#there's also a lot to be said about ada and ashley and a bunch of locations but again. long enough

[seethinglikeme]

reaching the island is making me think about resident evil 4 remake and how good it is at visual storytelling.

the beginning of the game, with the sacrifice, is very warm-toned. then we cut to leon's perspective, and are immediately thrust into a very cold world. the states (the president's office, training, etc), in leon's flashback is all dark and dreary, covered in blue tones. even the flashbacks to racoon city are mostly cold, the only real warmth being a fire (although i'm not too inclined to count that when discussing re4r's visual because idk if those are clips from re2r, which obviously has its own colours and stuff, or if they were specifically made for re4r. but i wanted to mention it since it is part of the opening cutscene and therefore your intro to the game). then, once you're out of the past and in the present, the inside of the police car and the bit of forest before you enter the hunter's lodge is also blue.

it's also very modern (or, you know, as modern as it can get, being set in 2004). the way leon, in both the present and flashbacks, and the officers are dressed is very clearly modern-day. same with the car - idk much about cars but it didn't strike me as a particularly old model or anything. so basically everything is all cold and contemporary, which immediately poses a stark contrast from the beginning sacrifice.

then you make your way to the hunter's lodge and everything changes. if you'd managed to forget about the sacrifice in the intro, you're pretty quickly reminded of it, because you're in their world now. the colour palette is suddenly a lot warmer, and the modern world is abandoned in favour of this antiquated, stuck-in-time setting. the lodge itself, the ganado and his clothing, the decor, everything makes you feel like you've been thrust into the past. the only thing that reminds you it's 2004 and not the mid 20th century or earlier is leon himself. the only warm colours in his palette come from his jacket, and even then, the brown (to me) looks like it has cool undertones, or at least neutral.

fast forward til you meet luis (there's probably more to discuss from the hunter's lodge til luis, especially when it comes to the village square, but i really wanna talk about luis, so.) even before you learn much about him, he's an interesting character just from a visual standpoint. for starters, his skin tone seems warmer than leon's, although i'm not sure. i'm not good at picking out undertones. but most important is his clothes.

luis wears (what appears to be) jeans, or at the very least, pants that look more modern than not (unlike the ganados), which works to make him feel out of place in this small, rural, stuck-in-time village. but he's also got this very detailed, well-crafted leather jacket, in reddish brown with warm gold decal. it's clearly not just something you buy off the shelf - it looks like a remnant of the days where clothes were handmade and tailored, where people didn't have much, so what they had was not easily replaced and discarded like they can be now. it makes him look of two worlds - part of him is in 2004 with leon and the rest, while part of him is still in this tiny little village, at an ambiguous point in time, unable to escape.

which is why, in hindsight, it's kind of obvious that he was going to die in the mines. because immediately after, leon goes off and fights ramon, wins, and then it's off to the island, which is far colder. still not cold, more neutral, but it's not the warm, stuck-in-time look of the village and the castle. it is (so far, anyway - i'm only on chapter 14) the closest any place in valdelobos gets to the cold modernity of the rest of the world. there's definitely a tie-in there to luis's guilt and difficulty letting go of the past being represented in his clothing, and why he needed to let go of his regrets in order to live, something he ultimately couldn't do, dooming him to die, but this post is long enough and i'm only scratching the surface.

[theggning]

Different anon than who spoke to sapphire-weapon but holy shit give me ALL of your metaltango thoughts from both OG and Remake please! That pairing is somethin' else.

ALL of them? Oh, anon, there's far too many for that... I do have plenty of thoughts though so if there's any specifics you might like do feel free to ask.

What I will do here is lay out some differences between Leon and Krauser's relationship (hypothetically romantic or otherwise) between OG and the remake and thus two different flavors of metaltango. Because Leon and Krauser are both pretty different characters between versions, *especially* Krauser, the differences make for some really interesting contrasts.

OG METALTANGO:

Leon and Krauser literally meet for the first time during Operation Javier (Darkside Chronicles version.) They are much more equal in standing and prestige, where Krauser is a career soldier with years of experience under his belt and Leon is the government's golden boy. There is kind of a gesture towards Krauser feeling jealous of Leon for this reason, but... well, there's kind of a lot of vague gestures made about Krauser's motivations that have always struck me as silly. (Poorly executed, to say the least.)

