#RE reviews

[rallamajoop]

The Mysterious Saga of Ethan Winters' Severed Leg

So, we all know Ethan has a hand stapled back on in RE7 ‒ and that by RE8, he's advanced to first-aid-fluid-ing his severed arms back on himself with hardly a second thought. It's long since become the stuff of memes by this point.

What I did not know was that there's a scene back in RE7 where Ethan reattaches his own severed leg the same way.

I mean, effin' hell, did the rest of you all know this? Why did you not tell me? I have played the shit out of both these games, and I had no idea! Goddamnit, I just got done posting fic which is basically one long, slightly-pornographic laundry-list of every memorably-horrific canonical injury that poor boy receives, and I missed something as big as this?

(Mine you, I do kind of love how screenshots make it look like "You can use this to fix your leg. You can do it!" is just the item text that pops up when you pick up your severed leg again ‒ it's not, it's dialogue, but my god the image.)

Okay, so. For the benefit of everyone as blindsided by this as me: details!

Ethan Loses His Leg is a scene most playing RE7 will miss, because it happens only if Jack catches Ethan while trying to sneak through the trap door in the pantry, whereupon he'll sever Ethan's lower leg with his spade (yikes). Having done this, Jack will step back, produce a bottle of first aid fluid, and helpfully inform Ethan he can use it to fix his leg ‒ which (if the player acts quickly enough to pick up both items) Ethan will do. I've got to say, Ethan's "What the fuck?" reaction at the end does not even begin to cover the WTFery on display here.

So this is how I found myself legitimately preparing to write meta on the narrative significance of how Ethan Winters can reattach his own leg in an optional scene in RE7, FML.

No, look, fuck it, let's do this. Okay.

A lot of the online discussion of this scene revolves around the question of why Jack would go out of his way to help Ethan reattach the same foot he (Jack) just sliced off. But I think this misses the point: Jack's ultimate goal here isn't to kill Ethan, it's to make him join the family (that he may inadvertently end up killing Ethan in the process is just the sort of tough love you can expect from Daddy Baker).

After all, Jack's perfectly happy to slice Lucas' arm off at his own dining table for a little misbehaviour ‒ why wouldn't he extend the same courtesy to his new 'son'? He's just trying to show Ethan all the crazy benefits he can look forward to as a new member of the Baker family!

The fact he lets Ethan think it's the magic-herb-juice doing all the work is probably just a bit of misdirection. Or maybe what's really in those bottles is some sort of fungal fertiliser. Or maybe this is all just the game doing a bit of extra tutorialising to make sure the player is fully aware of how important all that first aid stuff is going to be ‒ whichever you prefer.

But what really gets me is that there's a disturbingly-strong case to be made that this scene (optional as it may be) should be considered not just canon, but Important Canon. The apparently-burning question of how Ethan could just assume that a little first-aid-fluid will magically fix his severed arm in RE8 comes up most everywhere the game is discussed online ‒ well, here's your answer!

Why? Because he's done it before! How did he know to try it then? Well, Jack told him! And in a world which apparently experiences a major zombie virus outbreak every other week, and in a house where Ethan's already seen people survive some wild and crazy shit, why shouldn't he assume it's this magic-herb-juice that's doing all the work?

But wait, there's more! Because Jack can also slice Ethan's leg off during the boss fight in the slaughterhouse!

He isn't kind enough to hand Ethan some first aid fluid this time though ‒ playtime is officially over by Boss Battle #2.

But wait there's STILL more! Because, I shit you not, Ethan can also lose a leg to the blade-wielding moulded enemies in the game.

The moulded aren't so accommodating as to provide Ethan with first aid supplies either, though if you do bring your own though, they will stand politely back wait while you glue your foot back on, which is all you can really ask.

Don't stock up too much though: if your inventory is full, Ethan apparently won't have the space to pick up his own severed leg. Yep, the leg counts as a key item that will take up space in your inventory, because however insane you already thought this game was, it's even wilder than even that.

But this all stands to reason. Given that this may theoretically be the second (or even THIRD) time Ethan has now lost that leg, tutorial time is surely behind us. After all, Jack Baker can't be expected to go easy on you while you (ahem) find your feet indefinitely.

(Thank you, I'll be here all week.)

#Resident Evil 7 #Ethan Winters #Resident Evil Village #Ethan Winters' severed leg #meta #trivia #gore #Youtube #Ethan Winters' severed leg(s) #RE reviews

[lowtaxsa]

Crystal Force (1990)

Alright, so here's the deal: I already reviewed this cinematic disaster back in 2000, but it's 2023 now, and I'm a freakin' robot, so let's see if I've held up better than this absolute trash heap of a movie. Buckle up, kids, because we're diving back into the dumpster fire that is "Crystal Force."

