Adventures in FFXIV, Contemporary Art, and whatever else catches my magpie eye. (NSFW creators I am an adult (18+) please allow me to keep viewing your sexy content. I am so annoyed this has to be moderated on the creator side.)
This is part 2 of the Restless comic. Just wanted to add more scenes of my take of the post-Raccoon City for Leon, Claire, and Sherry. I also had an idea of making a comic for when Leon was a kid but decided to incorporate it here instead. The Dandelion thing and the Sully character is part of the headcanons me and @loveiscosmicsin made for Leon. Sully will be the cop that Leon looks up to and is inspired from to be a cop himself. Hopefuly, I can make stories with Sully and Leon in the future.
I don't know if that mafia thing with Leon's parents is really canon or just pseudo-canon but I went with it in this story. But since Leon is inspired from the move Leon the Professional, I decided to add a bit of Mathilda's story into what happened to his parents.
Again special thanks to @loveiscosmicsin and @theycallmedarling for helping me fix my typos and horrible English.
Okay have some nonsense that is me ranting about the character parallels in RE Requiem specifically and also the respective endings.
MAJOR Requiem spoilers, there is basically a "live post" of the bad end, because OW.
First. I love Grace. Grace is amazing. The epitome of "doing it scared," and so relatable in her anxiety. She is scared but she is trying and she is surviving. Leon might save her from some of the monsters, but she still faces them down herself, terrified but determined to make it out.
And her contrast and parallels to Leon in the game are just *chefs kiss*. Grace is Leon's mirror, but specifically a mirror of who he was in Raccoon City, in RE2. She is the spark and love for life he's lost. So much of the game is about confronting the past; Leon seeing himself in Grace and facing Raccoon City, Elpis as a cure (though whether or not it is actually a 'redemption' by Spencer is questionable, it could be another power play, and Grace isn't without her own blindspots here). AND the "whatever it takes count me in" line is EXACTLY what Little Leon said to Ada in RE2!! (Capcom, trying to make absolutely sure we pick up the character parallels--)
And how Grace and Leon save each other over the course of the game. Like, getting the good end requires trusting Grace. Leon is the more experienced fighter but he only survives thanks to Grace. Even if he hadn't been impaired by RCS, he still would have died because he would have destroyed Elpis, thinking it was a bioweapon instead of a cure. But also, them saving each other is often well, painful. It hurts.
Like, for starters, the scene with Emily... Grace's voice actor did so good, oh god... she's begging Leon not to hurt Emily, but Leon can't or won't listen. And then Grace's line of "It's my fault I wanted to save her"---that feeling of failing of someone she wanted to save--and Leon's response of "I get, trust me I get it." And he DOES get it but again, after 30+ years of fighting this stuff he's learned to force himself to look past who people used to be. To focus on the survival, to keep going. And while he did save Grace, she just watched someone she trusted kill someone she tried to protect despite her pleas not to...
And then, this reverses later! In the good ending, where you release Elpis, Leon ends up saying "Grace what are you doing?!" It's very much his side of the Emily scene. From Leon's perspective, he made Grace to promise him to finish it, to destroy Elpis in his place if something happened. And now he's watching her release it and probably thinking he got betrayed for virus samples again. (The parallels with RE2 and Ada strike again!)
Just, each of them saving the other, even as they ask them not to.
Also the bad ending. I know everyone went "waaahhh" at seeing Leon die but look, it's not the gunshot that does it for me, it's everything preceding it. Like, here, my "live-post" of the RE9 bad ending aka "traumatize the fanbase"
As if to make sure you think you're doing the right thing during the decision to destroy/release you get Leon reiterating his mission to destroy Elpis and also a "promise me-", as if to hammer home "Yes this is what Leon wants us to do, this is what we need to do"
Zeno is mad, and Leon yelling for Grace to "Get out of here"
Zeno stopping Grace, and IN COMES LEON WITH THE HATCHET (He's dying. He's actively dying. He is in organ failure mode right now.)
Leon, pushing Grace to run to a still-intact balcony and giving her a boost with "Go I'm right behind you" (he was not, in fact, right behind her)
And then the floor immediately going down and when we cut to Grace's perspective, Leon's too far to jump and clearly wavering on his feet. Even if he wanted, he's not making it.
Grace asking what he's doing... asking him to jump... holding out her hand for him. THE RE2 PARALLELS.
Also. Leon squaring up to try and fight Zeno with his fists. Fully boxer stance "Lets duke it out bro"... and in subsequent "fight" he does not land a single hit.
