He knows what dad's like, and how he says impulsive exaggerated things when he's angry, and haven't you both dealt with his harsh words countless times before and been able to dust yourselves off and joke about it later? So why isn't he back at home, joking with you about how absurd your dad acted that night, being impossible and belligerent about ruining your dream, but at least now you're even, because you've ruined his dream too.

-

And now imagine you find out he risked the lives of everyone in existence to bring you back, right after you had accepted your fate was to die killing Bill. It would be terrifying and confusing and infuriating. If he cared so much, why didn't he do something to reconnect with you sooner? Why did he ignore you in favor of trying to make it big without you? Why didn't he take the infinitely safer and simpler action of reaching out to you without you having to track down his address and send a desperate plea for help? You were convinced that he didn't care enough to bother with you unless you had an important enough reason for him to come. But even then, he thought your plans were stupid. He didn't want anything to do with you, not even with the world at stake.

Did he save your life out of guilt? Does he pity you that much? It doesn't add up with what he did in the decade leading up to shoving you into the portal. And the dissonance between the version of him in your head that hates you, and the man who held out his arms to welcome you back to your home dimension, is so strong that you feel like you're being lied to again, like you're back in the depths of gaslighting and manipulation that Bill put you through, even though there's no way that's what Stan is trying to do... right? You can't figure it out, so you run away from it. You don't want to know the answer to whether or not Stan hates you, because you don't know which answer would hurt more, so you try to make him hate you more than ever, because at least then you would know for sure how he feels.

And in the end, after he sacrifices his memories for you, and for the world, things seem clearer. The layers upon layers of confusion and anger and hurt seem to have washed away like drawings in the sand, leaving behind the simple truth: that you two had an argument, and didn't move past it for forty years, and despite everything you put each other through, you both still want to re-connect.

So you sail away in a boat together.

And at first, it's wonderful. It's exactly what you want. It feels like an apology to Stan, and a thank-you for saving the world, and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to heal the rift between you two, and it's good to be back on earth, and you wonder why you ever doubted the dream you two once had.

But then, after the first long journey you spend on the sea together, when you get back home to dry land, Stan is already talking about planning your next adventure out on the open sea. He recaps every adventure you had on the first trip, over and over again, and he wants to chat with you all through the morning and long into the night, and you don't have the words to explain to yourself that you don't have enough social battery for this, and suddenly you're slipping back into the horrifyingly familiar feeling of Stan being overbearing and needing space from him and how could you think that? How could you think that about him after everything he's done for you and everything he's forgiven you for? But the longer this goes on, the more you realize that you still don't want to spend the rest of your life sailing around with Stan. It's great fun in moderation, but the idea of your whole life revolving around Stan and going on adventures with Stan and being in a boat with Stan with no time to be by yourself thinking about your own things and figuring out your own dreams makes your skin crawl with a claustrophobic kind of panic that you still don't know how to put into words forty years after the first time this feeling grabbed you by the throat and ruined your friendship with Stanley.

But the first time this happened, it nearly ruined his life forever. You can't let yourself feel this. You don't feel this. You're happy to spend the rest of your life fulfilling Stan's lifelong dream, and making up for the time you crushed his dream, and sure, maybe he crushed your dream once too, and maybe it would be nice for him to support your dreams like you're now doing for him, but you can't say that. He saved the universe, and it would be horrible and ungrateful and cruel for you to try to voice these feelings, especially when you don't know how to voice your feelings without it making other people feel like you twisted a knife into their gut. So you try to pretend the feeling isn't there.

You go out on a boat with Stan again. You planned out another incredible journey together, and this should be fun, and you should be happy about this, but the unspoken feeling you shoved as far down in yourself as it could possibly go is eating you alive. The worst part? Stan is starting to notice. You have never been good at hiding your emotions. The trick to it has always been to convince yourself you don't feel it at all, and not think about it, and that has always worked like a charm. But whenever the emotion claws its way back up to the forefront of your mind, you can tell Stan knows something is wrong. So you can't even give him the happy ending he deserves. You can't even convince him that you want to be here on the open seas forever with him, like he deserves. And you keep trying and trying to hide it, but Stan keeps asking in roundabout ways, like "You're being awfully quiet, sixer," and "whats that look on your face?" and eventually it comes exploding out of you like a shaken-up soda bottle dropped on its cap.

And then it's like you're back at home in New Jersey again, standing in the living room while dad grabs Stanley by the shirt. It all comes pouring out of you, in the worst possible way, with the worst possible phrasing, like a pandora's box of monstrousness, and Stan tries to fight back against the sting of your words, but you're made out of acid and you're burning through him and you can see it on his face, and there's never any coming back from this, not this time, you'll just have to either jump into the ocean or become a monster forever, so Stan can hate you more easily again, and-

-and at the end of the outburst, you're still on a boat in the middle of nowhere in the ocean with your brother, in dangerous waters, and you have things to do to keep the boat running smoothly.

