#➤ one day there will be associated with my name the recollection of something frightful‚ of a crisis like no other before ╱ • • • meta ❞

[godstrain]

ok i gotta address this bc i feel like i also,,,, overlook this often ... but the reason wesker was seen as a good captain is BECAUSE HE WAS!!! the character mats say he's "mild mannered and fair in his dealings, calm in the face of danger" which is ... actually sorta adorable what im saying is wesker absolutely went out for drinks with the others and he didn't just shut himself away and thats why he saw s.t.a.r.s. as the best times of his life because!!! he wasn't isolated!!!

and honestly fast forward he genuinely does like to work in a team, he likes teaching the new residents as dr. wilde-

im very emotional about this guys,

[renaroo]

Telescopes and Ladders

Disclaimer: Batman and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics Warnings: lighthearted nonsense Rating: K+ Synopsis: Alfred leaves for England on business and leaves the Manor to Bruce and a young Dick for a week. Bruce realizes he doesn’t know how to Adult for a child on his own.

A/N: I’m honestly fascinated by the time between Bruce taking Dick in/solving the Grayson family murder and when Dick became Robin. I always tend to lean on the B:TAS tradition of there being a gap of years between the two (8 for Dick’s adoption/guardianship and 12 when he became Robin officially), but that leaves a lot of very important years of development. Not just for Dick but for Bruce and Alfred, too. That really doesn’t have that much to do with this story because I also am a pushover for family fluff and there’s not enough of accidental!parent Bruce fluff ever.

Few things could strike fear into the heart of a man who had faced some of the world’s greatest evils and come out to the other side. Few things could make a shudder break through the rigid back of a man who had already lived through losing absolutely everything.

But the prospect which faced Bruce Wayne was too horrible, too frightful to fully comprehend.

By the time Bruce realized the full gravity of what he was about to face, it was too late to make any changes.

He stood, helpless, in the doorway as Alfred finished packing up his things. The number of clothes was a staggering reminder that this was a two-week-long trip.

Losing Alfred for any amount of time was hard enough for Bruce, even as a man in the prime of his life. But losing Alfred after the last six months of drastic changes was an inconceivable terror.

“Master Richard prefers his sandwiches cut into triangles,” Alfred reminded Bruce as he folded his fourth identical suit. “The crust remains, but the triangles are essential.”

Bruce squinted at Alfred and then looked down to his notepad, jotting down the detail. “He never mentioned that to me before.”

“I don’t imagine he ever saw you in a kitchen, Sir,” Alfred said dryly.

Unable to repress it, Bruce felt a frown tug at the corners of his mouth. One day he would have a witty retort that Alfred would not be prepared to immediately smackdown. Not in the foreseeable future, but one day.

“His school uniforms are pressed and hung up for the coming school week, but there is not a rotation for two weeks in a row,” Alfred continued. “I would recommend laundering them over the weekend.”

“I am fairly certain I could have figured that one out, Alfred,” Bruce replied, writing it down all the same. He slowed his pencil toward the end, thinking. “By launder—“

“I have put the name, address, and phone number of my preferred local dry cleaners on a note on the fridge, along with other contact information,” Alfred answered.

Crinkling his nose, Bruce looked at Alfred. “Alfred, it couldn’t possibly be that difficult to just… leave instructions for the machine, could it? It’ll look ridiculous to take all of our clothes to a dry cleaner for two weeks. I think I should be capable of at least doing that much.”

Never once in all the time that Bruce had known Alfred — which had been his entire life — had the man rolled his eyes while still within Bruce’s line of sight. However, the careful and methodical way that Alfred slowed his packing to a crawl and slowly looked into Bruce’s direction was about as humanly close as one could get to a full-body eye roll.

“I had once thought, in all the time it took for one to travel the world, train in a hundred forms of combat, perfect studies of chemistry, art, and history… that in-between moments of developing an engineer’s penchant for invention and a detective’s mind for compulsory criminal actions, that penciling a laundering cycle into the schedule could have happened,” Alfred mused out loud. “The fact that it hadn’t should be evidence enough of why, should you touch the washing machine before my return, I will take it upon myself to never touch your unclean wears again.” His mustache twitched almost testily. “Including a particular rancid suit. I should like to see that taken to the dry cleaners with a proper explanation.”

Bruce’s eyebrows could not have reached further for his hairline. Nodding slowly, he then looked down and dutifully wrote in his notepad as he said out loud, “Don’t… touch… Alfred’s… washing machine.”

Alfred’s gaze did not drop until Bruce had finished punctuating the machine, then he snapped shut the final suitcase. He seemed satisfied.

There was not much left on the particulars. Even if Alfred hadn’t left detailed notes on how to run the washing machine, it was one of the few parts of the Manor’s livable space that didn’t have precisely written notes on it. Alfred’s were taped to the relevant surfaces. Bruce’s were in his notepad, carefully inscribed and yet still leaving him woefully underprepared for whatever came next.

The air was stiff, and they were seemingly out of stalling tactics.

“Dick is going to miss you,” Bruce said, filling the silence.

“I imagine nearly as much as he does you during your travels, Sir,” Alfred said.

Bruce furrowed his brows. “That isn’t fair.”

“It seems our lives never are,” Alfred admitted.

They weren’t that far apart from each other. Perhaps arm's length for Bruce.

But Alfred didn’t come forward and neither did Bruce.

Instead, he hoped Alfred understood what was there. That Bruce would be missing him too.

Dick was a good kid. And saying even that really seemed to sell him short.

There was hardly anything Bruce had to say to him during the time Alfred was gone and Dick knew his times and appointments for everything, and even how many times to remind Bruce. Which, given, was more than it should have been. On instinct, Bruce’s responses tended to be rather unhelpful.

“There’s a school thing in thirty minutes,” Dick called from the top banister, standing on his hands without care.

Bruce, who had been walking through the foyer on his way to the kitchen for a snack paused and looked up at his young ward. It had been six months and his heart would still seize when he saw Dick using the Manor as a jungle gym. Dependent on the stunt it was either for Dick’s safety or for the Manor’s.

“Is that necessary?” Bruce asked.

Dick blinked owlishly and tilted his head, albeit upside down. “The school thing?”

“No,” Bruce said before gesturing unhelpfully, “the…”

Without really emoting, Dick shifted to a one-handed headstand and Bruce thought of all the bones that could break from a fall at that height depending on the angle of landing.

“So it’s in thirty minutes,” Dick reminded him again.

“Okay,” Bruce answered, not following because his ward — his responsibility — was dangerously close to paralyzation. If Bruce closed his eyes he could practically see it unfolding before them.

After another agonizing moment, Dick lowered his free hand and then somersaulted easily backward onto the third floor’s top stair. He didn’t even take a moment to pause as he looked over Bruce with severe skepticism and judgment.

“Do you want me to take a cab?” he asked seriously.

Smacking his own forehead, Bruce cursed under his breath and shook his head. “You need me to take you.”

Rolling his head to one side, Dick shrugged. “Not really. I can take a cab.”

“You’re eight,” Bruce reminded him like he needed to.

“I used to ride in the back of a truck with a petting zoo,” Dick argued back.

Bruce squinted at him, considering the option. “Is it normal for eight-year-olds to take cabs to school?”

“I don’t know,” Dick answered honestly. “Should you call Alfred and ask?”

It didn’t take more than one iteration of that phone call playing out in Bruce’s head for him to realize that it was a poor idea. And that Alfred would be very disappointed in the world’s greatest detective for his deductive reasoning skills.

He preferred keeping the phone calls short and reduced to good reports. On both sides.

“I think I should drive you,” Bruce said far more decisively than the precluding conversation should have allowed.

Dick casually walked down the long staircase of the foyer. He was walking down them upright, but Bruce had the terrifying feeling that even a blink would allow Dick to slip into another acrobatic feat that could endanger lives and fancy artisanship that Bruce pretended to pay homage to.

