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jostepherjoestar · 4 years ago

Note

I remember someone suggesting about the La Squadra child being Abbacchio or Mista’s nephew/niece and I was wondering if it’s ok to ask how would (I’m gonna go with Abbacchio) react to that?. Maybe before joining the kid was just a above average intelligent child but was still normal and now Abbacchio is confused as to why their stoic, cold and with a group of assassins.

La Squadra Kid backstory and relation to Abbacchio + general HC’s

Thank you so much for asking this, I’ve been meaning to summarise their backstory and how they ended up with La Squadra! This will be kind of emotional since it’s bit tragic imo. There’s also going to be some HC’s about our little bud so you can all get a feel at how I see them 😊

Long post!

CW: heavier subjects such as trauma, not fun situations for a kid to be in and usual gang related violence, mentions of abortion and mental illness

General HC’s

I’ve always imagined them to be around 7 to 8 years old, but unfortunately due to all that’s happened, their mind has been forced to mature a lot faster. Of course they should have never had to go through that but life isn’t that simple, especially for them.

Their name is Pomo, like an apple or a pommel :) thought it was a fitting and cute name! I’ll still refer to them as La Squadra Kid in titles but opt for Pomo while writing.

Pomo is not that tall for their age, just cute lil bean with puffy cheeks! I’ve decided to keep Pomo’s pronouns neutral, it just seemed to click more.

As far as their personality goes it’s been fun discovering them through your asks! Pomo is a quiet and stoic kid, they don’t smile that often but that doesn’t mean they’re not enjoying themselves.

They love drawing things as a way to express their feelings or the things they like. It’s a lot easier than verbally communicating for them. They’ll say what they need with the least amount of words necessary.

They’ve developed a weird sense of humour, very dry I’d say lol, also thinks it’s funny to scare Ghiaccio, who they know secretly likes them.

Pomo is quite independent and goes out by themselves, their stand is very powerful and kinda scary, even to their colleagues so they can handle any trouble coming their way. Pomo is slowly learning that they don’t need to do everything alone (i.e. asking for company after nightmares)

Though going out alone can result in people turning Pomo away in shops, that’s why Melone is their choice to bring along so it’s not weird a kid is just out alone spending money.

They’re also very glad to do tasks or things the others ask of them, they crave harmony and peace at home so Pomo will try to help achieve that in any way possible (unfortunately this is a result of trauma).

Pomo really likes La Squadra and sees them as their family now, knowing what member is better at offering different types of things and who to turn to for specific needs.

Their stand’s is named My Way (マイウェイ) after the Frank Sinatra song. It fits quite nicely imo, a force to be reckoned with doing it on their own terms.

And lastly, they do not like hugs or being touched that much. They’ll allow hand holding but only if they’re in a good mood, quick head pats are also ok. It really is touch and go with them, Pomo will let you know when they don’t like something.

Backstory and relation to Abbacchio

The world moved in a blur, the two lines on every single pregnancy test strewn out before her like nails getting hammered into her coffin. Suffocating while it was lowered into the ground, scratching and screaming for air, nails bloodied and raw as the reality set in that she was unmistakably pregnant. The panic followed, clenching her chest like a vice, threatening to shatter her heart and lungs in the process, gasping for air and wishing any other truth than this one. Abbacchio’s older sister wept for days, dark circles alternating with red swollen puffiness as the life she’d just started on her own already began to crumble.

The father of her child taking his exit as soon as she confessed her situation, knowing before she’d even tell him that he’d swiftly let her suffer in the mess. The thought of looking a doctor in the eyes, the cruel conversations she would have to endure before they’d let her suffer in uncertainty of the fate of her unborn child, making her choose to just endure it instead. Not that the choice would offer a softer outcome, it was her burden to bare, she thought. Whatever horrible things she’s done to receive such heartless judgement never occurred to her. The only thing the young woman was convinced of, is that she whole heartedly deserved it.

Her younger brother, growing up to be an impressionable adolescent, unsure how to care for his beloved sibling. His eyes always so full of innocent wonderment at his older sister, wanting to become as brave and independent as her. Living alone, working strenuous hours as if only this would make him worthy of the meagre salary of a rookie police officer. Slowly but surely he saw the woman he so admired creep away as her belly grew larger each month. Coming by often to check up on her wellbeing after school, spending nights or even weeks so he’d be by her side. All the while finishing up in high school. As his sister’s expression grew darker, the smiles fading and her laughter but a distant memory Leone Abbacchio could do nothing but stand by and let her lean on him.

The meagre support their parents could offer did little too ease her mind, the reality of becoming a mother and having nothing but emptiness to offer her child digging her ever deeper into the darkness that consumed her. She sobbed the day her child was born, little Pomo’s big eyes asking her if she was even worthy to hold the small babe. Every look at the child reminding her she had already failed, not even able to comfort their cries before feedings. Incapable of shushing them and finding the strength to coo at those tiny hands that ached to play and accept the warm touch of a caregiver. The young mother did what she needed, feeding the child and changing diapers. The depth of her troubles never easing as she had to go back to work, two different jobs needed to support herself and Pomo.

Abbacchio offered what he could, often babysitting and spending weekends at his sister’s cramped apartment. A child taking care of an even smaller one. The hope he held that his sister would regain her previous lust for life faltered. It only seemed to worsen as Pomo grew. The child never overtly fussed or cried, sleeping soundly and cooing gently whenever hungry. Those big eyes always seeming to bore straight through whoever leaned over the basinet to admire them. The child’s mother wished for it all to end, every night she’d pray to any god who would hear her desperate calls. But as she did only further hurting herself, her pleading like whips claiming penitence on her heavy shoulders.

She begged her younger brother to go out and make his dreams come true. “Never let your resolve falter Leone. Ever.” The voice that brought him courage, the broken woman’s words reminding him of the image he so admired once. But in pursuing his career as an officer it would mean less and less time to care for his dwindling sister and her child.

The night she told him the sisters of their local convent would relieve her of her child, the young officer held his sister for hours. The tears they cried filling an endless well of sorrow. It hadn’t brought the relief she thought she would feel, not a feather lighter as her child would be in more capable hands. Caregivers who weren’t afraid to look the toddler in the eyes as they searched your very soul for meaning. At merely four years old dear Pomo lay gently asleep in a different cot, in a stony building smelling of earth, heated by creaky copper pipes while sisters prayed in unison with beaded necklaces intertwining their palms. Praying for deliverance.

Abbacchio came by whenever he could, becoming more and more weary of his actions and the people he swore to protect as his career started to lack the fervour it had when he started out. Seeing Pomo grow into a silent and demure child, laconically learning to read and write, quietly pleading the sisters not to let their touch on their skin linger. Every stroke burning with an unknown memory that someone once held them, just once and decided to never do it again. Their very skin warding off any unwanted contact without even knowing why. A locked memory with a firm grasp on their being.

“Never let your resolve falter, Pomo. Ever.” The last words spoken to the small child before leaving. The lonely child left in the suffocating confines of the convent. Their uncle wouldn’t return for a long time, days spent hoping to see a sliver of his stark hair and bright eyes that had seemed to dull over time. But the child would never forget those words. Not even as the head sister punished them for not answering when spoken to, not when she would order them to remain on the prayer bench for hours as punishment, knees aching to settle as they were forced to remain. Their eyes boring through the other sisters as they came and joined them at their usual hours of worship.

Restraining the stand they were born with from acting out, self control being trained as they kept going, determined to let their uncle’s last words not be wasted on them. In the free time Pomo was allowed, they’d test out whatever the ghostly figure could, standing taller than them with thick black fog-like tentacles resting behind their back. Whatever those touched seemed to shrivel up like roses in wintertime. Pomo was intelligent, interested in more subjects than just his schooling that only seemed to bore them. The ease of the material offering no challenge as they completed tests with full marks, only making the head sister grow suspicious of them and unleashing more punishment.

Men in extravagant suits would visit the convent every so often, hushed whispers as they walked by the child who’d stoically stare as they passed. They’d always ignore them, scared of the glare and aura the child had started emitting. Many of the sisters had rejected the offer to tutor them when the previous one excused herself, feeling too uneasy by Pomo’s being. It didn’t hurt them, they just kept on doing what the sisters asked of them. Stay tidy, study and don’t get in their way. They had accepted their silence and aversion to touch, growing scared to try anything after the entire courtyard greenery was found shrivelled and dead mid spring. Every freshly planted flower grey and sad, the grass as crunchy as if it had just been burned to ashes. Pomo was sat comfortably on the stone bench that was placed there to admire the garden’s beauty. It wasn’t that they wanted it to happen. Someone just came too close and made them panic, not that it was clear to the sister that accidentally grabbed their shoulders while moving past them, the child remained calm, instead letting their stand take care of the burning sensation that crept over their body.

It was one of those days where a well dressed man would come by and whisper secretively with the sisters as they strode towards a private room and remained there until it was time to leave in an equal hurry. But this time a relaxed gentleman stepped out of the room with a large huff, stretching his neck and groaning loudly as he did. The taps of his heeled shiny shoes echoed through the stony arches of the hallway that led to the courtyard where Pomo had been toying a blade of grass between their fingers. Intensely staring at the green colour that stained his pads while their stand loomed over them freely. As the steps drew nearer, the child paid them no mind, instead grabbing a new blade and continuing the process all over. Soft padded steps made their way over casually until a large shadow covered Pomo. Hands rested in his pocked while his arms pushed back the sides of the loose suit jacket. The cigarette dangling from his lips bobbing after he took another intoxicating drag, puffing out the air harshly while peering at the kid.

“And who might you two be?” The man sunk down to a crouch, inspecting a small daisy that stuck out between the sea of green blades. “Pomo.” The child stopped rolling the tuft of grass as they processed his words. Two. Never had they met another who could see the figure that was their only friend. Unsure if the man posed a threat, he exuded a certain cocky confidence they weren’t sure they liked. “Nice to meet you Pomo. That other one looks a bit scary, don’t you think? But then again, you must be too. D’you mind showing me what they can do?” Offering a gentle chuckle as he gently pried, curious to see what this lonesome child could do, never having witnessed someone so young possessing a stand. It sure peaked the man’s interest as he twirled the daisy between his digits.

The amount of precision they possessed shocked him as the daisy was shot with a quick tap of a foggy black tentacle. It crumbled under his pads as he pressed it, letting it fall back onto the earth. Impressed by the ability and thoroughly interested in what it could do for him, the man proceeded. “Have you even killed someone with that?” There was no need to beat around the bush, that much was obvious when the child never seemed to have moved from their position, merely staring at the ground before them. A slow methodical dark tendril crept towards the man, stopping an inch before his polished shoe. Pomo turned their gaze upwards now, offering a look so unreadably neutral it made the man’s heart beat faster in fear, his many years in Passione not having prepared him to face another that lacked fear as much as the child in front of him. “Do you like it here, Pomo?”

A proposal started taking form in the man’s head, one he’d have to discus with his boss before acting on it. “No.” Clear as a bell their voice made a sinister hope grow, a hope that it would only take as little as just asking them to join up with Passione to get his desired answer. As an Advisor he’d have little hurdles in his way before bringing up the idea to his boss, being one of the only few allowed to even directly communicate with the mysterious man. “You seem fearless, to an unsettling degree, kid. If I asked you to kill a guy, would you?” Somehow the direct communication had been the most pleasant conversation Pomo has had in a few years, be it of a morally ambiguous subject, but refreshing to have another respect their space and not be afraid to ask what they desired of them.

“Are they bad?” The amount of troubling honesty behind the child’s harsh gaze making the man believe he’d met his fate, it had been like Pomo was asking if he deserved to live another moment, their stand still remaining at the tip of his shoe. “Not in their own opinion.” Clearing his throat to regain any sort of confidence, the kid’s eyes skipping through the pages of his soul, weighing his sins and good deeds. In reality they were doing no such thing, only weighing their options, grown tired of the convent and its inhabitants, aching to find any sort of family or support without even knowing it. “Ok.” As they gave their answer they chose to retract their stand, ending the conversation without another word. The Advisor’s sigh of relief deeper than any he had before, glad to be able to continue living.

The Boss was feeling generous, letting his Advisor know that placing the child amongst the men of La Squadra Esecuzioni could serve them well, perhaps make them regain any semblance of respect in the organisation. Opting out of putting their deadly stand in his personal Unità Speciale, fearing the effects of Cioccolata or Secco would build a threat larger than himself. Pomo agreed immediately, knowing it would be best to leave the sisters behind to pray for the child’s deliverance. Making their own money, be it a scanty salary, living with a group of other misfits and taking care of jobs here and there did not sound like the worst future for them. The sisters, terrified at the transfer, having no clue what the mafia would even want with the child, did not let the only person on the outside that cared for them know about the move. Too afraid of the consequences.

But after joining with Bucciarati, Abbacchio held great shame, afraid to face his sister’s child with those eyes that understood too much at such a young age. Fearing any visit would involve them with the tricky business he got entangled in, the little one becoming a distant and painful memory. If only he knew.

Further events take place after part 5 where everyone survives and La Squadra works under Don Giovanna. At Risotto’s request Pomo was left out of the fights regarding Trish and the Bucci gang.

While out with Melone to buy some more markers, Abbacchio felt like he’d seen a ghost. The familiar figure of his sister’s child standing next to a Passione assassin Bruno had fought not that long ago while he excitedly pointed out stuffed animals through the toyshop’s window. “Pomo?” Abbacchio had crept closer, carefully assessing if it were smart to approach. Melone had turned before Pomo could, eyeing the familiar gangster before him. “What do you need with Pomo?” Melone’s features hardened into a scowl while searching for their hand. All Pomo could do was stare up at their uncle they hadn’t seen in what felt like forever.

“What’s going on, is everything alright Pomo?” That deep voice reminding them of when he last visited, the voice that told them to never let their resolve falter, ever. “First of all, answer my question. What do you want with them?” Melone stepped forward, never one to initiate conflicts but needing an explanation as to why Leone Abbacchio knew their teammate that had explicitly never been in contact with his side of Passione. “That’s my sister’s kid. Step down you idiot. I’m not here to start shit. Now answer me; what are they doing with you?” Abbacchio growled back at the lithe man, searching Pomo’s eyes for an answer. “Pomo is part of our team. Been so for almost a year now.” He calmed down as he remembered all the fond memories they’d made together, even after the horrible fights with the other gangster’s team.

The amount of shock and confusion Abbacchio felt was immeasurable. After many “what��’s and “how”’s Melone calmly explained that Pomo had quite the powerful stand and still wanted to be part of their squad. “We ask every once in a while if they still want this. Never said no so far.” Melone practically beamed, the other man still trying to process the explanation. Pomo quickly understood their uncle’s position as well, clearly another member of Passione as they connected the dots. That small kid has never hurt anyone -that he knew of- and now they’re an assassin already in possession of a stand? What the actual fuck. His knees began to feel weak, looking for support as he slid down the toyshop’s windowsill. “I’m sorry.” Hands scrambling at his scalp while he stared at the ground, despair filling every inch of his being. Another person he cared about thrown into the complicated landscape of Passione.

