#m0nologuing

[m0nology]

The more I think about it, the more I actually really like how Zeno is handled in RE9.

Spoilers below.

This guy is such a fucking loser it's insane. I see fans complain that he was missed potential, that he shouldn't have gotten killed off, we should've gotten a boss fight, etc... and I honestly think all this is missing the point.

Zeno is a living example of The Connections' M.O. - they shamelessly copy Umbrella's creations and fail to understand them because they're even more inhuman than the people at Umbrella were.

Wesker was a fucking supervillain. He had such ambition and intelligence he was like ten fucking seconds away from ending the entire world, and he only lost because Chris and Sheva had an insane stroke of luck. The man toppled Umbrella and controlled like 5 different organizations, all to use them as stairs to climb higher and higher.

The Connections clones this man, and they turn him into a corporate bitch, a bland suit who spends his time aura farming, smoking, and carrying out his bosses' bidding. He's Wesker without the ambition, the genius, the ego, the things that made him one of the most dangerous people on Earth. He almost never expresses any real emotion or want that isn't completely focused on whatever The Connections wants. Even using Elpis to gain more power is seemingly just a task The Connections has given him.

When Albert Wesker learned that he was "manufactured" through Project W he was horrified, and became desperate to prove that he had utter control over his own destiny. Even before that he freely manipulated Umbrella, H.C.F., and TRICELL to serve his own ends. No loyalty to anyone but himself.

Zeno embraces being manufactured. He is openly and firmly an extension of The Connections. He almost never even talks about himself in the first person - just "we," "us," "The Connections." He's shortsighted, aimless, seemingly comfortable in this role. No wonder he seems to take such offense at being called an "imitation" - it just reminds him of the person he's failing to be a copy of.

The real Wesker would be ashamed. The real Wesker wouldn't even humor the idea of having to be one in a group.

IMO this is so much more interesting than the average fan-idea I'd see, "what if Wesker came back as a clone and we got a showdown with him and Chris?" - always just rehashes of past games like RE5 focused more on what's cool rather than what fits the character. To me this is the sort of idea you can't get from fans - only Capcom, I think, would've taken Zeno in this direction despite the risk of irritating the fuck out of many fans who want more.

It also serves as an interesting commentary on Wesker's place in the series as a whole, and why it's not actually a very good idea to try bringing him back as a clone to be the Big Bad Villain of the series again. You can't replicate him. All you'll get is a poor copy.

Just as Victor Gideon decapitates Zeno with little fanfare, the series must look forward rather than try and imitate the past.

[m0nology]

What if the original Doom had Codex entries? I made some mockups. Probably gonna turn this into a full project - right now the idea is entries for ever demon, probably 15 or so Location entries, and every weapon. I'll probably do the same for Doom 2 and Doom 64 as well.

[m0nology]

Saw Iron Lung and I thought that genuinely rocked. I haven't been a Markiplier fan for years so I'm not biased towards his work or whatever. That was just genuinely a really awesome cosmic horror movie. Great atmosphere, surprisingly great acting, awesome soundtrack, significantly better than the (already great) game overall.

Pleasantly surprised by how good that was, and how much more, uh, I guess meaningful it is compared to some movies like it or the original game. Cannot wait for a physical release to buy.

[m0nology]

What I actually think was happening during Iron Lung (spoilers)

(Obligatory review: movie rocked, wasn't perfect but it's an awesome cosmic horror movie. Markiplier was a surprisingly great actor, and he turned Iron Lung from a pretty cool but fleeting horror experience into a genuinely meaningful and compelling cosmic horror tale. I hope for a future where he pulls away from YouTube stuff a bit more to devote more time to a potentially successful career as a director.)

So I was talking to some friends and I think I have an idea of what I feel was going on. I posted this somewhere else but here's the Tumblr version lol.

Ultimately I think this is a movie about human perseverence and belief in the greater good overcoming even the most hopeless circumstances. But what's actually happening? Spoilers below:

IMO the radiation stuff, the alcohol, possible concussion, it's all red herrings at best to obscure Simon's visions as nonsense, when in reality it is all the blood, and at most these other factors have just made him more susceptible.