Overview: "Crystal Force" is like the unholy trinity of crap. Watching this "horror" film, I simultaneously lost control of my bladder, gag reflex, and any last shred of hope for humanity. The movie's about a bunch of moronic women who accidentally summon some dude in a Swamp Creature cosplay from a chunk of quartz. Meanwhile, a fat guy who spends all his time walking his dogs and spying on these idiots is either the Devil or a blind pervert on a mission.

Directed By: Laura Keats, 1990

The Case For: If you're a tree-hugging hippie, there's plenty of footage of people wandering around trees, going to their cars, and loitering near playgrounds like a bunch of creeps.

The Case Against: "Sex" scenes will have you puking faster than a frat boy after a kegger, special effects look like they were done by a kindergartner, and memories of the chuckling fat man will haunt your nightmares.

Alright, so we got ourselves another "theme" movie here. If you've read any of my other reviews (and I'm sorry if you have), you'll know what I'm talking about. "Crystal Force" is just another turd of a film that the director / writer decided to base around a single prop – in this case, a hunk of quartz (ooh, spooky!). It's like these people are all related and just whip up scripts during family reunions or something.

The movie starts with the cameraman stumbling around a cemetery like he's on a bender while the narrator drones on about some vague evil force that threatens all of mankind. It's a bunch of mumbo jumbo about an evil power that nobody can even talk about. Yawn. Eventually, the cameraman just gives up and passes out, but unfortunately, the actual movie starts. Spoiler alert: it's even worse than the intro and credits.

We've got a woman sobbing at a funeral for her husband. Behind her is another woman in a miniskirt. Real classy. They leave the funeral and start the long journey home, apparently racing against some "storm" that just makes everything dark for two seconds before it's sunny again. They pass the fat guy walking his dogs, and little do they know, they'll be seeing a lot more of him and his pooches.

To help her mom stop crying, the daughter and her friend decide to buy a haunted chunk of quartz from a fat guy in an antique store. Great idea, right? They bring it home, and instead of cheering mom up, it gives the visiting priest a heart attack. Smooth.

The daughter then has another brilliant idea: let's hold a séance with my friends to help my mom forget about her dead husband! What could go wrong? They all go to sleep, and some guy in a rubber monster suit appears in the kitchen behind the magic crystal. He wanders around the house, and we keep cutting back to the fat guy from the antique store just laughing outside the window. Eventually, the monster gets bored and goes back to his spinning, floral pattern pentagram.

The next day, the denim-wearing ladies gather at their workplace, "Bart's Salon." I have no idea how this place stays in business, considering their idea of beauty is on par with the Jackson family's plastic surgeon. They agree to meet up that night for the séance and to inevitably get killed by some horrifying creature.

The women show up, and the airheaded mystical lady brings enough magic garbage to stock a New Age store. She uses "Pulse Channeling" to predict a boat trip (whoop-de-doo), and another woman picks the "Death Card" from a deck of "Taroosh Magic Cards" and freaks out. The mystic reassures her that "everybody picks that card first." Well, that's comforting.

Oh, and of course, we get more shots of the fat guy laughing outside the window. The lady who picked the "Death Card" goes to the bathroom and sees a picture of the hideous demon in the toilet bowl. I don't know if this was supposed to be scary or a reminder to keep our toilets clean, but it just left me confused.

Anyway, the stupid demon escapes (again), pushes the women around, and the fat guy outside the window keeps laughing. The ladies finally get fed up with being terrorized by the monster, so they run outside and hide in the bushes until the cops arrive. The police try to subdue the demon by letting it crush their heads like melons, which obviously doesn't work, so an undercover cop makes some kind of acid out of hair chemicals and sprays it on the devil. Oh, and the fat guy keeps laughing outside the window. The hellhound disappears, and everything goes back to normal. WHEW.

I guess I could've summed up this entire train wreck of a movie with: "women buy a haunted crystal that kills their stupid friends." But instead, the movie drags this flimsy plot into 90 minutes of God knows what. Why is the fat voyeur always hanging around? Why does some kid's face pop up over a spinning pentagram? Why do the mother and daughter both look like they're 80? Why is everyone wearing blue shirts and denim? And seriously, how the hell does "Bart's Salon" stay in business? The sheer volume of these questions shattered my fragile mind and pushed me over the edge.

But hey, other than those minor points, the movie was FANTASTIC!