The little one reached out their hand at the man that had meant so much to them, one of the only ones to ever offer the child any semblance of a connection. Until Pomo met their new family. A soft pat on the uncle’s platinum strands, grazing the man’s overworked hands. Melone felt his intrusion, staring off into the crowd as he kept some distance, sure to be within ample reach; should anything happen.

Abbacchio had grown so much, learned that his life was worth living. Following his sisters’s advice to strengthen his resolve and to never let it falter like he did before joining Passione. But this one memory, this one being of the past had made its way back. The child he so lovingly took care of and the pain he felt to have left them behind crashing through him as he sat there. Remembering his capo’s words, his kindness and that look of care and understanding making him reach up to the little hand. Memories of them fussing over touches reminding him a hug wasn’t possible. As his eyes met Pomo’s, the ones that always understood the ones they looked in but never let you know what was being kept behind their own. “I’m sorry for leaving you.” He uttered, the small hand getting enveloped in his bigger ones, begging them for forgiveness. “I’ve missed you.” the child spoke, their expression ever unchanging as Abbacchio felt tears flood his eyes and spill onto his cheeks. The purple haired man that had been following along from a distance couldn’t help but blink away his feelings, pitying the small one.

“Never let your resolve falter.” Pomo repeated. The words they’d clung to, any semblance of purpose all pinned on the only advice they’ve ever received. “Ever.” Abbacchio replied, squeezing the small hand between his before wiping away the tears, his actions were forgiven but not forgotten. “Are you ready, kid?” Melone stepped back into reach, offering a hand to the man he’d called an enemy not too long ago, helping him up. A quick nod from the child, a sliver of relief finally being felt, their uncle was still safe and alive. “You know where to find us. Don’t hesitate to come.” Waving goodbye as they entered the store, Melone offering as much assurance he could muster for his now-colleague. But mostly in awe of the child’s strength, they really were something else, huh.

#cozy ask #worked quite hard on this one #really like the result too #jjba x reader #la squadra x reader #abbacchio x reader #melone x reader #jjba fic #jjba x y/n #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba imagines #leone abbachio x reader #pomo

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darkdevasofdestruction · 5 years ago

Text

They Realise They Love You

Risotto Nero

When he realises that he loves you, he’d be stunned - like - no, love isn’t something he should be able to feel, nor should he allow himself something like that.

I mean?

He’s a villain?

The Boss is after him, he could die at any moment, so having a proper love life wouldn’t be something he could have...Right?

But he can’t help how the wheels of fate turn, and now he just sits in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking over and over at his crush.

Her hair looked so nicely today, shining under the Sun. He only wishes he could have played with it.

The smile you had that day, admiring some random flowers. He only wishes he could have picked them up and gifted them to you.

The playful spark in your e/c eyes that shined like gems. He only wishes you’d look at him with the same spark.

Risotto was head over heels with you, with the little things that made you - You.

The problem was that he had no idea how to act on it without endangering you somehow.

You were too good for him, and an Angel like you shouldn’t be around a Devil like him...

But despite what his conscience preaches him all the time, he won’t be able to stop himself from spending more time around you, even though he’d be too awkward to actually say something, until you begin the conversation.

As well as that, he’d leave cute little gifts at your doorstep, signing them as “Metallica”, letting you know that he’s always thinking of you, and at least until he sets his mind straight to actually ask you out, he will continue with the little gestures.

Also, he loves kissing your temple - Gods, he feels like a school boy with an innocent crush on that cute and kind girl in his class, but he can’t help it!

---

Bruno Buccellati

This soft mum isn’t a stranger to love, but even so, at first, he was sure that he loved you just as much as he loves his team mates - Like a family.

Problem is, sure, he loved you like family, only if he was the Dad and you were the Mum in this Family.

It took a bit of nudging from Abbacchio for him to actually realise and act accordingly to his true feelings, but it’s sure to say he didn’t regret it.

While yes, he is the Capo and he has a lot of responsibilities, both with his team, the organisation and within the city, he will always make sure to have spare time for you, to spend quality time together, to take you out on a nice date and so on.

A nice date doesn’t have to mean something fancy, but it can range from a walk on the sandy beach, hand in hand, barefoot, while playing in the water, a cute dinner at the restaurant he’s always at, cuddling together while watching a movie, or even being the best parents and taking care of the Kids...Uhm, his Team, I mean.

If there’s one thing he absolutely adores to do, it’s to hug you while you read together - It’s one way to actually be able to de-stress and put away all the Gang-Star problems, and truly be with you, heart, mind and soul.

He would also love to take you to places with beautiful landscapes and take tons of pictures of you, or both of you together, that he would later develop and either frame, or put in very cute couple albums.

--- Giorno Giovanna

Giorno is the most innocent one out of these guys, and while yes, he knows that he has a crush, he’s also pretty shy in acting towards his feelings.

He can feel his heart racing around you like never before, and his face gets a tint rosier, despite how composed he is, there will still be tints of obvious flustering that Bruno and Abbacchio always seem to catch faster than anyone else.

Abbacchio is always more staright-forward, but Bruno actually pulls Giorno aside and gives him some nice tips and advice on how to deal with everything, and thankfully enough, it’s actually helpful.

Something he loves to do is create flowers with Gold Experience and give them to you, when you least expect.

Bonus points if you let him put the flower in his hair, he will outright melt.

When you’re on a date, he will make sure to create cute and colourful butterflies and dragonflies to go around you, making you look like one of those Disney Princesses, because for him, you truly are a Princess.

He’s attracted to you like flowers are attracted to sunlight - He feels like you make him grow and become a better person, and seeing how sweet and kind you are...Damn, you’re killing him.

If you want and like it, Giorno will let you play with his hair, so have fun. Braid it, brush it, stroke it, do little tails, whatever, as long as you don’t pull too hard and you’re smiling, it’s all fine for him.

But that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t want to play with your hair too.

--- Abbacchio Leone

Oh boy, oh boy -

This guy loves his tough exterior and would never ever EVER let anyone in.

Ha, what a joke.

There’s already his whole team in his heart, why would caring for another person be bad?

He wants to appear tough and in control of the situation, but once he has a crush, he’s an outright mess.

He will be the embodiment of Windows Shutdown, along with the generic sound playing in the background.

His heart is so soft and damaged, he’s honestly afraid that it will break more and will have no way to mend it even by a little bit.

But perhaps, having you by his side, wouldn’t be too bad.

Honestly, if you praise him, you can literally see ‘Abbacchio.exe stopped working’ written on his forehead, because he will go mind-blank and have no idea how to react.

His team mates will make so much fun of him, but he’ll be lost in his own world, trying to decipher your intentions and words, if they were genuine or not.

All it takes is for you to have him alone one night and hug him tightly, praising him, and he will break down.

If he allowed himself to break down like that, than definitely he sees something in you.

From then on, he will let you listen to music with him, will make you personalised mixtapes for different occasions.

He won’t say it, but he loves having his arm around you when going out. It makes him feel like he won’t lose you like he lost his partner a while ago, and that you are safe with him.

--- Kishibe Rohan

This guy is pretty obvious when he falls in love, since he has no inhibitions nor shame or shyness, so it’s the easiest for him to get to confess.

Of course, he has to be a smug bastard and keep things slow, to have more effect and be more romantic.

He IS a manga artist after all, so things have to be nice, right~?

Rohan would invite you over for tea very often, just chilling together and nobody to annoy you.

Well, apart from Koichi who would randomly stumble in Kishibe’s home and would find you two chatting casually, laughing and smiling at each other.

Rohan would take you out on dates as often as possible, under the pretext that he wants to find inspiration for his manga, but it’s pretty obvious that he just wants to spend time with you.

He will kiss your face a lotttt, especially your nose and forehead since he thinks you make the cutest expressions when he does so.

Also, your giggles are so cute, he just can’t help himself not to vibe.

He will invite you to dance nights a lot, just to have an excuse to walk with you at night, when nobody could bother you, and just enjoy each other’s presence while also being able to admire the stars.

--- Kakyoin Noriaki

This boy is rather shy, compared to everyone else, so while he won’t be so upfront with his crush on you, he will definitely want to find pretexts to spend time with you.

When bored, he would stand under a tree, relaxing, watching the clouds pass by, and when he feels THE vibe, he would whip out his notebook and would smile as he sketches you absent-minded.

He would be so attracted to your kindness and your nurturing personality, that he would find himself gravitating around you without even wanting to (but he definitely does want to).

Since he’s a bit shy, I could imagine him slipping cute little letters in your locker and just chatting through letters with you that way, until he feels brave enough to actually have a proper conversation with you without feeling awkward.

Kakyoin is a huge gamer, so if you’d like to watch him play, or more, if you wanted to play with him, his heart would burst from happiness like never before.

If you didn’t know how to play, he’d be incredibly patient and would teach you every little trick in the game.

If you do know how to play, however, he’d make sure to choose only co-op games because he’s not actually that competitive and he wouldn’t want either of you to feel bad if you or him lost.

If you, by any chance possible, decide to wear something with cherry themes, like a shirt with cherries, a hair clip, a necklace, or even better, matching earrings with him, he’d honestly die, like damn, that’s my girl, we are now Cherry Boy and Cherry Girl.

He’d be so loving and would dote on you a hella lot, just because he loves you so much and wants you to be happy no matter what.

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darktypeimagines · 5 years ago

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could please i have a raihan, milo and leon with a s/o who got transported from our world into pokemon? and could the s/o have played all the games? thanks

Ahh, the isekai. Classic. Have to admit, been having a lot of daydreams about a similar scenario lately. The Pokemon world seems so much better than ours, at times… Most of the time…

The being said, I found your ask a bit vague. Wasn’t sure if you wanted a polyamorous relationship with the three characters, or three separate HCs. I did three separate HCs for each character. This one was a little hard for me, for some reason… It was fun, though.

——————————————————————————————–

One moment, you were falling asleep. The next, you woke up on a beach, somewhere you didn’t recognize. But then, everything seemed familiar. And then, you saw it: a Pokemon! Specifically, a Pyukumuku that washed up on the beach. You threw it back into the ocean.

You figured you were just in the most vivid dream you had ever had.

After a while of wandering, you found a police station. The officers introduced you to Nanu after you explained the situation, who while skeptical of you, bought in the international police. Over the next few weeks, you were questioned and tested, and it was determined that based on the energy emanating off of you, an Ultra Beast had abducted you. Now, how on Earth (or Poke Earth, in this case) this Ultra Beast took you from such a completely different world, was unknown. It was also highly unusual that you retained your memories, but you were thankful for that. You’ve now realized that this isn’t a dream, and were a bit overwhelmed.

Luckily, the police gave you a lot of support, and you were able to rebuild your life in the new world.

You eventually moved to Galar, where you met your S/O. It took a while for you to open up to him about your past; it’s kinda hard to admit you were abducted by alien Pokemon and transported to another world, after all.

You were EXTREMELY reluctant to tell them about the games. Some of the characters themselves appear in the games. How would that affect them, and how they see their world? You weren’t sure if it was wise

Raihan

Reacted surprisingly well to the information, once he heard everything. Thought it was amazing, and frequently asked fairly random questions about your world. Basically, he would be in the middle of something, and then just pop up with a question.

So dragons don’t exist? But there’s myths and legends… So did they used to exist? He’s convinced your world used to have dragons, and there’s nothing you can do to change his mind.

There’s no Pokemon either? Then.. what does everyone do? He has no idea what he would do without Pokemon; he’d be bored as heck. (me too)

You can’t teleport? Can’t fly on Pokemon? How do you get around? (You tell him vehicles, and he has a hard time imagining so many cars and planes in the world)

Since he takes everything so well, you tell Raihan about the games.

He’s surprised, but that’s awesome. At least you have Pokemon, in a way!

Wait… He’s in the game?

Finds that even more awesome, and asks a million questions about his game-self. Is he hard to fight? What does he say? Does he look good? (yes)

When you tell him the fandom adores him, he’s beyond thrilled. He’s loved in two worlds!

Milo

Shocked, but not in the way you expected. He had heard of alien abductions before. But don’t they normally only take Pokemon from fields? Stories of Pokemon from herds disappearing were not uncommon in this part of Galar…

Mainly interested in the animals of your world. No Pokemon?! That was almost harder for him to believe than you actually coming from another world!

You had your old phone on you when you were abducted, and with a little help from someone you met through interpol, they figured out a way to take the pictures off of that phone. You showed Milo pictures of some of your pets, and he instantly fell in love. They were adorable!

He was a bit sad though, as you knew you would never see them again, and you probably missed them…

If you ever suffered from homesickness, would do everything he could to try to ease that pain. He knew there wasn’t much he could do beyond be there for you, but he still tried his best.

Gentle boy hugs.

For some reason, some species of plants occurred on both worlds. Whenever you mentioned this about a specific plant, you would find a small potted version of it inside, or a new patch of them planted in the garden you shared.

After a bit of time, you told him about the games. He doesn’t really play video games, but he thought that was kinda neat! But… How do people in the other world know about him? Does that mean some of the people in video games in the PokeWorld exist in your world?

This made him a little more interested in video games. This became a new hobby for the two of you to share together, after he came home from the gym or the fields.

Leon

Thinks this is an elaborate prank, at first. I mean, how many people do you know claim to have been abducted by aliens and that they came from another world? Exactly.

A lot of people think he’s oblivious. And maybe at times, he is. But he’s not stupid.

But then you kept giving him more and more detailed information. You showed him the pictures on your phone; none of which looked like anything from his world…

But maybe you were just an amazing story teller! With photo editing skills…?

Eventually, you gave in and told him about the games. Started believing you when you gave him details you couldn’t possibly know. You started dating him after he had lost his champion title; yet you knew all about the events of the current champion’s gym challenge, even things that were not publicly known. You also knew what his bedroom looks like. Despite never having been in it.

The game thing makes him a bit uncomfortable; he’s not sure how to feel about it, knowing he exists as a fictional character in another world. He eventually just accepts it.

So, eventually, he believes you. And once this happens, he supports you 100 percent. He will always listen to stories about the other world, even the duller ones. While you think your world wasn’t that interesting, Leon disagrees.

#pokemon imagines #pokemon sword and shield #Leon pokemon #milo pokemon #raihan #ask #raihan x reader #leon x reader #milo x reader #x reader #HCs #darktypeimagines

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ifollowfugo · 6 years ago

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Can i have the passione/Bruno's gangs with crush that has a sentient stand little hc/scenario here (they come to talk to crush but their asleep stand is there so they quitely talk,they don't yet that the stand is thieir person until this keeps happening for a while and one day the stand just aks them if they want them to wake their user up so they can confess) sorry if it's long or odd I love your stories and don't mind if you don't do it.

I think I didn’t get exactly what you wanted, so I hope you like these! I’m very sorry they took me so long, and I really hope they are worth the wait. Tell me what you think!

Undercut for length.

***

Bruno was already getting nervous as he approached (Name)’s bedroom. He was completely justified but he always got nervous in their presence.