TLDR: A Lovecraftian creature, or God itself, is peering into our world through the Anomaly and erasing everything it cannot see. The blood is a hivemind containing the minds of everyone who's died, as well as the creature. The SM-8 scientist's voice is the woman's mind speaking to Simon through the blood and encouraging him to find the Anomaly before being assimilated into the creature; the creature doesn't want anyone to find out about the Anomaly because destroying it is the only way to stop it.

Everyone has already pointed out that the weird shit begins when blood hits Simon's skin, and I agree that this is responsible for a lot of his visions. We know it's human blood for sure, and that comes with the natural presumption that it's the blood of those who got Raptured. But what about the other supernatural effects of the blood?

I think the blood itself is a hivemind comprising the consciousnesses of who the blood has belonged to and who has died in the blood ocean. At least in the sense of, when Simon hears the SM-8 woman's voice the first time, I believe that is her, or a facsimile of her, talking to him through the blood as part of a hallucination.

That voice is way different from the voices at the end of the movie. The first voice encourages him to find the Anomaly and understand it, while the latter voices are very nihilistic and instead insist that Simon fuck off and die, that the Anomaly cannot be found.

IMO that first voice was closer to that actual person. The second voice was the monster at the source of the ocean. I'll get to that. But I also think the creature(s) Simon sees are likely made of the blood itself. I'm not quite sure how many creatures are actually in the film, I didn't quite get a good enough look to determine if the initial skeleton (which I assume was actually a living creature) VS the creature in the huge tunnel that flees VS the creature Simon kills were all the same or not. But I do think they're made of the blood, based on the fact we know the blood can produce life based on the flora manifesting in the SM-13 in the last act.

But either way I think they're all just the same thing acting through physical vessels: the thing Simon sees in his dream, that huge red eye in the sky.

I think that woman's monologue about God is very telling. Whether this creature is actually God or not is up to you, but I do think it's a very powerful, otherworldly deity. Going by her monologue, about God seeing the universe through a pinhole and struggling to understand it just with that view, I think the Anomaly is the pinhole. I think this God, it somehow found a way to peer into our universe, and either deliberately or just through perceiving us, it erased everything it couldn't see - the planets, the stars. Maybe it really is God, and it has decided in its divine judgment that the universe needs to end. Or it's just an alien thing that inadvertently destroyed whatever it couldn't see through the Anomaly.

(I like to think this creature isn't necessarily deliberately malicious, just acting in its nature. It peered into our world and could only see our manmade space stations, so everything else was erased. Now, all it sees through the Anomaly is blood, so that's all it understands, and maybe it wants everything but the blood to be erased yet again, and is pissed that isn't happening.)

Anyway, I think by doing this, the blood oceans manifest as the consequences of what this thing has killed, and now it is part of them. The thing IMO doesn't have a physical form, it's inside the blood, it is the blood, so the creatures Simon sees are just a byproduct of the blood's nature, congealing and creating monsters that either are just animals, or act as vessels for the God to act through. When Simon sees the vision of that huge red eye, that's the closest he comes to truly seeing it, and that's just a form within the blood, or its mindscape, or whatever.

(Thus, Simon only kills a vessel at the end of the movie, not the actual entity behind all of this. Still a badass move, though.)

Going by this, the vibe I got was the first time Simon speaks to the woman's voice, it feels like maybe that's actually her, breaking free from the hivemind for a minute, or maybe not fully assimilated, to encourage Simon to find the Anomaly - in death, she understands that the creature and its effects can be stopped by destroying/closing the Anomaly, because that is how the creature sees into our world. But when she says Simon's name she's become fully one with the creature, and so now the voice taunts him and tries to get him to give up, because it knows the humans' only hope of stopping it is learning the Anomaly exists and finding a way to close it.

So yeah that's what I think. Ultimately Iron Lung's story is surprisingly optimistic despite the very depressing source material, because to me it feels the ultimate point of the narrative is that humans continue to fight for a better world in spite of hopeless circumstances. The Consolidation of Iron is acting amorally, as has Eden, but this is bigger than Simon. Simon's hopeful monologue about the Quiet Rapture is telling - where he ponders if maybe it's them who disappeared and the rest of humanity is looking for them. I don't think he's right, but it displays the primary theme here, that even with everything going on Simon still clings to hope. In the face of something bigger and more sinister than he can possibly comprehend, Simon ultimately chooses to make his final moments about the greater good.