Lowtax's Score: Plot: - 9 Acting: - 9 Special Effects: - 8 Directing: - 7 Music / Sound: - 6 Overall: - 39 Each category in the rating system is based out of a possible -10 score (-10 being the worst). The overall score is based out of a possible -50 score (-50 being the worst)

#lowtax speaks #reviews #re reviews #big blog

[cowboycannibalism]

one of the things that annoys me so bad right now is seeing letterboxd reviews about Lisa Frankenstein being like "she's such a horrible character", "those people didn't deserve to be killed" blah blah blah

SHUT UP

it's a horror romance!! a girl keeps a reanimated dead guy in her closet and falls in love with him! what did you think was going to happen? it's SUPPOSED to be fucked up and weird and that's part of its charm. quit being boring, let female characters (esp in horror) be messy and chaotic and morally gray.

#i really need to stop reading the low rating letterboxd reviews #i just get so curious about what people didnt like about movies #and most of the time they just make me annoyed lol #anywas go see this movie #i support womens rights and womens wrongs #lisa frankenstein #i love me a Frankenstein re-imagining #horror #horror hype #i live out my god complex through evil little scientists #<- thats my Frankenstein-esque media tag

[spacetimeaccordionfolder]

As May 3rd is getting close, does anyone have any good paprika hendl/ chicken paprikash recipes? I'm highly tempted to try making it.

#dracula daily #re dracula #dracula #i'm not sure if this website is the best place to get cooking advice but I cannot seem to find a recipe online that has more than 1 review

[castiellesbian]

@staff homophobes fr

#they re-reviewed it and its still labelled #its literally just kissing

[notbecauseofvictories]

it would be funny in a horrible, helpless way, if I've spent all month in a funk---trying various things to break out of it, or at least do something productive---when I just needed to go back to my parents' house for a second visit and insist I leave early, refusing to take no for an answer.

#my brain comes up with curses no evil fairy would ever dare. #like....there are dishes in my sink from 2 weeks ago. a bathroom electrical socket hasn't worked in 3 weeks. #my phone screen has been glitching for over a month. #last week I was so tired that I essentially told my boss to skip my annual review because I would read it #and then scheduled myself a week vacation the first week I was free. #meanwhile I've read 11 discworld novels; re-read every stupid romance novel I have #and re-watched a bunch of television. #it is A Curse. but maybe I'm seeing some light on the horizon. fingers crossed. #celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge

[thegoatsongs]

Note that Van Helsing emphasizes that this procedure "is called blood transfusion", it's something still brand new, as well as extremely risky, as others have pointed out.

As it's a transfusion (and not a donation during which you can donate up to 11% of your blood and walk it off just fine) and thus give the volume of blood a patient needs to survive from the blood bank, Van Helsing has to take much more than the recommended amount of a blood donation from Arthur.

The fact that this medical procedure is so extremely brand new, like how new the phonograph was, had made contemporary reviewers complain that the story is "too modern" for a vampire story.

#I'll fina a few of the reviews later #dracula daily #re: dracula

[ectonurites]

a lil 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

#quick edit to the tags to mention: i didnt put the community label on this?? tumblr did for some reason??? #i requested a re-review because uh. that is not necessary here???? but who knows what’ll happen #ANOTHER quick edit: it has been resolved and the label removed wahoo #byler #byler art #mike wheeler #will byers #stranger things #st #stranger things 4 #sam draws shit #i have too much fun scrolling through vintage clothes on etsy to pick outfits for them sdfdf... its the Child Of A Costumer in me

[artemisandhersilverbow]

JFC that's a bar

#book review #dark age #red rising #pierce brown #darrow of lykos #lysander au lune #i do not like our chances but let's go king #my take re lysander aged pretty well

[starrysharks]

okkkk i watched the first episode of hazbin hotel and i think it has a lot of missed potential. there are actually quite a few goods - the animation for the most part is nice, the voice acting is great (especially keith david as the cat thing), and the songs are alright. the show brings up interesting concepts but the main problem is that it doesn't really execute them in an interesting way, mainly due to the way the characters are written.

every character - with the exception of alastor, charlie and nifty - has a generally "vulgar" personality, ranging from that being a primary trait to basically the entire character (based on the 1st episode alone). they're all written in a similar way, which means that character interactions are very basic funnyman/straightman endeavors with little variation - angel dust says something dumb and vaggie chatises him, or angel dust says something sexual and husk chatises him. that formula basically extends to most if not all of their interactions so far, so the dynamics between characters are similar and frankly uninteresting. angel dust especially (i really don't like him sorry) is so far just a vessel for sexual jokes, and we don't really get anything from his character other than "he's horny", which isn't really good for your first episode imo. the language the characters use is also similar so there's little humorous contrast. there aren't really "jokes" with setup and payoff - just characters saying and doing out of pocket things.