“I’m okay with that,” Dick reported as if it was up to him to provide permission for it. “Do you have time for it?”

Bruce Wayne had all the time in the world, but Batman was in between important and pressing cases that the commissioner had given him to look over the night before. There was also a new APB out for Poison Ivy the was concerning. A stack of forensic science publications had been delivered that morning which covered technology and theories that Bruce was hoping to pilfer through to keep up to date on his own methodologies and equipment. Not to mention the tune-up that the Batmobile desperately needed he had put off in favor of working on the training facility he was putting together for Dick.

Dick’s school was a fifteen-minute drive one way, which meant at least thirty minutes lost to taking him, dropping off, and coming back to the manor. And that was only if Bruce threw Dick out of the window while looping past the school.

“What is this thing?” Bruce finally asked, realizing it was something the start of their conversation properly required.

“Stargazing,” Dick answered, beaming. “I joined the astronomy club! Remember?”

A faint recollection rested on the horizon of Bruce’s memory. “Yes,” he answered instead.

“Tonight’s the first night. Jimmy’s dad is making hotdogs while we watch, and Mrs. Gupta is giving extra credit to everyone who comes!”

“They give extra credit in third grade now?” Bruce asked, genuinely surprised.

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. “Your third grade didn’t?”

Despite his best efforts, Bruce couldn’t help the automatic withdrawal he felt. He bit back on his molars and glanced away from Dick’s earnest gaze. He couldn’t remember much about the third grade at the end of the day. He didn’t finish it in regular school with other children, he was homeschooled. By Alfred.

Alfred who left him with another little boy that had his time as an eight-year-old changed forever. One that Bruce, admittedly, took in himself without any clue what he was doing for the boy other than “more.”

It was six months, and Dick was going to a school thing. Perhaps it was working.

“Okay,” Bruce said again. “How long are we going to be at this school thing?”

Genuinely surprised, Dick shook his head. “You don’t have to go. You’ve got the stuff.” He glanced around cautiously before bringing up his index fingers to poke out by the sides of his head. His fingers wiggled. “You know. Your stuff.”

“I’m aware,” Bruce said. “I’ve got some folders I’ll be taking with us but… We’ll be fine.”

Dick’s entire face lit up. “Oh! Okay!”

Alfred would have thought to bring blankets, like many of the other parents had. But Dick liked laying in the grass, and Bruce didn’t mind it, too.

After a long, wet night on patrol, Bruce collapsed into his bed for what he felt was a much-deserved sleep. He had positively no intention of waking up.

Until an alarm went off on the other side of his bedroom, of course.

At first, Bruce only vaguely recognized the noise. It was a dull throbbing that was interfering with the only thing he could think to desire — sleeping in. But as it persisted, his disbelief gave way to anger. He threw his pillow at it. Then another pillow. Then another.

It wasn’t long before the noise was continuing and there were no more pillows within Bruce’s reach.

Throwing his sheets off, Bruce leaped to his feet and stormed over to the alarm clock, ripping it out of the wall with the same force he had used just hours ago to punch out one of the Riddler’s neon green question marks. That, at least, had been enjoyable and profound in its moment. The alarm clock’s cord nearly jerked the socket out of the wall.

Having never been one for alarms before, Bruce tried to fight through the fog of early morning to figure out why he had set the damn thing to begin with.

Then he noticed, on the dresser beside the alarm’s former place, was the notepad full of Alfred’s instructions.

He was supposed to take Dick to school. The school started in fifteen minutes and was a fifteen-minute drive from the manor.

A string of Not-Dick-Friendly words escaped Bruce as he grabbed sweat pants lying on the floor and rushed out the door.

Bruce had one leg into the sweats and was struggling with the second as he slid down the hall. “DICK!” he called out loudly, facing down the dark hall. He should have set it earlier — should have known he needed to wake Dick up and get him ready. Did he dry clean Dick’s uniform? Did they have extras?

He should have picked up the notepad while he was at it, too.

“I think I’m going to be late,” Dick yawned from the opposite end of the hallway.

Skidding to a halt, Bruce turned with relief to see that Dick was standing, backpack already over his shoulders, rubbing his eyes wearily.

“We’ll be fine,” Bruce declared, finishing putting on his sweatpants. Without even a thought of getting more than that for his attire, Bruce raced down the hall, scooped up the third-grader, and was headed down the stairs and through the foyer. They would use the Maserati still parked in the circle just outside the main entrance. That would be quick — and the drive quicker given Bruce’s lead foot.

“I can walk,” Dick grunted, unhappily squirming in Bruce’s arms. “I’m not a baby!”

“I’m faster and we’re getting you to school,” Bruce snapped a little harsher than he meant to come off, pushing the entry door open with a broad shoulder. “Good,” he muttered as he began down the stairs, “it’s not raining—“

Perhaps it was Dick’s squirming, perhaps it was the distracting way the sunlight was peaking out from the approaching dawn.

Maybe Bruce was off his game from no sleep.

Regardless, his shoeless heel hit the edge of the stone step’s puddle at an angle just so. The water, pouring over the gutters just above the eaves of the entrance, was running over the steps and Bruce’s entire body went running with them before hitting hard on the cement that he and Dick tumbled down together. Bruce more than Dick after the barrel roll he maneuvered them into.

They landed at the base of the stairs, Bruce flat on his back and Dick on his chest, feet from the wheels of the Maserati.

“Dick,” Bruce said, shirtless and cold.

“Um, yeah, Bruce?”

“You’re not going to school today,” Bruce informed him. “We’ll come up with something.”

By noon, the water had stopped pooling around the grounds of the manor. Instead, they stayed collected around the bushes and shrubbery that Alfred had kept expertly in line like a moat.

The moats were not a part of Alfred’s design. Or, if they were, it had been a request made when Bruce was distracted and noncommittally responding to requests from the butler. Both were likely, despite Bruce’s discomfort with the latter upon some self-evaluation.

Going on the leap of faith that his mind had not been so distracted in the last few weeks that he wouldn’t completely forget a request like building moats in the garden, Bruce began examining how the morning’s incident came to be.

It took nearly an hour to finally realize that in some areas of manor’s roofing, water was still pouring over the concrete gutters.

That was not how they were designed. Bruce was certain of it.

Going out to the uninhabited stables, Bruce found a fifty-foot ladder collapsed together. He folded it under his arm and carried it out promptly to the sites of the manor where water had escaped the gutters the most and set to work. He unfolded the ladder, secured its every latch, leaned it carefully against the manor walls, and began to ascend the great height between himself and the eaves of his home.

Halfway up the ladder, he wondered, idly, why he hadn’t just used a grappling hook. It seemed far more practical.

Reaching the gutter, Bruce glanced down both ways. There was not much of an inspection needed to see it was backed up with debris from the storm.

Curious, Bruce looked around for where the branches and leaves could have come from nearby, but the largest trees within twenty feet were spruces. That didn’t match his culprit in the gutters at all.

For a brief, irrational moment, Bruce thought of Poison Ivy and wondered if she had a reason to be near the manor during the storm. It wasn’t nearly as logical as the winds carrying tree limbs from the further trees in the rather large and sprawling Wayne estates, but it at the very least made it more of a Batman problem than a Bruce problem.

Bruce was really wishing, the longer he went without Alfred, that there were some less Bruce problems in the world.

“What’re you doing?”

Bruce startled with surprise. Then, as he glanced down below the eaves and toward the third-floor window nearest him. He could see it was opened with a curious eight-year-old hanging out of it.

More Bruce problems.

“Dick, get down from the windowsill!” Bruce snapped.

Dick blinked at him, almost surprised at the tone. “Are you still mad about falling?”