He didn’t know how he could fall in love so deep so soon. It was something he hadn’t experienced before, they had taken his heart and hidden it somewhere he could not find.

He knocked on the door, but finding no answer he decided to go ahead and enter to make sure everything was fine. He found them sleeping, their face calm and their breath paced like nothing was wrong in the world. At least not in their world.

As he was making his way out, he found a figure sitting next to them, like lurking the shadows, that he recognized as a stand. For a moment he wondered if his stand also came out while he was sleeping and what he would do, alone in the world. He didn’t know whose it was, but it was just standing there, it didn’t seem like it meant any harm, so he left it.

Right when he was closing the door, he heard a voice.

“Did you need anything?” Bruno looked with wonder at the stand, used to the Pistols talking, and sometimes interacting with Spice Girl, but he hadn’t heard a lot more stands with their own ability of thought. “If you want, you can stay and chat until they wake up. I get a bit lonely.”

And so he did, that night and every night for about a week, until one night he let slip a glimpse of his true intentions, and had to spill everything.

“I truly hope to find the right time to tell them. I feel as if I couldn’t wait anymore, and yet every time I see them I freeze. I want to tell them how much their smile makes me feel like I’m floating, their eyes make me feel at ease, their voice is music to my ears. I have so much love I want to give them I feel I might explode.”

“Bruno?” He looked behind him and saw (Name) awake and with eyes filled with surprise and a hint of… love?

***

Abbacchio felt weird about them, but he didn’t understand why. They were just another member, just another person with whom he had to interact with on a daily basis. Why did he feel like he had something to be nervous about?

He continued thinking about that until one day he saw them talking with someone a little too close and, in his mind, he snapped. That was when he understood. He was smitten. A completely new feeling for him, he had given up on caring about someone else a long time ago. And yet, this person walked into his heart and left him no choice but to accept it and wondering what to do with these feelings. Should he act on them? Should he leave them be and hope the feelings will go away on their own?

Bringing someone into his never-ending pit of self-pity and self-hate wasn’t something he was looking forward to, but he couldn’t just go on without exposing his feelings, not anymore.

Slowly, his feet weighed by a ball and chain made out of his insecurities, he walked to where (Name) was supposed to be, instead finding them asleep and their stand watching over them. He started going back to where he came from when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Hi, Leone! Did you need anything? They’re asleep right now, but I can take a message!”

“No need. Thank you.” Already regretting getting close, Abbacchio tried to run away. But [Stand] didn’t let him.

“Oh, c’ mon. There’s something going on with you!” That stand clearly has their personality, it will never let the conversation go.

“Fine, if you really need to know. I came here because I need them to know I might have a crush on them… okay, I definitely do. And maybe a little more than that. It’s just that they have this something in them, it gives me hope for tomorrow. Before I met them, I would have never thought getting out of bed in the morning could be something good, never would I have thought I’d be excited to see someone again. And yet, here I am, making a fool of myself talking to a stand because I can’t keep it in no longer.”

“Leone, don’t say that. You’re not making a fool of yourself because you’re not talking to my stand. You’re talking to me. And I think what you just said was the most romantic thing I’ve ever had someone say about me. Thank you. Will you allow me to fully wake up and get dressed, and we can go grab a bite?”

***

Mista had a goal in mind. For the last three weeks, he had been trying to make (Name) fall in love with him, but it seemed like it wasn’t working, so he was making a final effort. He was going to declare his love in the grandest way he could think of.

He had Giorno make flowers out of anything he could find, prepared some drinks, some snacks made by him, good music, soft lights. Everything was ready. The only problem was, he couldn’t find them anywhere.

When he finally did, he found that they were sleeping on the couch in the living room. He decided to wait until they woke up, but he was clearly nervous and disappointed, so the pistols came out to ask him what was wrong.

“Mista! Why aren’t you confessing your feelings to (Name)?”

“Yes, Mista! We want to eat those snacks you made!”

“What is going on here?” a strange voice resonated through the room. Mista recognized (Name)’s stand and immediately got even more nervous.

“N-nothing. We needed to talk to (Name)”

“I heard something about feelings? Are you confessing?” The stand looked excited. Was this a reflection of its user’s feelings?

“… yes. Would you like to hear the speech I prepared?”

“Of course! Confessions are so much fun!”

“Right?!” Mista was happy to be able to share his enthusiasm, even if it was with a stand. “Okay, so I thought I’d start explaining how much they mean to me, which is a lot, I’d be lost without them. Then, I’d tell them their eyes are the prettiest thing I’ve seen in my life, their lips feel like an oasis whenever they press them to my cheek, their arms look like they would be the best place in the world for me to rest at night. Then I’d show them all I’ve been working on the last couple of hours, and ask for a kiss. What do you say?”

“I say it was beautiful! But you might as well have done it here because… I woke them up. Sorry! I just couldn’t take it anymore. You’re a sweet guy!”

“WHAT?!” As Mista turned around, he was met with teary eyes by the protagonist of his dreams, smiling widely. His cheeks turned red, but he had a good feeling.

***

Narancia has always been an optimist person, most of the time you’d see him calm and almost giddy, with the exception of those times he lost his temper, but most of the time that lasted a few moments and normal Narancia would come back. Which is why, seeing him so nervous and preoccupied, everyone was worried about him.

Bruno tried asking what was wrong, but Narancia wouldn’t reveal a word. This was unusual, he has no secrets. Fugo snapped at him, asking him what his problem was, why was he so weird, and yet Narancia did not react the way he always did. Instead, he just shrugged and said it would be over soon, asking Mista not to inquire too. As an attempt to avoid any more questions from his teammates, Narancia decided to roam a little around the place, finding (Name) asleep in one of the couches.

He stopped to admire their calm face, a loving look forming on his face when he noticed a figure staring at him.

“Who are you?!” He jumped a little backward, somewhat embarrassed to have been caught in such a compromising situation.

“The important thing is what is troubling you. There is something worrying you, would you like to talk about it?”

“It’s just, I’m so in love with them. I feel happy and calm when they’re around, nothing in the world can hurt me if they’re by my side. And yet, I don’t know how they’d feel. I’m just a stupid kid who doesn’t know math and has a short temper, how am I going to compete with everyone else? Sometimes I imagine them liking me the way I like them, and my heart feels like it wants to jump out of my chest. And then, I remember they are not the kind of person to choose the idiot, and sadness takes over my heart. I can’t take it anymore, I need to know how they feel, but if they reject me I have no idea how I’m going to look past it. Would that ruin our friendship?”

“Not at all, Narancia. Maybe we can talk a little more about it, but know I adore and appreciate you and I would never stop talking to you.” He heard a voice he recognized, getting immediately on alert, but when he processed the word he calmed a little. At least he wouldn’t lose them.

***

Fugo is looking for (Name) because he has some things he needs to get off his chest. Whether they’ll like them or not wasn’t the thing, he just couldn’t keep them in anymore. Never would have thought he’d be in this situation, but they were something he couldn’t resist. An unstoppable force, colliding with the unmovable object he thought his heart was, but he was wrong.

He wandered around the place, trapped in his own thoughts when he noticed someone sleeping in the backyard. They must have fallen asleep while enjoying the grass, and that thought warmed his heart a little.

“They’re so beautiful…” Fugo whispered longingly for himself. Unaware that he had been heard.

“You think so too? You’re not so bad yourself!” Scared, he jumped a little and took some steps back.

“N-no… I don’t… Who are you… Wha…” It took him some time until he finally took the situation in. “Fine, there is no point on denying it anymore.”

Fugo got closer to them to admire their relaxed face. He loved knowing they could sleep without any worries on their minds.

“I find them exquisite. There is nothing in this world that brings me greater joy than knowing they’re safe and happy, nothing. Whenever I think about them, my mind wanders to whether I’ll be blessed with their love, their warmness someday. I don’t know what else to do with this except finally confessing what has been on my mind all this time. I want to thank them for our time together, their loving ways took me out of a bad place, and I know, they’re going to be the best thing to ever enter my life.”

When he finally looked to them again, he noticed the smallest hint that their eyes were open, and when they saw him, they finally got up.

“Panni, honey. Why don’t we discuss this over good tea? I know where we can go to get some privacy.”

***

Giorno is determined to confess what has been on his mind for quite some time now. He just could never find the right time to do so. He’d always find them either coming back from a mission or leaving for one, bathing, out, sometimes he’d find them free but not in the right mood to take the news.

He needed them to understand how much he cared for them, but he couldn’t just say so. Finally, the circumstances allowed him to prepare for this, so he made some flower he knew they liked, dressed as elegantly as he could without it being suspicious, styled his hair in his iconic braid, and went looking for them.

By the time he finally arrived at his destination, he found them soundly sleeping still in their street clothes, they were clearly so tired they just fell asleep. He felt a sting of disappointment, he was really looking forward to finally fulfilling his mission, but he would never dare wake them if they so desperately needed it. As he was about to leave, he heard a voice that seemed to fill the room.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to say or do what you wanted. You look disappointed.”

“Who are you? Where are you? How did you know what I came here to do?”

“I just told you, I saw your face. I’m not an enemy, relax. I’m just keeping watch.” Keeping watch? “Maybe if you share with me, you’ll feel a little better.”

Giorno didn’t want to reveal his secrets to some stranger he couldn’t even see, but he really was getting desperate for getting it out, so he decided if they weren’t going to hurt him, he might just get it out.

“I’m just… so smitten with them. Whenever I see their smile, the world seems to brighten and everything has color. Every bad thing in the world gets fixed, every bad person gets what they deserve. Their faint smell of vanilla has me hypnotized, the way their hair falls besides their face, the cadence of their laugh. Their amazing way of seeing the world around them, so fresh and positive, reminds me there is still some good in the world, people are not completely corrupted by greed and arrogance. I need them by my side to remind me every time they look into y eyes what it is I’m fighting for. I wish to give them the world they are helping to create. Everything seems small if it’s next to them, never have I loved someone so much.”

“You… love me?” Sometime during his speech, they got up and walked carefully towards him. Now, standing a few centimeters away from him, it seemed like they wanted to reach out to him. And oh, how he wanted to reach out to them.

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videogamesincolor · 6 years ago

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Resident Evil 2 (2019) - Not quite the ‘re-imagining’ it purports to be (SPOILERS)

[Written: Feb 4-25, 2019. As always, act brand new on my post, you will catch the fastest block in the west.]

The 2019 iteration of Resident Evil 2 shares a lot of common ground with games like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories versus something like Bluepoint Games’ Shadow of the Colossus or even Sega’s Yakuza Kiwami series.

The first game is a re-imagining – effectively a reboot –, recreated from the ground up with almost little to do with its predecessor. The others are genuine remakes that change very little in the way of the framework or structure of the game and merely recreate or repair its presentation with the graphical fidelity (or control schemes) of the present era.

While both profit and rely on nostalgia, a remake has the specific ‘obligation’ to maintain what came before it. A re-imagining has cart blanche to do what it wants under the pretense that it has no obligation to restore or replicate. In the case of Resident Evil 2, it’s a bit funny in the fact that the existence of its reboot was reliant on the 2002 remake of Resident Evil.

During the re-release of the 2002 Resident Evil remake in 2015, Capcom more or less ransomed the idea of making a “remake” of Resident Evil 2 by placing the burden of that reality on the shoulders of Resident Evil HD. Or rather, the shoulders of their consumer base.

If Resident Evil HD didn’t meet publisher sales expectations, no “remake”. It was an easy sell, of course, because the Gamecube remake was not a game everyone played (on account of Nintendo console exclusivity). To no surprise, Resident Evil HD ended up being their “fastest selling digital title” in 2015. That same year, Capcom officially announced the Resident Evil 2 “remake” was becoming reality, went radio silent, and the aged fandom wept.

Common knowledge, but Capcom originally wanted a remake for RE2O in the vein of the 2002 remake. Mikami, however, was preoccupied with Resident Evil 4. He would never return to look back on the series because Capcom was Capcom, which inspired Mikami to depart from the company.

I think the assumption folk made (at the time), was that because the reboot was necessitated by the financial success of Resident Evil HD, Capcom might go for an experience similar to the 2002 remake, but with the graphical fidelity of present day consoles.

Graphical remasters and remakes are a “hit and miss” production. They happen because publishers (and by extension, developers), know there is profit to made in the machine of nostalgia, not (necessarily) because they’re interested in preserving or restoring old games. You see developers clearly holding back the desire to remix instead of being completely restorative, removing things they either didn’t like or expanding on things that couldn’t be done with previous hardware.

Yet, “if it ain’t broke, just update the visuals, maintain the rest”, is an adage some prefer. More often than not, remakes end up splitting older and younger audiences down the middle regardless of what changes or what remains. And that’s without taking into account bugged and half-hearted releases that never get addressed by devs.

But, Resident Evil 7 (“we swear it’s not a reboot”) happened, and it was fairly clear what direction Capcom was going to go in. While Capcom and fanbase for the game were content with calling Resident Evil 2 a “remake”, Capcom later insisted, “This is not a remake. It’s a retelling, a new game built from the ground up.” So, on the surface, RE2R definitely has more common with Shattered Memories than it does 2002’s Resident Evil. But, where Shattered Memories wasn’t interested in treading so familiar waters, the same cannot be said of this reboot.

The 2019 iteration of Resident Evil 2 is a monkey’s paw wish of a game, just based on the observation of how the established fanbase is reacting and my own personal feelings (as someone with no nostalgia for it). For some, they got exactly the experience they wanted (more RE7). For others, modifying the game (on PC, naturally) to recreate an experience closer to the 1998 release is a must. And then there are some who are simply disinterested in the game, content with the original, or dissatisfied with the creative or business choices made by Capcom (and given Capcom’s track record, I can’t blame them).

Within the game itself, there is a lot about the reboot that feels unfocused, hindered by budget, last minute decisions, a blandly retold narrative, and trying to cling to abstract bones in an effort to maintain the audience it courted, when abandoning those bones might’ve been a better idea.

I. Presentation – The "Realistic” “Re-Imagining”

If Marvin’s final moments with Leon or Claire weren’t enough to convince you the of the severity of the situation, maybe a emotionally manipulative scene with Dad and Zombie child will.

The Resident Evil series is not one known for its screenwriting. If anyone’s being real honest themselves, the shit’s bad 90% of the time, reached peak stupidity in RE6 and just kinda self-destructed from there. YMMV, but Resident Evil is the “so-bad-bad-its-good” game you could enjoy up to a point. The 2002 Resident Evil remake took a particularly poor script localization and improved upon its delivery, right down to the voice direction (which could still be a bit stilted). Yet, you never got the feeling RE1R was striving to be anything other than what it was: A cinematic-based video game that reveled in the aesthetic of Gothic environment design, mood, and b-movie monsters with a world domination plot thrown for extra spice. It had a decent sense of humor, and often poked fun at itself.

