#or like give him a second chance

[sapphire-weapon]

I’m about to vomit out a bunch of thoughts, and I’m not sure any of this is going to make sense by the end, but. I’ve been thinking a LOT about these three lines in RE4make:

“You haven’t changed. You just think you have.”

“You can’t save her. You can’t save anyone.”

“This time, it has to be different...”

I’ve seen people focus in on that Krauser line and tie it directly back to Sherry, which is cool! Even as recently as five years ago, people completely glossed over Sherry’s impact on Leon’s life, and it’s cool that the remakes have had people digging into his character and realizing “oh shit, literally everything that happens to him after RE2 is because of his paternal love for Sherry.”

But... Krauser’s line is about more than just her.

With the remake turning Krauser into Leon’s combat trainer, chances are he knows about everything that happened in Raccoon City. And I don’t mean, like. He read a government file. Leon probably told him.

In OG, Krauser and Leon have this exchange of dialogue:

Krauser: “What is it that you fight for, comrade?” Leon: “My past, I suppose.” Krauser: “Hmph. Umbrella.”

It was axed completely from the remake, because it doesn’t make sense for it to happen in the remake. If Krauser was Leon’s trainer, that question was probably asked very early in their relationship. And since they weren’t currently in a fight to the death, and because they weren’t already six years removed from Raccoon City, chances are, Leon’s answer was a bit more involved than just “my past.”

So, let’s back up a little bit. In RE2make, they basically turned Kendo into a completely different character. OG Kendo was literally just there to point a shotgun at Leon and/or Claire and then go “oh my bad you’re not a zombie” and hook them up with some guns before he gets eaten. In RE2make, he’s a desperate and terrified father just trying to spend his last few moments with his infected 6 or 7 year old daughter before she turns. After he shuts the door on Leon and Ada, Leon turns to Ada and says, “Protecting people like that is why I joined the force.”

But Leon doesn’t protect or save Kendo or his daughter. He doesn’t protect or save... anyone. Every single person that Leon comes into contact with and tries to save dies horrifically -- and some, he even has to kill, himself (Marvin Branaugh). The only people who make it out of Raccoon City alive are people who saved themselves (Claire and Ada).

Of course, there is Sherry. But Leon didn’t save Sherry; Claire did. ESPECIALLY in remake canon, since nearly all of Leon’s scenes with Sherry got severely shortened or removed completely in RE2make.

But then, when Claire entrusts Sherry to Leon’s care (on his own insistence, per her RE3 epilogue), he goes and fucks that up, too. Gets her kidnapped and held hostage indefinitely by the federal government, and the only thing he can do about it is do exactly as they say and just hope they keep their end of the bargain and not hurt her.

So, when Krauser says “You can’t save anyone,” he means anyone. Ever. And even up to that point in RE4... Leon got the two officers who drove him into town killed, and he watched Luis die a slow, agonizing death right in front of him. And then, past that point, Leon has to kill Krauser with his own hands. Then he watches Mike die.

Ashley is literally Leon’s first and only success story, up to this point in canon. (And even when you go all the way up to current-day canon, Ashley is one of... three? People? I can think of? Total? Who Leon actually saves?)

So, Leon saying, “This time, it has to be different,” he doesn’t just mean Sherry. He means Ada. He means Kendo. He means Marvin. He means the entirety of Raccoon City. He’s staring down a repeat of what happened back then, not in terms of the bioterror situation, but in terms of his own personal failures. His survivor’s guilt. He can’t handle the thought that he’ll be the only person to walk away again -- and he refuses to be.

And that’s why Ada’s line bothers me so fucking much.

I mean, first of all -- Ada, you haven’t seen this man in six years, and you’ve spent a total of like five minutes with him since meeting up with him again here, so how the fuck would you even know -- but even aside from that...

To be clear: she’s right.

But she’s also wrong.

Leon has changed -- to an extent. In RE2 (OG or remake), Leon honestly believed that if it was lawful, then it was also morally right. He doesn’t believe that anymore. There’s no more “letting the law sort it out” or trusting in the power of authority for him anymore. His moral compass has been boiled down to: “If you hurt or murder innocent people, you’re a fucking asshole, and I don’t really care who you are, I’ll kill you myself.”

RE2 Leon was willing to hear people out and give them an honest benefit of the doubt -- even Annette Birkin. RE4 Leon just tells people to shut the fuck up before opening fire.

RE2 Leon was honest and trusting to a fault, and he felt stronger as part of a team. RE4 Leon is suspicious almost to the point of paranoia, and he just wants to be left the fuck alone to do his job.

These are all things that were really important to who Leon was in Raccoon City, and they’re reasons why things turned out the way they did for him, back then.

But at the same time, Ada’s right in saying that, at the core of it all, Leon is still that kind-hearted, decent guy who just wants the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. That’s why it hits him somewhere sensitive when Krauser says: “You can’t save anyone.” 