“I was never mad about falling,” Bruce lied through his teeth.

“I won’t ever tell anybody,” Dick offered, a genuine smile on his face. “Even though it was really funny.”

Bruce felt a strange and worrying tightness in his chest as Dick leaned out further and craned his neck to look up and down the ladder. The eight-year old’s feet dangled on the inside of the window as Dick’s center of balance migrated toward his hips. He was teetering back and forth — closer to forth and the perilous drop to the shrubs and impromptu moat with each moment.

“I don’t care!” Bruce yelled, thinking of cervical vertebrae and swelling brains. “Get back in the house — feet on the floor.”

Dick gave him a look. “That’s the least interesting place for feet to be.”

If Dick wasn’t so precariously close to getting himself killed, Bruce could have sworn that the boy was trying to get Bruce killed of a heart attack.

“It is the only place your feet are going to be in the next ten seconds or I’ll ground you from everything,” Bruce strained to get out. Then, thinking the threat wasn’t making much of an impact, added, “For life.”

It must have sounded as lame as it felt for Bruce to say because Dick looked at him, rather unimpressed. All the same, he dipped back into the manor and out of Bruce’s line of sight.

Exhaling strongly through his nostrils, Bruce forced himself to calm down. His heart really had felt like it was going to beat right out of his chest for a moment there. It was arguably more exhilaration than he had received from even his grandest case.

Unlike cracking a case, he hated every moment of that particular moment.

Shaking his head, Bruce tried to think of his task at hand again. The gutters.

Even though his gloves were thick, the cool splash of murky stagnant water felt uncomfortable for Bruce. He hadn’t realized that rainwater was capable of collecting so much soot and rust in its travels. There was positively nothing clear with the gutters’ collection.

Bruce could only assume that was normal for gutters. He honestly had no idea.

He was elbow deep in dragging his gloved hands through the gutters, clearing out leaves and branches with a splash before he was interrupted again.

“You never said what you were doing,” Dick’s voice came like an accusation.

“Clearing the gutters,” Bruce grunted in reply, less taken by surprise that time around.

At least, there was less surprise until it registered where the voice was coming from. Then Bruce looked not down to the window, but up over the gutters and toward the rooftop itself. Dick was sitting on his haunches, balanced in the middle of the roof itself.

For a moment, Bruce’s mind short-circuited as he stared at Dick. He couldn’t register when Dick got there, how Dick got there, why Dick got there. His mind was entirely consumed with vivid images of the sweet little boy tumbling out of reach, falling to certain doom. Forget cervical vertebrae, there were punctures and broken things and cracked skulls and subcranial hemorrhage—

No words came out of Bruce’s mouth but a wide range of noises ripped their way from his throat.

In return, Dick tilted his head to the side with the innocence of a labradoodle. “You okay, Bruce?”

There were many things Bruce could have said to inform Dick that he needed to get down, that he was in a dangerous position, that he was doing something bad and unspeakable, or that Bruce was back on the brink of a heart attack. But they involved words and Bruce was short on them.

Instead, without a second’s reflection, Bruce flailed out his free arm and brought it down on Dick’s knee.

The boy jerked in surprise, looking at Bruce’s hand, but was unprepared for Bruce to use his vice grip to drag him down the roof and tuck him under his armpit. Instead of a physical escape, Dick hung like a sack and called out a muffled, “Bruce!” that his elder hardly detected with the blood pumping in his ears.

With all the swaying and lunging and panic-inducing, the ladder began to sway uncomfortably beneath Bruce’s feet.

“What’re you doing?” Dick demanded angrily.

Bruce didn’t answer, his attention shifted to holding onto the ladder with his free hand while looking down to the ground where the feet of the ladder were. The ladder continued swaying further and further to one side, aided by its rapid sinking into the muddy moat below.

“You didn’t close the window?” Bruce demanded sharply, already in motion hoping for the best answer.

“Huh?” Dick answered unhelpfully.

Leaping from the ladder, Bruce aimed for the third-floor window which was still open. It was at least one less window to replace.

The momentum that carried them into the window forced Bruce to tuck into another roll with Dick — his second for that day — and it took them across the entire stretch of the guest room Bruce was fairly sure he’d never been in before.

By the time they came to a stop, hitting the opposing door, they could hear the timely crash of the ladder outside.

Bruce was panting, still keeping Dick coiled up against his side.

Dick was quiet for a long time before finally uttering, “You sure have a lot of accidents, Bruce.”

Alfred had said he would be back in the morning, and Bruce had honestly never felt such relief in his life.

There was no mention of the previous day’s watery catastrophes. There was a hint of detecting something based on Alfred’s line of questions, but he was never specific enough that Bruce had to outright lie. And, therefore, Bruce didn’t have to offer up any stories either.

Dick had not said anything either. Perhaps he had meant it when he said he wouldn’t tell anyone.

Bruce squinted at the bottom of the takeout box and poked at it with his chopsticks. The Thai food had been satisfactory, the portions had not after a rough week.

Perhaps he was simply missing Alfred’s food.

Dick was staring at him. Then, slowly, Dick lifted up his own box and began poking at it with his own, much messier, chopsticks. Of course, without the finesse of an experienced takeout consumer, Dick did poke rather hard, ripping a hole through the bottom of his takeout container.

If the eight-year-old noticed he didn’t say anything before setting the box down.

Feeling a small smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth, Bruce set his box down as well. “Are you happy Alfred is coming home?”

Dick’s eyes shown brightly for a moment. “Yeah!” He then glanced away, pressing his mouth closed.

Curious, Bruce raised an eyebrow. “What?” he asked.

“I kind of liked it being us,” Dick sighed.

Bruce took a moment and then furrowed his brow. Everything that had happened in the past week had felt like a fairly unmitigated disaster in his book. He had only assumed how much worse it had been from the place of a lonely, fearful child.

“Really?” he asked.

Looking mortified for a brief moment, Dick straightened up in his seat. “I miss Alfred a whole lot,” he assured Bruce. “But you’re lots of fun, Bruce.”

That only served to confound Bruce even more.

“No one called me fun. Ever,” he told Dick. “Not even in kindergarten.”

That seemed to take Dick by surprise. “Huh,” he said. “I guess they didn’t get you like I do.”

“No,” Bruce said slowly, “I suppose not.”

When Bruce glanced over again, Dick was searching his face carefully, eyes shining with some gentle curiosity. “Did you have fun this week?” He asked timidly.

It was a remarkable question because of the timidness. Timidness was not something Bruce saw in Dick often.

The boy had climbed up to the roof of a three-story manor without blinking.

“Fun in what sense?” Bruce caught himself asking.

Immediately, there was some deflation of Dick’s esteem as he settled back into his seat. And Bruce knew he had made a mistake that needed to corrected immediately.

“Obviously it has been fun in every important sense but one,” Bruce made up on the spot.

Dick’s disappointment gave way almost immediately to bright curiosity again as he sat up in his seat, wide-eyed and attentive toward Bruce. “What way?”

“The Alfred kind of way,” Bruce answered. “Hard to do that without Alfred around.”

A warm smile spread across Dick’s features. “But he’ll be back tomorrow,” Dick took his turn to comfort Bruce. “But I do hope we get to do more Bruce and Dick stuff in the future. Just us two.”

“You know, Dick,” Bruce chuckled, “I have the feeling we will.”

The rain returned on the same day that Alfred had.

Trips back from England were not abnormal for Alfred to take, which meant he and Bruce had worked out a rhythm even in their care. Namely, Alfred took a cab back to the manor and Bruce met him there. The butler positively protested any other arrangement.

Which meant, with rain pouring, Bruce and Dick sat in the manor. Waiting.

Dick’s eyes followed the hands of the grandfather clock in Bruce’s den. He was laying on his stomach with his chubby cheeks propped up by tiny fists. His interlocked ankles swayed to and fro to the rhythm of the clock.