Because they meet for the first time on OJ and Krauser is immediately injured, any canon-compliant relationship between the two is going to have to happen in the aftermath/weeks and months after the mission. I've always kind of liked the idea that Leon befriends Krauser and they spend this time hanging out while Krauser is sidelined/in rehab to recover from his injuries. This has kind of been my go-to headcanon here, because otherwise there just really isn't any time for these two to even befriend one another apart from what's depicted in canon.

Once he decides to join up with Wesker to get his arm fixed/POWERRRR, Krauser fakes his death in a helicopter crash. This is presumably the source of the scars on his face in OG. Also, because he was discharged from the military, we are left to assume this helicopter crash happened while he was doing mercenary work (OG Krauser is said to work as a mercenary when he's not on duty with the military, because he feels unfit for normal society outside of the battlefield.)

OG Krauser works for Wesker, is genuinely loyal to him, and seems to genuinely enjoy his job. He joins up with the cult perhaps a few weeks before Ashley's kidnapping... and it is implied that the kidnapping was his idea to begin with to win Saddler's trust? Which it does not, incidentally. But I guess Saddler decides to opportunistically capitalize on the kidnapped head of state's daughter anyway. (OG Los Illuminados are a bunch of incompetent chucklefucks and their plans are completely doomed from the get go, ask me sometime.)

OG Krauser is sent by Saddler specifically to kill Leon, a task which he takes up with gusto due to... I don't know actually. If there's one constant with Krauser it's that his hatred for Leon is never really adequately explained, though at least the remake gives us a boatload of subtextual interpretations. I think OG metaltango is funniest if you interpret Krauser's grudge against Leon as the over-the-top actions of a jilted ex who left Leon on read when he got the breakup text (and also faked his death.) Anyway, one thing that really strikes me is how much fun Krauser seems to be having in OG. He's like, genuinely delighted to be attempting to murder Leon and with his plans to hand Leon's corpse over to Wesker once he's dead. (Put a pin in this one, it's a BIG change in remake.)

Leon is a lot more irritated with Krauser in OG and at least doesn't show an *unwillingness* to fight back. Only once Krauser has fallen does he lament that he "used to be a good guy..." He also seems really upset at Saddler boasting that he never trusted Krauser and the implication that Saddler was only using him.

Ada being the one to "really" kill Krauser in OG is dumb and has always been dumb, imo, and is more than likely an artifact of OG SW's clumsy development and what assets they had to work with.

REMAKE METALTANGO:

okay there is... a LOT more to work with here. Chiefest and most obviously, Krauser is now Major Krauser, and was Leon's commanding officer/mentor. This gives the two of them a much closer and more personal relationship, as well as 4+ whole years to work with, timeline-wise (Operation Javier happened in 2002.)

The mentor/student relationship provides another really delicious power dynamic to work with, shipping-wise. Yes, it's inappropriate for a military officer to have an affair with one of his subordinates, but we are also right in the middle of Don't Ask Don't Tell here so it's also literally forbidden for a soldier to be anything but heterosexual and still keep their job. Also consider, it's hot? Also like, bruh... if you're looking for Pure Wholesome Shipping Dynamics you are looking in the wroooooong ship.

Krauser is fulltime military this time around, no merc work to speak of (or at least no evidence of it.) He also never fakes his death in the remake. He has current contacts within the Secret Service AND is running around using his REAL NAME and ACTUAL military credentials to buy ordnance for Saddler (per SW,) there is absolutely no way we're meant to believe this man is legally dead.

There is evidence that Krauser showed special attention or favoritism to Leon, at least a little bit. Not only is Leon allowed to keep his hair while training (getting your head shaved/your hair cut short is like Basic Training Day One stuff,) but in the opening cutscene we see Leon and Krauser training in private in what appears to be a storage room- not a normal training space. Leon is the government golden boy here, but Krauser is also in charge of a whole unit of special forces guys. Somebody is getting private tutoring from the Major.