the worst example of this is with the angels, particularly adam. i think that the angel with him (lute i think?) would actually serve his purpose in the story better based on her character - somewhat regal, orderly, but most importantly uses a completely different language to the devils. this sort of contrast would've been way more interesting imo - have the angels be holier-than-thou (quite literally), talk charlie down, make her feel less than or even like a "sinner" - which would be cool because as far as i can tell charlie tries her best to be as good as possible! that would be a unique way to bring out her angry side but instead adam just acts like any other devil, even worse than them, and maybe that's on purpose but i don't think it's very cool...... it would be fun to play off the watcher's preconceived notions and ideas on angels and devils after establishing how charlie deviates from the norm, maybe even having the angels be like "wow you lashing out proves devils are all evil", but now i'm rambling...

other than that, i think the story introduces its main plot points too early. give the concept some time to breathe and establish itself before dropping the bombshell that the extermination is to be 6 months early, damn,,, but i'd have to watch every episode to give an opinion on how they handle that, which i likely won't do. i have some small nitpicks, like the weird lack of buildup to most songs and the kind of weird pacing, but in short, based on the first episode, it's just a compilation of missed opportunities and edgy swear-humor offset by some genuinely interesting and good ideas. this isn't a review of the entire series, by the way - just a "initial thoughts" thing. if you really are interested in the concept, i'd say give it a chance, but please be aware of the creator's actions before you support it monetarily. (i watched the first episode through other means as i genuinely dislike the creator due to her bigotry, of which others have described more eloquently than me - it's very easy to find "call-outs" and critiques of her actions). 4/10, where is verblase :/

#zeno's movie diary #(technically......? idk its a review) #long post #ALSO if i was a random prime user who had never heard of hazbin i'd be so fucking confused by this episode #the pilot is essentially an episode 0 and required viewing but this is never really established #there's hardly even a sort of re-introduction for long time viewers #ok thats my LAST NITPICK #there done get yhis shit out of my face now

[stedesbonnets]

i do think it was a bit of a fuck up from stede's part for jumping on ed instead of letting him finish what he was gonna say. not only was he going to comfort stede, he was also gonna open about his own trauma. and of course, ed said he wanted to take it slow and this was everything but slow, so i do understand him when he said he regretted what happened

#re all the reviews praising them communicating: i don't see it happening that much? #elinor.exe #ofmd s2 spoilers

[rallamajoop]

Resident Evil 6: When a franchise has an identity crisis

I can’t tell you RE6 is a better game than RE5, but if nothing else, it’s a far more interesting failure.

RE6 is famously the game that tried so hard to appeal to everyone that it wound up appealing to no-one: overlong, overproduced and utterly OTT. RE5 left the franchise at a crossroads: the previous two games were huge successes, but drew criticism for straying from the series’ horror roots. Faced with the choice of doubling down on the new direction or diverting back towards something more survival horror, Capcom attempted to do both, at once, and then some.

The new RE6 would have three different main campaigns (Chris & Piers, Leon & Helena, and Jake & Sherry), all aimed at different markets, plus a fourth which would unlock only after the previous three were completed, which was to be different again. It would have something for everyone! Provided ‘everyone’ wanted a co-op shooter experience with ALL the explosions, or was prepared to play through three different extended co-op experiences just to unlock the one that was kinda more designed to be played solo. Completing that fourth campaign would also be essential to ever finding out what the fuck was going on during those first three. How could that go wrong?

RE6 is, in other words, exactly what happens when a franchise has an identity crisis.

Experienced purely on the level of plot and cutscenes, RE6 remains hard to rate overall because while there are parts of this game I genuinely enjoyed in a way nothing in RE5 could boast, so many other parts of were legitimately uncomfortable to sit through, and in ways owing less to effective horror than to gratuitous, ugly misery porn.

Watch, as these bit characters you barely know die in horrible, gruesome ways in front of people who care about them! Watch! As Helena is finally reunited with the infected sister she committed treason to save, just in time to watch her beloved Deborah transform into a horrific butt-naked-lady monster who will spend the ensuing boss fight posing sexily while her tits show off their jiggle physics! It’s so traumatic for poor Helena, you have no idea!

Watch! As Chris reaches desperately for the outstretched fingers of StarryEyed McNewKid in the final seconds before his body erupts into a monster cocoon! Chris, dude, how long have you been in this business? He’s not falling off a rooftop, Chris! Grabbing his hand is not going to help!

It would all be hilarious if it wasn’t also all so skin-crawlingly unpleasant. There’s something uniquely gross about how these scenes play out, and largely not in the fun way.