Bruce was thumbing through his forensic magazines at long last, pretending to be buried in their knowledge and development. It took a great effort to not simply join Dick in staring at the grandfather clock expectantly.

“I think we should get a dog,” Dick announced without prodding.

“No,” Bruce answered easily enough, flipping the page.

“Well, what if we want to have Bruce and Dick adventures while Alfred’s still here? Wouldn’t that be lonely for him?” Dick whined keenly. He looked away from the clock just long enough to make pleading blue eyes in Bruce’s direction.

In what could only be considered a mistake, Bruce made eye contact. It was too late, even as he immediately ripped his eyes away from Dick’s gaze.

“Maybe,” Bruce answered.

“What’re we gonna name the dog?” Dick asked, satisfied.

“Dick,” Bruce said, a smirk on his lips. “He’ll be your replacement.”

“You can’t replace me,” Dick snorted.

“Maybe,” Bruce conceded. “But Dick the dog wouldn’t get on the roof.” He thought for a moment, then flipped another page. “Probably.”

“He would if I taught him to before I left,” Dick said eagerly. “I’m gonna teach him how to cut his sandwiches like Alfred, too. Help him out.”

“Alfred would like that, a dog touching all his food,” Bruce mused. He glanced over to Dick. “Remember—“

“Don’t tell Alfred about forgetting school,” Dick listed off on his fingers, “or falling, or the gutters, or the roof, or the broken ladder.”

“Or the takeout boxes,” Bruce added. He had taken the pains of driving their trash bags to the dumpster at the far end of the estate himself to prevent any unfortunate discoveries. Surely if they were at the dumpster already, Alfred would have no reason to inspect them.

Though, Bruce supposed that had never stopped him as Batman from digging through the trash before.

A slight panic traveled through him.

“Are we forgetting anything?” Bruce asked, more rhetorically than anything else.

All the same, Dick gave him an honest shrug. “Did you brush your teeth?”

Bruce began to respond to that when there was a buzzing sound from his desk. Both he and Dick glanced at it, though it was not necessary to confirm what the two of them already knew.

The buzzer was to the main gate for the estate, which meant that Alfred had buzzed himself in.

“He’s here!” Dick exclaimed.

“Don’t get too excited, he hates that,” Bruce warned, as though he wasn’t already on his feet.

He and Dick were neck and neck out of the doorway to the den, though Bruce regained his composure and remembered himself once through it. He had a demeanor and expectation to fulfill, after all, no matter his excitement.

With the bliss of youth, Dick exploded out of the den, ran through the hall, and was flipping onto the banister before even a word could be uttered. “Alfred!” He yelled out.

Bruce’s heart warmed as he heard the main entrance open then close to the howling winds and rain. Alfred, in his trench coat and bowler hat, stepped through, tipping slightly as he closed his umbrella under his arm and looked confidently into the manor.

The old man’s smile could not be hidden by his tidy mustache as it reached up into his soft eyes, looking up from the foyer floor to the stairs where Bruce slowly descended.

He looked good and cheerful. Bruce wanted to run over to him and wrap him in a hug then and there.

Dick, sliding down the banister and leaping at Alfred, had the pleasure of acting on Bruce’s hidden impulse. “Alfred! Welcome home! We missed you! But everything was great!” Dick’s words were hurried and calculated to cover all the bases he and Bruce had discussed.

Had Alfred not been known for his keen eye, Bruce would have offered the eight-year-old a thumbs up in approval.

“My, my, Master Richard, I do believe you have grown a hair since I left you,” Alfred chuckled, patting the boy wrapped around his waist.

“I hope it’s on the top of my head so I can get taller,” Dick joked back.

By the end of Dick’s hug, Bruce’s careful approach finally brought him to Alfred and he was able to regard the man who raised him. He took a deep breath and then, carefully, hugged around Alfred’s shoulders.

“You were missed, old friend,” Bruce got out, his voice strained beyond exception.

“As were the both of you,” Alfred said, hugging Bruce back. “Now,” he broke the hug and held Bruce’s shoulders at arm’s length. His mustache twitched as a twinkle grew sharp in his eyes. “I noticed my ladder was broken in the yard.”

Bruce tightened his smile into a small frown and glanced toward Dick whose eyes were approximately the size of their takeout boxes from the previous night.

“I am sure it’s an entertaining story,” Alfred tutted, releasing Bruce and beginning to take off his hat and coat. “I expect you both will share it with me eventually.”

Dick didn’t break his eye contact with Bruce and neither did Bruce back, but the energy shifted and both were able to breathe.

“I don’t know, Alfred,” Bruce said somewhat jovially. “Some adventures are just… between Bruce and Dick.”

Immediately, Dick’s grin spread from ear to ear and he leaped back to his feet with a flip.

“Oh! But Alfred! I can tell you about the astronomy club!” Dick crooned, taking off after the butler.

Bruce released a breath and felt a calm in the manor that had been gone for a long time.

It was good having the entire family home.

[thedeaditeslayer]

Danny Hicks revisits Intruder 30 years later: The interview.

1428 Elm has published a new interview with Danny Hicks. You can ready the interview above or added in below.

Danny Hicks revisits Scott Spiegel’s Intruder 30 years later with 1428 Elm in an exclusive interview. It’s time to remember a horror classic with one of Sam Raimi’s favorite players.

Danny Hicks has been a fixture in the horror community since he first graced the silver screen in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2. But that’s not the only genre film he has been a part of. 30 years ago, he starred in Scott Spiegel’s underappreciated slasher classic, Intruder.

We were fortunate enough at 1428 Elm to sit down with the legendary character actor to discuss his beginnings on the stage and his successful associations with the persons involved in the Evil Dead universe. Prepare for a retro invasion!

The Interview

Treading the Boards

1428 Elm: Did you always want to be an actor?

Danny Hicks: No, absolutely not. In high school, I was so shy, I couldn’t even read a book report in front of the class. It was beyond me. I got started in acting very, very late. I was 29 years old before I ever set foot on a stage. A friend of mine was involved in community theater. He talked me into doing this tiny role in a film noir. So, I got on stage. I didn’t even think about having stage fright or anything like that. After the show, a film executive came up to me and asked how I would feel about getting naked in a hot tub. I thought, “I could get paid for this.” So, that’s how I became an actor.

1428 Elm: Talk to us about your theater years.

DH: I got on that stage one night and didn’t get off stage again for 5 years. I would do one play, while rehearsing another play, I was making extra money off of it. So, I quit my day job. I had a VERY good day job. I was a union heavy equipment operator making very good money. So, I thought I wonder if I can make a living as an actor? Then I got the part in Evil Dead 2 and that changed the way I thought about acting forever. Because film work is so much easier than stage work.

How to Become a Scuzz Bucket

1428 Elm: How did you get cast in Evil Dead 2? Did you audition?

DH: Evil Dead 2 was my first feature film. I had done industrial films before. I didn’t know Bruce (Campbell) or Sam (Raimi). I had met Ted (Raimi). My agent called me and told me about this horror movie and the character description was “a scuzz bucket.” So, I made myself as scuzzy as I could that morning.  I put on these ripped up overalls that I had and combed my hair with grease and rubbed some gravel in it. Then, at the audition, I popped my fake teeth out and smiled at the camera. Sam Raimi loved it. That’s how I got the part.

1428 Elm: Wow! You really did quite a bit of work to get cast!

DH: If you’re playing a character well, people are not looking at you. They are seeing the character. I could basically get away with murder.

1428 Elm: Making that transition from stage to film is always about learning that “less is more.” Did you struggle with that? Because as you know, on stage, you have to be a big presence so as the old adage goes, you can be seen and heard at the back of the theater.

