.....

Excuse me. (;~;)

ETHAN & ROSEMARY WINTERS resident evil village: shadows of rose, 2022

it's just wild bc resident evil will be like. Here's Heisenberg a man who wears WW1/WW2 German dogtags and views humans not as people but as canon fodder. He desecrates the dead and literally hooks them up to an assembly line, in case you didn't get the heavy capitalist and war machine imagery already. Or look here's Oswell Spencer. He's a decrepit old pos who wants to pillage the KAZ for its natural resources in an effort to create a new, "evolved", superhuman race, killing the Ndipaya tribe in the process because, to be clear, he's a white supremacist. He will indoctrinate a group of children to become this new race and the rest will succumb to the virus and he won't care bc he's also a staunch eugenicist. And then countless other villains will employ the same tactics, will believe the same things, and will have active backing from the US govt and global military orgs and then fans will be like.... let's not talk about it. Let's actually forget any of this because I personally think they're hot and would like to fuck them

In a perfect world Franziska von Karma would be 5'10

My favourite thing ever is the way Ashley gets Leon to smile. Honest to god, his most sincere and genuine smiles are the ones he's given Ashley.

Now if she could just get him to laugh, that would be something completely unprecedented.

Sorry, it just occurred to me literally today that Leon never laughs -- even one time -- at any point in this series. Other protagonists, at the very least, laugh at how stupid a villain's plan is sometimes. Not this guy. Not our Leon. He's too dead inside. Bro doesn't even laugh at OG Salazar, who may as well have circus music playing in the background any time he's on screen. We stan a depressed king.

I was actually thinking about this a little last night -- again, in the context of the whole "Ashley is Leon's anchor to reality/his road back to himself" thing that I've talked about before, while also paired with the shitpost-but-not I made the other day about Leon's sense of self-worth and identity.

Leon drifts further and further away from himself as the series goes on, and not only does he not smile anymore, he becomes downright sullen. There was a time -- a significant period of time, actually -- where you could have said that one of Leon's defining traits was his optimism. That stops being true by the time of Damnation; Leon's optimism is replaced by hollow machismo in a poor attempt at a coping mechanism in that movie -- and, by the time of Vendetta, even the machismo has fallen to the wayside. By the age of 37, Leon has completely and utterly embraced the creeping sense of despair that's been hounding his steps for years.

That has never been who he was. But it's who he is now.

And, as soon as I had that thought, something occurred to me that I somehow had not noticed in the 18 years since RE4 OG has been out:

Ashley is a foil for Ada.

That wasn't her intended purpose when she was created, but it's the narrative role that she's come to inhabit as the series has gone on and Leon's character has progressed without her.

In OG canon, Leon thinks of Ada as a part of himself that he can't let go. But the longer he clings to her, the less of himself he becomes.

And the last person to actually see him as his true self, lifted up from the despair, and without hiding (fully) behind a veneer of machismo was Ashley -- someone he did let go. Even in OG, he is very genuine and very sincere with his affection for her (platonic or not) in a way he really isn't with anyone after RE4.

So, when you point out that his smiles for her are genuine, there's really something to that. He trusts Ashley with a piece of his heart that he doesn't show to anyone else post-RE2. Like, literally, the last person who probably saw him like that was Sherry, and we already know that Leon estranges himself from her almost completely after they're taken into CIA custody following RE2.

And the Remakes make this way more obvious than the OG games did, too -- not only because of the RE engine being great for facial expressions, but because of the way the script changes make certain parts of Leon's character more noticeable. If you go straight from RE2make to RE4make, the entire opening sequence involving the cops and the hunting lodge is absolutely horrifying. If I was a new fan coming in from RE2make to RE4make, I would be knocked on my ass and going "This is not my Leon. This is not the sweet boy that I know. What the fuck happened to him?"

RE4make does such a good job with sharply juxtaposing who Leon was with who he is now. By the time of RE4make, Leon is so beaten down and tired and closed off and angry and, honestly, scared -- that he almost kind of feels like a completely different character. Except, he's not a different character. He's still Leon -- just, Leon with his blinders ripped off and his heart broken.

And, we know that he's still Leon, because every once in a while, the sweet boy that we know comes back. It's infrequent, and it's only for a few moments, but he's still in there. And it always -- every single time -- is only ever Ashley that pulls it out of him.

And Ada? She forces him to retreat again immediately, and he locks himself back up tight.

So, when Ashley gets permanently erased from Leon's life and Ada becomes more of a permanent fixture in it, that sweet boy from RE2 disappears, and he's replaced entirely by the version of Leon that's heartbroken and angry all the time -- because Ada is a constant reminder of all that he's lost, whereas Ashley, as his only true success story, was a hopeful reminder of all that he could potentially be.

I honestly don't think that Capcom even realizes that this is how they've written Leon's character. I don't think it was intentional for Leon's smile to fade with Ashley's absence in his life.

But that's just kind of how it happened.

Maaaaaaaaaaaan, come on.

(the post has ended up in the tags btw. I am not changing this and I need you to understand that it is just me talking to myself semi-publicly)

tbh my take from the whole Pal world thing is that I genuinely think that if Game Freak didn't fumble the bag w/ SV so badly, a lot less people would be singing it's praise and treating it like another mon game. (IMHO the gameplay looks like shit, and the only designs I like are the stolen ones) And more critical of things like the whole stealing designs and, you know, Capturing and Selling Actual Human People?!?

Like this really feels like a bunch of Pokemon fans got (very understandably) burned hard by how bad SV was at launch, and wanted to find something to fill the void and/or stick it to Game Freak by showing them that much smaller developers could make something superior to the largest franchise in the world.