With all four campaigns down, the big secret behind devastating bio-terror outbreaks in three different locations around the world turns out to be that some member of the Actual Illuminati gets Big Mad that Ada Wong won’t put out, and converts a loyal scientist (Carla) into an Ada-clone, who promptly sets out to end the world in a fit of clone-angst. There’s a bit more going on in some of the individual campaigns – Illuminati Dude also sets up a plot to kill the US president so he can’t reveal the truth about Raccoon City (whatever that means), then frames Leon and Helena for it. He’s also sent Sherry out to find Wesker’s son, whose blood may be the one cure for their latest alphabet-virus, Sherry little realising who she’s really working for. And the real Ada’s around too – you can tell her apart by how the clone doesn’t wear enough red to be the real deal.

Among the many problems with this game are that Illuminati Dude and clone!Ada are our only real villains, and neither are up to the franchise standard. Ada is just too well-established a character to work as the kind of villain who just wants-to-watch-the-world-burn – you can see the twist coming long, tiring hours before it hits. And Simmons (Illuminati Dude) just does not have any of the personality that makes people remember villains like Wesker or Salazar. There is some impressive creature design in this game – some of the boss monsters are far more memorable than the villains. But by this stage of franchise-transformation, your base level infected-enemy is just a generic guy with a machine gun and maybe an extra couple of eyes up close. It's a military shooter with occasional monsters, expecting you to mow down mooks without stopping for breath.

Speaking of military shooters, Chris has a campaign too, but for the life of me I could not tell you anything in it that matters to anyone else. He runs around a few locations, he fights a lot of monsters, completely fails to stop a missile launch, and loses people in the field. In the wake of RE5, the new game has honed in on the one defining feature of Chris’ character, Man With Lots Of Feelings About Losing People In The Field, and doubled down. Chris loses a lot of people in the field in this game.

The four campaigns in this game are separate enough that I’m going to talk about them that way, so let’s start with Chris.

Chris and Piers

Like the franchise as a whole, Chris is in the midst of his own identity crisis. Is running from place to place, fighting monsters and losing so many people in the field really his whole life now? Yes, Chris. Yes, it is. I don’t know what else to tell you.

As much shade as this game gets for not being proper horror, there’s a case to be made that Chris’ campaign is absolutely a horror story, just one about the specific horrors of toxic masculinity. Aww, Chris, are you having an alcohol-fuelled, amnesic breakdown after traumatically losing your whole team in the field? You think maybe you could use some therapy, some downtime? Well fuck you, Chris, what you need is for the one survivor of your big fuck-up to come yell at you, drag your amnesic ass back to base and give you a whole new team. Then you can go lose them all in the field again, this time down to the very last man, so you can learn how to be a fucking man about it! MEN DON’T GET TO HAVE FEELINGS!!

Chris persists in having feelings nonetheless, mostly rage and denial. By the end game, poor Chris is about half a breakdown away from the point where he could see his whole team smeared into a bloody pulp, and would still have to be dragged away screaming “noooooo we can still save them!!!” The sheer hilarity can only temper the misery so far.

Watch as Chris solemnly retrieves the C4 cartridge that is all that was left of the last (non-playable) survivor of the second team he’s lost this game, which game text will dutifully label as Marco’s C4. Watch the sadness in Chris’ eyes as he slaps it onto a door and blows it open! (That was Marco’s C4, Piers! He loved that C4! He took it everywhere with him! Now it’s as burned and blackened as he is!)

If you’re here for testosterone poisoning, Chris and Piers’ campaign is here for you. Up to this point in the series, one of Chris’ few vaguely-distinguishing features was how many women there were in his life, and how he generally managed not to be weird about that – Jill, Claire, Sheva, even Rebecca. In RE6, Chris is a man’s man in a man’s world, full of men – no lady partners around to slow down this Redfield!

Chris interacts with all of three women in the whole game, and is one of those is him telling a barmaid ‘Listen, sweetheart, you’re here to pour drinks and look pretty’ when she tries to cut him off during his drunken-amnesic opening sequence. Chris spends the rest of the game hunting clone!Ada after she gruesomely murders his first team in front of him. He never gets his final showdown with her. He never finds out she’s a clone. But he sure does get into a big punch-up with Leon when Leon has the gall to suggest they need to bring “Ada” in alive, not in a body bag (the clone herself slips away while they’re still arguing).

Chris does manage to be nicer to Sherry, at least, but his biggest interaction with Jake is similarly testosterone-laden. If you play these campaigns in their intended order, you’ll have the big Wesker-junior-reveal exposed for you in other people’s dialogue long before you’ll ever see Jake find out for himself. Chris decides this means he absolutely has to let Jake know that I Killed Your Father at the first possible opportunity, never mind that the lives of millions could hang on whether he and Jake can get on long enough to get out alive. He and Jake very nearly come to blows over it.

