#and then the main girls. by which i mean ada claire jill

[echidnana]

I feel like all resident evil polls just turn into "who's the most popular character" 😭

[lovvedaggers]

I watched the Resident Evil movie (wish i didn't but here we are)

Chris is a cardboard of Max Steel

Jill is trigger happy and in love with Wesker (would not mind this if Wesker had the same character arc)

Wesker isn't the man behind it all but just some guy that wants to leave

Claire becomes the main character which means a lot of other character's skills go to her.

Leon is turned into an useless drunk who's dad is covering up for him. Of course he can't load a shotgun or even shoot properly despite being a trained officer. He's stupid so we can prop up the white girl.

The Birkins have no use. William is there for a boss fight. Anette goes from evil genius in the games to screaming caring mother in the movie. Sherry does nothing.

Chief Irons isn't disgusting enough

No Ada which means no character development for Leon. But it's ok because in this version Ada is a girlboss above Wesker! She's the villain! That's so progressive of us!

Well, it was awful. Why is it so hard to make a movie inside a mansion and then make a second one in the city? You don’t have to cram 10 characters and 20+ hours of story into a 2h movie.

[imabasicbishh]

Whether or not you consider Ada a main character or not has always been up for debate, and people have different opinions. I’ve seen different statements from various people such as: a main character needs to be the main playable character in a title, that the mains are only Chris, Jill, and Leon, and even claims that Chris Redfield is the one true actual main character since he’s been in the most things while Leon & Jill are just the poster boy and poster girl, etc. I don’t believe there’s any official list of who the “mains” are.

Even if you only see Ada as a side/supporting character, I don’t really get why that would make her “pointless”. It’s valid to recognize that Capcom has trouble with their execution, but that literally applies to all the other characters too as being undeveloped, not just Ada. People saying she should have stayed dead in the OG RE2, well she always throw you the rocket launcher at the end of your B route whether you’re playing Leon or Claire, so Capcom never intended for her to die. What you really mean is you wanted her to truly be the cliche plot device you claim that she is, where her death would only be a means to motivate the male hero. Other than video games, supporting characters in stories for all mediums are extremely important, both for character development & world building. What great story consists of only “main characters” ?? I don’t look at side characters and wait for them to “serve their immediate purpose” and expect them to just drop off, that, in my opinion, is one of the most contrived way of moving any story & character forward. The dynamic between Leon and Ada in RE2 wasn’t just to show us the effect she had on him, but the effect they both had on each other. They both entered and survived Raccoon City, coming out as as different people than when they started.

You know what, I’m glad Capcom doesn't just view her has an expendable supporting character just to develop their “mains”, and treats her as character in her own right. So often you have fans bring up how Capcom keeps introducing new people & end up doing nothing with them ever again like Billy, Carlos, Sheva, Helena etc. Now with Ethan being the playable main for two consecutive games in a row, I see people saying they should have used someone from their long roster instead to develop them more. If you see her existence as something ONLY to develop Leon or this overall “narrative”, that I don’t even think Capcom fully had planned out when Shinji Mikami left the company after RE4, then I guess you would deem her pointless in that game. However, she’s her own person that had her own mission and Leon just happened to be there too. Separate Ways is literally her perspective for her story, which DOES give us a lot more insight to her character from what we knew of her in RE2. Why would Capcom give a character a whole side game with multiple chapters, that takes hours to complete, allowing players to save their progress, if they didn’t think she was important?

If you find Ada and Leon’s relationship lacking in development in RE4, I, and I’m sure many others, would agree. Of course we all expected more from their interactions. But that’s not the fault of Ada’s character or Leon’s, it’s in the writing. At the end of RE2 Leon’s goal was to take down Umbrella.  Then at some point within those 6 years after, he somehow finds out the person he developed strong feelings for, who died right before him, is actually alive. Not just that, but she’s working with someone who is in part responsible for all the tragedy that happened. It make’s you wonder how he must have felt in that moment, he who contemplated suicide many times after that night in Raccoon City, when he sees her again for the first time. If they had been allowed to actually have a conversation during that confrontation then it easily would have added more to both their characters and further developed their relationship. But I guess it would just be better to write her out of the entire game since she’s pointless right?

