And Ashley Graham became his home.
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH

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And Ashley Graham became his home.
what the absence of a team in RE9 tells us about Leon's personal life
part one: leon's thorough rejection of being in a team
throughout RE9, there were multiple moments where leon and grace had to work together to achieve a goal.
before they were interrupted by the church zombies, they had every intention to save emily and get out through the treatment plant together. before grace realised the truth, they were determined to destroy elpis together.
for all intent and purposes, they were a team. and this notion felt so close to being uttered into words, to the point leon would constantly use words like "let's" or "we", and YET...it never was.
in my post about how leon's traits shine through when he's with ashley and proceed to be preserved when he's with grace, the acknowledgement of a "team" is strangely not one of them.
why and how is it strange? well i'll show you.
1 and 2 are the whys, 3 and 4 are the hows.
1. in RE4R, leon went through the process of learning and agreeing to be a team with ashley. he didn't like the idea rightaway, it was only after she removed the plaga in him did he not only warm up to it but also gave her his utmost approval.
by the time RE9 rolls around, he should have been the one to approach grace with the idea of a "team". it's the easiest way to show some character growth, which is his ability to not just work with people, but to do so with trust, loyalty AND intimacy. to work as a team is in many ways the enhanced version of being able to trust someone.
so, it's just bizzare that we saw leon being open with the concept of trust, but did not take it a step further to be open with being a team, especially when this would be so easy to implement considering how many times the game put leon and grace in a situation where they have to work together.
2. the fact that being a team is not some newfound concept he learnt in RE4R makes this feel like an even bigger missed oppotunity.
teaming up with someone, in fact, was not new to him. his rookie self in 1998 came into raccoon city and considered an "fbi agent" he met his teammate....despite EVERY doubt he had about her real identity.
ashley didn't help him build the concept of a teamwork in RE4R; she mended it after it broke in RE2R. so it's odd that he did not carry that into RE9 with grace, because this could have been a really strong, identifiable overarching theme, where it went from:
losing faith in people and rejecting any sorts of cooperation -> getting his worldview mended -> applying the lesson he re-learnt in real life.
then again, this did not happen, even though it SHOULD HAVE, even though it would have been SO EASY to do.
3. not only did leon never call grace his team, he also considered stop working with her.
this felt like a BIG blow to his development. he thought about things getting harder, how she was too in the dark, and rescinded his proposal at the power plant "we have to keep going".
this is...not good. and you might think "well no he's being very thoughtful and protective of grace" no. he's being doubtful and unsure of grace AND her ability.
at first, he trusted her enough to consider them as working together, even asking her to keep going despite her devastation. he was the first who wished to keep the co-op, while she wanted to pull away.
but when they got to ark, leon flipped. he essentially told her to sit this one out when she wanted to come along because he started to doubt if she really could help him when she was as clueless as he was.
had it not been for grace pushing back, their partnership would have ended right there. in the end, it was grace who convinced leon to keep this co-operation alive, and she only succeeded because she touched his rookie spirit buried somewhere beneath this city's remnants.
4. the severity of his rejection to be a team was overwhelmingly amplified when you realised that he did the exact same thing with sherry.
upon having trouble accessing more data, he wanted sherry to stop and leave all this to him instead, to which she also rejected.
it went very similarly to how it did with grace, them working together until things got hard for her and she might be getting herself into trouble instead of aiding him with more intel.
it's almost as if...leon also doubted sherry can take care of herself and still help him much further, so he told her to exit while she could. and this is sherry, the young girl who impacted the course of his life, whom leon did not consider his teammate. if he could reject someone who was practically his family, then just how far removed was he from the concept of being a team??
.......
by never offering to be a team with grace and sherry, and also rejecting both of their help due to immense doubt, it just seems like leon has concerningly regressed in his ability to let people in his team, an ability he re-learnt in RE4R.
are we supposed to believe he hit rock bottom because he couldn't save RC survivors and just gave up on the power of teamwork altogether...? but, where is the correlation in that??
why would survivors dying make him dislike teamwork? it made him brood and ruthless and violent and scarily determined, sure, but...it cannot affect his hard earned lesson about teams.
does leon just hate people now?
no, not at all.
all of this refusals and doubt stemmed from the first "team" he rejected, not on screen, not when he started his investigation, but way, way before it.
the collapse of his team in life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
part two: the process in which the rejection of "a place to go home to" happened
part three: how ashley fits into leon's character "regression"
I really hope I won't finish the art today. I have too much work 😭😭
you want to hear a theory?
IF leon did marry ashley, we would know that capcom have planned this since infinite darkness.