RE2O built its foundation on the basic principles of the original (isolation, aesthetic, framing, mood), but focused a little more on its humor, body horror and action-movie flair. The plot of RE2O was as bare-bones as it got with the presentation of its narrative. A new cop and an AWOL cop’s bike enthusiast sister wind up trapped in a police station, accidentally stumble across a corporate conspiracy and must escape a giant underground complex before it blows up. Simple stuff. And the dialog – with a fairly improved localization and English performances – got you from point A to point B.

For everything I didn’t like about RE7 (from its aesthetic, plot, combat, creature design, and its bologna white characters), it was, to some degree, an attempt to recapture the camp and b-movie horror that RE4 so firmly embraced without damaging its atmosphere. RE7 was self-aware enough to embrace the inanity that was its premise in a way the series had only recently attempted again in Resident Evil Revelations 2, which also had its tongue firmly placed in its cheek. Resident Evil is a game comfortable with its silliness, but can still deliver a tense mood and atmosphere.

It’s disappointing that RE2R adopts the tone of, “Please, take me seriously”, with all the self-awareness that RE6 had when it tried to be an action/thriller.

RE2R’s primary issue is tone and presentation. From the jump you can tell the scenario writers of RE2R want the game to be this gritty drama with “complex characters”, grounded in reality, right down to the HBO-levels of profanity and the redundant use of “bitch” littered throughout the script. In an attempt to remold a cast of characters designed for the absurd into “realistic” persons, what you get characters largely disinterested in their circumstances. Claire and Leon seem only mildly inconvenienced by the end of the world. They casually shout over explosions (that might as well not have happened), and often can’t be arsed to sound anything other than annoyed by most events that unfold around them as repetitive canned reactions regurgitate through the speakers.

The script doesn’t trust scenes like Leon’s one-to-one moments with Marvin to sell the dire circumstance. So, casually chauvinistic characters like the Gunshop owner (who got comically bodied by zombies) becomes a saccharine drama piece that stalls the progression of the plot in what might be one of most disingenuous moments I’ve seen in a game. When monsters like William Birkin, Mr. X, the Licker, and the plant monsters eventually begin to appear, they stand out and heighten the already problematic uncanny valley present in the game, and seem better suited for the elder games of the series.

You never really get moments like Chief Irons sorrowfully lamenting, “And to think taxidermy used to be my hobby”, Ada shrugging dismissively at Leon’s pride as a police officer, Annette getting conked upside the head by falling debris, or Claire tricking Mr. X into jumping over the ledge to go after the G-Virus hidden in Sherry’s locket and straight up calling him a sucker. The drab, washed out presentation of the plot, played so deadly serious, honestly made for a joyless experience.

RE2R asks and answers the questions like, “What if Leon was wearing civvies on the way to work?” or “What if Ada Wong pretended to be an FBI agent?” A lot of it comes off like a fan novelization that proudly boasts “My version of how Resident Evil 2 would go”. The first time you read it, maybe it’s an interesting take to indulge, but the more you revisit it, the more unessential or cosmetic the changes end up feeling. (The only real cosmetic change that doesn’t seem weird to me is the idea that the police hijacked a museum and made it their dumping grounds.)

A lot of changes to the plot seem to function largely on the assumption that things like Ada posing as a civilian, Sherry being sent to the police station by her parents (as opposed to leaving her in a unprotected living residence with no immediate help), the RPD knowing about the Mansion Incident and brushing off the survivors (Chris, Jill, Barry, etc.), or Ben the reporter locking himself a jail cell to avoid other monsters, are things that strain suspension of belief or just wouldn’t happen in “real life”. So things of that nature either get removed or reworked altogether, often times for jump scares telegraphed a mile away, or left hanging for prequel baiting (because Capcom knows folk are going to be clamoring for another remake of RE1 and RE3).

The plot and its progression feels condensed down to something that’s like the bullet points version of RE2O. It over-simplifies what was already a simpleton of a narrative, largely to compress a lot of events into two campaigns that now never work in harmony. To add insult to that injury, Claire and Leon never communicate, let alone work together. They pretty much forget the other exists, thus making that friendship pretty non-existent.

Say hello to your friends. Say hello people who care. Nothing’s better than friends.

With regard to the two campaigns, for all the focus Capcom places on Leon – the mascot of the reboot itself –, Claire’s campaign is probably a better presentation of a rebooted RE2O, even with its drawbacks to Claire as a character overall (more on that later). The highlight of Claire’s campaign is the fact that her friendship with Sherry Birkin remains intact. I actually think it gets a better representation here than in the original, or what was only marginally improved in side-games like Darkside Chronicles. The downside is that the two interact even less than they did in RE2O, the plot separating them immediately after forming a partnership.

There are some genuine moments of scripted walk-n-talk between Claire and Sherry as they explore the early parts of the game, which in turn makes Claire a far more engaging character than she is with Leon (who is devoid of any real charm or personality in this reboot). The downside, however, is that Sherry is reduced to a prop, where she was a far more proactive party in the original game. That and by the end of Claire’s campaign, there is a lot of “shitty mom” apologia from Claire, whose basic human decency makes her better guardian than Annette Birkin.

Annette Birkin is questionably re-framed as a sympathetic and even tragic hero character who “never meant for this to happen”, never-mind she and her husband (who is also framed as a victim) were involved in the testing, abuse and deaths of orphaned children in the name of science. Then there’s the whole virus that turns people into zombies. But, yeah, what a tragic figure.

My primary issue with the narrative of Leon’s campaign is that they decide to tie him more into the Umbrella plot (aka, Ada and Claire’s shtick) instead of having him focus on finding a way out and helping other people. The reboot actually had the opportunity to employ the “help the other survivors” bit I always felt was dropped in the original (but revisited in Outbreak), and put Leon’s altruistic character into more action. But, then the reboot removes this motivation altogether by making Marvin and RPD’s rescue efforts a complete and utter failure (thanks, Capcom).

His plot lacks any real momentum, largely because the game nixes his original cast dynamic. Despite nothing crucial happening in his campaign until the end of it, his bears the greatest consequence on the reboot’s compressed narrative. The outright removal of his friendship with Claire, and even the briefest interaction he has with Sherry, makes Leon pretty bland as hell.

The only time he comes off as remotely personable is when he interacted with Marvin. Otherwise, it’s one eye open, one eye closed with this iteration of the character. The fact that he’s less of a take charge personality, and more of pushover (to sad degrees) also makes for less entertaining interaction all around.

You can tell someone with no ability to write or direct romantic subplots handled this. Whoof.

And while I’m not against reworking the Ada/Leon dynamic where the start of an attraction is a little less like a brick to the head (”Ada wouldn’t do that. I KNOW her!”)? A): this is Capcom, so that didn’t happen, B): It’s still pretty much like a brick to the head, only this time it’s last minute, with less foundation, and outright unimaginative. Nothing about the execution of the “romance” in this game works at all. Where Ada and Leon at the very least had a functional rapport and partnership in RE2O, in the reboot the majority of their time is spent in passive aggressive disharmony. The outright antagonism between the two characters in the reboot is not only boring, but not remotely conducive for what follows near the climax.

As something that takes up the majority of his narrative, for worse instead of better, a lot the dialog – a direct consequence of what they choose to do with Ada – is comprised of uninspired “enemies-to-lovers” shtick, right down to drab flirt dialog and throwing one’s words back at the other (“I didn’t realize you were keeping score” / “I didn’t realize we were keeping score”).

The worst thing about his campaign is Ada’s depiction. The reboot effectively turns her into a character who does more damage to her own agenda than Leon being remotely present. I get the writers think having Ada posing as a federal agent is “smart” or “realistic”, but the character instead comes off as more suspicious than a civvie with a gun. She’s a pretty terrible spy in this reboot. Reboot Ada is an antagonistic character with zero charisma or personality, there’s no fun in finding out her ulterior motives. On top of that, the FBI shtick is probably the dullest iteration of the character since her “fringe observer” status in her RE6 campaign.

But, where you had complete control of her and she was motivated by her own subplot (that did intersect with Leon, sometimes), realized in gameplay and plot, RE2R reduces Ada to a purely cinematic and expositional tag-along character with no agency in the narrative. A lot of what was done to and happens to Ada’s character is purely in service of Leon’s plot and actions. They really fire-bombed the character, but if you’re a hardcore Ada/Leon shipper, then her function will have served its purpose, both for you and Leon’s arc.

Marvin Branagh is humanized on such a level he is no longer the same character from the original game, but his role is effectively the same one. Like Ada, Marvin was re-contextualized largely as a sacrifice to Leon’s character arc (this is not a vibe you get with Claire’s campaign ever). Chief Irons, who feels like he appears out of nowhere, with no buildup, has been reduced to this kind’ve ineffectual kidnapper who disappears just as quickly.

Resident Evil is at its best when it knows it’s an interactive horror b-movie – with action elements – and has a director who knows how to balance all those elements. Beyond the singular moment wherein Claire Redfield declares “I’m gonna kill the monster” while wielding a six shooter and Annette Birkin is actively cheering for the death of her Frankenstein husband, RE2R never tries to be that kind’ve game. It actively runs away from schlock, and so it is the less remarkable product.

Things gleamed from Resident Evil 2′s abandoned direction offer a far more interesting “re-imagining” than 2019 end result. To a degree.

Part of the problem with Capcom’s attempt to “re-imagine” RE2O is that it wants to cling so badly to the framework and story beats of the original game instead of creating an identity of its own. It wants the ability to say, “we’re a totally different story!”, but at the same time does very little to become a different story, and exiles itself to this island of nowhere because it actively alienates the connections to the games that come before and after it.

This is where I think, while a lot of people disliked Shattered Memories, it’s a better re-imagining of the original Silent Hill, because its bold enough to actually commit to that definition. Capcom’s execution here is pretty half-hearted, deliberately so.

I’ve only just chosen to acknowledge the prototype of Resident Evil 2, but despite knowing the devs were not happy with the end result (and just scrapped it), it does a lot of things that this reboot honestly should’ve at least attempted.

Not only does it handle the character plots in a way where scenario nonsense would not be a problem, you basically had (what are now) established (or nixed) characters in different roles, reasonably isolated from the RE1 plot, working in tandem with your player characters (Eliza and Leon) and their cast of characters, who were never designed to meet until the apparent end of the game. Also, Marvin had a larger role and a functional relationship with Leon (I hate Capcom).

As a “retelling” of RE2O, RE2R is pretty weak. There are so many ways Capcom could’ve “re-imagine” RE2O if they were being genuine about that, but the final product more or less proves they weren’t. It’s over-reliance on referencing or leaning on things from RE2O hinders more than helps the game. It invites comparison to what is a better product despite its age.

The reboot wants to be taken seriously, and does everything it can to project that image to the detriment of its presentation. RE2O more or less reveled in its silliness, and shlocky horror movie tropes and knew you would enjoy the ride anyway.

Separate Ways, Broken Scenarios

Claire and Leon working together, solving the problems...

RE2O’s scenario system was a fairly interesting way of presenting the story of two characters, and I always wondered why this was never more of a thing in games. Claire and Leon’s plot were separated on two discs (PS1). Leon was first, Claire, second. Completing one character’s “A Scenario” unlocked the other character’s “B Scenario”. Certain gameplay actions created minor consequences to affect the respective character’s scenarios (if you took a certain weapon or item over another, it wouldn’t appear in the other character’s alternate scenario).

The scenario system and the corresponding plots of the player characters were clearly developed in tandem with each other. Whatever goofs arose from therein, the narrative position of the characters remained firmly in place (largely because they were told through cinematics).

Claire’s B scenario always felt the most changed because the cinematics had to accommodate for a change to get Claire in places I was otherwise unaccustomed to seeing her. Legit, some of the cinematic differences were wild.

Back in June 2018, Capcom made it clear that RE2R was not intended to have a scenario campaign at all. The decision was (apparently) made back in 2017, when it was clear doing an A/B scenario was going to be costly on a AAA budget. It was only going to be a single campaign for Leon and Claire. So, Claire and Leon’s campaigns in RE2R are, structurally and plot-wise, “Scenario A and B did a fusion dance”.

In execution, their campaigns are like choose your own adventures. It asks the question “what if you went with Claire?” and its answer is “Leon de-spawns and doesn’t appear again until the end of the game”. It’s definitely not “Two strangers walkie-talkie a plan to escape a zombie infested city”.

Inside or outside, the B Scenario for the player characters barely differentiates itself from Scenario A

In this case, they should’ve stuck to their guns, just released one campaign per character (it’s not exactly like the absence of the B scenarios would actually impact their sales. Not with the fans whipped into a frenzy) and focused on getting their plot to work a little better.

“Claire B” and “Leon B” come off like a slapdash cut-and-paste job that made me question whether or not I had hit something on the controller that was causing the sequences to skip right through whole gameplay segments. Yet, now armed with the knowledge of a year before, it would explain why nothing in this game’s presentation ever feels like it gels, or was hastily put together.

Another issue the RE2R’s alternate scenarios make is not maintaining the characters static narrative placement as RE2O did. I think this is where you really start to see how little interest Capcom had in Claire as a character versus Leon.

RE2R’s “Claire A” Scenario opens with a brief clip of Claire on her bike, talking to someone on the phone about Chris, then hearing something in the gas station store. The game then proceeds to put her in the exact same circumstances as Leon, which is baffling. They really have her doing the Leon shtick and repeats what she did in “Leon A”, but inside the gas station. Whack.

If you play “Leon A” first, she appears out of nowhere like she’s been attacked outside the gas station somewhere nearby. Her motorcycle isn’t even anywhere in view, so, the natural assumption you make is that maybe they’ll show that later when you play “Claire B”. Maybe there’s another area you can explore.

Nah. In “Claire B” the exact same cinematic plays again, trailer music starts, cut to black, and, it jumps to her intro scene in “Leon A”. At no point are you given a unique gameplay level or cinematic for Claire to bridge the gap between Leon heading for the store exit and Claire being chased by zombies that suddenly surrounded the gas station. She lit. just spawned into the area! Whack.

Now for some awkward car dialog

The original game was smart enough to give you a cinematic where she scoped out an empty diner and happened across some zombies while Leon’s boots were being accosted outside by zombies near his jeep. It really sold the idea of events happening concurrently to two different people within the same area.

Claire in “Claire B” doesn’t even get a section where she runs through the city after escaping the T-bone incident. The game just drops you in the graveyard, and then drops you at the rear police station gate where Leon spots her outside. You do a lot of backtracking in RPD with zero character interaction, and then, about an hour into the game, you end up on the exact same track as you did in “Claire A” (meeting Sherry, saving Sherry, Birkin #3-5 fight, escape) with no scene restructuring or whatnot, just the standard “Extended Ending” shtick.

“Leon B” in RE2R shares the exact same problems as “Claire B”. It feels like an abridged version of “Leon A”. Beyond Leon standing outside the gas station store and instant transmission’ing to the back of the police station there are zero story differences. But, with Leon you always have the reassurance that you can just play “Leon A” if you want a more complete experience.

Driving motorcycles in the rain is, factually, an accident waiting to happen

Claire regardless of the scenario you choose for her, A or B, will never get a unique starting gameplay moment of her own. While I think they did a far better job of reworking “Claire A” better than either of Leon’s scenarios, that’s disappointing. Claire really feels like something of a afterthought.