You can't run away from him. He can't run away from you. You're stuck here for at least a couple more weeks, even if you turned around and sailed back towards shore right away.

-

And the thing that compels me so much here, despite how unbelievably angsty it all is, is that it sets up a situation wherein the Stans might end up forced to actually address the decades of resentment and confusion and wanting-to-reconnect-throughout-it-all that they thought they could gloss over and heal with enough time spent adventuring together on a boat. They might end up forced to actually address the crux of the issue that drove them apart in the first place: Ford wanting a little more space to feel like his own person, and to feel like he's able to have his own dreams, too.

It wouldn't happen easily, nor right away, but if they were stuck together on a little boat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by magical creatures they have to protect each other from in order to make it back home alive, then after they had one fight where they brought up all the things they silently agreed to never bring up again, it would probably happen many more times, and each time it would leave them both angrier at each other than ever, until eventually something honest slipped through amidst all the saying-anything-except-what-they-mean bickering. And once enough of these honest moments slipped through, then they would have a thread to tug on to start to unravel the gargantuan knot of their decades of unresolved conflicts.

And then, eventually, maybe Stan could learn that he can have a good friendship with his brother without needing to be glued to him at the hip, and Ford needing a certain amount of alone time doesn't mean he dislikes him or wants to abandon him, and Ford could learn that he can be honest and have a meaningful connection with someone without it driving them away and making them hate him.

Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Quinlan Vos, Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi ; Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Quinlan Vos, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex, CC-2224 | Cody, Quinlan Vos, Qui-Gon Jinn, Ahsoka Tano, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa Additional Tags: Fanart, Obi-Bun AU, Light Through Liquor AU, Setting Suns AU, bonded au, Breathing Below AU, Of Honor and Force AU

Summary: The art pieces and captions from my year of challenging myself to draw Obi-Wan Kenobi once a week every week. Each chapter will be a new week in the order of release, with special occasions in between, and will be named with the week/holiday. If the week features an intended ship it WILL ALSO be in the title. If there is no ship, then that was not how I intended the piece. The chapter notes will also contain the ship and the track, as every piece had a song to match (with playlists complied on Spotify and YouTube for you), and any AUs or fics that may be linked to the art :) As always, Enjoy!

Gonna begin moving the works over to AO3 along with any snippets/captions, for the quality, ease of finding, and just an overall better record of everything :3

And in the meantime maybe I will plan a new challenge, because this has honestly been so motivating and helpful through rougher patches. And I learned a lot despite how hard or last minute some of these were.

Love your art and I'm generally curious as to what the appeal of Dante/Vergil is to you? Do you have any hc that you're drawing from or is it just personal preference? I struggle to imagine the right conditions for them to be involved in that way and would like to know what inspires you.

I will premise this by saying, that I’m actually not a MASSIVE fan of just DV for its own sake, if Nero isn’t also included (or like, with the assumption he will, 100%, be included once he’s in the picture). To me it’s kind of a baseline pairing?

As in, I don’t even have to think about it. Of course they’re in love, of course they’re together, of course they’re fucking. It’s almost an afterthought to me, the way the married parent couple of the protagonist in a story inherently are. It doesn’t necessarily interest me by itself, that fact, it’s just a certainty, it just is. I guess, for me, the interest in DV specifically comes more out of what other people make of it, because for me I’m almost always approaching first from the perspective of Nero being there also, haha.

There’s also the fact that I have a lot of hc about just like, the way demons function as a species, I guess. I took a lot of things dmc canon gave me and went like, “alright, time to project this into the most self indulgent, non-human society but humanoid looking species I can think up in my brainhead”. To me a lot of the appeal comes from it being not necessarily a predestined thing as much as like, a biological inevitability - (going to speak in definitives about my own hc from here on, so not making any statement about canon dmc lol) demons mate with their kin, and with whoever deems worthy - and twins from the same litter would inevitably end up being the other’s first partner, their first choice, their other half. In a sense, to me, they’re soulmates - though honestly I prefer to think of it more as two halves of the same soul, following the implications in 3 and the 3 manga that them being twins comes from the spawn of Sparda being too powerful to just be born in one body. That might sound like I’m just saying they’re soulmates in a different way, but not really - to me, if I had to go the soulmate route, Nero would be both of their soulmate - because the two of them make one single soul, and the match to that would be Nero’s.

I kind of just go off of the assumption that they are in love and have been since they were in the womb, you know?

That colors the way I see their every interaction. To me, in their fighting, their squabbles and their feuds, there’s always love at the source. Familial, yes, but romantic and sexual as well - and to me, when I think about them, it’s all one and the same. To love each other like family is to be intwined, is to be mated, is to be a pack and is to be one.

That’s the more deep thoughts I have about it, I have more shallow/surface thoughts (and specifically ship dynamic thoughts about like, what appeals to me about them sexually lol) but if I had to quickly sum it up that’s what I would say, I think. 