Ultimately Simon wins, rejecting the crimes the creature and the COI taunt him with, giving humanity hope. Maybe he didn't stop whatever the creature is that's behind this, but he at least gave it a hell of a middle finger before going out with a bang and giving humanity the tools to eventually stop it themselves.

[m0nology]

I do like to think Thira and Doomguy were a romantic thing pre-Divinity Machine. I guess that's sort of a controversial topic in this slice of the fandom? I dunno, but I think it makes sense. Specifically I think they were a thing, and then the Slayer's mind was really fucked with by both the Divinity Machine and the Tether, and the result in TDA is a dynamic where Thira is one of the only people who trusts this man, and there are lingering feelings of care from the Slayer... but he has lost the ability to engage with people like he once did.

The evidence: Eternal's Codex explicitly says that King Novik pulled strings to make Doomguy a Night Sentinel because he impressed him, despite objections from other Night Sentinels. It would make sense if part of his decision were influenced by Thira having a word with him. The Slayer's demeanor towards Thira in TDA is also already a lot warmer than with others - she's one of the only characters in the series he actually on-screen nods to or acknowledges in the affirmative, and his body language in Temple of Lomarith points to a level of care for her. Thira is also the only Night Sentinel in the story to trust and care about the Slayer as a person throughout the entire narrative; everyone else is either scared, indifferent, or needs convincing. They have past history.

People say, like, "but he had a family, he had a wife," which, like, 1) it's pretty clear they died long before he met the Sentinels, and 2) I think it's important to note that the modern Doom story still frames Argent D'Nur as the majority of the Slayer's backstory and his motivation in the modern games. I disagree with the idea Doomguy's just meant to be a broken man by this point. Because the vibe I always got is that he was getting better, in between the Eternal flashbacks and the Divinity Machine. I think he was healing from some of his trauma and learning to cope with it slightly better, because now he had comrades to fight with, and a community he was a part of. Something bigger than himself that he wasn't forced into like Mars. These people are his family. I think if there was any point where Doomguy was beginning to move on from the loss of his family and Daisy and all that shit, it was here, when he was fighting in the Unholy Wars alongside companions who weren't dropping like flies.

I think at this point, where Doomguy's struggle against Hell is beginning to look like it's manageable, it'd make sense for him to be in some sort of relationship, and I think Thira makes sense given their dynamic in TDA - as well as the Slayer blatantly caring about her safety specifically in a way he doesn't with others.

(I mean, he cares about people's safety in general. He's saving people. But there's a lot of emphasis placed on saving Thira specifically instead of just butting his head against Ahzrak some more.)

"But Doom isn't a love story-" no, it's not, but guess what it kind of is? A tragedy. And this idea heightens the tragic nature of his transformation. The subtext with TDA is that the Slayer, to the rest of the Sentinels, is a soulless Maykr weapon wearing the face of their former comrade, and it's fucking ghoulish to them. Only Thira, who knew him intimately, can look into his eyes and see that the person she knew is still there. She trusts him and knows him, and we can tell by his own body language that she still means a great deal to him. But the Maykrs have stolen his humanity. The Tether has traumatized him in a way that can't be undone, and the Divinity Machine has set him on a path that he can't stray from.

I don't see it as a love story and I don't see Thira as his love interest. I see it as a tragedy, where Thira serves as the only person who has faith that there's still some of this man left inside the Slayer, and despite that it isn't enough to undo what has been taken from him. She's just a part of this world, the culture of Argent D'Nur, that the Slayer truly loves but feels he can no longer truly partake in.

I dunno. That just enhances the story to me. I'm not usually the, uh, shipping type, I guess - if I like the idea of their relationship it's because I think it makes things more interesting.

But I'm biased. Before TDA came out I had this exact idea but with Valen.

[m0nology]

Ranting about Craig Burnatowski's Wesker, and Wesker as an abuser and manipulator.

TLDR: Wesker is a piece of shit, not just in the "evil supervillain" way but in the "gets a sick, perverse pleasure from exploiting and abusing vulnerable women, subordinates, and people he's hurt" kind of way, and it makes him a really interesting villain; Craig Burnatowski nails this part of him perfectly.