Other detractors from the scenario nightmare include Mr. X following you around in the A Scenario and the B Scenario, instead of the B scenario only. Mr. X went from a fairly unsettling stalker of a boss enemy, who worked on slasher movie principals (the monster appears out of nowhere when you least expect him), then quickly transformed in a wearying exercise of dodging an enemy type that overstays its welcome. Both scenarios feature the helicopter crash and skylight Licker ambush, etc., etc..

If they couldn’t build upon or better realize what the 1998 game did, then the B Scenario was best left to the wayside. Naturally, Capcom didn’t follow their own advice and the want to cater to nostalgia bit them in the ass.

Water is wet.

II. Gameplay – Night of the Living Bullet Sponges

Lickers (who are still terrifying) are practically one-hit-kill monsters now. Yippie.

There is a lot about the cinematic presentation of the elder Resident Evil games that defines much of its identity. An identity strong enough that most games that came out during the high point of its career were content to copy or refine its formula (Temco’s Fatal Frame, Konami’s Silent Hill 3, and Capcom’s Onimusha and Haunting Ground for example). There is a lot that loses the more it – a two decade old franchise – attempts to keep up with an ever-changing landscape of what’s considered modern-gaming-at-the-moment, instead of going to sleep like Onimusha, or even being forcefully put out to pasture like Silent Hill and Dead Space.

RE2R is a standard third person shooter that de-emphasizes cinematic presentation within its plot and its game space. There are no establishing cinematics, and the Kamiya action-movie-esque flair that made the last stretch of the climax what it is, is thoroughly absent. RE2R instead opts to – present the plot of the game completely within the game space itself with minimal cinematics. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn’t.

Lickers drop unceremoniously on your head in your first encounter, Mr. X just appears out of nowhere then hounds you like Jehovah’s Witnesses, the sound of a helicopter crash goes whizzing by in time for you to walk past the model that’s already in the wall, Marvin becomes a zombie with no real sense of mourning or terror about his passing, Ada Wong gets the worst on-screen send off, etc. Cinematic moments that were meant to emphasize and foreshadow the decaying situation of the police station and the stakes of the characters are just kinda nullified.

Sherry Birkin’s gameplay segment is one of my favorite parts of the reboot.

I think one of the reasons Claire’s campaign leaves a better impression on me than that of Leon’s is what they decided to with Sherry Birkin’s part in her plot. Leon’s scenario has Ada trudging through a boring sewer corridor hunting for fuse boxes and then the game knocks her out so Leon can come to her rescue. With Sherry, you get something a little more creative, something that doesn’t treat her like a momentary distraction from the player character like it does with Ada. The entire orphanage level, from its presentation, to its level design, is probably what I would’ve liked to haven seen more of in the game.

The game puts you in the shoes of Sherry, but instead of traveling through sewers on your own, you’re exploring and searching an empty building that invokes a mood similar to – but not like – 2002’s Resident Evil. Obviously, this choice was made to keep Leon and Claire’s paths from intersecting (fuck that, I guess), and in a lot of ways, the game abandons the mechanics of Resident Evil and becomes a modern Clocktower game.

Chief Irons becomes the scissorman to Sherry’s Jennifer Simpson, and you, the player, have to navigate a fairly limited space to get away from him. They basically expand upon the Natalia stealth segments from Resident Evil Revelations 2 and create a fantastic gameplay segment full of distressing near misses and a legitimate win for Sherry. (I only wish they had allowed her to lock Irons in the bathroom. He would’ve Nicholson’ed his way out anyway.) Unfortunately, it ends with a Deus Ex Birkin appearance and leaves the player asking more questions that it’s not interested in answering on any level. Also Mr. X just spontaneously appears as well, which only compounds the Deus Ex Birkin thing.

Where you could soccer kick a head from a zombie in the original, Claire and Leon can barely expend energy to shake ‘em off their shins. Fantastic.

Combat wise, in a lot of ways, RE2R feels like a chore. A regression of the advancements that RE4 and RE1R was able to strike a balance with, but later iterations leaned too heavily on or used too little. Hell, I even think it’s a regression of how Dead Space approached combat. RE1R encouraged the player of doing away with zombies much in the same fashion as its counterpart and RE2O, with tactile and visible indicators that the zombies were dead (pools of blood under the body, dismemberment, headshots), but, it also threw in the risk of dealing with a new threat (Crimson Heads) if you chose not to oil and burn the bodies you left behind as you cleared the area. The gameplay was solid about letting the player know their resources had been put to good use.

RE4 encouraged smarter gunplay, aided by laser sight, and critical damage hits to other areas of the Ganados. The risk of taking headshots were being attacked by the parasites that could take large chunks of your health out in tandem with the mobs that – one way or another – would catch up to you. Dead Space took the critical hit system of RE4 and transformed it into a mechanic that made the complete dismemberment of the Necromorph critical to survival. Effectively, both you and the enemies were fairly balanced against each the other. You were never so strong that you could blast through your opponents and your opponents were never so OP that you lost unnecessary resources trying to kill them.

The same really cannot be said of RE2R. Nothing about the combat or enemy encounters feels particularly balanced for much of anything save busywork and resource death. There is no real balance between yours and the strength your opponent. I’ve heard RE4’s adaptive difficulty is still in play here, but if it is, its implementation here is not great. I certainly never reached that flow-state where I felt I was in harmony with the game.

Yeah, I didn’t miss this bit at all.

Headshots are nullified in a way they’ve never been in the series, and right off you can tell what the devs consider a “challenge” in terms of gameplay. Zombies eat bullets as badly as any mid-tier B.O.W., regardless of what difficulty setting you choose. In standard I saw six-to-nine bullets go into the head of a zombie and there was no guarantee they were dead until you saw their head explode or maybe saw them twitch. In hardcore (my sister’s preferred mode), zombies will eat eight-to-twelve-or-more bullets to the head and the consequence is the same.

It’s imperative to try and incapacitate the undead, because minimizing your enemy count in RE2R is an exercise of frustration and often, a waste of bullets. Zombies move far faster than they did the original iteration of this game, practically zapping over to you no matter how much space is between you and them. They do just about the same, if not more, damage to you. The common defense against this is grenades, flashbangs and knives. If you haven’t used them for other things (like Ninja vanishing or crowd control), it’s the quickest way to get out of their hold. It’s simply not as reliable or was enjoyable a method to fight the zombies off in the vein RE4 provided (German Suplexes, kicks, elbows to the face, a knife that isn’t dollar store plastic, dodging, etc.).

If you can avoid them, by all means, avoid them. The consequence, however, is if you have to backtrack, well, you might be running into a bigger crowd, one that may include the problem monster of the given area (Lickers, Mr. X, Dogs, Plant Monsters, etc.) and potentially less resources. It’s a particular problem in the police station with Mr. X following you everywhere and not being remotely helpful enough to do some of the killing for you. He just gently pushes them out of the way.

A lot of the time, my sister was preoccupied with head-shots (against all odds) while I spent my time (trying to) cap their knees, and remove their limbs (so they couldn’t grab us after I capped their knees) so we could sprint our way through environments when the opportunity presented itself (largely to save ammo for another problem area). She’s the better shot, I’m only great with projectile weapons (so Claire’s campaign is even better to me in that regard), which I largely prefer on principal of strength. For me, there is no real satisfaction in the game’s combat, not even in a fight-or-flight sense (prime example: the village and castle encounters in RE4), or on a level capable of inducing the worst panic attack in me like Dead Space 2′s opening hospital sequence.

I was frustrated with near misses. My sister was a little more forgiving about the changes despite never being to make the clean headshots she wanted. We only really agreed on mutual dislike of the boss battles, but’s more or less how we feel about all of RE’s bosses. There is not a single one we’ve enjoyed fighting, and the worst ones were all in RE6 (which literally had us not talking to each other for days afterward) and Revelations 2.

Local zombie mocks police station’s lack of shutters

RE2R is pretty generous with its ammo cashes, with most of what you need readily available. The map, for the most part, makes locating items easier, but spotting them poorly lit environments, and around mini horde-like numbers that seemingly materialize out of nowhere is a bit of chore. Rarer types of ammo, like shotgun or automatic weapon ammo are often hidden in safes or lockers with combination locks.

Resource management returns in the reboot, copy-pasted from RE7, right down to the stark menu and a minimalist design that makes item management, I guess, less busy (color wise). It works, so it doesn’t bother me in context. The maps are definitely easier to read and a little more explicit about what items are where, but have otherwise maintained the “cleared” / “in progress” blue and red dynamic.

Depending on the difficulty level you’re playing on --- easy (assisted), normal (standard), or hard (hardcore) ---, your resources will be readily available to you, somewhere in the middle, or few and far between (in practice). Hard mode will have you rely on ink ribbons to save your game (like a standard PS1-PS2 game), and I think there are no checkpoints. Save points are scattered in new locations and are a brief safe haven.

Puzzles in Resident Evil have always been a series of frustrating events, particularly slide-and-complete-the-picture and “find the missing themed piece” puzzles. But, this game actually made me appreciate them, largely because the gun-play is no longer a satisfying aspect (and probably will never be again).

Mechanically speaking, a lot of the puzzles or item hunts from RE2O are sort’ve retained, but they’ve been mixed up or their importance to getting to one place or another has been (extremely) reduced or made even more convoluted. The reboot is definitely not that interested in puzzles, so it feels and is designed less like a dungeon crawler.

Item hunting in order to solve puzzles requires you backtrack quite a number of times through the environment-of-the-moment. However, backtracking is perhaps more nightmare-ish and gauntlet-like than previous entries because it seems like the game spawns more zombies into the area. And with Mr. X basically breaking the exploratory pace of the game, the want to explore your environment is actively discouraged.

[Sighs Loudly For a Thousand Years]

Despite the game’s over-reliance on Mr. X, breaking from the series formula of not over-exposing its mini-bosses (the Regeneradors, Verdugo, or even that huge Centipede in a Trenchcoat for example, were not following you everywhere), Mr. X was, for a short time, the only ‘combat’ element in this game that invoked the right kind of déjà vu.

It was actually satisfying knocking him down, and ducking his punches at the last minute. I mean, at least it was in levels having nothing to do that Ada Wong segment. (Then. he. kept. coming. back.)

Ending him isn’t quite as satisfying as it is in the original game. Not because he effectively became an SNK boss, but because the component that makes that fun (The Resurrection of Ada Wong and the emancipation of the Rocket Launcher) was removed entirely from the game for a sequence far, far blander in comparison.

III. Non-Union for Billion Dollar Corporations

Around 2015 or so, there were rumblings (outright vocalizations) from unionized voice actors that shed some light on some particularly horrible business practices that developers and publishers were carrying out on voice actors. They were either not being paid their due, or not allowed proper rest-time during the jobs they worked on. Big studios like Insomniac Games, EA Games, Activison, and the like were mistreating voice actors, often to the point where some confessed to experiencing vocal damage, stress or injuries sustained from shitty work conditions and people who clearly viewed their occupation as a lesser division of their project’s production.

At the same time, well before the strike became officiated, Capcom made the conscious decision not to hire unionized voice actors for the production of the Resident Evil 2 reboot. No one knew about this until 2017, when the game was well on its way to being released the following year (before a delay pushed it to 2019) and the Strike was ongoing. Alyson Court (on-again-off-again VA of Claire Redfield), Matthew Mercer (the most recent VA for Leon), and Courtenay Taylor (the most recent VA for Ada Wong) all announced that they weren’t reprising their roles in the game because the reboot was not a union project, but it was not a result of the strike.

Some vocalized their displeasure with this, even going as far as to say that they wouldn’t buy the game in a show of support of the actors. Others aren’t sparing it a glance because they’re otherwise disappointed with the creative direction anyway. But if the reception of the game from basic users – aware of the circumstances or not – is anything to go by, solidarity will typically lose out to FOMA (Fear of Missing Out). Especially if you’re not getting anything out of it personally or emotionally as a consumer of media.

I’m not particularly interested in demeaning non-union voice actors, (I’ve watched and paid for many a-thing that used non-union labor). Capcom, despite working on union projects, also continues to dabble in non-union label as well. I know Capcom’s likely wasn’t interested nor aiming to help voice actors not represented by SAG-AFTRA (or other organizations) become better known or gain better opportunities.

The less money they can probably shell out with non-union work, the better it is for them in the long run. Knowing the striking voice actors didn’t remotely get what they wanted out of negations (and probably didn’t get the support they wanted on account of whataboutism) will probably only embolden Capcom and other publishers and developers to make/continue behavior like this, whether or not another strike ever occur.

Resident Evil has never been particularly known for its voice acting beyond the scope of how terribly it started out in 1996 and kinda petered out on the platform of “meh, it’s not completely terrible” with later entries.

The series could hire some fantastic voice actors (Rino Ramano, Karen Dyer, Sally Cahill, and Paul Mercier, for example), and a lot of them can deliver some dud performances regardless of experience. At the end of the day, unless they have an equally strong director and screenwriter, you’re going to end up with an embarrassment of riches that may become memes one day (“Complete. Global. Saturation.”).

That said, RE2R’s issue seems to lie primarily within the writing. In an attempt “humanize” characters, major to minor, the script is often littered with profanity that not only distracts from the point of what you’re reading or listening to, but adds unnecessary fat to a script that’s already bogged down with dialog and text.

The downside to a rebooting a 20 year old game, is when corporations indulge in fandom bullshit. RE2R is pretty rife with cutesy dialog meant to whip the “Cleon” shippers into a frenzy. Its nauseating, really.

Claire and Leon’s conversation at the back of the police station is a prime example of that: Instead of having the dialog delivering urgency of the scene, the objective of the characters we get an aimless exchange full of flirty dialog, and two characters not all that concerned with zombies materializing behind them (given they take forever to put the fire under their boots). In RE2O, at least the writers were smart enough to have the characters meet in a zombie-free room or hall.

I’ve seen people make the Realism™ argument constantly with this game (esp. when counterpointing the gameplay criticisms), but, "realism” is a weak argument and esp. when you’re simply looking to be dismissive. When dialog begins to wander from its point, when profanity hinders more than helps your delivery, your story not only loses impact, it rather shows you’re a mite lazy or weak as a writer.

Comparatively, RE2O was able to communicate the urgency, anger and tone of their characters, and under no circumstances were they this reliant on profanity or long-winded dialog. The issue isn’t that profanity is present, or that the game is text or dialog heavy, it’s how its executed. And at present, the execution is lacking in a strong focus or reduces the game to script written by someone who just realized, “wait, I can make characters swear????”

I can honestly see why a lot of protagonists in survival-horror games were silent for so long outside of cinematics, or simply had substituted thoughts (”I better find Ashley quick”). Running commentary really does break the immersion.

Claire and Leon go from mildly relatable to mechanical models spewing canned reactions that lost their bite forty minutes ago. It’s like being stuck with multiple versions of the Generic Husband from RE7 who “what the fucks?” at every single thing when given the opportunity. So, in a lot of ways, it has a lot of the same problems that made the dialog in Resident Evil Revelations 2 anguish to listen to (hello, Moria Burton), but it lacks such charming (/s) quips like, “Holy balls, my life is awesome!”

