#Idk if it'd officially be called Horror but

[godtier]

firstly, idk where it seems i'm not arguing in good faith (because i used crass language? because i stated things that contradicted your points? i don't know) but aight, i'll go thru this as straightforwardly as possible:

regarding RE1 remake:

RE1 remake was not a remaster. it was a remake. a remaster is when you upgrade the graphics, sound, etc. and change little else. it's like polishing up a piece of silverware. you're not adding anything to the silverware, you're just scrubbing off the tarnish so it looks new and shiny again.

a good example of what a remaster is can be found in the final fantasy vii: crisis core remaster. it was originally a PSP exclusive. nothing was changed besides the superficial aspects. the story, the script, nothing. they're just updated with new graphics and cleaned up/remastered the sound. that's a de facto example of what a remaster actually is. RE1 remake is a remake. the layout in some areas is slightly different or expanded upon. there were new monsters added. the story is slightly reworked to explain things better. remember: RE1 OG was not made with the intention of creating a massive franchise. it was mostly inspired by/considered an homage to Sweet Home, an NES survival horror game that pioneered the genre. RE1 had gaps in its story that weren't important at the time of development. ergo, when RE1 remake was made, they went back and fine-tuned it, changed specific things to make it make more sense as a series entry rather than an isolated entry. and as such, RE1 remake is not a remaster. it's a remake. it's why everyone calls it a remake, it's what's used to commonly distinguish it from RE 1 OG. why aren't people calling it RE 1 remaster if it's just a remaster? if what you're saying is true, then we would assume that the events of RE1 were never covered in the remake continuity as it is and were just implied because the gamecube RE1 remake would be in a different category/continuity. it would mean that we can't be sure exactly what happened in remake continuity unless it's explicitly shown or stated. clearly fandom interpretation/discussion doesn't abide by this assumption. where are they getting that info from? if OG and (apparently) RE1 remake are not part of the remake canon/continuity, how do we know what actually happened then? regarding the wii titles:

slight reinterpretations of canon events in the wii games don't then negate the new information provided. the dev team wanted to use these games as ways to explore scenarios that they could not explore in the original games, so the intent is clear that these games are meant to be considered as canon. readjusting something to fit a game mechanic doesn't then throw out the rest of the game information provided. if t was just a straight up "RE2 but on rails now" experience meant to be a diversion and not taken seriously, they wouldn't have added all the extra content in the first place. it would have been an arcade installation in the vein of the silent hill pachinko machines.

regarding HUNK:

HUNK not being in the main cast in any other game is irrelevant. there are plenty of characters in this series and others that do things that are substantial to the story that don't have a canon presence at all. they're relegated to files but that doesn't make their accomplishments or actions less important or less official. the fact that he's not in the main cast anywhere else doesn't negate what he accomplished and suddenly void it out. it'd be like saying what carlos or steve or luis accomplished in their respective games straight-up doesn't matter or isn't canon just because none of them are in the main cast after the titles they appeared in (nevermind that two of those three are dead). if what HUNK did wasn't that significant or noteworthy in OG, they would have severely cut down or rewrote his role in RE2 remake. they wouldn't have that entire scenario mission where you're playing as him. if you're going to use something that's demonstrably false to support a headcanon, it should not be surprising that it's challenged and picked at. as mentioned, HUNK has an entire dedicated scenario in RE2 remake that goes over what he did and what happened. is this not canon because he doesn't show up anywhere else in the series in a main character or playable role? also, it's good to remember that umbrella proper didn't exist for much longer after RE2-3. it's a shambling corpse of itself by the time RE4 rolled around and HUNK was naturally no longer employed by a company that didn't exist after it folded. his role in the story of course diminished after that because he was a free agent and doing god knows what (operation: raccoon city is not canon, worth mentioning here). but it doesn't mean what he did for umbrella in 1998 isn't canon anymore. i genuinely don't understand disregarding what he did just because it wasn't "impactful" in the subsequent story if you yourself are using the fact that "no one succeeded" as a crucial point to your argument. clearly someone did. what matters is the "in the moment" reaction to that success/failure. umbrella couldn't see into the future, of course, so if we're talking solely about reaction to what had just happened in canon, HUNK's contributions are absolutely still valid and seen as a success. doesn't matter if they never actually used what he delivered or not (nevermind the fact that he delivered an unknown BOW to rockfort island as covered in DC, but i'm not gonna go into that since it's apparently not considered canon in this discussion). that's not on him. that's on umbrella. when doing canon analysis, you can't just decide a character isn't relevant to your conclusion just because, later down the line, he doesn't show up in a tangible fashion again. even though he does show up in RE3's epilogue, but apparently, you're disregarding that as well. i'm not sure how you interact with canon regularly, but it's odd to just cherry-pick what you want when discussing canon events. whether or not a character has "staying power" is irrelevant when you're discussing actual tangible things they did in the story section you're talking about.