[softdadcarlos]

Date Me

Masterlist

Fandom: Resident Evil/Biohazard

Pairing: Jill/Carlos

AU: College students!Carlos and Jill

Summary: Upon his first meeting with Jill, Carlos was whipped. But with constantly being shot down only to be teased by long time friend Tyrell, Carlos is determined to try anything.

Requested by @xnearyx​ and an anon. I am so sorry that this is basically crack.

There was never a dull day at the College of Raccoon City. Doors had strange locking mechanisms and puzzles that you had to solve in order to even get into the class. And unless you were Ada Wong, you’d need a fucking miracle to get into the room after a lesson was scheduled to start. It wasn’t unusual to see Ada scaling the outside of the main campus building or Chris Redfield brute-forcing a door open. The faculty seem to be okay with all this… Well all of them except Marvin. Poor Marvin was the new head of security on campus and could only give hints to help students out. It was legitimately written into his contract. And what happened to the previous head of security Mr Irons? It happened when Professor Burkins bought his daughter to show her what he does for a living. Mr Irons was taking an interest in her and the next thing you know he’s mysteriously fallen down two flights of stairs and Professor Burkin was taken in for questioning. So yes, never a dull day at all.

Which is why Carlos didn’t bat an eye when he saw the college’s star football player, Nemmy, approach S.T.A.R.S captain, Jill Valentine. S.T.A.R.S was the college’s soccer team but don’t ask what it means, no one knows. What did have Carlos preparing to intervein was when things went from calm to hostile, in the blink of an eye Nemmy was throwing a punch at Jill… And she fucking caught it! She caught his fist and thrown him judo style over her shoulder!

“Holy shit. What a woman…” Carlos uttered in amazement before movement out his peripheral vision caught his attention. Dragging his eyes from the victorious captain, Carlos spotted the silver-haired Nikolai creeping up behind her, trying to get the drop on her. Carlos was quick to run and subdue the would-be assailant, getting him into a headlock.

“Hey!” Nikolai shouted, a mistake on his part.

Quick as a flash Jill whipped around and, as soon as she spotted the struggling bug-eyed bastard, kicked him in the dick. Carlos immediately let go, letting the man fall into a heap on the floor cupping his delicates.

“I told you Nikolai: ‘The next time I see you I’ll be taking away your ability to reproduce’. Did you really think I’d let you and those other Umbrella Scholarship bastards spike the drinks of my girls?” Jill growled out, crouching down to jab at him.

Carlos awkwardly cleared his throat, he and his friend Tyrell were also on the Umbrella scholarship programme… Jill looked up at him, smiling. Carlos was done for, her smile was so precious as well as her need for justice. Definitely his kind of girl.

“Oh, sorry about this. Thanks for the save earlier.”

Carlos scratched his beard, looking away so he doesn’t get entranced by her ocean blue eyes, “No problem. The asshole is in my business class and let’s just say we have clashing views on workers rights and treatment.” Jill raised a single perfect eyebrow in question. “He’s a militant conservative capitalist. I’m a liberal socialist.”

Jill nodded getting up out of her crouch, “Fair enough, well best be going before these two recover. You should too.”

And with that, she walked away.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two months passed. Two months of Carlos attending S.T.A.R.S matches and practices so that he could see the girl who stole his heart in action. Boy, seeing her shout out orders to her teammates was something incredible. It also meant two months of talking to her afterwards and asking her out to dinner, which always got shot down because “I need to focus on my matches and studies. I don’t have time for a boyfriend”.

And Tyrell hadn’t been blind to his friend’s new-formed habit that has him arriving in their shared apartment later than usual and out on weekend mornings.

“So who are you hung up on this time? I haven’t seen you this down in the dumps since that girl you were crushing on in high school started dating that Brad guy.”

Carlos sighed, head in hand as he stared down at the assignment he was working on, “It’s Jill-”

Tyrell snorted, an amused smirk on his face, “Captian of the women’s soccer team Jill?” Carlos didn’t respond, giving Tyrell his answer, “Man you better give up on that soon. I heard that she’s never dated anyone in her entire time here.”