That said, not all of the performances are terrible. The voice actors for Claire (Stephanie Panisello), Marvin (Christopher Mychael Watson) and Sherry (Eliza Pryor) probably leave the greatest impression, and are arguably the strongest performers in the game. Christopher Mychael Watson in particular gives a wildly different performance depending on who you’re playing as (Leon or Claire) and has the strongest rapport with Stephanie Panisello.

Nick Apostolides, on the other hand, he just turns in a really unremarkable performance as Leon. Like, in comparison to Mercer, Mercier, he simply does not charisma to inject personality into what is an otherwise really boring version of Leon. He definitely doesn’t have the hammy, but dead-serious delivery of Paul ”why does no one listen to me?” Haddad (Leon’s original VA).

I think one of the more disappointing sequences in the game is when Leon returns to the main lobby in the station and gets jumped by zombie Marvin. Instead of sounding devastated, Leon just sounds mildly disappointed his C.O is a zombie (Panisello gives you a better impression of Claire’s heartbreak). And because this scene isn’t a cinematic, you as a player are just running around in circles hoping you have enough ammo to kill the bullet sponge zombie Marvin. When Marvin is finally a gory mess on the ground, Leon saying, “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ll stop this” (paraphrasing) to the pieces of Marvin’s body, comes off as unintentionally hilarious, right down to the delivery of Apostolides.

My feelings are about the same on Jolene Andersen (but we all can’t be Sally Cahill, can we?), but also makes me wonder why Capcom didn’t go the distance to hire a Chinese-American voice actress for Ada. They clearly had the opportunity to do so, they found a Black actor for Marvin, but they just didn’t bother with Ada.

The worst performances out of the bunch is probably Daddy Gunshop owner, “Hello Human” reporter guy, Annette “You’ll Never Get the G-Virus” Birkin, and Chief Irons.

IV. Capcom’s Adventures in Sexism Rebooted

One of these characters had some thought put into their design. It’s not the character on the left.

The Resident Evil series is no stranger the sexualization or objectification of female characters. Historically, for every step forward Resident Evil takes with the presentation of its female characters, it takes six steps back. If there is a female character in the series, the chances are she’s going to be wearing something meant purely for the male gaze, while her male companions wear something far more appropriate for the game’s plot. It only gets worse with alternate costumes, which are typically comprised of sexy school girl fantasies, Daisy Duke hot pants, anti-Black fetishism, and little red riding hood looks. (And no, costumes like Chris’ Sailor Man and Mad Max looks aren’t a counterpoint gotcha.)

RE2R, on the surface, seems to be yet another step-up in the presentation department for female characters in the series. Claire is wearing a leather jacket over a black tank top and sports jeans instead of shorts in new her default costume, they even presented Ada Wong in a world’s ugliest looking trenchcoat. Even better, one of Claire’s alternate costumes is a suit pants and shirt look. Claire has three alternate costumes that aren’t even remotely fanservice-y in the least and it’s great.

Then Capcom announced the “Classic Costume” for Claire and finally revealed Ada Wong without the trenchcoat, and it was business as usual. Claire Redfield’s “Classic Costume” in the reboot is, for lack of a better word, closer to fanservice-y than the original leotard under shorts, black shirt, and vest combo ever turned out to be. The only marked improvement made are the shorts are equal to the length of the leotards and no longer look like underwear.

Where the tank top worked with her new jacket and jeans, it throws the entire look of the original costume’s framing off, and based on the cinematics. While it’s nowhere near as sexualized as her Revelations 2 alt costume, Capcom’s intent here is pretty clear.

Effectively, Claire looks closer to a character who would appear in a Michael Bay produced horror film, whose talking points are usually how sexy the actress makes being terrified look. In the original she was simply meant to look “cool”. When she removed the vest, and wore the holster over her black shirt, she did.

Ada Wong goes from wearing a halter top dress with leggings, and flat heeled shoes that looked fairly maneuverable in, to looking as though she’s been zip-locked into a red slip that doesn’t fit her, finished off with a tacky tiny black bow, a choker and two inch heels.

The entire look of it rather screams at you like a flashing ad banner advertising for an explicit website fetishizing Chinese-American woman. A lot of the fan art coming out of the fandom for Ada Wong in the remake is reflecting more or less that, so the target audience has been completely satisfied in this regard.

She looks absolutely ridiculous in gameplay segments because the dress was designed with no reactionary physics. It doesn’t flex the way a dress does around legs. It looks like a bad mod made by a fan that wanted a “sexier” looking Ada Wong.

Even outside the context of alternate costumes, female characters like 18-Year old Rebecca Chambers (who isn’t even in this game) ends up being oddly sexualized in a photograph where she was originally just sitting on the ground with a basketball in front of her leg, grinning like a goofy kid on a Scholastic paperback from the 90s.

Were it not for the fact that they were legitimately aiming to make Annette Birkin look undesirable, I’d be surprised that she didn’t appear in this game wearing a lab coat, half-open dress shirt, office skirt and three inch heels with heavy makeup.

Meanwhile, Leon Kennedy gets a “Classic Costume” that gets no [major] alternations to its look and thus is restored, unlike Claire or Ada, normal civilian clothing, and a Noir costume. Ada basically got no alternate costumes despite her playability, and I think it was the same with Sherry as well?

Standard, tried and true sexism aside, when it comes right down to it, even if your female character has the reputation of characters like Leon, “How can I make her sexier?” is a question Capcom all too readily answers instead of being creative.

V. RE Engine or, a Trip into the Dark Valley of Uncanny Gray People Land

Photorealism in games isn’t something I’m crazy about and how I react to it ultimately depends on the developer. A lot of video games have been worse for it – dead eye and plastic looking characters is an issue that persists – while very few have used it to the advantage of their creativity.

The major thing that puts me off is the blandness of a photo-realistic white faces. Developers are have shown they can sleepwalk a photo-realistic white face with no issues, but when it comes to the faces of people of color, well, either their biases start to show in the designs (its real easy to make a caricature of Black or non-Black face for video game devs) or their limitations are inherent in their how they see faces that don’t look like them.

I find myself struggling to say what I enjoyed about this game on a visual aspect, because its biggest detriment is without a doubt the RE Engine.

Environment Design - You want it Darker

Creative Assembly’s Alien Isolation did something I really liked. And that’s make the player reliant upon its darkness. You spend as much time in the light as you do enshrouded in the dark. The A.I. systems of Amanda Ripley’s enemies: Hostile humans, androids on an aggressive warpath of helpfulness, and the Xenomorph make hyper-aware of just how exposed you are bathed in the light, just as the dark and shadow make you equally aware that you’re just as open to an attack from the Xenomorph who needs no light to see you should it ever spot you therein.

A lot of the design philosophies in RE2R were built on the groundwork established by RE7, but its disadvantage was the player’s familiarity with RE2O’s level design. In a lot ways, I think they opted for pitch black environments to break that confidence. There are several environments throughout the presentation of RE2R that are turn-the-lights-off dark (which makes for an unpleasant experience for my eyes), but in a way that’s more superficial than essential.

Most areas in the game contain low-level lightning most of the series is known for, but it lacks any of the color and saturation from older games that make set pieces stand out. The most light you’ll see in RE2R is within the lobby, library and upper offices of the police station and the underground lab at the climax of the game.

The closest the game ever gets to replicating the atmosphere and mood of the older Resident Evil games is probably the orphanage level and the later street level in Claire’s campaign. The lightning and shadows are perfect there. But, more often than not, RE2R is content to plunge you into a adversarial darkness repeatedly with a flashlight. In addition to the game’s muted or desaturated colors and washed out look, nothing about the environment design really stands out as remarkable outside of the aforementioned levels.

I don’t think I’ve read so many complaints about having to adjust the contrast, color, brightness, and etc just to get one area or another to look normal before this game (in relation to RE). It’s apparently bad enough that PC Modders are creating mods that fix the overall presentation of the game (more color contrast, sharper image, improved lightning). Devil May Cry 5‘s environment and lightning design tends to looks leagues better than this game, and its got its fair share of bland looking levels.

The screenshot is edited, but this is a solid approximation of how dark it is in a lot of areas.

Where almost no light worked in a game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, SOMA, Penumbra, or even Silent Hill, RE2R’s design template actively discourages exploration in a way the older games did the opposite. It gives you the impression that the game has more to hide than it does to show you. The 2002 Resident Evil remake is still one of the best examples of cinematic light, dark, and shadow created purely for navigation purposes. The game is seventeen years old (holy shit), and legit, I don’t think there is a Resident Evil game in the series that nails how essential lightning is to your environment like this one.

On an aesthetic level, the reboot fails to capture the period of the world that its predecessor was basically developed, lived and breathed in. Setting aside product placement (“Pepsi”) and musical cues (“Baby one More Time”) is beyond Capcom’s budget, it’s the little things about the environment and level design in the reboot that really fails to say, “Here lay 1998. We’re a year away from the full-blown Y2K craze, floppy discs, and pagers were still a thing.”

There’s a tape recorder, yes, there are big, blocky computers sitting on hardwood desks and gas prices I still can’t believe my father grouched over in comparison to the shit they have us paying now, but, a lot of those things feel like superficial window dressing on a poster board.

The environment design and world of RE2R feels very much like a 2019 era world with very little ringing true of the 90s.. I don’t think any damages the authenticity of the world much like the design of the characters – who look a little too 21st century as opposed to individuals trapped in a moment of time – now twenty years ago – and the same can be said of the secret evil lair of the Umbrella Corporation.

Everything in the final level of the game feels like something of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil (The HIVE), and less like a lab that was built and constructed with what a 90s era architect would think was cutting edge tech and aesthetic of the late 1990s. It got to a point where I honestly think they should’ve just set the reboot in 2018.

Character Design - Petrified Faces and Awkward Mouths

He’s lit. melting in the rain right now.

Photo-realistic characters live and die by how well they imitate life without setting off the alarms in your mind. RE2R falls on the spectrum of “missing your mark” in a lot of ways. Characters in RE7 had the look of wax mannequin dolls walking around terrorizing you’re equally doll-esque player characters (with no heads). Nothing about how these characters were rendered and animated was particularly great, and it constantly triggered the meant response of “there is something wrong with what I’m looking at” that often comes with the uncanny valley.

The biggest issue facing the grand majority of the white characters RE2R is the fact that Capcom is still manipulating faces like they’re still using stylized animation and not an engine “based in reality” to its detriment. Characters are puppet-esque, or look particularly unfinished in the washed out environment and desaturated colors. This is noticeable in throwaway characters like the trucker in the opening cinematic (eating a burger that reacts unlike food) with a face that seems ready to melt off of its model at any moment, Chief Irons, “Hello Human” reporter guy, and the father and zombie daughter from the trite Gunshop sequence begging for its SAG award. None of these characters emote or animate well and draw the eye to the imperfections of the engine than wow you with its animation.

Among the central cast, the characters that look the worst rendered in the RE Engine are probably Claire Redfield and Annette Birkin. Both characters look as though the face models simply did not cooperate with Capcom tweaking the faces. Annette is more puppet-like than say, Claire (who at least has genuine moments of humanity). The less than stellar facial and lip animation is extremely noticeable on Annette's model who might’ve been promoted to minor antagonist at the last minute, because she has no business moving so robotically. It probably doesn’t help matters that Capcom designed her character with the philosophy of “working women don’t care about their appearances” (paraphrased) in mind, which makes their changes to Ada and Claire all the more suspect.

Claire’s biggest issue seems to be that Capcom simply spent less time on her than they did Leon. The model’s face is often stiff and under-animated, so it looks like Claire’s face is struggling to emote. This is especially notifiable when you compare Claire’s model to her living counterpart (who is far more expressive in a still image than her 3D model). Capcom more than likely tweaked the model’s face more than a little bit, and to the character’s detriment. Honestly, it’s comparable to how she ended up looking in CGI film Degeneration (where her face barley animated). Claire’s model really, really, really needed more work, or Capcom needed to find a face they could work with better than the one they chose.

Leon is the character they clearly spent more time on, at least in terms of details. In general, his animations are probably stiffer than Claire. Most of the cinematics involving close-ups of Leon’s face make it appear as though Leon has mastered the art of talking through one’s teeth without moving their lips, and he’s not particularly emotive unless the emotion is an extreme one.

Out of the characters with any remote screen-time or plot-related dialog, the only ones that look slightly more remarkable are Ada Wong and Marvin Branagh. Marvin in particular might be the best example of what the RE Engine can do with unique faces and competent performance from the animators and the actor.

Ada Wong looks better than she ever did in Resident Evil 6, and while this not my favorite rendition of her character on any level, she is only female character in the game – in terms of character design – that got a decent face model.

The only drawback with these two characters that Marvin looks as ashy white as the white characters (and no blood-loss isn’t a justification for that) and he shares the same thousand yard dead-eye look in his eyes that a lot of the other characters have. The less-than-stellar facial animation is more than a little noticeable in Ada Wong’s sequences a well (was she snarling or trying to annunciate words at Annette?).

The zombies and non-human enemy types look better suited the grayscale, clay-esque look the RE Engine gives everything. Zombies require almost little to no real facial animation, but against the backdrop of reality they are truly out of place (to reiterate). The same can be said of characters like Mr. X or William Birkin’s monster form.

The big sell Capcom made with the zombies and monsters in RE2R is that they could render insane amounts of gore, based on the human anatomy. On paper, it definitely sounds like a cool idea, in execution? I’ve been so desensitized to gore and human guts – within the fictional spectrum – that this really doesn’t impress me. (My sister, on the other hand, needed a moment.)

It’s like, “Yeah, that guy’s arm is are hanging off alright.” But, unless you’re giving me RE4 or Dead Space level styled deaths, where the gore is put on display with a sort’ve Evil Dead irreverence, well, the most your doing is just demonstrating gross anatomy. It’s cool, but not exactly satisfying, esp. when taking the clay-esque look of the models into consideration. The masturbatory gore dislay is also probably a big reason why firearms and explosives against zombies no longer have the desired effect. The most you’ll be doing a lot of the time is peeling the skin off of a model, which I guess, is your cue to go, “Wow, look these physics, look at that gore.”

There are some developers who really know how to work with photo-realistic environments and, even moreso, how to render photo-realistic characters, be they based on living people or not. Remedy Entertainment (using the in-house engine, Northlight Engine), is one, and Naughty Dog – who still rely heavily on stylization – has only recently entered that threshold during the PS4 era.

A lot of this of course, is a consequence of experience with that medium. Naughty Dog’s history with more animated styles definitely helps more than harms their photo-realistic models and environment. Remedy Entertainment’s persistent desire to render the real world in a 3D environment has simply improved as the tech has gotten better.

Capcom, like Square Enix and the late Konami, was always at its best with hybrid blend of animation and photo-realism. Resident Evil was rendered and designed in such a way that it straddled the line of photo-realism and stylistic animation in way no other games did. It wasn’t too real, and it wasn’t too cartoony.