In the spirit of that reblog, could you tell me more about Luis? He's the primary whumper in lots of your writing and many of the war mages seem to sincerely loathe him, but then Mariano is shown to have a really trusting relationship with him and Luis clearly cares about the war mages at times. I haven't quite strung together the complexity of it all yet~

Ohhhh my god yeah this ask has activated my Cannot Shut The Fuck Up Disease so let's GO.

Luis is absolutely a complex whumper and hard to easily grasp. He has nothing but love and care in his heart for his mages. He's trained literally every single one since they were 18, and you can't not form a bond of some kind with someone in that time--and all of them know that he loves them. They know he would rather die before seriously, legitimately harming them on purpose without reason. They know he gets zero actual enjoyment out of hurting them.

Unfortunately, they're all special ops soldiers. People who, sometimes alone, are put in situations where they face capture and torture and unthinkable suffering. So Luis has to prepare them for these possibilities. He's seen what happens when you aren't prepared, back when he was one of the very first war mages on his own squad.

He's seen people give up and die, people he loved dearly. He's lost mages, Dimitri and Laredo's old squad, because there was an accident and (in his eyes) they didn't have training and clear guidance to fall back on (I will get to that in the stories though, it's something that informs the "you have to save yourself" standing order he has in place). Luis is someone who fears loss, especially loss of bright, young, talented mages. So he tortures them in a safe area with his own two hands, and teaches them how to read a torturer and captor, and how to mentally recover from the immediate aftermath, and how to escape even if it feels impossible.

He trusts his mages to follow his orders, and they trust that if they do what he wants, he'll treat them well. It's a basic sort of thing but it's necessary for their relationships, and generally he's very fair with not punishing them too harshly for silly stuff so he legitimately does build a good rapport with them all. If they get the training room, or are threatened with death, it's because to Luis what they did was just that serious.

Unfortunately, he does still butt heads with them, and he does still threaten their lives if they decide war crimes aren't something they want to do, all on top of punishing using their worst fears. Over time, no matter how much you love someone, that sort of abuse sours all the good feelings. The good feelings don't go away, bc when they're good they're good, but it makes things complicated.

Dimitri trusts Luis to not freeze him to death over simple disobedience, but he's afraid of him, and he hates him, and loves him, and if Luis approached him with an apology and changed behavior after prison? Dimitri would forgive him, because he was forgiven after making changes and working on himself.

All of the war mages feel similarly, really, because Luis' warmth and care isn't an act. They know that like them, he's also receiving orders that he can't just disregard. They may hate him sometimes, and they may disagree with him on fundamental stuff like "hey, perhaps stopping the war crime stuff could improve our lives in the long run", but they're all stuck with each other in a shitty, traumatic situation, so they make it work.

BASICALLY with Luis I'm exploring complex, complicated feelings about someone who has power over you, sincerely loves you, and who hurts you anyway bc I just think it's interesting! :)

with the year coming to a close, i hope that anyone who's reflecting about how the year went remembers to be kind and fair to themselves with how you evaluate the year as a whole.

i think there are definitely times when life throws things that are... Not So Great at you. whether if it's some external circumstance that surprised you, or maybe your mentality wasn't at it's best. i wish for anyone who's encountered those kinds of challenges to be able to triumph over them and be able to say that they got through it.

heck, it might still be a work in progress even though you've kept chipping away at it, and that's ok! the results will show themselves eventually as you work through it! and i hope that we can all remember to be patient with ourselves as we go through these processes (learning, healing, etc.), because damn, it can be frustrating when you feel like you're "not there yet."

knowing that life can be rough at times, i think it's unfair to yourself (and others) to discount and downplay any progress you've made this year- whether if it's something that you did for the first time, or maybe you came to a new understanding and insight that you didn't have in the previous year.

it's not to say that you should undermine the validity of your experience with hardship, but to take the time to remind yourself what makes life worth living. to recall what moments were the most satisfying to you- and use it to strengthen your resolve for the next year and beyond. no amount of hardship will ever take away from the fact that you deserve to have hope that things will get better.

i hope that looking back on the year, you don't leave out the things you cherish. that you can remember the good that came this year. whether if the small victories are things like meeting someone new, trying something out for the first time, or making some strides in a long-term project/obligation...!

i wish everyone a happy new year! may it be prosperous, and that your life can move in a direction that's close to what you want out of life. you're all going to do great! remember to congratulate yourself for what you did well! despite everything, you're still here, and that's wonderful. never forget that!

One thing I hope control 2 does is lean even more into different mediums of art. The side missions for the jukebox or shum arcade machines are good for fighting practice and mods, but I wish they incorporated the altered item more, like how the ashtray maze replicates a specific aesthetic for a shifting hotel or all of langston’s runaways change their surroundings. Maybe make the arcade game all pixelated or add more music. Remedy has only gotten better and better with experimenting in their games, so I trust whatever they’ll come up with Control 2