I am talking about, like, abuse and grooming and shit here, so fair warning.

I just wanna say I absolutely love Craig Burnatowski's Wesker and it makes me very excited to see him in a Code Veronica remake.

I miss the accent, right? But this Wesker brings a level of realism and fear to him that I really like. It's very easy to portray Wesker as a supervillain - CV and 5 did that, and he's great in those. But 4R takes a different approach. We don't even see his powers here, but we hear a lot of what he's like.

"Change of plans. Of course, you're free to refuse..."

He says while holding a gun to Ada. This isn't even, like, a subtle or clever move - it's a very blatant and deliberate show of power over this woman, and something that Wesker does like Leon rolls off one-liners. It's his whole thing, really - exercising power over people "weaker" than him. Ada isn't a contractor or a partner or whatever - she's not hired. Maybe on paper she is, but in reality she's a tool Wesker gets to throw around how he pleases. He doesn't have partners, or friends, or allies. Everyone is either a tool or an enemy.

Luis: "Hey, who are you working for anyway?" Ada: "You're better off not knowing. Trust me."

Separate Ways gives off a very scary view of him is what I'm saying, not RE5 scary where he's a big bad supervillain trying to end the world, but a "holy fuck I don't want me or my friends or my family alone with this man" kind of scary.

You know. Like an abuser.

Because like, that's what he is, you know? Wesker loves exercising power over people, he does it constantly. He groomed Excella in RE5 from a young age to be dependent on him in basically all of her business ventures and career, and manipulated her infatuation with him to keep her loyal - but to him she was just a tool. The way he touches her is genuinely unsettling - yeah, sure, she's evil too and all that obviously, but the way he treats her makes it clear that he is very much enjoying casual displays of control and power over this woman. It's just fucked up.

(Side note: Like, this is kind of how I see the Rebecca photo thing. It's the only way to see it that doesn't make me roll my eyes. Some people joke about it like "haha get it Rebecca's hot," which is gross, and others think it's just not canon, which I think they've focused on it enough that it probably is. My take is just that Wesker is a creepy piece of shit, and as the youngest rookie of S.T.A.R.S., Rebecca was the most vulnerable person under his authority, and thus he would have a perverse interest in her. A showing of Wesker's awful personality is how I see it.)

I think there's an argument to be made that some of this shit is gendered, which, you know, makes sense, but I think Chris is a shining example of it too. I do kind of see Chris/Wesker as a dynamic eerily similar to Leon/Ada* and with a not insignificant amount of homoerotic undertones to it, but it's not, like, Cool and Sexy. I think Wesker has the same kind of obsession with Chris as the kind of obsession that led him to have a weird picture of a freshly-18-year-old subordinate in his desk. It's just not an age thing with Chris - rather, it's the fact he knows he haunts Chris's mind, and he gets a kick out of it.

"Let's just say I'm a ghost... coming back to haunt your dear brother."

(A reminder: REmake deliberately has a detail that shows Wesker frowning when Jill meets him in the Old Residence. But when you play as Chris instead, he explicitly smiles to himself before turning.)

I don't think it's a strictly sexual thing (though I do think that's an element of it). But I do think it's the closest thing he can have to a "crush." I think Wesker is incapable of having any sort of close interpersonal relationship, sexual, romantic, or otherwise, that doesn't involve him hurting or wielding power over them. In CV he reminds Chris several times of their past dynamic pre-RE1.

"Chris! Since you're one of my best men... I'll let you handle this."

I'm getting off topic, my point is: Wesker's one of the best characters in RE, and IMO that's not just because he's, like, a badass villain or whatever, but because he genuinely has a lot of presence as a villain, in the narrative itself - Chris especially, but with 4R we get this huge vibe of just how uncomfortable he seems to make Ada, and Ada's pretty fucking hardened - if she's that freaked out by him, there's a fucking reason for it. He's a scary fucking guy, to everyone around him, no matter how bad they are.