further, implying that HUNK and jake's mother are both equally "non-characters" is really misleading.

what we know about HUNK:

what he sounds like

what he looks like

what his name (or pseudoname) is

what he thinks about events happening around him

his reactions to things happening around him

how he reacts to other people

what he does for a living

how long he's (approximately) been doing it

his reputation (in his case, being unkillable or death itself)

his skills

his actions in canon

what we know about jake's mother:

she loved wesker

she birthed jake

she loved jake

she is a physically weak/sickly woman

she dies

how can these two be considered equivalents of the other, even remotely? HUNK is only a "non-character" in the sense that his personality is (purposefully and clearly) flat, that we don't know his actual real name, or where he's even from. we don't have any clue what jake's mother's name even is, let alone what she looks like or what her personality is like. HUNK has more to go off of by far and calling them both equally irrelevant just tells me that you're not really looking at things as objectively as you claim to be.

regarding jake's mother:

i will be 100% honest, your takes on jake's mother were jarring to come across. they were really reminiscent of "woman getting in the way of this thing i want to be canon" fandom things to me. i didn't want to come at the take like that in my initial post and tried to convey it in a subversive way, but since it seems that you're still considering her characterization as a weirdo psycho as a valid canon (not headcanon) interpretation, i'll be more overt. in the basis of your original post, you talked about being "objective." characterizing a non-character like jake's mother as someone who would steal sperm to get pregnant is not being "objective." you're projecting a headcanon onto her to better suit your argument about why wesker doesn't have sex for some reason. what reason do we have to assume she would do that? if we want to use inference from how jake talks about her, we'll need to talk about jake. jake is stupid, but he's not dumb. he's street-smart, no-nonsense, and can smell bullshit from a mile away. one could reasonably infer then that he would pick up on certain behaviors that you're implying his mother to have. one could also infer that he would make an equally off-handed remark about his mother being "a little nuts" or something of that nature to further imply that perhaps she had some screws loose.

the most we hear is that she loved wesker. that's about it. jake isn't sentimental; sure, he clearly loved his mother and hated wesker for "abandoning" them (which, again, is the most we get about his relationship with jake's mother). but he also doesn't mince words. you can clearly say something like "my mother was crazy" while simultaneously getting offended if someone said to you "your mother was crazy" and also caring about that person's health and well-being. both can be true. it's odd to imply that jake somehow missed this characterization of his mother (i.e.: her being nuts) when he isn't the type to miss things like this and is markedly observant. you're inferring based on nothing, essentially, that his mother is a nutter. what proof is there? there isn't any. we can't prove one way or the other how jake's mother was. ergo, it's really, really wild to me that your first thought is "she MUST have stolen his sperm to have jake." like why? why is that your default assumption? from where did you get that? you're saying wesker "attracts crazy people" as a reason, but he also attracts chris redfield and the rest of STARS (but mostly chris).

do you think wesker just reveals his true self to people who aren't "in the know?" of course he doesn't. we can then reasonably infer that jake's mom probably didn't know who wesker actually was, insofar as all the crap he was working on at the time. remember, jake was conceived well before wesker revealed himself to be a bioterrorist. no one except umbrella knew who wesker really was at that point in time. jake was born in 1992, after all. it's really odd to think that wesker would be "attracting crazy people" in the 90s when he was doing his damnedest to appear on the up-and-up to people he interacted with "on the outside."