Leon respects and trusted Krauser. Krauser is said to have always been "an asshole" but also a man of honor. He is suggested to have been a difficult commanding officer, but also one who cared very deeply about his men and is traumatized by their avoidable deaths in OJ. (This one's my personal opinion, but I really can't stand the interpretation of Krauser having been an awful abusive piece of shit from the get go. Kind of wrecks the tragedy of his fall for me when he was always a cruel bastard. Why exactly would Leon trust, respect, want to emulate, or mourn such a person?)

So you could kind of intuit some trauma into OG Krauser, if you squinted. But there is absolutely no question that remake Krauser is suffering from some pretty massive PTSD. Along with his general unhingedness, all of his actions fit perfectly when viewed through a lens of a very, very traumatized man, used and abandoned by the government he trusted, desperate to gain the power that could have saved his men, and himself-- and the power to keep himself relevant so he can't be used and hurt again. I interpret that Krauser had his face scarred in OJ as well (he doesn't have the scars in the flashback scene with Leon.)

Remake Krauser joined Los Illuminados of his own free will, because they offered him the power to fix his crippled arm-- and the aforementioned power to unsuccessfully "fix" his trauma. But also, maybe it's just me, but I feel like remake Krauser does not give a fuck about the cult. He's loyal to Saddler, yes, but he openly disbelieves the cult religion ("Faith is for the weak, only power matters.") He commands the island mercs and helped set up the defenses, but he's also out here buying warheads under his own name. There is no way he doesn't think he's going to be caught by the U.S. sooner than later-- he just doesn't care. None of his notes read to me like somebody who genuinely thinks the cult has a chance to take over the world. Krauser joined these idiots so he could drink the juice, now the juice is all gone and he's still empty inside.

OG Krauser seemed to be having fun and set up his Leon deathmaze/training ground/mating display for a laugh. Remake Krauser, on the other hand, seems absolutely batshit out of his mind at this point-- alternating between the maze being a "final lesson" for Leon and a deathwish enactment mechanism for himself. Like... between Krauser's general demeanor and the "finish what happened two years ago" talk, this does not feel like a fight that Krauser wants to walk away from, whether or not he kills Leon. If OG Krauser killed Leon, he planned to bag him up and present him to Wesker like a trophy. If remake Krauser did... like, what's he going to do? Can you possibly picture him washing his hands of his blood and going back to work for Saddler? Because I sure can't. (I have a much longer meta piece in mind for this point... like I want to dissect the remake Krauser boss fight and his motivations therein at some point. Let me know if this sounds interesting.)

Remake Leon absolutely does not want to fight Krauser. Krauser forces every single encounter the two of them have. Even though Leon says "you won't get away with this" after Luis' death, he has absolutely no desire nor intention to hurt or kill Krauser back. He asks, over and over, if Krauser is "sure about this" and tries to talk sense into him. He is ready to straight up run away from the boss fight the first chance he gets.

I could probably write a whole other essay on Krauser's final moments and Leon stabbing him, which was one of the most shocking and powerful moments of the remake for me for several reasons. Like... god damn. Did anybody else think Leon was going to do the whole "I'm not like you and I won't do it" thing? (Though arguably it was more heroic/merciful/kind of Leon to put Krauser out of his misery here. Krauser clearly wanted it!!)

I was going to go to Capcom and chain myself to the doors in protest if they put the dumb stupid Krauser boss fight redux in Separate Ways after THAT absolutely poetic ending for him. Glad they didn't. Glad they actually showed Wesker picking up his corpse this time rather than handwaving it offscreen years after the fact.

If somebody has a heterosexual explanation for that picture of Leon in Krauser's tent, I'd certainly like to hear it. Because... bruh.

Well that felt extremely disjointed and pointless... But I hope it was useful or at least gave you some delicious food to feast on? (Or other ideas to interrogate me about, lmao.) Krauser is my favorite RE villain. For OG Krauser it was mostly for comedy reasons, but I am absolutely delighted that the remake gave him some real genuine pathos and a really compelling relationship with Leon.