That creative style lent itself to their level design as one was often not without the other. The Gothic horror design of mansions or European countries, and the stark familiarity of places like a police station, a cruise ship or a prison island, were often picture-esque or surreal by design. The RE Engine is probably the biggest step backward in terms of design and atmosphere.

VI. Conclusion – “All Employees Proceed to the Bottom Platform.”

Hey, look, a callback to Resident Evil 2. Neat.

As a game I played with my sister, passing he controller to her every fifteen minutes, I had fun based purely on how she reacted to the game. Whatever my quibbles, the most fun I’ve had with this game is probably screaming and yelling with my sister, and acting as her personal exposition machine.

She asks so many questions about what the hell is going on in the greater scheme of the plot. She doesn’t care, per-say, but she asks anyway because she knows I like reading Wikipedia and thus have the answers. I can only tell her what I know from the previous games, which I know effectively don’t count for shit with this reboot.

That said, the reboot just made me weirdly appreciative of what went into the creation of the original Resident Evil 2, especially in terms of structure, gameplay and presentation. The reboot is ultimately something that feels like it was produced within a AAA space, right down to its paid DLC offerings, which once would’ve been natural unlockables in the game. It’s budget was probably sunk by the over-lavish requirements of the RE Engine, and just from looking at it, this game had budget it was straining against. It ultimately ends up making its predecessor all the more crucial and unique.

It kinda highlights just how useless exploiting nostalgia is in the process of replicating things. You don’t get the same results, and in the end you’re only playing an imitation of something that was a consequence of the right people coming together at the right period of time. It’s what makes things like polygonal character skins, or “play this game with lower resolution settings”, give the impression that devs largely miss the point or misunderstand what people like or continue to like about older productions, even when a newer imitation of it comes out (the discussions people have about Metal Gear Solid vs. The Twin Snakes highlights this best, I think).

I enjoyed Bluepoint’s Shadow of the Colossus, they went above and beyond the call of duty to reproduce the original, but I often find myself playing the older far more than its 2018 remake, because the latter ultimately lacks what Team Ico put into that game.

In its attempts to be a retelling of the game, RE2R probably would’ve been better off abandoning the entire framework and creating something entirely new (I say again). But because it never tries to be different enough from its counterpart, especially in terms of story beats, the end result is a condensed soup with missing flavor. Otherwise, I think restorative would’ve been a better move than remixing it. Not something I could say about Shattered Memories. If I could describe RE2R, outside of the interaction I had with it in the company of my sister, “boring” would be the kindest descriptor I could give it. Everything about its aesthetic, to the delivery as a much toned down version of RE2O, was not gripping [for] me.

Comparing this reboot to something like DMC5, something using the same engine, but manages to be more vibrant in design and presentation, makes RE2R look unremarkable in comparison. The visual quality of the game tended to remind me of the presentation of Ready at Dawn’s The Order 1886, which was also heavily reliant on photo-realistic graphics and a washed out presentation.

This game is nowhere near as engaging as its original. And because the campaigns are basically a Frankenstein hybrid of the original A/B set up, a lot of the changes to the plot seem really superfluous or detrimental to the structure overall.

They really did Ada dirty in this game.

Playing the events of RE2O as more overly dramatic or serious effectively makes for a really dull game. A more reality-based RE isn’t something I’m particularly interested in, especially since the end result appears to be a less exciting product. The fact that they did so little with or reduced characters like Marvin and Ada – who are nowhere near as present or independent of the scenario characters as they should be, just makes for a greater disappointment.

RE2R is a reboot of the original 1998 game in all the ways that are reflective of RE7’s design principals, carrying the pretense of realism on its shoulders. RE2R keeps some of the bones of RE2O, but discards the rest in exchange for something trying really hard to be different, but familiar enough to invoke déjà vu. If you spent the radio silence hoping for the lavish recreation Mikami made of his 1996 original in 2002 for Gamecube audiences, you sadly won’t find it here. If anything this more or less proves something like that will never happen again.

RE2R strives to be a third person iteration of RE7 with an older title. If you weren’t crazy for what a lot of people more or less called “Resident Evil in Name Only” when it was released in 2017, chances are you won’t enjoy your time with RE2R. If you were completely and utterly for RE7, the RE Engine and all that this blueprint entails, you’ll basically have a good time with RE2R and whatever else gets remade under this umbrella.

The last temptation I have toward this game is playing it heavily modified on the PC because the mods for this game actually look like something to mess with. I’m just waiting for the “Classic Ada” costume mod, because that dress is some of the laziest character design I’ve ever seen.

#resident evil 2 remake #resident evil #capcom #re engine #re2 remake spoilers #videogamesincolor #marvin branagh #reboot ada wong #resident evil series #resident evil 2 reimagined

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elli-dawn-stories · 8 years ago

Text

The Gods Dancing

#Star crossed myth #voltage inc

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secrethistoryhq-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name/Alias: Ang

Age: 21

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her or They/Them

Timezone: PST

IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Maxine Rosemarie Bautista

Age: 19

Gender: Cisfemale

Pronouns: She/Her

Character’s Occupation: (younger) Cashier at a Museum Gift Shop / (Older) Animator and Freelance Comic Artist

Younger Face Claim: Jane De Leon

Older Face Claim: Anne Curtis Smith

Positive Personality Traits: Outgoing, Free Spirited, Loyal

Negative Personality Traits: Unemotional, Apathetic, Anxious

DIGGING DEEP

• Their Involvement: How do you believe your character assisted in the murder? Were they absent, engaged, or numb to it?

Maxine probably involved herself whether or was helping cover it up or making alibis, and on some way maybe assisting in the murder. She’s loyal to a fault, and the fact she’s emotionless makes her a great person to hide the secret. I imagine the entire time she was very calm, too calm. Not shakiness to her voice or a beat skip when asked what happened that night. Her mouth always a straight lime and her face blank. Her only tell would probably be how dead her gaze would’ve been.

• How It Affected Them: Did your character cope well? If yes/no, how did they?

She’s totally numb outward. To her this is some shit that happened, and being upset isn’t going to fix or change it. But I also see her struggle with that. She already has conflicts over her lack of emotion, so she probably is overwhelmed that literally killing someone and covering it up she doesn’t even flinch. She fears she’s hollowed her heart completely and questions if she has empathy. Which, if she doesn’t, makes her fear what she’s capable of and what she’s not capable of.

• Headcanons: Treat these as an exercise to get to know your character better. Explore their interests, what they were like as a student at Augustus, or merely how they dress. Just write as it comes, and forget the rest.

Omg so Maxine is definitely an art hoe aesthetic. She’s a mix of her signs (Leo/Taurus/Scorpio) - lots of golden yellows, faint blues, and green earthy tones. I somewhat imagine she dresses like @bestdressed but also like a skater. She loves vintage clothes, owns too many vintage windbreakers, shorts, and bomber jackets. Also she only has clothes that make sense in LA weather, she’s always freezing her ass off. Oh she’s also definitely a Vans and Birkenstock’s with socks person. I feel like when she’s older she’s toned it down to a more minimalist look with a splash of color.

Maxine is an artist primarily, she’s loved art since she was a kid. Her mother is a fashion designer (think Anna Wintour) and her father is a former competitive runner now museum curator and art history professor. She’s grown up with it, loves the power it has. As a kid she dreamt about being in LA Union Station and seeing her art somewhere. Tbh I was inspired by @ashlukadraws whose art is on like every bus in LA

She dabbles in photography, sketch, painting, digital art, and sculpture. She’s trying to get into performative art. She’s always sketching people and things.

She’s definitely a skater but also she is? The worst driver. LA she didn’t have to drive much, she barely got her license.

Maxine loves animated movies and anime. They’re the only things that can possibly make her cry easily. Her favorite films are Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Only Yesterday, and recently Spider-Man Into the Spidey Verse

Maxine has a not so good relationship with her parents. Her father was quiet, conservative and her mother is a stone cold disciplinarian. However, she was close to her father. He got Maxine into art, supported her in endeavors. But when Maxine was 14, they caught her kissing a girl from her from art class. Her mother for upset, yelled at her she’d go to hell, etc, the whole spiel. But her father didn’t react, just stared at her with his lips pursed together and eyes watching her, never breaking contact. He stopped talking to her and it ruined her.

She wanted a reaction and her parents wouldn’t give it to her. She tried to be the perfect person, did everything she could to get the gay away. Got into bad relationships, ones she didn’t want to get into and did things she didn’t want. Eventually Maxine got to the point of not caring, and started to act out and be the total opposite of what her parents wanted.

( tw sexual assault, abuse) During this time of exploration and rebellion, Maxine got involved in a lot of ad situations – ones she didn’t know how to get out of. She was young and naïve, and the people she was around were older and knew she wouldn’t know any better. She got involved with people who really fucked her up. The trauma was enough to leave her jaded and apathetic, with a distaste and general distrust of people. Sometimes she looks in the mirror and sees how she’s her father’s daughter, where her mother’s blood runs through her. It scares her.

Oh! She identifies as pansexual panromantic. Like Maxine is super gay. But I also think she’s more in love with people and their souls rather than gender.

Her drink of choice is vodka raspberry. She smokes cigarettes like it’s no one’s business.

Maxine is however, despite her anger, a very huge beam of light. She smiles bright and she’s touchy as hell, and she’s blunt and honest but she means every (especially the kind things) genuinely. She loves to have fun, work on art, and see people talk about their passions. I think she wants to be happy, but the past is what’s holding her back.

Ok so older Maxine though? A hot ass mess. I think she’s like in the cycle of her destruction where she hooks up with older people who wreck her or gets into healthy relationships that literally NEVER LAST because Maxine destroys them. But she loves it and hates it – she mostly does it to feel something. I literally do not think she’s cried since she was like in college.

( tw suicide/drug abuse) I think the smoking turned into heavier drug habits. Again she just wants to feel something. I think Tessa’s death will really hit her because she has been close to ending her life and the fact Tessa did? It’s terrifying

Maxine previously was an art director for a fashion magazine her mom worked for. I feel like she did it to do the whole perfect daughter thing – but when she realized she’d never be enough she quit. I imagine her breaking point was an engagement to some guy her mother set up. She didn’t to try and be a storyboard artist for animation, which she enjoys a lot. She does a lot of art on the side, draws a lot of comics about her trauma (I imagine her sending them to magazines like The Lily). I think she’s just trying to get out of this cycle of trauma by her 30s

If have any ideas or questions regarding the universe, include them here. If you have any graphics, playlists, moodboards, or aesthetics for your character, feel free to link those here as well. I have a pinterest board for her! https://www.pinterest.com/angdidthat/characters-who-need-homes/m-bautista/

But like some general songs that inspired Maxine – Paul – Big Thief // Liability (Reprise) – Lorde // Pure Handjob – Japanese Breakfast // Road Head – Japanese Breakfast // feelings are fatal - mxmtoon