DH: I knew from my work on industrial films that you had to be “small” for the camera. I continue to struggle with that. My face is still too expressive. It’s a constant battle.

1428 Elm: Did you find Evil Dead 2 to be a difficult shoot because we all know Bruce Campbell’s recollections of working on those films?

DH: Physically, it was a hard shoot because it was so very hot. If you watch the movie, you can see the sweat on the actor’s faces. That’s not sprayed on, that’s real. It was brutal. Sam is very, very good at getting a performance out of an actor. He might like Bruce said, torment his talent but I felt it worked very, very well.  He is a marvelous director because he can relate to the actors.

1428 Elm: Do you have any anecdotes or behind the scenes tales from making that movie?

DH: There was so much physical work. We really beat the crap out of each other. I was so hot and sweaty that I actually slipped and I hit Bruce in the mouth. They used that take. You can see his lip begin to swell. That was the first time I ever worked with him and I thought that’s kind of cool. You work with the lead guy; the star of the show and you knock all of his teeth out. That’s pretty damn good.

Intruder- 3 Decades of Slicing and Dicing

1428 Elm: Let’s talk about Intruder. It is the 30th anniversary of that film. What was it like working with Scott Spiegel and Lawrence Bender? Because this is right before Bender met Quentin Tarantino and started his partnership with him.

DH: Scotty had actually filmed a smaller version of Intruder with a different name. I met him on Evil Dead 2. After watching me work, he ended up rewriting the part of Bill Roberts just for me. He really wanted me to play that role. So, I got along with Scott very, very well. Lawrence Bender, not so much. It was his first feature film and he would just yell at people, very disrespectful in that way.

1428 Elm: In Intruder, you had a really meaty role (no pun intended) and your performance was top-notch. Some actors enjoy playing evil characters, others enjoy portraying heroes. Do you have a particular preference?

DH: No. I look for interesting characters with something to work with. I don’t care if he’s a hero or a bad guy, it doesn’t matter to me.

1428 Elm: There were so many inventive kills in that movie. Did you have a favorite?

DH: The bandsaw scene. Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman did such a terrific job of FX with that one. What they did for Intruder was just awesome and so real. It looked and felt believable.

Danny Does Cleveland

1428 Elm: You will also be appearing at Retro Invasion Weekend in Cleveland, Ohio, May 31-June 2. It will be a reunion with Robert Kurtzman your colleague from Intruder and countless other films. What can fans expect? Will you guys be doing a panel?

DH: I know they will be showing the film. I don’t know the schedule or how many times they will show it. There will probably be some panels afterward. This should be interesting because I have never really talked about Intruder.

1428 Elm: Intruder has always been an underrated gem for horror lovers. It’s great that you are discussing this production with fans at Retro Invasion Weekend because it truly is a classic slasher.

DH: Thank you. That movie never had a chance. Because somehow or other, Paramount bought it and they had no idea what to do with it. Obviously, it’s too violent for little kids to see it. Not a lot of people saw it. It wasn’t like Evil Dead 2.  I watched it when the Blu-ray came out and it was the first time I had seen it in years.  I am very proud of Intrude rand I can’t say that about a lot of movies I have done.

1428 Elm: Let’s talk about your latest project, The Blood Hunter about an elite group of vampire slayers. What can you tell us about your role?

DH: It was a small part. I did it in about 2 days. It was a fun role. I’m retired and I don’t do as many movies as I used to.

1428 Elm: Is there anything else on your horizon that you would like your fans to know about?

DH: Other than Retro Invasion Weekend, I don’t have anything planned for the next 6 months or so. I’m just going to take it easy and enjoy life.

Many thanks to Danny Hicks for taking time to speak with us at 1428 Elm. If you want to watch Intruder with him and Robert Kurtzman, check out Retro Invasion Weekend in Westlake, OH at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel located at 1100 Crocker Road.

[onlineuni-blog]

Playing it keen: the Sony Xperia Ion survey A 12MP camera and awesome battery life are among the $99 telephone's solid points.

After Sony purchased out the versatile bit of its long-lasting Sony-Ericsson organization, the organization chosen to join the cell phone war decisively. On the off chance that we don't number the specialty Xperia Play, Sony is terrifyingly late to the gathering, particularly for an organization that tries to make the same number of the screens an individual takes a gander at during that time as humanly conceivable.

While a few parts of the telephone appear to express abhor for the need to remain up to date (discharging the handset with Android 2.3 Gingerbread as opposed to the most recent Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, for example), this is a strong passage at a mid-level $99 value point. Sony had valued the past on involving the top of the line scope of each item section. Yet, being new as it is to this space, it appears as though it was a more intelligent decision for Sony to get its feet wet as opposed to attempting to jump ahead to contend with the huge names like Apple, Samsung, and HTC.

Equipment

The XP has a bended, brushed metal back with calculated sides. A trapdoor on the left side shrouds a microUSB port and microSD opening, and a little segment of the back about the camera slides off for access to the SIM. Since it's a Gingerbread telephone, in any event for the time being, there are four delicate keys along the base of the screen: menu, home, back and seek, from left to right. The symbols are screened on underneath the glass, and little dash-formed LEDs enlighten underneath them when they're initiated. The equipment catches (rest, volume rocker, and camera) are all on the right-hand side.

With respect to holding it, the body of the telephone feels like it sits ideal on the edge of an agreeable width (2.7 inches). I don't hold the telephone such that the arch of the back became an integral factor, so that was a non-starter; the calculated sides were agreeable to hold, however.

Another intriguing body-outline elegance note: when the Xperia Ion is laying face-up on the table, the main focuses touching are the base edge and the metal ring the surrounds the camera. This might be a measure to both secure the camera focal point and in addition save the brushed metal back, which is powerless to scratches.The way the delicate catches react to human touch is abnormal, not at all like any Android telephone I've ever used–that is, they appear to be lethargic. When I initially utilized the telephone at CES, I speculated in my grasp on that I was simply hitting them on the wrong spot, and ought to have been going for the lights, not the symbols. As I utilized the telephone more I found the issue wasn't the place I was tapping, however how. The Xperia Ion needs, not taps, but rather genuine presses, where your finger gets a decent square centimeter of contact for perhaps a fourth of a moment.

This appears like an exacting refinement, yet it truly had an impact on my experience–I would tap, tap, tap, as yet nothing, tap the light, tap the symbol, tap the light, and after that at long last recollect to press, and the telephone would do as I told. Being that I've never encountered this, I expect it's a product change from Sony, maybe to moderate the impact of coincidental brushes against the catches. Be that as it may, again as far as I can tell, that is never been an issue, so it's taking care of an issue that needn't bother with tackling. Best case scenario, this will take a honed client of some other cell phone a touch of time to get used to.

Screen, camera, sound

The Xperia Ion has a 4.55-inch 1280x720 show, and it's one of the better components of the telephone. Everything, including content, looks sharp. Shading astute, there's a warm thrown to it beneath 75 percent shine or something like that, and hues tend to look brighter than on different screens.

One odd oversight for the Xperia Ion: there's no programmed shine setting for the screen. There has all the earmarks of being some sort of sensor under the glass beside the AT&T logo, yet in the event that it's an encompassing light sensor, Sony just picked not to make utilization of it. Sony had not yet given remark on this matter at the season of distribution.

One of Sony's enormous offering focuses for the Xperia Ion is its 12-megapixel camera. The organization makes specific note of the way that the telephone can go from rest to photograph prepared in 1.5 seconds, and has a shot-to-shot time of short of what one moment. Likewise with general execution, this is of note at this current telephone's cost section, yet there are a modest bunch of telephones that are speedier, including the Galaxy Nexus and now Galaxy S III.