Burnatowski's voice for Wesker captures this side of him a lot more than D.C. Douglas or Richard Waugh. Theirs are more on the supervillain side, which I also love, but I am ready to hear more of this Wesker... being on his good side gets you threatened at gunpoint. Imagine being on his bad side.

Wesker's treatment of Excella and Chris is vile - but his voice was more lofty and cartoonishly evil, and you could separate them. Burnatowski's Wesker feels exactly like the man in those scenes.

He's a manipulative, scary, blatantly abusive man whose actions and words show a complete lack of compassion, cordiality, or empathy. We see how he wields that power over other individuals, and then we see how he aspires to wield that power over everything else on the planet.

So yeah anyway I just was thinking of this while playing RE4R, hope I'm not posting cringe or whatever. I just like good character writing, and Wesker is one of the more well-done RE characters I feel.

[m0nology]

People say the Samuel Hayden / Seraphim twist was out of nowhere and had zero foreshadowing, but Doom 2016 has a lot to give you here. I'm not saying it isn't a retcon, it is, but I don't think it is out of nowhere either.

In 2016 he is running a cult. All Olivia did was make a cultist branch that worshipped Hell. But long before her, Hayden was running the Mars base like a cult. They literally prop up Argent Energy as a God to be worshipped, and Hayden himself as well.

They even have "chapels" and "magus" employees to help other employees when they have a crisis of "faith." They call the Argent Tower "the Altar to the Fracture." They keep using language about ascending to the next plane and accepting the UAC "doctrine" and shit.

He is literally running the place like the Maykrs ran Argent D'Nur. Force yourself as an idol of worship by providing things the masses can't live without. I don't think Hayden knew his true identity during 2016 but he sure has a Maykr's personality.

This stuff is why I actually liked the Seraphim twist. I think it fits Hayden and adds some depth to the UAC. To show that this awful bureaucratic capitalist bullshit isn't just evil but a primordial evil that has existed before humans themselves, that the UAC's brand of inhuman, uncaring terror is just the Maykrs but reskinned - it is very interesting. And sad to see that even long after the Sentinels came to Earth, became modern humans and forgot themselves, we still cannot escape being under the thumb of the fucking Maykrs.

I dunno, I just think it's cool. Samuel Hayden is an asshole.

[m0nology]

Did Davoth even know the Slayer looks like him?

TAG2 never really acknowledged this and that sucks, whatever. Obviously it's because the story just dropped the ball there, but let's ignore that. What if Davoth just didn't recognize him? What if Davoth spent so long as a formless hateful spirit he no longer remembers what he looks like, and TAG2 went by so fast he never got the chance to see his reflection?

He sees the Slayer and does not recognize him.

Here's a worse thought: does the Slayer recognize Davoth? When was the last time he saw his own face? Millennia of fighting, then millennia of restless sleep. Then Doom 2016 and Eternal happen. Did he ever rest long enough to get a good, long look at himself?

The Father says "he is you, in their world." But does the Slayer even care to ponder what that means? Writes it off as some flowery dramatic bullshit, doesn't matter, load shotgun, BANG?

Do they understand that they don't just look the same, but are essentially the same person, just in different circumstances? I've always believed it's not just visual - that Davoth and the Slayer are just... AU versions of each other. What if Davoth was born on Earth? What if Doomguy were born in Jekkad?

That rage is innate to him. It came from love. Davoth went insane because he loved the people of Immora and could not stand to see them die. The Slayer's first, defining moment in Doom 2016 - he sees a man's corpse, and flies into a rage as Hayden tries to justify it. Both have their personhoods stolen from them by the Maykrs. Both have given their lives to Hell. Both embody it. Both are dedicated to it.

Davoth ruled Hell, but the Slayer gives it a purpose - a common enemy to unite demonkind. He's been fueling the enemy he's always sought to destroy. Davoth essentially says this:

"You bring violence and war to thwart the Dark Realm, but conflict was born in Hell. It is inevitable... a fire that fuels creation and gives purpose where there is none.”

Davoth may have died but his face never left Hell. The Dark Lord never left. They're the same man. Same rage. Same hate. Same love. Same loss.

But do they even know that? Was the Father the only one to see this and know its significance?

Were they both so old, so tired, so lost in their own hate that they couldn't even recognize themselves in each other?

Just something I've been thinking about.