But y'all, there are so many better options out there (Monster Hunter Stories, Nexomon, Coromon, etc.) If you're tired of Game Freak dropping the ball so hard these past several years, I highly encourage you to play these games. There are so many creature collection games out there that are much more deserving of all the hype and media PW is getting.

still thinking about it ( how claire was never vaccinated for t-p as once conquered her fear the virus adapted to her with little to no visible consequences, and how it was probably what kept her alive in alcatraz but she might not even be aware )

You know what I'd like to see next from Resident Evil remakes?

Like yeah the next game I'd want is RE 9; I like the alternating gameplan Capcom has been doing where they release a new title and then a remake and then another new title, but as for what I want remade next?

The two chronicles games. Take the new scenarios from those, make them into genuine survival horror games instead of rail shooters, and put them out together. It'd be amazing. We've finally got Wesker in the RE engine, I can't think of a better way to explain his deal to new fans than by making Umbrella's End / Dark Legacy into its own game. And pack Operation Javier in with it as well, to explain Leon and Krauser's backstory in the new lore (that's assuming it's not already planned DLC for re4r).

Imagine! They could actually show Umbrella's downfall in a mainline game, instead of just referencing it in files or a quick intro cutscene, or expecting people to play a rail shooter no one liked! What a world that would be.

so i finished turnabout succession, meaning i’ve watched all of the cases in aa4 excluding the first case - which i am considering watching at some point but likely in the distant future, seeing as trucy and klavier are not yet introduced in it and i already know the plot of the case. many thoughts on ace attorney 4 but i am just going to talk about klavier gavin real quick because. i need to.

[if you don’t want spoilers but are still reading these posts i’m REALLY going into spoilers so like. guys please]

i really wish Capcom had done more with klavier both in the sense of backstory but also in the sense of future games, since iirc he only appears once or twice in dual destinies and not at all in spirit of justice. what i CAN say though is that despite all this, they gave an amazingly written character to us - even if he, again, only predominantly exists in three cases.

i really cannot get over the tragedy of each one of them, though. turnabout corner, where he faces off and loses in a trial - his first trial returning to prosecuting - to the disciple/employee of his older brother. who aforementioned employee had imprisoned for murder. and he’s extremely kind compared to other prosecutors, willing to help out, and also among one of the most well-prepared ones. he’s fun and melodramatic and he doesn’t throw a fit at losing.

and then you IMMEDIATELY go to fucking turnabout serenade, where he has a concert in which basically everything goes wrong for him, including the performance not meeting his high standards and someone literally dying DURING HIS CONCERT. in which his guitar ALSO set on fire mid concert btw. and he’s very emotionally attached to them. and then you find out all this, on top of the fact that it was not only his second guitarist but his BEST FRIEND of at LEAST seven years who committed the murder. someone he deeply trusted, and he has to be the one to take him off the case and put him on the stand.

and then THREE MONTHS PASS, and he is put on the trial for the jurist system, a system created by phoenix wright. he knows from the start that despite his desires for a simple case, it’s going to be complex because of wright’s involvement. and then it turns out that the current murder provides insight into the events of seven years ago, a trial he had prosecuted on in which he got someone disbarred with information he shouldn’t have had and became CONSUMED WITH DARKNESS FOR SEVEN FUCKING YEARS to the point that he LEAVES THE PROSECUTION JOB TEMPORARILY. and then he is told, by apollo justice - former employee of his brother, frequent court rival, person who put his best friend AND brother behind bars, and current employee of phoenix wright the attorney that KLAVIER HELPED DISBAR - that the events that transpired seven years ago, when klavier was SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD, were manipulated by his brother. 

and he STILL wants to believe in kristoph. and that’s what gets me - we know next to NOTHING about these guys’ history. and yet we see it in everything - klavier and kristoph finishing each other’s thoughts as klavier fights harder than ever against apollo in the cross examination, klavier and kristoph showing superficial levels of affection that sink deeper for klavier but fall apart at the top level for kristoph, the respective distrust and resentment they have for one another, the fact that kristoph tells klavier to CALM DOWN and CALLS HIM USELESS and implies he’s IRRATIONAL over and over and OVER again even trying to THREATEN him into not saying anything - up until the moment that klavier says that it’s time for them to empty their family closet. 

up until the last line said in the court trial for kristoph gavin - in which klavier looks his brother in the eye and says “you are not needed anymore.”

and then it shows post credit scenes in which he’s like hey lol the gavinners are breaking up but i’m excited to go back into court again soon ^_^ LITERALLY HOW YOUR ENTIRE LIFE HAS BEEN RUINED BY THIS MAN . OR I GUESS LIBERATED . I HATE GAY PEOPLE 

anyway I love klavier gavin and we should have gotten more of him in later games but for now i’m going to go uhhh read fanfiction. or no shit i should do homework. read fic AND do homework. yeah :] 

this adhd med isn’t nearly strong enough if i’ve got it in me to write an intense breakdown on why pearl should be the protagonist of the next ace attorney game that’s never coming

omfg the logistics of s.t.a.r.s. makes me sick. like there is absolutely no need for them to work for 24 hours 7 days a week for what they are. in my mind it would be that alpha have the day shift and bravo have the night one but even then like. it makes no sense. because they would be 12 hour shifts... every day... that's. no.

holy shit this is the worst gender difference in an armor set they've ever done lmao, actually what is this

LEON CAT EARS REAL

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Why reblog people’s RE edits if you’re just going to complain about “the state of the series,” and how “it’s all a shitshow,” now? Then make your own posts to complain. I’m not crazy about RE4R, but you don’t see me reblogging people’s edits like, “wow, this looks like trash. I think I’m going to hate this as much as I do the original.” OP wouldn’t give a shit. They’re likely not a representative of Capcom. So why do I have to complain in their posts? What are they going to do about me not liking RE4R? Are they going to change the game? Not every post needs to be catered towards you.