Anyway, tl;dr metaltango, OG or remake: I ship it and I think it would be hot if they banged.

[solazu1]

I just wanted to say I think your runaway au is so cool :) how do you think Claire and Leon would react when they do reconnect with Sherry?

There’s so much lore I have for this au that to explain Leon and Claire’s role in this is just going to hurt my hands to type so I’ll try and keep it short. Leon and Claire reconnect with Sherry at different points in her life after she runs away and is taken in by Wesker. The first time they reunite is when Sherry is 17 (2003), she’s living with Wesker undercover in an undisclosed town connected to the umbrellas rival company for convenience of testing and closeness. (Note that I am still fleshing this specific part out so there’s not a lot of details) There is a leak and the U.S. government is notified of both of their locations and sends out a team to retrieve Sherry, capture Wesker, and raid the rival companies nearby facility. Leon and Claire are sent in with said team because of their connection, it goes really bad and becomes a total fail with wesker and Sherry getting away. They both feel a stronggg sense of guilt and defeat and it actually creates a strong rift between the pair as they start to blame each other for the failure of the mission. The second time is briefly in 2004 during the events of RE4r, Sherry is mostly sent out in place of wesker to inform Ada of information etc much to her criticism but there is a single instance where Leon sees Sherry but is convinced he’s tweaking out and must’ve mistaken Ashley or something.

The 3rd time it happens is post re5 before Sherry goes back to wesker upon rediscovering his death. Shes in the governments custody, awaiting trial. Claire is authorized to speak with her again after years of no contact but it also does not go as smoothly as hoped. Sherry is bitter and angry, filled with grief and regret and a whole bunch of complicated emotions that she verbally takes out on Claire. Claire mostly blames herself for letting any of this happen even though she couldn’t have even known that Sherry would’ve ran away when she was 14.

The 4th and so far last time technically I guess, is Re6. Sherry and Leon reunion. She pulls a gun on him, attempting to kill him but is intercepted by Helena. Jake, not knowing of who Leon, also tries to aid Sherry but the both of them are ultimately stopped and forced to work with Helena and Leon to take down that scary ass boss that I forgot the name of during the reuniting scene lol. The tension gets really stuffy because Sherry does agree to not harm Leon but she’s so insanely closed off about everything relating to herself and her own personal mission that not even a bullet can pierce through the tension. I have to replay the campaigns a few more times before I full decide my conclusion for her growth here but it will become mostly positive. I hope that answers your question lmao, I yapped a littl

[sapphire-weapon]

Did you see that Stephanie panisello said that she and Matt Mercer didn't even work together in DI?? LOL looks like the cl*on stans are outta luck. Ever since Leon x Ashley has been made 100% canon it looks like Capcom is finally gonna be sinking all those other ships and good riddance. After all these years thos cl*on shippers were SO sure they were gonn a be Leon's second canonical ship but NOPE! It was us! When Leon and Claire have zero real interactions in DI do you think they'll melt down as hard as a*on stans do?

dude what the fuck are you talking about LMAO

like there's so much going on in this ask idek where to start

i'm just gonna go down the list in order, i guess

like... so what's the implication here? that because steph and matt weren't in the sound booth at the same time, leon and claire don't interact in DI? when we've already seen them on screen together in the same scenes? because i'm pretty sure that the CGI movies aren't mocapped by the english cast like the games are -- i'm pretty sure that they're mocapped in japan, and the english cast just provides the voice acting. so, like. yeah. a lot of the time, when you're doing voice work, you don't work with the other actors. it's entirely possible that your scene partner hasn't even recorded their lines yet, and you're just trying to act and react off of text you're reading in a script. that's why voice acting is so hard and why so many film actors struggle to make the transition from film to voice.

leon/ashley is not "100% canon" in the way that you're implying here. leon/ashley is canon in resident evil 4 remake and nothing else. i have said this repeatedly. don't expect capcom to commit to this ship. capcom does not commit to ships in RE. capcom won't even canonize valenfield, and you really think they're going to commit to leshley?? LMAO

even if leon/ashley was "100% canon" in that way, it would only be in the remake verse. death island is OG canon, which means that aeon is still the name of the game there. OG canon has done absolutely nothing to kill the canonicity of aeon, so we need to assume that that whole thing is still going on.