It’s all so ridiculous that even Piers calls him out on it; Chris simply insists that Jake “had a right to know.” Sure, but why now? For which matter, why would Jake suddenly care about the death of the evil, asshole deadbeat he hates so much? Oh, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s all because the writers wanted their big, tense, manly, “I killed your daddy!”-confrontation, and were going to shoehorn it in at any cost.

And yet, for all the bullshit that is Chris’ manly, manly campaign, I can’t completely hate it, because there’s this one bit at the end where Piers injects himself with a virus in a desperate moment, and promptly grows a giant mutant arm that shoots lightning. Like, if you are playing as Piers, you get to wield his mutant lightning arm through the remaining combat scenes.

The game even throws up a bunch of lightning-destructible barriers after the big boss battle just to give you more to do with it. I mean, how can you not love a thing like that? It’s amazing.

More importantly, why the fuck is there not more use of Piers’ horrifying lightning-shooting monster-arm in Chris/Piers fanfic? Do you all not see how 100% DTF Chris would be if he thought it had even a chance of helping convince Piers his monster-arm wasn’t so bad and he didn’t need to nobly stay behind to die? You can’t experience this game and tell me this isn’t the moment Chris has been building up for the whole damn campaign! Am I going to have to write monster-fucker!Chris myself?

Ahem.

Leon and Helena

Leon’s campaign does not start in a bar, comfortably far from the action. It starts in a presidential office, where Leon is already pointing a gun at the zombified PotUS, who is even now eating another victim.

“Don’t make me do this!” Leon begs, demonstrating that Chris has absolutely set the standard for seasoned-pros-still-living-in-absurd-denial that we can expect from everyone in this mad game. Leon, c’mon – wake up and smell the decomposition! Fuck, your boss is so far gone already they can probably smell him from the building next door!

Leon seems to be working presidential security, but he can’t be doing a very good job, considering that not only has the president been zombified on his watch, there’s a woman with a drawn firearm standing next to him in the president’s presence, and (in one of many record-scratch moments) we’re about to find out Leon hasn’t a clue who she is. Other games might have spent some time leading up to this moment, establishing how Leon, Helena and the ex-pres all got into this position. They might even have given us a scene or two to set up Leon’s relationship with said president, a man whose death has apparently been so traumatic that Leon’s forgotten everything he ever knew about zombies (and take note that this isn’t even Ashley’s-dad-the-president, it’s apparently some completely new guy, so even franchise vets are coming in blind). But not RE6! RE6 gives us a few seconds of flashback-montage right before Leon pulls the trigger, and gets right back to its regular schedule of misery porn.

Helena mutters, “It’s all my fault!” but refuses to elaborate in any way until they reach this cathedral on the other side of town (naturally hiding some kind of biotech lab facility) where it will all become clear. It takes a long time to get to the cathedral, however, because there’s a zombie outbreak in progress, and Leon and Helena keep stopping to watch people die.

There’s a man who wants help looking for his daughter! “We don’t have time!” says Helena. “We’ll make time!” says Leon. Well, they sure do make time to watch that newly-zombified daughter eat her father in a horrific scene. Yay! Later, they find a security feed showing a couple of helpless civilians desperately waving “HELP” signs at a security camera, like there’s going to be anyone checking security feeds in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. Leon watches the feed. The civilians persist in waving signs in one of those awkward video-game animation cycles. Leon watches some more. The signs wave some more. Finally, “we should go help them!” says Leon, as zombies show up to eat everyone present. Helena points out it may be a little late. It’s all so hilarible it hurts.

There’s no good reason why Helena can’t explain anything until they get to the cathedral. All she needs to say is that she’s a federal agent whose sister was taken hostage to force her to cooperate with the villains responsible for the president’s death, and who've been making bioweapons in a secret lab under the cathedral. You could question why a major bio-terror outbreak was necessary for one little act of political assassination, but because this is the Resident Evil universe, any evil worth doing is worth doing with zombies.

You could question exactly what Helena was forced to do, but the game isn’t interested in any of that logical plot stuff. You could question exactly why whatever the president was about to reveal about Raccoon City was worth a political assassination, but the game isn’t interested in politics either. We’re going to the cathedral! It’ll all be much easier to explain there! (It won’t be, we’re not here to explain anything.)

It doesn’t really get better from here. Leon’s campaign is, in short, an epic mess. But I can’t completely hate it, because despite all the bullshit material he’s working with, I am kind of into this take on Leon. This is a Leon who’s older, cooler and more sophisticated, and it just gets me something ridiculous. I’ve seen complaints from fans of the original RE4 who weren’t happy he’s more serious and has less goofy one-liners, which is probably fair – Leon still gets some good ones in, but Jake is hoarding most of the real one-liners in this game, and Leon does come across kind of absurdly over-earnest in a lot of early scenes. He's not going to be to everyone's taste.