“But I can’t T, she’s just so incredible. How could I possibly stop thinking of someone who cares about her team so much she’ll sacrifice her social life and dare to go toe to toe with Nemmy? Fucking Nemmy. And on top of that, sometimes if she’s free and I’m late to a lesson, she’ll pick the doors lock so I can get in. And you know how fucking weird the doors are here. That is an honest to god talent right there.”

“Yeah, but didn’t she accidentally set off a trap that had the ceiling nearly crush her if it wasn’t Professor Bruton?”

“That was in freshman year, we’re seniors now.”

Tyrell just shook his head and got back to work, knowing that there was no reasoning with Carlos once he set on something.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was after a victorious match against the male S.T.A.R.S team that it happened. Carlos was waiting outside the women’s locker room like he usually did. Not in a creepy kind of way. If anything he chugged respect-women-juice as if he would die without it. No, it was simply because that’s normally where he’d wait for Jill to talk to her and make sure Nikolai wasn’t lurking nearby to ambush her. However, this time while he was waiting, a freshman named Claire approached him.

“Hi there!” She greeted him cheerfully, smiling up at him.

Carlos being someone who never ignores a person unless given a reason to, smiled back, “Hi.”

“I’ve seen you at all our games and practices for the past couple of months, I love that you’re so supportive of the team.” She was positively beaming at him, her hand coming to rest on his arm. “Do you play any sports? If you do, I’d love to go watch.”

“Uh yeah, I’m on the football team under the Umbrella scholarship- but I’m nothing like some of the other guys on the team. I heard about how they tried to spike your drinks.”

“Oh, I know you’re not like them. Jill told us about how you helped her kick some sense into Nikolai… So if I asked you to dinner after your next practice, would that be okay?”

The sound of Jill’s voice coming from behind startled them, Claire’s hand quickly returning to her side, “I’m afraid he can’t. He’ll be busy.”

Carlos was confused, “I’ll be busy?”

“Of course, you’ll be having dinner with me. Isn’t that what you’ve been asking for these past couple of months?” Jill’s hand came to rest where Claire’s had been as she turned to face her slightly, “So sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you, but I just found a free slot in my time today so it’s a little impromptu.”

Claire pouted but listened to her captain, walking away to meet up with her older brother who shot Carlos the “I’m watching you” sign.

Carlos looked to Jill, “What happened to ‘I can’t date because I’m dating my GPA’?”

Jill met his gaze but couldn’t last long before looking away, bashful, “It's selfish but I didn’t like the idea of you going on a date with anyone that isn’t me.”

Carlos grinned, wide and boy-ish, “I’ve only got eyes for you, chica.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: I love hearing from you guys! Please tell me what parts you liked!

I do take requests! If you have any feel free to ask for one! But before requesting one please look at my to do list to see if someone has already asked for what you had in mind :) I'm also on twitter @mxbelmounte.

[rpdwong]

[LET’S TALK RE2MAKE] Claire, Sherry (+ Leon) and Found Families

The Found Family trope is probably one of my favourite fictional tropes. Give me those relationships where a group of characters with nothing in common find each other and they become “home” and support each other, no matter what. It’s a powerful message: you choose your family. If you’re lucky, you might have a nice biological family that loves you. But that’s not always the case, and people should bond over something more than their blood ties. I think Claire and Sherry’s (and Leon to some extent) story in RE2 rings very true to this trope, and I was looking forward to watching how it developed in the RE2make.

Once again, I was happily surprised—to the point where I was almost teary eyed at certain scenes. I love Resident Evil with all my heart, and I cry at literally everything, but RE doesn’t usually have dramatic tension or sadness that hits that hard. But Claire’s scenario in RE2make did manage to get me and man, Claire and Sherry deserve a hug, a shower, all the puppies and parrots.