cleon has been dead canonically for a fucking decade, so i have no idea where this sentiment of "finally" is coming from, here. damnation fatally wounded it, RE6 twisted the knife and ripped the hole open further, and the ending of infinite darkness coup-de-grace'd it. anyone who honestly thought cleon was still somehow going to become canon after RE6 is an actual legitimate fucking lunatic. which leads me to my next point...

i haven't seen cleon fandom be insane since about the time of damnation's release -- so, very early 2010s. in fact, i have not met a single cleon fan since then who was operating under any sort of delusion about what the state of their ship was in terms of the canon. cleon fandom lost this war years and years ago, and they all know it.

like. bro, leave cleon fandom alone. they've suffered enough, and they're our friends, besides. i know that there's a decent number of my followers (who are also probably some of my anons) who ship cleon first but still enjoy what RE4make did and are supportive of our ship.

and i also kind of ship cleon, to a certain extent. i've been pretty vocal about this.

i mean, hell, i would even be willing to ship aeon if capcom was ever willing to put at least some thought behind the execution of it, as opposed to none at all.

i just constantly take a shit on aeon fandom because they're a bunch of joyless fucks who can't allow anyone else to have anything ever and always have to chime in on every little thing with some form of "okay but leon loves ada tho" or "don't forget aeon is canon." like, fuck off, dude. aeon fandom is in a constant state of "the best defense is a good offense" as though anyone on the fucking planet is actually trying to take the canonicity of their ship from them.

they're not. we're not. aeon won the OG timeline. they need to stop being such sore winners and trying to rub their victory in everyone else's faces and shout down people who are still trying to have fun with other things.

and they're also a bunch of media illiterate dumbasses who sit around dreaming of happily-ever-afters for leon and ada and come up with headcanons for babies and shit, when all that shit is directly antithetical to the nature of the ship so i don't understand why the fuck they even like the ship to begin with, but that's a separate point.

so like

yeah dude, you need to pull yourself the fuck out of the late aughts. the war is over. it's done. it's time to stop fighting.

[the-squeege]

Hey there! In your infected!Leon au, do you have any ideas as to how other people react to his mutated form? I imagine that his meeting with Ada especially would go pretty badly, as in canon they’re already pulling weapons on each other, and that’s without any funky bug mutations. And once he gets back to the USA he’s gonna have a whole slew of problems on his hands, both how his friends will react to him and how the government will treat him.

I’ve got a few! To be honest, this is the part of the au I’ve dreaded writing because I worry about my abilities to keep characters in character…however this is by far one of my favorite parts of this au, I like imagining how people would react to Leon….

This is. A lot more writing then I expected which is why it took kinda long oops so bear with me.

I vaguely mentioned Ashley and Luis’s reactions in my last post…so I’ll keep it brief here.

Ashley’s terrified at first, especially since from her point of view, Leon just turned into a fucking monster and carried her off to god knows where. Once Leon gets her to a safe place, he’s able to do something that convinces Ashley it’s still him…not verbally though, his vocal chords are all sorts of funky now that his body is completely different. Ashley eventually warms up to him and gets really protective of him once they get back to the US…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

As for Luis, he isn’t even really scared, he can pretty easily tell Leon’s still in control. He’s more concerned/guilty about the fact that the stuff he was researching is ultimately to blame for this. So he tries especially hard to help Leon and since he lives in this au, he gets a lot of time later to try and get Leon back to a more human form.

Now for Ada. I had to think about this one a good bit since to be honest, it can be hard to tell how she’d react to something like this. By this point in the story, Leon’s able to speak, however it requires a good bit of concentration so if he gets too emotional or distracted by something he starts making bug noises. Which makes this encounter a whole lot harder for him!