It’s just that, now, the way he approaches it is different. His outlook on life in terms of his goals is different. His expectations for it have changed.

So, if Leon had been smarter/wittier, he absolutely could have turned it around on her and said: “No, I’ve definitely changed. You just think I haven’t.”

And not only would that sound threatening as fuck, he’d also be right. They both would be, at that point.

And for all of those major parts of him to have changed and still be facing down the possibility of failing every single person he comes across, especially Ashley...

"This time, it has to be different.”

And this time, it was.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Gregory is NEVER getting unbanned at this rate

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[ruporas]

special operatives (silly interaction beneath read more)

[ID: Digital Art in color of Trigun Maximum, characters included are Wolfwood, Elendira, and Legato in a casual meeting situation. The piece consists of orangey yellow lighting and purple shadows. Wolfwood sits on the left side, facing Elendira who’s on the right. He’s seated on a plain wooden chair with one knee up and he’s holding the strap to his Punisher in his left hand while his right sits against his thigh, He has an irritated expression as he speaks to Elendira. Elendira is sitting in a fancier seat, her right arm rests against Wolfwood’s propped up knee, her left hand holds her suitcase. She’s sitting cross legged with an amused expression. Legato can be seen in the back at the center of the image in his mobile body case, one of his eyes shown to be glaring at Wolfwood. End ID]

[ID: Sketch, uncolored comic. Elendira says to Wolfwood, “I’m not telling you to dedicate yourself to him, but just accept the situation at hand. We could get along better if we were on the same page.” Wolfwood responds, “Don’t peg me me for an optimist. I’m not dumb. But, I’m also not going to just live in resignation. Plus, I don’t have any interest in getting along with ya.” Elendira coos, “Aw, you sure? I have a wonderful shoulder to cry on when the weak people you’re trying to protect eventually dies in the coming months. Though, I guess it’s fine. Someone like you might just die before then anyway...” She snickers in her hand while Wolfwood is speechless and just glares. Legato is faintly drawn in the back, glaring at Wolfwood, muttering “worthless” repetitively. End ID]

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[eternity-death]

Had the thought/realization that regardless of if the Dream Master approved or disapproved of Sunday pursuing you, Sunday would still choose not to.

There are just too many factors that prevent him from doing so. A lack of time, for one. Sunday’s duties keep him on his toes constantly; he can’t find a moment of rest even in his sleep. He foresees his negligence of your relationship, and though unintentional, it still wouldn’t be fair to you.

His status as Oak Family Head would be another problem. How would you fare under the overbearing pressures that come with being his lover? Penacony is a planet of lights, glamour, and gossip. All eyes will be on you as soon as your relationship is publicized. You will be held at standards far higher than ever before, and the other Family Heads will be expecting nothing less. Sunday couldn’t possibly bring himself to burden you with all of this.

And of course, there’s his grand plan for Penacony.

I think that he’s been anticipating his sacrifice for a loooong time. Sunday acknowledges that he’ll be hurting you by leaving, and if you were in a relationship, then he would be hurting you even more.

You will be furious with him, surely. You’ve always chastised him for his self-destructive work habits.

But the image of you eternally safe and sound within Ena’s dream is enough to lay any rueful feelings to rest. He hopes that one day you’ll find it within yourself to forgive him.

[pineappical]

sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better

[xinyuehui]

"In reality, we cannot be completely separated from our past." ⸺ He Xiaofeng

伍六七之记忆碎片 · SCISSOR SEVEN S5EP9

[zouisalmightie]

and that’s the thing like tommy didn’t end things with buck because buck wasn’t out. he ended things with buck to give him the space and opportunity to get comfortable with the idea of dating a man without the added pressure of having to think about and worry about how tommy felt. he didn’t want buck to have to rush out of the closet he wanted to give him a chance to truly think about how his life will shift if/when he starts a queer romantic relationship.

[namaeekaki]

✨️🌈MISS GOLDEN WEEK BIRTHDAAY! 🎨🖌️

Buggy can handle a bit more of debt. It's for a good cause. the happiness of his daughter art assistant

[sysig]

Growing closer than expected (Patreon)

[boarloved-art]

i like the car movies a lot.......

[imminent-danger-came]

I really do hate when people complain about a character trait/writing choice that isn't instantly gratifying (what they wanted) but contributed to the work's ideas and themes as a whole (what the writers wanted). Like idk get with the program man

[allisonsylvine]

kai get a move on ur gonna be late for school !!

this is unfinished cause the artist curse of carpal tunnel has its grips on me more than ever, rip all the little details i had planned 💔

[ruporas]

soft (and some bittersweet)

[timetravelwitch]

the POTENTIAL this duo had

platonic or not, they would have loved each other