the bottom line is that i don't really care if you think jake's mom is a psycho or not if that's your headcanon. headcanons are whatever. but you cannot imply it's a valid canon take to say that's how she was. it's not, full stop. my own interpretation of her is based off of what little we can glean from jake, based on his own characterization. i don't see any reason to assume she would go to extreme measures to have wesker's child. RE is a heavy-handed series; that would ABSOLUTELY have been something they would have highlighted somewhere, whether in a file or a journal entry. my interpretation is barely what i'd call an "interpretation" anyway, given that there's so little there to make a judgement call on how she was. basically, i'm saying that there's literally nothing to suggest she was a basket case. her banging wesker and having his baby isn't sufficient evidence.

and to be clear, i also don't think jake's mother was some beacon of motherhood and innocence, because there's nothing to suggest that. all we can go off of is how wesker was back in the 90s, how he treated people around him before the "reveal," and how the people who were close to him reacted to him after the "reveal." STARS, again, is the best example to look towards for this.

the surviving members were gobsmacked when wesker betrayed them (though we only get to see a few of their reactions in real time). they all adored him. how is it so difficult to consider that a man who was living a fake life in the 90s wouldn't present the same way to a woman he met in the 90s and slept with? how is it fair to assume a woman must be crazy to love him when she doesn't even know who he actually is? do you see how that comes off as a bit sexist?

because it does. it's also fairly hypocritical given the rest of your arguments; you're speaking about being tired of ada's characterization being pegged on "what's going on in her vagina," and yet you have no problem doing the same to a character who we don't even know the name of. it's weirdly presumptuous to just "default" to that line of thinking when the woman isn't someone you know or can relate to or see interacting with other people.

this isn't about "defending jake's mom's honor" or something because yes, she's not a character (and she's not even real, for that matter). and i really do not care about your headcanons if that's what we were discussing in the first place. but that wasn't what the discussion was about. if this was a headcanon discussion, i wouldn't have even replied to this in the first place because headcanon discussions can be fun diversions and ultimately, if someone has a headcanon i consider to be "problematic," i just don't engage with it. it's that simple.

ultimately, what i'm getting at is that the pushing of this to be the Canon Reason jake exists is really bizarre.

you seem to be so fixated on this headcanon (and that's what it is) of wesker not wanting to have sex period that you are willing to impose age-old "woman bad, baby trapping, crazy bitch, stealing condoms (which btw what guy jerks off with a condom???)" rhetoric just to keep your interpretation "valid" and "reasonable." it reminds me of the shipping wars of the early 00s where a rival ship's female character is a "whore" or "crazy" because the male character being with that female character doesn't line up to that person's ship desires. it was weird then and it's still weird.

again, i did not want to get into all of that in my initial post because i know it could be interpreted as me saying "wow you must hate women!" but what i outlined in my initial response didn't seem to be landing (and was apparently uncertain as to if it was in "good faith" or not?). to be clear, i'm not accusing you of anything, but the fact that you are desperately trying to push this weirdly woman-negative headcanon as canon while simultaneously claiming to be exhausted by how ada is often defined by her sexuality really rubbed me the wrong way.

tl;dr: headcanons have their place in canon discussions and if you try to push a headcanon as canon, you have to show your work.

Here’s some RE Separate Ways analysis that isn’t about shipping because I like Ada. I’m happy her DLC actually focuses on her, but some of the takes I’m seeing are Insufferable. Main statements in bold for ease of reading and skipping purposes.

-Wesker and Ada haven’t been working together consistently for the past 6 years. This dripless bitch is calling Ada every five minutes to babysit her. I don’t think that’s the relationship dynamic of someone you’re regularly employed under, and when it is, Ada is not the type of character to tolerate that behavior for 6 years. We know Ada is a contract worker. We can understand she’s worked for Wesker on and off, but she’s a freelance agent period. She must’ve done enough jobs for Wesker that he feels the need to check on her and have this constant reporting in to make sure she stays on task since he’s clearly used to her not always following his orders. He 100% hired her for this assignment because he knew the situation and compared to the other options, she had the highest survival chances. Which, he was right. High risk, high reward.