The way I have their initial encounter right now starts similar to how it does in the game. I’m assuming Ada’s seen him before, but hasn’t had enough to connect the dots that this massive bug creature is actually Leon. So as Leon enters the room Ada’s also in, his quills perk up and he narrowly manages to avoid a flurry of bullets. As he’s dodging and jumping around and trying to get out, he catches a glimpse of the familiar red dress and just. Stumbles to a stop. He manages to call out to Ada before she can understand what’s happening, so she takes the shot and hits Leon’s arm, sending him crashing down into an absolute fucking mess. See the way I interpret their relationship as messy as it gets, is that they ultimately care about each other a lot. I mean Ada disobeys direct orders to kill Leon and instead saves his ass multiple times in RE4 so. This being said. I imagine Ada is one of the last fucking people Leon wants to see him in this state, and especially since he just got shot by her, he’s not doing too well. Unfortunately, now that his arm has a fucking bullet in it, he can’t just run away. So he kinda just. Cowers. And messily stutters out a bunch of chittering bug-like noises because at this point he’s too overwhelmed to even attempt normal human speech. I’m sure by this point Ada can piece together that this is Leon. She isn’t sure how much of him is still actually him since Leon can’t articulate at the moment, but she knows it’s enough of him that he won’t hurt her. Maybe she does a funny little thing and takes care of his arm before taking off, all while Leon is desperately trying to get anything out of her, like. Why is she here. Why is she helping him. Stuff like that. It doesn’t work though…so after Ada patches him up she goes on her way and tells Leon to take care. The next time they meet I imagine it going a lot better, since I’m sure Leon is a little more used to speaking in this form and isn’t in as dire of a situation. Also since it seems Ada knows how to take care of a plagas infection, I can see her dropping hints or just outright telling Leon things that’ll lead him to get the parasite out of him..although at this point it’s not like that’s gonna do too much for him :(

Now. As for all the shit he’s gotta deal with when he gets back. Hooh boy.

I imagine Ashley, Leon, and Luis (who escapes with them by yet unknown means) are placed in their own little quarantine areas when they get back. And the reason for this is Hunnigan knows there’s some sort of infection going on here thanks to Leon’s transmissions. Speaking of which. Heh. He pulled a dumb and forgot he would be transmitting video to her and uh. Picks it up instinctively and Hunnigan’s just met with this crazy fucking bug creature before Leon realizes he fucked up and tries to cover the camera with his claws but it’s too late. So Hunnigan is able to tell the extraction team that Leon’s gonna look a little wacky but he’ll theoretically still be safe to be around. Anyway didn’t mean to get off on a tangent there…

After Ashley and Luis are determined to be safe to be around, they immediately rush to Leon’s aid, because at this point he’s being treated like a fuckin lab rat. Luis is able to explain Leon’s condition and that he’s still just Leon, just with extra buggy parts. And Ashley. Oh boy. I actually really like this for her. She becomes really protective of Leon after he went through hell to save her so she does the same back…if she so much as thinks Leon is being mistreated, she pulls the classic “I’M GONNA TELL MY DAD ON YOU!” or maybe even “I’LL RUN AWAY IF YOU DON’T BE NICE TO HIM!”

So. In short. People are way more scared of Ashley then the over 7 foot tall buggy boy that is Leon. After a lot of tests are (humanely) run on Leon with the help of Ashley and Luis, he’s allowed out of his little area more and more. But to be honest. Leon still doesn’t want people to see him like this, especially after how horrifically his first encounter with Ada initially went. So he’d probably go way out of his way to avoid any of his friends physically seeing him…I’m sure he’s found a way to make arrangements to talk to them without being seen, like calling them and stuff. But yeah! That’s most of the concrete notes I have for the aftermath. I’m sure Luis is able to find a way to get some sort of more humanoid form for Leon, but he still maintains his buggy form most of the time since that’s natural for him now. I’m sure too he’s able to come to terms with his new existence, but being treated like a lab rat, no matter how brief it was, certainly didn’t help his self esteem.

Thank you for letting me ramble about my silly little au…I hope this answer was good! I’m still pretty insecure about my ability to write characters in character and not just being completely self indulgent…. I’d appreciate any feedback or additional thoughts I love to share the brainrot…this au has taken over my mind….