But frankly, I’ll take this Leon over RE4’s any day. He feels so much closer to the version in the new games I fell for so hard (and not just because he can actually work with women without being weird about it). He also looks amazing in a suit and still has great chemistry with (real) Ada, and good god, they should just run away together already, those combined genetics would produce the coolest babies imaginable, you just try and tell me they wouldn’t!

And, y'know, sue me, but I kinda liked Helena too. I could do without the police-brutality backstory that she gets in documents, but she's a woman who has fucked up big time, who knows it, and is trying to make up for it, and that kind of complicated tends to be what gives me most of my female faves in this franchise.

Jake & Sherry

Much as I enjoyed Leon and Helena though, their campaign at large is still a pretty miserable slog. And having already sat through two long campaigns of indifferent misery porn, I can’t tell you what a breath of fresh air it was it reach Jake and Sherry’s story and realise, oh my god, I’m actually having a good time! They’re actually having some fun together! They have such great chemistry! Jake even has an actual character arc where he looks back on his life with new eyes and real drive to become a better person! Did I accidentally switch to a whole different game?

Jake (aka Wesker Junior) is the kind of character who shouldn’t work: an above-it-all edgelord mercenary asshole who sounds like everything wrong with this game in a nutshell. His reaction to discovering he might be carrying the cure to a zombie plague is to cheerfully put a price on his own blood in the millions. And yet, he’s refreshingly not awful to Sherry, quickly get attached to her and develops a great dynamic, and he’s young enough that he’s out of his depth a lot in the world of bio-terrorism, and not too uptight to admit it.

Finding out his father was none other than Wesker prompts some serious self-reflection, but we’re not going to watch him spend the rest of the game angsting over it, and even through all the horror he mostly seems to be having a good time. Jake’s great.

My only serious complaint about this campaign is that it’d be nice if they’d given Sherry a little more personality beyond being Jake’s no-nonsense handler. I like that she’s grown up from rescued-little-damsel into trusted agent, that she’s competent and comfortable enough with the world of bio-terror that nothing really fazes her (even if the game does get a little patronising about having Jake tackle her out of danger repeatedly), but she’s stuck being the straight-man to Jake’s wilder personality, and that’s just a bit disappointing.

For someone whose parents were neglectful Umbrella scientists responsible for throwing her into a world of horrific childhood trauma, Sherry comes across like she’s never questioned an authority figure in her life since, and that just doesn’t ring true to me. But at least she and Jake get to have friendly interactions with Leon and Helena, because god knows Chris and Piers can't ever be invited to a group cutscene without one of them having to hold the other back.

I can’t say whether I’d have enjoyed Jake’s storyline nearly so much had I not suffered through Chris and Leon’s first, but Jake’s feels like a far more complete story than either of the previous – and there’s a refreshing lack of stopping-to-watch-people-die-horribly. I don’t feel like I’m missing a preceding act’s worth of set-up, and clone!Ada has a smaller role, so the fact Sherry and Jake never find out what her deal is doesn’t feel like it leaves their story critically unfinished.

Which brings us to Ada’s campaign.

Ada

So here’s where we learn that the Ada in the purple dress is a clone created by that one Illuminati Dude she ghosted after he got too clingy. And by ‘we learn’ I mean ‘just the real Ada learns’, because god knows Chris and Leon never find out – and one can only imagine the kind of furious arguments they’re going to have over Ada’s character, motives, and whether she’s even alive or not after the events of the game. Even Ada only finds out her clone exists because the clone insists on trying to best her original, in that classic clone-angst way.

I have such conflicted feelings about Ada’s portrayal in this game. I’d like to be able to enjoy how unflappably cool she is, even when faced with evidence that the Literal Illuminati may be trying to make her the scapegoat for the apocalypse. But the reality is that Ada flaps so little she’s utterly one-note here – like, if you thought the RE4 remake Ada was a little limited in range, RE6 is exactly that, only more so, for much longer. Surely she should at least be annoyed that someone with Chris’ connections thinks she’s directly responsible for major bio-terror outbreaks in multiple countries? A little flap or two would go an awful long way here.

The most memorable part of Ada’s campaign is her final showdown with Carla, her clone – who mutates into a monster so huge and horrific that she basically becomes the whole battle stage, and it’s fantastically creepy and fucked-up (in a way I can actually enjoy, for a change). But most of the rest of Ada’s campaign is her wandering through her scheduled appearances in other characters’ stories, and there’s just not much of interest going on there. Time to fight all those same bosses that keep coming back over and over again!