Grace is screaming his name while Leon gets his ass kicked. And then. Forget the gunshot, it's Zeno's final strike to Leon's gut that just stuns him in place that's the finishing blow T_T
LIKE LOOK AT THIS FACIAL EXPRESSION. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS CAPCOM.
Like, heck, that's the hit. That's the one that makes Leon stop, instinctively clutching at Zeno for support as he slides down. The exact moment he realizes he's dead. Just. Something punctured, he's RCS riddled organs bleeding, whatever it is. Air knocked out of him, on his knees, audibly wheezing for air, not even trying anymore.
And then Leon has the audacity to look up at Grace and say "At least I could save you" before o' lala Zeno
And then tasteful shot not showing the lack of head. Does not actually help capcom it just leaves it to the imagination. Oh and then as if we were in doubt that he's dead as Grace's elevator ascends we see lots of explosions from down below
But no. For me it's that face he makes when Zeno punches him in the gut. It's the breaking point. The moment of realization. The moment of no return. The moment he stops. The moment of acceptance. And then the parallels between Leon and Ada and Grace and Leon.... the hand, the falling into the abyss, the looking up as they resign themselves to their death, the screaming their name... AUGH.
Anyways, the entire story is mirroring RE2. I mean, makes sense, its about confronting the past and shipping Leon off to his trauma origin point - there are in-game flashbacks to RE2R for crying out loud - but you see it in the character parallels too.
But also, on that note, while I know Leon is arguably more popular + has featured in more main title games than Claire, I am salty we didn't even get a mention or flashback with her T_T Please give me the rest of the Raccoon Survivors... I mean considering their jobs it makes sense Claire gets looped into BOW incidents accidentally ala we see in Veronica and Revelations vs intentionally but still, she would also be dealing with RCS. As is Jill. Where are they. (But also, forget fandom popularity Capcom itself has staked so much on Leon. He's a lead character in 4 of the mainline games (2/4/6/9) and all the CGI movies which are part of its main continuity. Cash cow indeed.) But I am glad Claire's returning soon in Veronica...
Also one finally thing but when you're watching the canon / good ending cutscene they are just stuffing in potential threads they can follow later whether in another game or DLC. As a writer I recognize these tactical plot hooks. Capcom what are you planning.
Additional thoughts about parallels and cycles (also with major spoilers)
I also think that the different endings set up aspects of the different futures very well and the difference between the cycle of trauma being curtailed (mostly) or continued.
In the good ending the circle of Racoon City’s direct hold over the cast is closed. Leon is able to take control of what everything that has happened to him means. He can provide Grace with the support and protection he didn’t have in October 1998. He can make sure that Emily can be a little girl with a guardian/mom/older sibling like he wasn’t able to do with Sherry.
Grace now gets to choose how or if she joins the good fight. She’s not on the back foot the way the OG protagonists have always been. I do not by any means think Elpis is going to be a panacea but it’s more than what they had in the wake of Raccoon City 1. I think Grace in the good end is something like what we might have seen in Leon if he’d been given a choice rather than an ultimatum.
The bad end continues the cycle. Elpis doesn’t become a tool to help the good guys get to something resembling even footing. The loss of generational knowledge when RCS finishes off the class of ‘98 means that the good guys are back to square one to a certain extent.
Leon becomes the mentor that Grace couldn’t save. Grace walks out of Raccoon and probably into a very similar life path to Leon. The government isn’t scrambling for people who can survive the horrors like they were in ‘98, but I do think that the scale of what happened to Grace means she would still get a pretty hard recruitment pitch to move to the DSO from the FBI.
So it’ll be interesting to see how Grace’s character develops in the future. Assuming she doesn’t get locked in the basement with Carlos.
stop letting miserable people on the internet convince you that you must have a concrete, well-constructed opinion on everything that has ever existed.
I knew like 3 things about the series when I started and all of them were from dmc5. I spent a lot of time missing Vergil... before he wrecked my property and beat my ass 10000 times
[ID: A realistic digital painting of a Black person from the hips up wearing a loose white tunic. They have short natural hair and dark brown eyes. The tunic has ruffles along the cuffs and plunging neckline and is rendered with detailed folds and creases. The looks to the side with a neutral expression and their arms at their sides. The first image is the full painting, the second is a closeup of their chest, the third is a closeup of the fabric, and the fourth is a closeup of their face. End ID]
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