Truth be told, the 1.5-second photograph prepared element is excessively savvy for its own particular great: the telephone gives clients a chance to hold down the equipment camera catch, and once that second or so has slipped by the camera application flies up on the telephone. Essentially, you may end up saying: "Gee, every one of the 16GB of capacity on my Xperia Ion is full. What was the deal? Gracious look, four thousand photos of my pocket." There doesn't give off an impression of being an approach to turn this association with the catch off, and it stays on notwithstanding when we set a security password (for this situation, whatever is left of the telephone's components are inaccessible).(Update: a Sony representative expresses that there is a choice to kill the brisk dispatch include by hitting the menu enter in the Camera application, choosing "Speedy dispatch," and afterward choosing "Off.")The nature of the camera is very noteworthy, particularly in very close shots; the photo of blooms above truly inspired us. The glimmer appears to trigger a bit too effortlessly in low light situations, however it's less brilliant than the vast majority of the LED flashes we see on cell phones. Indoor shots were somewhat grainy, and as appeared by the photograph of the plant waving a bit in the breeze of a fan, the shade is none too snappy.

Telephone calls sound sufficient on the telephone, nothing outstanding there; similarly, my discussion accomplices said I seemed like I was on a mobile phone, yet it wasn't prominently awful. The speaker on the back of the telephone, however is frightful. Sadly awful, even at the most elevated volumes it sounds calm (consideration producers: in reverse guiding speakers are likely the simplest from a plan point of view, however look bad for the customer). This was quite a state of hold back, spending plan astute. Expect nothing from this speaker, and you may even now be fairly disappointed.Performance

A Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon chipset powers the Xperia Ion, with a double center 1.5GHz processor and Adreno 220 GPU. The telephone can get to AT&T's 4G LTE arrange, which still has genuinely restricted accessibility.

Running GLBenchmark 2.1.4 on Android 2.3 (Android 4.0 is guaranteed at an amorphous future date), the Xperia Ion gets mediocre scores: it broke 35fps on the Pro-Standard test, yet just 17fps on Egypt-High. For examination, the Galaxy Nexus, which now retails at $149 with a two-year contract on Verizon, got 19.9fps, separately, on similar tests. On Linpack, the Xperia Ion pumped out 95MFLOPS in single-and multi-strung procedures (the GNex got 45 and 37MFLOPS). This isn't front line execution, however more than respectable for a $99 mid-go telephone.

In subjective regular utilize, we do once in a while observe some of that activity falter that was basic in before Android telephones, as though the visuals can't move as fast as the equipment needs it to. Be that as it may, this was typically when the telephone was quite recently awakening or upon come back to the home screen in the wake of utilizing an application; after several swipes, it was by all accounts up to speed. Something else, the telephone is genuinely smart all-around; the screen has none of the responsiveness issues that the catches do.

How a telephone grabs WiFi is normally not a state of note for our cell phone surveys, yet we saw that the WiFi motion on our Xperia Ion was very low, notwithstanding when two gadgets promptly by it were lifting it up superbly. This could be expected to a limited extent to the metal packaging on the telephone, a characteristic conceived foe of WiFi flag. We can't state if this is an across the board issue in view of our one gadget and WiFi setup, however it merits being careful about on the off chance that you choose to check this telephone out.Battery

A sizeable 1900mAh battery controls the Xperia Ion, which Sony rates at 10 hours of talk time and 12 hours of music playback (regardless of whether WiFi/GPS is on and other such parameters are not indicated). With WiFi, GPS, and 4G associations on, volume as far as possible up, we could get around seven and a half hours of battery life while playing video. In general use with similar settings on, some light email, messaging, photograph taking, a couple application downloads and a touch of gaming, the telephone could last an entire day of utilization.

Sony without Ericsson still isn't exactly up to the assignment of rivaling the enormous young men—an iPhone or Galaxy S III this is not, particularly being so woefully behind as to even now be running Android 2.3. Still, we turned out awed, particularly given the sensible value point—ideally issues like the treatment of the camera catch and delicate keys, can be settled with programming refreshes. The Xperia Ion touches base in AT&T's on the web and retail outlets on June 24, evaluated at $99.99 with a two-year contract.

[godstrain]

uagh ok so u know how i was like "let me talk about wesker and how he just had a really WILD TIME in the mental health department between post-arklay and RE5" well what i mean by this is-

wesker was already swinging into a manic episode a month or so before the mansion incident. he was more energetic, he slept even less than he usually did, and everyone seemed to mistake it for enthusiasm. it was hypomania. injecting himself with a goddamn virus basically caused symptoms that could be classified as drug induced psychosis, except it isn't drug induced, it's literally his entire biological makeup was altered (and that gets its own post because i saw a post about "why didnt we get to see wesker going thru it as the t virus rewrites every goddamn cell in his body" i'm going to get to that!)

so fast forward to december 1998, wesker's really going through it now! he's hit a state of very intense mania, he's got the delusions of grandeur, he just has no impulse control, he's running around because he has so much energy to expend and he finds it difficult to stay still due to feeling restless- also this is one of the more obvious "judgement limited, insight poor" moments, he thinks he can get the virus sample but lmao no he's trashed by alexia (i do not care what the redo of CV says, i like having alexia being able to kick wes' ass, it makes for interesting character development things!) but he still gets the job done,

so then we have the span of time between CV and RE5- wesker's mental state mellows out enough that he can be the cool calm collected mastermind that he likes to present himself as- he's behind the fuckery of RE4, but he seems rather calm about it- as in of course he's still going through the whole delusions of grandeur thing and sure does have some mania symptoms, but it isn't like the rockfort incident behavior.

that just all loops back when things shift toward wesker's arrival at spencer's personal home, and of course with the big reveal from spencer, wesker really just doesn't cope with that at all. on top of this, he's been using an immunosuppressant that prevents his body from fighting off a virus that literally turns people into beings that run on base instinct with little to no impulse control (some tyrants can follow commands, but in a limited way, it's not like they follow complex directions), so yeah the mania symptoms ramped up again-

it's after 5 that he goes into the depression, and i've talked about that before im pretty sure...

for reference, wesker's first episode of mania was when he was 18, although there's a chance it could've been drug induced because albert wesker used every single stimulant ever to stay awake through his college years and his early umbrella research years and that sure didn't do anything good for his brain chemistry

[godstrain]

ok now back to your regularly scheduled wesker content (unless i really just pass out lmao) uhh hmmm sexy sunday post ... more like it's just sorta sad / a normal meta because i can be unhinge and horny on any day i want i don't need a certain day lmao anyway uh

can safely say that albert wesker has felt some romantic attraction to like. 4 people in total in his life- those 4 people are: william birkin, jake's mother, jill valentine, and chris redfield (the last two happening around the same time and causing a bit of confusion, but really, wesker would've been fine with both- he has a habit of wanting 2 things ... and then getting neither looking at the mansion incident ... also i love polystars thanks)

he didn't know how to handle any of these and that is also because he doesn't know how to handle love (but deep down he'd love to learn how to!).

birkin was his closest friend, and wesker doesn't have Friends because he's so emotionally stunted and really it's a case of he cares for will and will married annette and wesker isn't actually a huge fan of homewrecking- so he had this feeling and basically did nothing with it- (although he would've been super down for a polyamory with will and annette)

with jake's mother, it was his first Serious Relationship and of course once again he had no idea how to navigate it, but with how she evidently spoke highly of him, he was actually doing a pretty good job being a romantic partner? but also any time he has any connections ever, umbrella comes to fuck them up and wesker isn't dumb so he sent her back home and then never saw her again which was really painful because he DID love her very much, and wesker then decided he didn't want to deal with romance because it hurt. it made him vulnerable and if he had his way he never would've felt a goddamn thing ever again.