Sherry’s strangled relationship with her parents was explored in the original game. But, as I mentioned in my previous Let’s Talk RE2make about Ada and Leon, the game had its shortcomings when it comes to storytelling, simply because it’s a product of its time. I know RE2make is probably not most narrative driven game (we have BioWare games and, even though I haven’t played all of their games, I know Naughty Dog is praised for this) and it could do better, but when it comes to Resident Evil it IS a huge improvement—and this shows with Sherry’s character as well as Annette.

You see the strained relationship between mother and daughter in their brief encounters, you can also see that the Birkins were REALLY shitty parents, but Annette did care about her daughter—though that doesn’t really excuse her behaviour, but people are complicated and this is how it is.

So we have this poor little girl with huge abandonment issues, running around a police station looking for her mom, though she knows Annette doesn’t always have time for her (you might think NOW she should). But she is scared, she’s been chased by a monster (and as far as I remember, I think she’s aware the monster is William, right?? I really need to replay all scenarios, just writing all this  from memory), alone and defenseless…

And then she meets Claire.

I think it’s important to highlight that Claire is also very young here, just 19 years old. A BABY AS WELL. We know she’s capable of looking out for herself, but it’s still a terrible situation, she might even be still worrying about Chris’ whereabouts here (depending on which scenario you play). But Claire, despite having no obligation to take care of Sherry, looks after her and decides to help her find her mom/escape.

Claire even takes it upon herself to save her from Irons. Again, Claire could just have walked out once she makes it out of the station—but she doesn’t. So, for once, there is somebody there for Sherry. Someone she can rely upon and trust, who makes her feel protected, as any child should (especially in a situation like this).

When Claire rescues Sherry from the dumpster, after she’s been infected, Sherry asks her why Claire is doing all this. Claire answers: “Because I care.” Then I start crying, because this is so beautiful. It’s not that Annette doesn’t care, we know she does in some way—but she’s still terrible with Sherry (that conversation they have over the CCTV makes me want to punch Annette so, so badly)  when the girl needs her the most, needs that reassurance that “hey, everything’s going to be fine”.

Claire is the one who gives her that, who genuinely cares about her and shows it. It’s great that Claire also calls out Annette on her shitty behavior a few times (when she finds Sherry and later on before fighting G 3). When they’re on the cable car, Claire wants to give her the pendant back. Sherry rejects it, because it was a gift given by her mother, when all she wanted was for her to be home and spend time with her. It’s a sort of memento of everything that’s wrong between mother and daughter, in some way. Doesn’t help that, later on, we find out the pendant is the key to get the vaccine. We could say this is Annette’s saving her daughter in some way, but I also think it’s just another link to Annette and William’s job, which was the problem in the first place.

In the end, the bond Sherry and Claire develop is that of a newfound family. Thankfully, for the first time, Capcom has given us confirmation on what the hell happened to Chris and Claire’s parents, and we know they died in a car accident. So she only had her brother as family, which is why Chris is so important to her. The reason she travelled to Raccoon City because she hadn’t heard about him in a whole month. Maybe she even knew about the mansion incident, so she was getting worried something might’ve happened (though I don’t think Chris would tell her much, just to protect her).

But the thing here is that Sherry doesn’t even have a Chris. She has nobody, she’s alone. Claire can relate to being parentless, that’s why she bonds with Sherry (as she tells her to comfort her at the beginning). But, just as she had Chris, Sherry deserves that one person she can trust and rely upon—and that’s her now. They become family during this terrible experience, because Claire moved heaven and hell to save Sherry when no one else did. She was there for her when it mattered, unlike her parents (disclaimer: even though I really like Annette’s evolution in this game and she’s a good character, you can see I hold a grudge against her— it made me so angry how she treated Sherry!).

Now, I mentioned Leon in regards to the Found Family trope, because I think he more or less is a part of it. Leon, Claire, Sherry and Ada are all the “original” Raccoon City survivors (we have Jill afterwards, but since her story is completely isolated from RE2 and in a different game, I don’t think it counts for this). Ada’s a complicated case because of her role in the story and she only makes contact with Leon (except for that tiny moment in the original, where she retrieves Sherry’s pendant) and she doesn’t actually escape with them.