Sometimes Wesker’s babysitting works: Ada holding Luis at gunpoint when he tries to negotiate saving Leon and Ashley. Sometimes he knows when to step away: “Keep your dog.” All of it is in the effort to get what he wants. Look, he let her live. He worked with S.T.A.R.S for years and wanted them all dead. If he worked with Ada regularly and she pulled this shit with the amber, he would’ve had that helicopter blown out of the sky. There’s always some restraint with personal distance, especially with a guy who thinks so highly of himself.

-Luis is a drama queen. In the regular game, Luis acts cool and under control to the best of his abilities around Leon and Ashley. It’s a part of his newly found hero-complex even though he does still know when to ask for help: “save me prince charming!” In the DLC, we see the real side of Luis. The one who’s scared, and dramatic, and knows when he’s not shooting with a loaded gun so to speak. When Ada tells him to leave her to fight, he does. He wants to help, but his respect for her abilities sends him fleeing like she orders him to. Also, like every scientist, he has zero self-preservation! He ran into a fire that clearly would kill him to get medicine. And the exchange afterwards? “No! Now you’ll all die!” “Make some more medicine.” “Oh..yeah…I can do that. I do have that ability.”

The flamenco dance. “Are you mad at me???🥺 You’re mad at me!😭” This man understands Ada can kill him without blinking, but still can’t keep his composure around her. This is such a fun dynamic to explore in fic for expansion stories and “Luis lives” au’s. The DLC gives him breaks to freak out and panic, whereas the main game holds the “cool persona” moments after Leon saves him. Even his dying words to Ada. This man is bleeding to death and still can’t shut up. I love him.

Okay, that’s all I gotta say about the loser men. Now for the star of the DLC. Ada. :)

-Ada “Sans Undertale go into my eyes” Wong. The methods Ada uses in the DLC are fun and appropriate. It’s not invasive and in your face unlike another agent, but more subtle. She can track footprints, fingerprints, gauge the safe distance required for her grappling hook, and she knows when she needs to fight and whens he needs to run. Her practicality has always been the cleanest of the entire cast due to her being a spy, but this time we actually get to see this trait utilized through her tools.

-Ada is silly and quips her own jokes to get through it. Something I’m not seeing anyone talk about including the aeon people who are claiming anything they can get, is this specific humor parallel between Leon and Ada in the remake. Both of them have gone through the horrors of Raccoon City. Both of them went right back into very difficult military in function style work which always has a body count. I talked about Leon’s humor coping mechanism here [X], but to hear Ada do the same thing? I feel like they went under the radar because they don’t sound as stupid as Leon’s quips, but they are still so stupid. “Nighty night.” “Lights out.” “Bring me a real challenge next time.” “Now look at the mess you’ve made.” “You think that gun will be enough?” She and Leon even share the same “Next,” line!

If I had 80GB to spare on the game, I’d see just how many more I could get out of her. Like, these are dumb as hell. She’s found a method to cope with the horrors she’s witnessing that just so happens to coincide with Leon’s. I’m not saying this as a marker of whatever romance you’ve tossed them in or even to diss any other romances. What I am saying is that they have a similar type of mental illness resulting from trauma, and they ended up using the exact same coping method despite never seeing each other.

Ada fans who hate Leon! This opens a door for you when it comes to character analysis and how Ada deals with her PTSD and/or depression! Run through it RIGHT NOW!

-Ada’s infection pulls a lot more weight than it seems. I’ve seen some people say Ada’s parasite should’ve been removed the same as Leon’s and Ashley’s. (Which is an extremely unsubtle argument to get them all in the same room for your shipping nonsense.) However, something I noticed with the DLC were the parallels to the troubles in RE2. The Black Robe/U-3/Pesenta monster is the first time where we get to see Ada dealing with a stalking enemy. Due to RE4 being so much more plot-lined streamed to maintain the flow of gameplay, these events were not allowed to be random, but the narrative purpose remains. Ada gets to have a stalking enemy in her DLC like Claire and Leon did in RE2 with the addition of a hubris check.

The hubris check? Well, Ada has never been infected until this DLC. In the original games, she can step back and watch people die because she doesn’t know what it feels like. Now she knows what it feels like. The lack of control. The pain. The slow turning. Her job has had her flirting with death for years, but not in a way she can’t fiddle with the odds. A parasite is not something a person can distract with words. The action to steal the amber is backed up via personal experience not just a morality code slapped on. The addition of Wesker’s correction to “billions of causalities” means she’s included in that number and just cements her incentive to flee. She’s not doing this for Leon. She’s not doing this for Luis. She’s doing this for herself, and if it so happens to help other people then it is what it is. After being on both sides of the coin when it comes to viruses, she can no longer function as entirely impartial to the work she’s doing.