#rp #oc rp #mystery rp #semi appless rp #new rp

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tak4hir0 · 5 years ago

Link

A year ago, I started working full-time at Bloomberg. That’s when I imagined writing this post. I imagined myself to be full of ideas that I could spit out on paper when the time comes. Just one month in, I realised it won’t be that easy: I was already forgetting things I learnt. They either became so internalized that my mind tricked me into believing I always knew them1, or they slipped my mind. That’s one of the reasons I started keeping a human log. Every day, whenever I came across an interesting situation, I logged it. All thanks to sitting next to a senior software engineer, I could closely observe what they were doing, and how it was different from what I would do. We pair-programmed a lot, which made doing this easier. Further, in my team culture it’s not frowned upon to “snoop behind” people writing code. Whenever I sensed something interesting going on, I’d roll around and watch what was happening. I always had the context, thanks to regular standups. I sat next to a senior software engineer for a year. Here’s what I learnt. Table of Contents Writing code How to name stuff One of the first things I worked on was a React UI. We had a main component housing every other component. I like a bit of humour in my code, and I wanted to name it GodComponent. Come code review time, and that’s when I understood why naming things is hard. There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. - Leon Bambrick Every code piece I baptize has an implicit meaning attached to it. GodComponent? That’s the component where all the crap I can’t be bothered to fit in the right place goes. It houses everything. Had I called it LayoutComponent, future-me would realise that all it does is assign the layout. It holds no state. Another great benefit that I found out was this: If it seems too big, like a LayoutComponent containing tonnes of business logic, I’ll know it’s time to refactor, because the business logic doesn’t belong there. With the name GodComponent, the business logic in there wouldn’t make a difference. Naming your clusters? Naming them after the service that runs on them is great, till the point you start running something else on them too. We ended up naming them with our team name. It’s the same idea with functions. doEverything() is a terrible name, and the ramifications are plenty. If this function does everything, it’s going to get bloody difficult to test the specific parts of the function. No matter how big this function gets, you’ll never think it’s too weird, since after all, the function is supposed to do everything. Change name. Refactor. Meaningful naming has a flip side to it, too. What if the name is too meaningful and hides some nuance? For example, closing sessions doesn’t close the underlying DB connection when you call session.close() in SQLAlchemy. (I should’ve RTFM and prevented that bug - more about that in Debugging) In this case, thinking of names as x, y, z instead of count(), close(), insertIntoDB() prevents assigning implicit meaning to them - and forces me to scrutinize what they are doing.2 I never imagined I’ll have more than one line to say about how to name stuff. Legacy code and the next developer Have you ever looked at some code and felt it’s weird? Why do they do it this way? This makes zero sense. I had the privilege of working with a legacy codebase. The kind with comments like “Uncomment code when situation figured out with Mohammad.” What do you do here? Who is Mohammad? I can do a role-reversal here - think about the next person coming to my code - will they find it weird or not. Peer reviews solve this somewhat. This led me to the idea of context: Be aware of the context my team is working in. If I forget about the code, and come back to it later, and I can’t recreate the context, I’ll go like: “Why the f did they do it this way? This makes zero sense… Oh wait, I did this.” And that’s where documentation and code comments come in. They help to preserve context, and share knowledge. As Li put it in How to Build Good Software, “The main value in software is not the code produced, but the knowledge accumulated by the people who produced it.” “The main value in software is not the code produced, but the knowledge accumulated by the people who produced it.” - Li We have this random client facing API endpoint that no one ever seems to use. Do we just delete it? After-all, it’s tech debt. What if I told you, once every year in a specific country, 10 journalists send their reports to that endpoint? How do you test this? If there’s no documentation (there wasn’t), we can’t. So, we didn’t. We deleted that endpoint. A few months down the line came that time of the year. Ten journalists were unable to send 10 important reports because the endpoint didn’t exist anymore. The people with the knowledge of the product had left the team. Sure enough, now there are comments in the code explaining what the endpoint is for. From what I’ve heard, documentation is something every team struggles with. Not just code documentation but processes around the code. We haven’t yet figured out a perfect solution for this. I enjoyed Antirez’s breakdown of different types of worthy code comments Atomic commits If you have to rollback (and you will. See Testing), does this commit make sense as one unit? Becoming confident about deleting shit code I was very uncomfortable deleting shit or obsolete code. I consider what was written eons ago sacred. My thinking goes “They must have something in mind when they wrote this.” It’s tradition and culture vs first principles thinking. It’s the same thing that happened with deleting the once-a-year-endpoint. I learnt too specific a lesson there.3 I’d try to work around the code, the seniors try to work through it. Delete all of it. An if statement that would never be reached? A function that shouldn’t be called? Yep, all gone. Me? I’d just write my function on top. I’ve not reduced tech debt. If anything, I’ve just increased the code complexity and misdirection. The next person would have an even tougher time piecing things together. The heuristic I now use is this: There’s code you don’t understand, and there’s code you know you’ll never reach. Delete code you’ll never reach, and be cautious with code you don’t understand. Code Reviews Code reviews are amazing for learning. It’s an external feedback loop on how you’d write code vs how they write it. What’s the diff? Is one way better than the other? I asked myself this question with every code review I did: “Why did they do it this way?”. Whenever I couldn’t find a suitable answer, I’d go talk to them. After the first month, I started catching mistakes in my teammates codes (just like they were doing for mine). This was insane. Peer reviews became a lot more fun for me - it was a game I looked forward to - a game to improve my code-sense. My heuristic: Don’t approve code till I understand how it works. My Github stats Testing I’ve come to love testing so much that I feel uncomfortable writing code in a codebase without tests. If your entire application does one thing (like all my school projects), then testing manually is still okay4. That’s what I used to do. But what happens when there are 100 different things the application does? I don’t want to spend half an hour testing everything, and sometimes forgetting what all I need to test. That’s a nightmare. Here come tests and test automation. I think of testing as documentation. It’s documentation for my assumptions about the code. Tests tell me how I (or the person before me) expect the code to work, and where all they expect things to go wrong. So, when I write tests now, I write with this in mind: Show how to use the class/function/system I’m testing. Show what all I think can go wrong. A corollary of the above is that in most cases, I’m testing the behaviour, not the implementation. (Here’s an example I picked up during bathroom breaks at Google) The things I miss in #2 is where the bugs come from. So, whenever I spot a bug, I make sure that the code-fix has a corresponding test (called regression testing) to document the information: This is another way things can go wrong.5 However, just writing these tests doesn’t improve my code quality, writing the code does. But the insights I gain from reading the tests help me write better code. That’s the big picture of testing. But, that’s not the only kind of testing to do. This is where deployment environments come in. You may have perfect unit tests, but if you don’t have system tests, something like this happens: The lock works(?) Source This holds true for well tested code too: If you don’t have the libraries you need on your machines, you’ll crash and burn. There’s the machines you develop on (source of all “It works on my machine!” memes). There’s the machines you test on (might be the same as the ones you develop on). Finally, there’s the machines you deploy on (please don’t let this be the same as the machines you develop on) If there’s an environment mismatch between test and deploy machines, you’ll be in trouble. And here’s where deployment environments come in. We have local development, which is in docker - on my machine. We have a dev environment, where machines have a set of libraries (and dev tools) installed and we install the code we write on these. All testing with other dependant systems can take place here. Then comes the beta / stage environment, which is exactly like the production environment. Finally, the prod or production environment, which are the machines on which the code runs and serves actual customers. The idea is to try and catch errors that unit and system testing wouldn’t. For example, an API mismatch between requesting and responding system. I guess things would be very different in a personal project or a small company. Not everyone has the resources to setup their own infrastructure. However, the idea still holds with cloud providers like AWS and Azure. You can have separate clusters set up for dev and prod. AWS ECS uses docker images to deploy, so things are relatively consistent across environments. The tricky bit is the integration between other AWS services. Are you calling the right endpoint from the right environment? You can even go a step further: Download alternate container images for the other AWS services and setup a local full-fledged environment using docker-compose. It accelerates feedback loops.6 I’ll probably have more experience here once I get my side project up and running. Derisking De-risking is the art of reducing risk with the code that you deploy. What all steps can you take to reduce the risk of disaster? If it’s a new breaking change, how can you ensure minimal disruption when things go wrong? “We don’t need to do a full-system deploy with all those new changes.” Oh, wait, really? How did I never think of this! Design Why am I putting design after writing code and testing? Well, design might come first, but if I haven’t coded and tested in the environment I’m in, I probably wouldn’t be great at designing a system that respects the quirks of the environment.7 There’s so much to think about when designing a system. What’s the usage numbers? How many users exist? and what’s the expected growth? (This will translate into how many db rows) What might be the future pitfalls? I need to convert this into a proper checklist titled “Gathering Requirements.” I haven’t had enough experience with it this year, which is something to solve in my next year at Bloomberg. This process goes a bit against Agile - how much can you design before getting to the implementation? It’s a balance - and you need to choose when to do what. When does diving in headfirst make sense, and when does taking a step back? Of course, just gathering requirements isn’t everything to think about. I think it pays off to include the development processes in design as well. Things like How will local development work? How will we package and deploy? How will we do end-to-end testing? How will we stress-test this new service? How will we manage secrets? CI/CD integration? We recently developed a new search system for BNEF. Working on this was wonderful. I got to design local development, learn about DPKGs (packaging and deployment), and wrestled with secret deployment. Who thought deploying secrets to production can get that tricky? You can’t put them in code, as then anyone can see them. Put them as an env variable, like the 12 factor app suggests? It’s a good idea. How do you put them there? (Accessing PROD machines to populate env variables everytime the machine starts is a pain) Deploy as a secrets file? Where does the file come from? How is it populated? We don’t want things to be manual. In the end, we went with a database with role access control (only our machines and us can talk to the database). Our code gets the secrets from this database on startup. This replicates very well across dev, beta and prod - with secrets in the respective databases. Again, this can be very different with a cloud provider like AWS. You don’t have to think much about secrets. Get your role account, input secrets in the UI, and your code shall find them when it needs them. It’s pretty cool how much it simplifies things - but I’m glad to have the experience to appreciate the simplicity. Designing with maintenance in mind Designing systems is exciting. Maintaining them? Not so much. My journey through maintenance led me to this question. Why and how do systems degrade? First part is not deprecating old stuff, always adding more. A bias towards addition instead of deletion. (Reminds you of someone?) The second part is designing with an end goal in mind. A system that evolves to do things it wasn’t supposed to do necessarily doesn’t work as well as a system designed from scratch to do the same thing. This is the taking-a-step-back approach instead of hacking away with agility. I now know of atleast three ways to reduce rate of degradation. Keep the business logic and the infrastructure separate: It’s usually the infrastructure that degrades - usage increases, frameworks become obsolete, zero-day vulnerabilities show up, etc. Building processes around maintenance. Apply the same updates to new bits and old bits. This prevents diff between new and old, and keeps the entire code “modern”. Ensure you keep pruning all your unwanted/old stuff. Deploying Would I rather bundle features together or deploy them one by one? Depending on the current processes in place, if the answer is to bundle features together, there’s a problem. The question to ask then is why do you want to bundle features together? Does the deployment take too much time? Do the code reviews not happen easily? Whatever is the reason, that’s the bottleneck to fix. I know atleast two issues with bundling. You’re self blocking one feature if bugs in the other. You’re going anti-derisking, or increasing risk of things going wrong. Then, whatever deployment process you choose, you always want your machines to be like cattle, not like pets. They aren’t precious. You know exactly what’s running on every machine, and how to recreate them in case of death. You’re not upset when one machine dies, you just spin up a new one. You herd them, not raise them. When things go wrong For when things go wrong, and they will, the golden rule is minimizing client impact. My natural tendency when things went wrong were to fix the problems. Turns out, it’s not the most optimal solution. Instead of fixing what went wrong, even if it’s a “one line change”, the first thing to do is rollback. Go back to the previous working state. This is the quickest way to get clients back on a working version. Only then should I look at what went wrong and fix those bugs. Same idea with a “borked” machine in your cluster - put it down, mark it unavailable, before trying to figure out what’s wrong with the machine. I found this weird, how my natural tendency and instincts diverge from the optimal solution. I think this instinct also leads me down the longer path to solving bugs. Sometimes, I figure it’s not working because there’s something wrong with what I wrote, and I’d get into the weeds going through every line of code I wrote. Something like depth-first search. When it turns out to be a config change, that is, I didn’t enable the feature in the first place, it pisses me off. I was so sub-optimal in the bug discovery process. Since then, my heuristic has been to do a breadth-first search before a depth-first search, to get rid of the top level nodes. What can I confirm using current resources? Is the machine up? Is the right code installed? Is the config in place? , like is the routing in the code correct? Is the schema version correct? Then, get into the code. We thought nginx didn’t install properly on the machine, but turns out, just the config was set to false. Of course, I don’t need to do this always. Sometimes, just the error message is enough to cut down the search space right to my code. When I can’t figure out the issue, I try and keep the changes-to-code-to-figure-out-what’s-wrong to a minimum. The less the number of changes, the faster I can hone in on the real issue. Keep the inferential jumps to a minimum. I also now keep a note of bugs that took me more than 1 hour to solve: What was I missing? It’s usually some dumb shit I forgot to check, like setting up routing, making sure the schema version and the service version match, etc. etc. This is another step of getting familiar with the tech stack I use, and one thing that only experience gives - intuition for figuring out exactly why things aren’t working. War Story It’s a dance between tweaking parameters, and playing with statistics vs fixing the underlying cause. How can this post ever be complete without a war story? I enjoy reading them, and I’ve got atleast one to share now. It’s the tale of search and SQLAlchemy. At BNEF, we have lots of analysts writing research reports. Whenever a report is published, we get a message. Whenever we get a message, we go into our database via SQLAlchemy, get all the stuff we need, transform it, and send it to our solr instance for indexing. Now, time for the weird AF bug. Every morning, connecting to the database would fail with the error “MYSQL server has gone away.” Sometimes, during the afternoon as well. The machines turn during the afternoon, so that’s the first thing I checked. Nope, errors never occurred when the machines were turning. We make thousands of requests throughout the day to the database, none of which fail. How come, then, this very low load trigger would fail? Oh, maybe we aren’t closing our sessions after the transaction? So if it’s the same session, and the next request comes after ages, we’ve missed the timeout, and the server has gone away. Quick look in the code, and sure enough, we are using a context manager for every read which calls session.close() on __exit__(). After one day of going through everything that might go wrong, getting nowhere, I come in to work next morning and have a chance encounter. The error occurred this morning as well. And one second after the error, three other index requests were successful. This had all the symptoms of an improper session close. You know how this story ends. Session.close() in the mysql dialect of SQLAlchemy doesn’t close the underlying DB connection, unless you’re using a NullPool. Yep, that was the fix. It’s funny how this bug occurred simply because we didn’t publish research reports at night and during lunch time. And therein lies another lesson - most stack overflow answers (of course I googled it!) for this bug were to tweak either the session timeout time, or the parameter controlling amount of data you can send per SQL statement. Neither made sense to me, because they were pretty much unrelated to the root issue. I checked that our query size was within the limits, and we were closing the sessions(lol) so timeout wouldn’t occur. We could have “fixed” this bug by increasing the session timeout value to 8 hours instead of 1 hour. It would’ve appeared to fix the problem, till the next time we have a holiday during the week - and the first research report next morning would fail. It’s a dance between tweaking parameters, and playing with statistics vs fixing the underlying cause. Monitoring This is something I never thought about doing before. To be fair, before coding full time I was never maintaining systems. I just built them, used them for a week and moved on. Working with two systems, one with great monitoring, and the other not so much, I’ve come to appreciate monitoring a lot. I can’t fix bugs if I don’t know they exist. One of the worst feelings is to find out from clients about bugs. “What am I doing?! I don’t even know things going wrong with a system I own?” I think three components make up monitoring - logging, metrics, and alarms. Logging in code, just like the human log, is an evolutionary process. You figure out things you might need to monitor, you log those, you run your system. Over time, you find a few bugs you don’t have enough information to solve. Those are good times to enhance logging - what’s your code missing? I think you intuitively figure out what things will be important to log. There was a lot of difference between the kind of things him (the senior SWE) and I were logging in our service. I figured just the request-response logs would suffice, while he had lots of metrics like query execution time, some specific internal calls made by the code, and also when to rotate logs, all sorted out. It’s virtually impossible to debug things without logs - if you don’t know the state the system was in, how do you even go about recreating it? Metrics can be derived from logs, or a separate standalone in the code. (Like sending events to AWS CloudWatch and Grafana). You decide your metrics and send the numbers in as the code runs. Alarms are the glue putting everything together in a great monitoring system. If one metric is the number of machines currently running in production, when this number falls to 50% is a great alarm to have - you know something went wrong. Failure count above a certain threshold? Yep, another alarm. I can sleep well at night, knowing if something goes wrong, I’ll be woken up. (Wait, what?) This hints at another habit to develop. When you fix bugs, you aren’t just focusing on how to fix the bug, but also, why didn’t you figure it out earlier? Was there alarming in place? How can you monitor better to prevent similar problems? I haven’t yet figured out how to monitor the UI. Testing the components are in place isn’t enough to know about things going wrong. This is usually where clients come in and tell us - things don’t look right. Conclusion Over the last year, I’ve learnt a lot. I’m glad I made the decision when I started working to write this post - I can appreciate much better how much I’ve grown when I have this document to look back to. And I hope there’s something you can takeaway from this, too! I’ve also been pretty lucky to get a great team - we code a lot, we laugh a lot, we get to design systems from scratch, and work with lots of other teams. This year, I’m sitting next to two senior devs. Let’s see how this goes! Thanks, team! Good engineers themselves design systems that are more robust and easier to understand by others. This has a multiplier effect, letting their colleagues build upon their work much more quickly and reliably - How to Build Good Software Things I’m not sure about I haven’t cracked the code of software engineering, yet. So, this section serves as a reminder for me: There’s so much left to learn! If I’m doing things right, this list should grow longer next year. Think in terms of abstractions or implementations? Should I have strong opinions about how to do things? Maybe as a result of being bitten before? Have I done the work required to have an opinion? Developing processes for workflows. If you need to change how you do things because of an emergency or an event - then is the process broken? Is it something to fix? Are utils (folder where you put random stuff you don’t know where to put otherwise) a code smell? How to deal with documentation for code and workflows? How to monitor UI to see when things don’t look alright? Spending time designing the perfect API / code contract vs hacking it out and iterating over and over again, to figure out what works best. Which one is better? The easy way vs the right way? I’m not convinced the right way is superior always. Doing things yourself vs showing those who don’t know how to do them. The former gets done fast, the latter means you seldom have to do it again yourself. When refactoring and preventing huge-ass PRs: “If I’d have changed all the tests first then I would have seen I had 52 files to change and that was obviously gonna be too big but I was messing with the code first and not the tests.” Is breaking it up worth it? Explore De-risking further. What all strategies exist to de-risk projects? Effective ways of gathering requirements? How to decrease rate of system degradation? Thanks to Hemanth Kumar Veeranki for reading drafts of this.

#Neil Kakkar

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