this man then played himself like a fool, because chris redfield and jill valentine came into his life and threw everything off track- because now he has to deal with feelings. again. it wasn't that anything started in a "friendship" sort of way, because wesker doesn't do friends- he just has people he doesn't wish an immediate painful death upon- ( and on that note, he actually cared about S.T.A.R.S. as a whole, which is why he was like lmao nah i'm going to fuck over umbrella AND i'll have my team there for the moment of glory- which didn't go like he planned at all??? but i digress ) and he had a habit of being impulsive- taking hits or bullets meant for his team, meant for chris or jill and it was so??? not normal for him, and so instead of being a well adjusted person he showed his feelings for chris and jill in the form of "not letting you die for 10 years and consistently being there to cause problems so you HAVE to come fight me and see me and i am ALWAYS on your mind" and "mind control so you will never leave my side"

tldr wesker is very not good at processing and expressing his feelings, especially love, and it shows

[godstrain]

i wanted to address why there are so many other BOWs that clearly outclass wesker in strength but somehow they can be killed way easier than wesker can be killed, and basically ok

albert wesker is the falcon of tyrants.

confined by the limitations of a HUMAN BODY, he doesn't gain extra limbs or whatnot until he gets infected with uroboros- even though he is shown to be larger in general due to the virus, compared to chris, wesker is rather lean, he's not bulky muscle at all, even if he's athletic. sure, he can move fast, he's stronger than any standard human, but what sets him apart from other tyrants in abilities and survivability is the fact he can 1 think through a situation and follow complex instructions (although he suffers frontal lobe decay there's no doubt of that) 2 he's really fucking fast.

he uses his speed and his intellect to gain the upper hand on opponents that are much larger than he is, and some that far outclass him in physical strength. we see alexia trashing wesker because she has fire blood and her intellect, and wesker only has speed and intellect in comparison. in a battle of physical strength, wesker is wildly outclassed by every other big name BOW (nemesis, x, g2 and forward), because all of those aren't limited to the functions of a human body.

wesker is essentially a super soldier, and because he gained these abilities by DYING and being revived, he falls into the category of "tyrant" but actually he ... doesn't fit 90% of the qualifications to be in that category. he IS a BOW, heck, the argument of captain america being a BOW stands simply due to the fact he also is the result of Weird Science Serum Things-

so to compensate for his physical strength downfalls, wesker uses a rush tactic when he fights, putting his incredible speed behind his hits. which is why he's the falcon of BOWs- when he hits something and is also going super fast, he WILL fold it in half- but his chances of winning a fight against another advanced BOW in an area where he has to rely only on close combat drop considerably, and wesker is actually acutely aware of this. he prefers to engage in combat in open areas that allow him to build speed for his rush technique

[godstrain]

ok and what i mean about wesker is just one more heartbreak away from just fucking dying is uhhh he's only loved 4 people and that's will, jake's mom, chris, and jill- and all of those are gone from his life and so yeah actually hes got 4 missing parts of his soul shaped like people and he can't fill the void and even though he says he can be a god, he can't because he is still human and he is so alone and that can actually also kill people

he's tired of losing people he actually gives a shit about, so he closes himself off because he's well aware that he just isn't able to handle that feeling one more time because it hurts and he's really not good at pretending it doesn't hurt anymore, but also here we are bc he dug his own grave,

[godstrain]

i will do art of some of this eventually but like, the prototype virus sure gave wesker cat eyes but also he really did become incredibly catlike. he has little fangs- they're only noticeable if you're up close but when your'e up close it's obvious he has them, if he doesn't trim his nails they will be like claws and yeah he can maim with those! he purrs! it's a low rumble sort of sound, but like a cat, he'll do it to self soothe or when he's injured (cats' purrs can actually heal bones and tissues it's WILD), and sometimes just when he's content.

he also, of course, got taller. really, he just got bigger everywhere- man went from 6'0 to 6'7 over a span of 10 years. he didn't expect this, because it eventually led to an entire wardrobe restock, because nothing he had properly fit him ...

[godstrain]

ok so me thinking about wesker's childhood and how Bad things were and also his relationships with the other wesker children ... and its big sad

see, he was snatched up by umbrella when he was 5- he already was developing a sense of self, and albert wilde was a good kid, ambitious and hard working, but not a monster. he was introduced to spencer's doctrine of "humans failed and all of the plagues of the earth also suck and it's your job to be better" and took it as a challenge for him to actually help people better themselves. he wanted to find ways to improve the quality of life for human beings, because no one ever said what was there had to be eliminated. humans were beautiful because they could adapt. albert wilde loved humanity.

albert wilde also had a ... rebellious streak. he was the golden boy who could get all of his work done early and still have the energy to try to be a normal kid- and he got in trouble for it. albert wilde never would've designed BOWs... and it took almost 12 years for umbrella to kill albert wilde, leaving albert wesker in his place

but damn, he held out for almost 12 years- tried to cling to what he knew in his heart to be the path he wanted. it just so happens that he was also experimented on, he survived things that other people mutated or died from, and by the time he was scouted as a researcher, he was so mentally exhausted from getting hurt for trying to be free, so he fell in line with things

and then fast forward and he takes the prototype virus and dies and comes back wrong and suffers some uhhh not good frontal lobe decay and his moral compass goes to heck... albert wesker was the sort of person albert wilde had wanted to stand up against and there's something sorta poetic about him finding his way back to being albert wilde after crawling from the depths of hell for real ... this is the character development i deserve to implement on him :)

[godstrain]

redone wesker scar chart which is really more like "wesker's burn scars chart" because that's most of his scars. while the prototype virus can heal injuries, it didn't heal scars he had before infection, which is why he still has them! after his uroboros plan fails and he's absolutely wrecked in a volcano, the rest of uroboros is used up getting him out of the lava in the first place, and then regenerating as much of his body as possible. in the end, the majority of uroboros died out in the heat, leaving him with the prototype virus to take care of the rest.

since his right arm had been full of shrapnel it was basically unsalvageable, so he gets a prosthetic arm. it's a miracle he didn't lose all of his limbs.... but basically the prototype virus couldn't heal all of the damage from uroboros and now wesker is living with the reminder that he really fucked up. it really ... keeps him grounded in reality, and the reality is he's not a god and he won't ever be, and he has to face everything he did so uhhh yeah that's that.

also naturally he has wavy hair and to distance himself from his past he's let it grow out and now he is FLUFFY!!!

[godstrain]

happy sunday wesker is still sorta terrified of intimacy, he's been like that basically forever and shows no signs of being remotely more adjusted or ready - and that's because he's afraid that as soon as he lets himself open up to someone they'll vanish from his life or he'll majorly fuck up because his track record is william birkin (dead- also william married annette, wesker wasn't going to homewreck), jake's mom (dead), chris redfield (it's complicated and wesker can't imagine it ever being anything more than him silently pining) and jill valentine (brainwashed her, that's super fucked up)

so he assumes as soon as he admits he has feelings everything will just fall apart so he just tries to be ok with being alone (and he's not, but he tells himself that some people are meant to he alone no matter what they want)

[godstrain]

anYWAY dang can u believe it took me this long to realize i actually have to address the progenitor virus and psychology but Albert Wesker Version im such a fuckin sham dudes psychology is MY FIELD and i didnt discuss this ... instead i went and rambled about like. the physiology of it ... lmao anyway its like late so this might be scattered and i will probably write a better post about it later but

essentially, multiple cases of infection with progenitor virus led to the whole "it's actually also a lot of psychology" in whether or not someone turns into a zombie- big shout out to the mental fortitude of people who just Dealt with that (looking at u, steve! and also manuela, you guys are the real mvps)

wesker only figured out this correlation because of his encounter with sergei and learning what happened to marcus- well, he was encountering sergei in 2003- wesker was infected in 1998, that's 5 years of wesker thinking he just fucking lucked out.