-Ada doesn’t ask for permission but asks for forgiveness. Don’t take this phrasing literally. She doesn’t ask Wesker to forgive her. What this means is that she’ll do something before asking, and if it upsets people then she’ll course correct. Her job is not the kind of job where she needs to take orders for every action she implements which is why Wesker calling every five minutes was annoying as hell. In the OG RE4 she kind of argues with Wesker for Leon to live for “his usefulness”, but it’s swiftly shut down until it’s convenient to Wesker for Leon to live. This forces her to sneak around and betray Wesker multiple times to save Leon secretly, and the concept rightfully gets thrown into the garbage for the remake DLC.

The scene in the bedroom where Wesker tells Ada not to become a liability after taking her blood? Ada doesn’t fight to get her shit back. Some people said this was flirting. Wrong. This is Ada seeking forgiveness after the fuck up of passing out in the middle of an active field by letting Wesker walk off with an infection sample. She then makes sure not to fuck up a second time in the same way, and she doesn’t. She learns the signs of her parasite so in case she does pass out again, she’ll be somewhere much less conspicuous. She listens for the changes in her environment and the feelings in her body and prepares herself for what’s next.

-Ada saves Leon and Ashley for Luis’ sake. I stated earlier that Ada’s action to take the amber was for her own sake but ends up helping others. This is the exact situation going on when Luis talks about getting the suppressant. She needs the suppressant in order to do her job and kill the black robe so she can heal. It just so happens that Leon and Ashley need the suppressant for survival reasons too. They are an afterthought until Luis dies.

We watch Ada question Wesker and his plans all throughout this DLC, and she comes to her own conclusions after her experience working with him. She could’ve gotten the amber back and let the whole place blow into smithereens like Wesker intended. Who cares about the president’s daughter? Who cares about another dead federal agent? Luis did. He cared so much he died for it, and just like that other clown in Raccoon City (aka her), she got emotionally attached. If there was anything she could’ve done for Luis to make his death mean something, it was this act.

-Ada sells Leon’s jacket. This isn’t analysis, but I thought this was funny as hell. ACAB! No exceptions! Freeze your tiddies off, Leon! I don’t give a shit!

-Ada’s new outfit is still better than her old one. It’s still not the best they could’ve given her. I’m also not speaking from a fashion point of view when I say this. In the OG RE4 we see Leon in a jacket which is forcibly removed to show off his pecs to the ladies, but it clearly marks a colder time of year. OG RE4 Ada has arms out, legs out, and tits out because a hoe never gets cold. The sweater dress for the remake re-establishes that it’s colder here because even Luis doesn’t lose his jacket. Ashley doesn’t lose her jacket either until they yoink it off her for ritual reasons. I still hate that the thigh high boots have that heel and would prefer the flats, but that’s going to be in the complaint paragraph below.

-Capcom sexism at play once again. I don’t give a shit about rigs and motion capture or whatever, her walk cycle was 2 adjustments from being full Bayonetta, and I hate it. The ass shots? Disrespectful. Her heels didn’t have to be that high. Never heard of a kitten heel? They exist. The people who worked on RE3 Remake and worked on this DLC sure love to make a woman vomit don’t they? Why the fuck was she so clean the entire game? She was being thrown around and tossed in the dirt a lot, but this woman’s skin is shinier than a waxed apple. Either she has some wet wipes on hand, or god forbid women get filthy. Absolutely zero reason she shouldn’t have been looking as rough as Leon by the time she gets on the helicopter! No reason at all!

That’s all they wrote! I love Ada. I loved this DLC, and I loved the dynamics going on here even though I hated every time Wesker was on screen or opened his mouth at all.