But Leon and Claire are our heroes, they make it out alive of Raccoon City and they help Sherry in the process. Even though in the RE2make Leon and Claire interact way less than in the original, and Leon doesn’t even meet Sherry until the very end, I think that last scene still resonates in the audience as a family moment, in which Leon is included.

In the original it’s all fun and games, until Leon says the “It’s up to us to take out Umbrella” or Claire says “I have to find my brother”. They have made it all more light hearted and fun in the RE2make, which I also think is much more realistic than just HEY WE HAVE TO BRING UMBRELLA DOWN or Claire immediately leaving, as RE3’s epilogue implied. After all she’s done for Sherry, she wouldn’t just leave her like that.

I have heard of two main criticism regarding the ending I’d like to address before finishing up this thing:

a) Sherry is way too cheerful after having just lost both her parents (and especially her mom, whose death affects her more). I can understand this and it is a valid complain, but I also think it could be a coping mechanism. That’s why she even jokes with the “You guys could adopt me!” because now she’s lost her real family, but has found a new one in Claire, and hey, this new guy seems to be on Claire’s good side and he’s helping and taking her to safety. I mean, I’d LOVE to be adopted by Leon and Claire, who wouldn’t??? I also think this is a case of Resident Evil not being ever really 100% down to Earth. RE endings always end up in a hopeful note, sometimes even cheesy. It’s a way to comfort the player as well, after all the terrible things we’ve been through with our characters. I think this is just another version of that, and it’s so beautiful to watch Leon and Claire holding Sherry’s hands and walking into the sunset. There might be problems ahead, but hey, they made it out! They are alive! It’s less cut and dry than the original, and it gives you a feeling that they’ve all bonded over this experience. And this is so fitting with what we know from RE6 Sherry. She talks about Leon and Claire with the utmost admiration, tells Jake they’re the reason she’s alive and she just wants to live up to their example. I think this ending resonates with that feeling she shares in RE6 and it’s beautiful.

b) Capcom is pushing Leon/Claire as a pairing. Ok, let’s open this can of worms. First of all: I hate shipwars, they are pointless and a waste of precious fandom time, and I don’t ship Leon and Claire, never have in my whole life, but I do see the appeal and it’s clear some of their interactions in the remake are kinda flirty. And this is all fine. Now, I don’t think their interactions at the end are the flirty ones. 

When Claire jokes about the “one helluva first date”, she’s answering Leon’s comment when Sherry asks them about the girlfriend/boyfriend thing (where he points out they’ve just met, literally). Then Leon’s answer to Claire is clearly a reference to what has actually happened to him with Ada. That being said, Capcom was probably teasing the idea in a fan servicy way, but it’s still all in-character. Sherry’s the one pushing all those things here, and it can be explained because she’s just a 12 years old girl and is wondering who Leon is and why Claire knows him, since they’re happy to see each other alive. Hence the adoption comment later on. Sherry craves a family and, right now, these two people are practically her world after having suffered terrible things. 

I do see Leon and Claire as sort of parental figures to Sherry, or at least the big sister/brother vibe, but that doesn’t mean Capcom is pushing anything here, IMO. My only gripe with all this is that I liked the idea of Claire being one of the few female characters that had  0 romantic tension with Leon, but still I don’t think we can call it that since they barely interact and it was just flirty banter. (I do enjoy, though, that their interactions are friendlier than in the original and they keep cheering each other up with those “We’re gonna make it!!). And hey, they’re both VERY PRETTY. If I were Leon, I’d get all flustered around Claire and viceversa. As some people have pointed out, both characters have a record of being flirty in general with other people, so this isn’t out of character for them either. In any case, I don’t think this is what’s happening in the ending scene and, even though it’s a nice fan service moment for people who do ship Leon and Claire, it can be seen just as a easily as a Found Family moment without any romantic connotations. Both work perfectly and leave every fan happy, no need for ship dramas. They ruin everything and it’s not worth it.

Seriously, that image of the three of them walking together into the sunset, holding hands fills my heart with happiness <3 Whether you ship one thing or another, don’t let anyone or anything rob you of the beauty this moment holds for Resident Evil history.