but putting things in context, wesker just gaining superpowers and having cat eyes (and little fangs and sometimes claws) was actually a manifestation of his subconscious desire to be A Human Being- humanity was basically denied to him all the time and it was something he wanted- he couldn't control his subconscious, and so he covered all of that up with saying he was going to be a god- and also he was in a severe state of mania

wesker's underlying desire to be human (again? but it's sad he never saw himself as human in the first place, because when he was forming his own self-image, he was in the shittiest environment possible, so he saw himself as An Experiment and he wanted to be a successful one) combined with his natural immune system is also why he ends up needing PG67A/W, because the psychophysiological response was Literally Flushing the Virus Out Of His System, so without an immunosuppressant, he would just be human-

after uroboros, he's basically relying on willpower to be human shape, but the fact that he doesn't even realize he has a Weird B.O.W. form until it HAPPENS (and then he figures out he can Change Back from danger noodle chimera shape) is a testament to something else- wesker, even in his deepest despair, doesn't want to die. he wants to live, and he wants to live as a human being, and that really is incredible isn't it

[godstrain]

ok got no actual brainpower aside from this rambling but at some point soon i will address fully how wesker sees his residents in his life as albert wilde as ... stars2 ... and how he genuinely cares so much and aaaaaa

[godstrain]

ok but also on the note of "albert wilde" if he had grown up with his birth parents... if his childhood was never tainted by umbrella...

he would've been a respected psychiatrist with a deep love for humanity, but despairing over its sufferings. he also has a knack for virology. he would've been affiliated with harvard as a doctor.

but, he also doesnt have the pressure of umbrella on him. albert wilde is a prodigy who graduated from med school at 20. he's sorta married to his work, but at 30, he's married happily to a beautiful woman from edonia. he welcomes his son, jake, into the world in 1992. he starts leading studies in virology- not umbrella related. they're impressive and yield important results.

in 1998 he gets into a nasty accident and has to take time off for recovery. he does get to enjoy time with his wife and son, though. deep down, he thinks the accident was caused by umbrella, a company that had been on his father's case, too... but he has no real proof. it's a gut feeling though.

by 2009, he is a part time instructor at harvard. he leads a good life that he feels satisfied with -

the tragic part is wesker KNOWS he could've had this life. he knows himself and he knows what he was robbed of and it sucks a lot that he turned out to be what he is instead of what he should've been. but also if he'd never been taken by umbrella he never would've met chris... hm

[godstrain]

ok so here we go. the post about what wesker was like pre infection vs post infection, alternatively: superpowers are not worth it if your brain gets nuked.

what is known about albert wesker prior to his infection with the prototype virus (using lore from RE5 with all the other lore slapped together too) is that he is one of many children taken from their families by various means due to "possessing superior attributes" because spencer believed in eugenics like a rancid fuckass, which he is. being raised by spencer (or in another home that was still under spencer) meant being pushed to prove his "superiority" and being fed the awful takes of eugenics and social darwinism and the likes. he's taught to see humans as a dead end, to hate the suffering that humanity goes through. he's also sent to the worlds most hellish school and trains under dr. marcus and has a doctorate in virology by the age of 17. this, of course, skips over all the other horrible things he witnessed growing up as one of the wesker children, but that would take forever to explain, so it's for a totally different post. after getting his degree in virology, wesker starts working as an umbrella researcher. he also befriends william birkin, who is also a prodigy (a year younger than wesker in age). the ashfords also are somewhere in here as a first meeting, but okay we're skipping over the ashfords for now.

after a while, wesker finds that being a researcher sorta sucks ass and while he is a prodigy, he's also sorta mid at being a prodigy. so he transfers departments and goes into being uhhh a spy lmao. he's picked up by the US army for a while, and is said to have helped them with their own illegal bio weapon shit. then, in 1996 he becomes captain of S.T.A.R.S. alpha team, which he remains until 1998 when everything goes to absolute shit in arklay.

no one who knew albert wesker would ever have said that he had much love for humanity, but everyone would say that he was motivated due to hating the way society was fucking things over. he hated seeing disparity, he hated the fact that wars even were a thing. he really had an issue with the top 1% - he was an "eat the rich" sort of guy, even though he was also rather wealthy, he wasn't one to flaunt it, because how does that help anything? i'll write about his entire socioeconomic situation in another post. if people asked wesker about his views, he wasn't one to hide them. literally everyone knew he thought society sucked ass, but he'd rather be making change than sitting around just complaining about it. if someone had asked him what he'd do to improve the world if he had the ability to just make changes / what an ideal world would look like to him, he'd say things like... education needs to be accessible for everyone so people aren't fucking duped because they don't know things. healthcare should be available to everyone because it's a basic human right but SOMEHOW that doesn't seem to click with human beings, so dang if humanity can't even meet the bar on the ground called "basic human decency" then even just having that be a thing everyone lived by would vastly improve the state of the world. he was rather loudly against big pharma, which is why no one in S.T.A.R.S. would've guessed he was the umbrella spy, and umbrella thought he was doing that to throw people off his trail, but no actually he hates big pharma because it looped back to the issue of no one fucking knows basic human decency. wesker's not an idiot, he knows that people had to pay out of their asses for medicines and healthcare that they needed to even barely reach a quality of life worth living, and he hated it.

umbrella was his first target to take down, but he would've gone after the organization, he would've gone after TRICELL, and all in the same method that he tore down umbrella. because dang the monopoly that big companies have, where everyone else has to suffer? sucks. and he has a habit of jumping to the most extreme and radical solution possible, because he was never good at social reasoning. on the note of his own research, of course he was proud of it. because that part did loop back to what spencer drilled into him- and his hatred for capitalism also does link back to what spencer taught him about human disparity, which means spencer set himself up for failure because he was the rich guy at the top of this capitalism bullshit and albert wesker only knew how to think in extremes.

so umbrella says "get this info and betray S.T.A.R.S." and wesker is like lmao ok but in the whole crossing his fingers behind his back sort of way. S.T.A.R.S. meant a lot to him! whether he showed it or not, the members of S.T.A.R.S. had proven that they had basic human decency, they worked as a team, they basically were examples of the types of people wesker wished everyone else in the world would be. of course they had their flaws, but humans are inherently flawed. but they were good people in his book, and so of course he was just going to betray umbrella. it's why he kept leaving notes for chris so he'd survive the mansion!

but by the time arklay came around, wesker had also injected himself with the virus birkin gave to him, and his brain had already been shot to shit from it. his behavior became more erratic, he took a swing into severe mania, and chris isn't wrong in saying things like wesker's gone senile- at the very least, wesker snapped and was clearly UNWELL!!!!! and now he's making bad choices to boot. dying also did him no favors on that front.

as time went on, wesker retained the ability to be charismatic and draw people in, because he had a circle of allies that he also kept like more than arms length away. he retained his academic smarts, but his moral compass? busted. and the more things went on, the more radical his ideas got, which led to "COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION" because now he's really only thinking in extremes. i mentioned in another post that wesker also does have this fear of being hurt, because he HAS been hurt by people because spencer had no human decency which is why wesker also valued basic human decency in others. somewhere deep down, there was still that frightened child part of him that just wanted to make the people who hurt him go Away, and the part of him that held the guilt of betraying S.T.A.R.S. thought "if there are no people, i can't hurt or betray anyone either". and of course, deep down wesker also knew that No One was compatible with uroboros. not in the way he'd deem a success- even he wasn't!! look at what happened to him!!!!

the conclusion of this post is if you asked S.T.A.R.S. wesker what he thought of RE5 wesker, he'd say: "this guy sucks ass, also the plan's sloppy and counterproductive to the stated goal, and the goal is also stupid" and if you asked RE5 wesker what he thought of S.T.A.R.S. wesker, he'd say: "sentimental, weak, and blinded by unrealistic expectations of a species that has consistently proven to be full of shit" they'd hate each other lmao thanks for coming to my tedtalk