As much as I would love to expand this post and go further into the changed Ada and Leon relationship, I frankly hate all the takes I’ve been seeing so much on either side of the Aeon debate. I hate the ongoing conversation around it so much that I don’t know if I want to discuss this at all. The Aeon should’ve gotten this if not for Luis and Ashley side and the Aeon is dead side going back and forth with each other? All of you put on your clown noses! None of you are looking at this situation objectively to see where the lines cross and where they run alongside each other, and frankly I’m tired! I could clear this whole table off so both of you can get exactly what you want based on what you’re not actually interpreting from this media, but I won’t! Kill each other!

[kaluawoo]

Can we all take a moment to appreciate how GX mostly seamlessly managed to go from happy slice-of-life, to drama, to horror?

[lulubeanie]

Alright :] here we go

I have a lot to say so this is gonna be a bit of a long post, just warning you beforehand

So it's a dhmis au if you didn't already know

It doesn't have an official name yet, I've just kinda been calling it my post canon au for the time being because well. that's what it is (it's also the au Bunny exists in! More towards the end though)

It's very self indulgent and probably my most uh. the au where the least bad things happen and it's generally very happy and fun and silly

Basically, Red guy has a nightmare (I'm not sure if I wanna include the nightmare as part of it or leave it up to interpretation. I've written out what it could be, but idk if it's better to leave it out or not)

It scares him so badly that he’s convinced they have to leave right then and there (specifically while it’s still dark and the cameras aren’t rolling yet)

The others are against the idea at first, but Yellow guy warms up to it pretty quickly

Duck guy, on the other hand, is still very against and keeps making excuses and stalling (like saying it'd be better for them to leave the next night so they have time to plan and pack and stuff when he's really just hoping they'll forget about it by morning, for instance)

Him and Red guy eventually have a fight about it, which ends with him being ..sort of convinced? reluctantly agreeing? He decides he's going with them at least

They find the teachers (which are all ok and not dead or anything btw, they probably have their own back up versions or something) and let them know they're leaving

Some of them decide they want to come with and the transport man says he'll drive them where they're going. as long as Red guy isn't the one behind the wheel and doesn't try to take charge

They all go on a road trip :] but it's much more cramped than the first one because there's more people and for some reason the transport man decided that he should be the car morph the whole time

Along with all the teachers that came with, they also have to find room for the cat's crate and the hamster/mouse/rat (??)'s cage (their flesh creature and pet animal are ok too :])

Fun times :] (they are not having fun)

They find Claire, Andy, and Duncan (maybe Janet's with them too??) along the way who say they'll take everyone to the town they’ve been living in (they have their own car, so the others just kinda follow behind)

Once they get to the town, Claire says that since none of them have houses yet, they can stay in their (Claire, Andy, and Duncan (and maybe Janet) all live together) house until they can get their own

The house is pretty cramped for a couple of weeks, until some of the teachers start moving out to their own homes

The 3 of them are the last to leave (it takes them a few months, I think)

They decide they wanna live together in one house, rather than Red guy's original idea, which was to live separately

They decorate it similarly to their old house because despite the horrors, they did like that house and the way everything was organized

They've got their own little community and neighbors that come to visit and stuff :]

Other things that idk where to put:

Duck guy gets jealous after finding out that the jobs crew (Claire, Andy, and Duncan) came up with nicknames for Yellow guy during the time they were working together (since he doesn’t really have a name they could call him) and decides that him and Red guy (they didn't really have any nicknames for him and just called him boss or Mr. Peterson) need one too

The 3 of them still have memory problems from time to time. Usually not as bad as before, but sometimes it's pretty bad. The first morning after they left was the worst of it, they couldn't remember who the others were or what they were doing there (they eventually remembered, but it was pretty stressful when they couldn't)

I think it'd be funny if the coffin didn't come with them originally and moved in later on and Duck guy got all excited when he saw him like "I know that guy! That's my friend!! Hello! Remember me? Looks like we'll be neighbors! Won't that be fun?" while the coffin is trying his best to ignore him

Yellow guy and Claire are still married, they just agreed it would be better if they lived separately (Though sometimes Claire will stay at the house with Yellow guy for a couple of days and sometimes Yellow guy will stay at the house with Claire for a couple of days)

I heard there's something going on with ao3 at the moment so I'm not sure about posting it there rn (maybe later, we'll have to see)

But does anyone wanna hear about the au I've been writing about?