...and it had nothing to do with ashley, but rather...
her father.
interested? well strap in!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
there's something very detrimental to leon and ashley's marriage that i don't see people talk about: the marriage would feel really weird, if not impossible, if leon canonically hates president graham.
as we all know by now, this...isn't the case at all. not only does leon not hate the guy, he canonically respects him.
but here is where it gets good: this feeling is NOT a given. infinite darkness had to establish their relationship for us. had it not been for ID, graham could have been just another selfish, vain, corrupted politician that leon actually loathed to work for. nothing pre-ID is against that narrative either.
and the idea that graham is potentially such a person makes the thought that leon would ever want to have anything to do with ashley very far-fetched and out-of-character...
and yet, here we are, not having to worry about this because they already nipped that thought in the bud...ever since 2021.
as early as 2021, they already prevented an undesirable dynamic before its desirability even comes up. when not a single soul has thought about the possibility of ashley and leon being an item, infinite darkness has already made it feel comfortable.
at the time ID released, nobody cared if leon gave two shits about graham. if ID went into the "corrupted graham" direction, no one would have bat an eye.
and i'd argue that their relationship still did not matter in RE4R, because leon's entanglements with ashley beginned and ended in RE4R. this is also why it was never considered in 4OG and the years after that.
there was virtually no reason to think about how leon personally felt about ashley's father back then. even if he liked her, it's ridiculous to think he would pursue her and want to have a personal relationship with her family...
back then.
now, when everyone is going ape-shit on who leon would (or wouldn't) feel the most at peace with when he goes home to, NOW this relationship starts to matter. and ashley and graham, they both got an upgrade in their relationship with leon just in time for this discourse to go into full swing.
"it cannot be ashley because president graham is an evil, conniving asshole!" "...oh wait, he isn't, we literally got an entire series on how he would 100% trust leon over the state's secretary."
you see what i mean? they planned this, they asked themselves what it would take for a relationship between leon and ashley to not only work but also feel warm, safe, homely, and they made a fool-proof family dynamic as the answer to that question.
you might think "ID might not even be canon to RE9, a game that openly and explicitly used remake's characterisation and turn of events."
it doesn't have to, because the only thing that matters already exists inside of you: your feelings about leon and graham.
The story can be retconned to high hell, but the feeling stays. you do not feel like there's a rift between leon and graham, you do not feel like they cannot work, talk or laugh together, you do not feel like they cannot be father and son.
you don't feel this way, because their dynamic has only been established ONCE, and it was a POSITIVE establishment.
in the end, ashley not only won the lottery ticket for "best relationship revival with the golen boy" for herself, her old man won one too, before anyone gives half a fuck what kind of person he is.
and he won that ticket just so people won't laugh at his little girl when the golden boy puts a ring on her finger.
W graham.
Soon
leon wasn't supposed to look at ashley's photo here, inside the cops' car, by the way. him looking for the missing daughter of THEE President of the United States is confidential. at the very least, he could not be caught at this early stage when he couldn't even confirm if she's here or not anyway.
the cops had to ask him who it was that he was searching for, meaning they didn't know themselves. they know it's someone special due to an order to help from a higher up, that's literally it.
to better put in perspective how astronomically classified ashley's abduction is, even ada didn't know. wesker had to tell her about it. and like, it's ada we're talking about. the question isn't what does she know, it's what she doesn't.
apparently, the answer is this.
...and yet, despite how secretive it was, leon still fished that photo out and idly looked at it inside the car. like a moron. he was almost moronically caught even; he had to switch back to this nonchalant pose.
and when you remember that there's no goddamn way leon didn't already know her face and this photo is an equivalent of a stock photo, given to anyone who's chosen to be involved in the case, he looks like an even bigger moron.
leon being a stoopid when it comes to ashley heh...tell me, tell me something i don't knowww~~🎶
And you may ask yourself, why would I make a catboy cry? Well, Leon never really a chance to cry it out, did he? This is the isolated facial animation after he killed Krauser. You can see him mouth, "That you did major, that you did." Maybe it's the lighting or the angle, but in-game it's more subtle and imo a bit hard to see. Look how his chin trembles, poor thing! I made the ears tremble when his face twitches. He did NOT want to kill Krauser, it really broke his little kitty heart!😿😭
What would they have named their son?
when i say that leon never, ever stopped being determined about ashley, i mean it. the game doesnt let you forget this fact either; leon would constantly remind you.
even when you and everybody knows who he's here for, he makes sure you know how much she matters to him. he mentions ashley so many times to the point it becomes redundant gameplay-wise.
the fact that you and everyone know the mission is saving ashley but leon would still constantly think about her out loud matters. it is not a gameplay signal, but rather an emotional signal to you, the player, that he's doing it for her, killing it for her, dying for her.
it sounds like a cliché, but i do not know how to put it any other way but: he does not stop thinking about her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BONUS:
my fucking heart literally fluttered at this, and when you remember this leads up to the scene he stops taking ramon's shit and shoots him mid-speech bc ashley's just been taken away...*cherry on top pic*
"We will beat this. Together."
LEON!!!! Hi.
I draw two art at the same time and it makes me angry that I can't finish quickly to post it faster
take a break
Leon S. Kennedy's first and last appearance in Resident Evil: Requiem
Leshley 🤍
CUTIES PATOOTIES
Ashley wears cute maternity dresses for public outings, like cutesy floral stuff.
But as soon as she gets home, she raids Leon's closet and wears his shirts around the house bc they're roomy enough for her growing belly.
He teases her that he's got the budget to buy her better clothes but she refuses. Secretly, he finds her sexier in his clothes.
Leon: didn’t realize my shirts are maternity approved
Ashley: hm pretty sure you bought these for me
Leon: pretty sure I owned that one before I met you... yeah, okay. I probably did 😉
I would really like this person to write a short story about what Leon and Ashley's reunion would look like 🔥✨🌹