A lot of what makes RE6 ultimately so unsatisfying is that in the end, thousands or millions of people have died around the world because of what amounts to bullshit illuminati infighting, well beyond the ken of any of the heroes running around the edges doing damage control. Even when Chris finally catches up with the Ada clone, it’s only to see her shot down by mysterious men in a black helicopter who just fly away out of the story again as inexplicably as they entered.

The clone’s not dead, of course – she gets right back up again in time for her boss fight with Ada. There’s no need for the helicopter in this scene at all – letting the Ada clone throw herself off the rooftop without being shot would have served the same narrative purpose. But throwing in an Illuminati drive-by shooting sure does underline how little real agency any of the heroes really have, when the world can be brought to the brink of a bio-terror apocalypse because one rich, white man couldn’t deal with the fact a woman said no to him.

No-one other than Ada even seems interested in the real truth: no-one asks who was flying the helicopter, or ends their campaign with any ‘time to get the rest of those Illuminati bastards’-declaration. Had RE6 been a smash-hit success, I don’t doubt that some kind of get-the-Illuminati plot would have come up in the sequel, but as it stands, Chris and Leon seem unbothered by being mere pawns in the schemes of the unknowably powerful. That’s not much of a happy note to end on.

In the end, the best thing about RE6 is that its reception was so tepid that it led directly to the IP being almost completely reinvented for RE7. And without a trainwreck on the scale of RE6, that might not have happened.

For all the parts of this story I like enough to wish they’d appeared in a better game, it’s hard to call RE6 any kind of success. But it’s at least an interesting failure – a fascinatingly awful trainwreck of an experience – and that’s at least something worth talking about.

#Resident Evil 6 #Chris Redfield #Leon Kennedy #Jake Muller #Sherry Birkin #Helena Harper #Piers Nivans #RE reviews #Resident Evil

[sunsbleeding]

Letterbox is just incredibly important to me you either understand or you don’t…

#never wrote a review in my life #but I think I’m re entering my film girl era and suggestions are welcome #also I need to do my yearly rewatch of Her and I need it to destroy me for the 498th time

[lesbianladyeboshi]

Gods I wish I was better at Code Veronica's tank controls

#that review that's like 'possibly the gayest iteration of Wesker and that's saying something' #I think of it all the time #(claire is a butch lesbian...wish they'd give her the cut) #RE: Code Veronica ...I will accept a remake of #also I just wanna see Alexia wipe the floor with this bitch #chrisker ... #there he is...the Resident Evil

[c-schroed]

Podcasts I Adore - Re: Dracula or This Year, Our Friend Jonathan Has a Podcast!

"I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Memorandum: Get recipe for Mina.)"

I wanted to join "Dracula Daily" ever since I heard of it. To me, this is a stroke of genius; it's just the perfect approach to this book. I mean, not only is Bram Stoker's horror classic an epistolary novel with precise dates given for every journal entry or letter written by one of its protagonists, it also spans quite an ideal amount of time, i.e. roughly half a year. Long enogh to give it a feeling of something interesting and important slowly unraveling, short enough to not feel like too much of a commitment.

So yeah, I really wanted to join "Dracula Daily". Especially because I wanted to read the novel in English for years already (so far I've only read its German translation, because that's my native language). But, alas, I do not find the time so easily to add a book to my to do list, so I ended up not joining this lovely book club last year, fearing I'd miss out on most of the entries sooner or later.

Enter "Regarding Dracula". Right after seeing it for the very first time I knew this will be perfect for me. I already have a habit of listening to audio drama on my daily commute, and preferably in the form of fictional podcasts. So quite literally, @re-dracula had me at hello.

And gosh, they did not disappoint. Although I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed to find out that the format is more that of a classical audio drama, with voice actors speaking every line of their respective character. Originally, I was hoping for a more podcast-like approach, meaning that each actor speaks all of the text of a journal entry or letter, period. As if Jonathan would make a podcast instead of notes in his journal. I simply like it when audio fiction uses the possibilities of podcasts, and "Dracula" felt like something that could profit from this way of storytelling, too. So yes, I admit it: I was a bit disappointed. But not for long.

After hearing just a few sentences of Karim Kronfli as Dracula, I immediately understood the decision to breathe life into each character this way. I mean, I love Ben Galpin's work as Jonathan, but Dracula really, really profits from Kronfli's nonchalant but still breathtakingly powerful and confident take on this charakter.

And Mr. Kromfli is not the only one who makes a redefiningly marvellous job here. So far, all the voice actors go far out of their way to make me fall in love with each and every one of them: Ben Galpin's Jonathan is heartbreakingly relatable, Isabel Adomakoh Young's Mina is capable and charming beyond measure, and Beth Eyre's Lucy is just gorgeous. Yes. I'm in love.

In addition to all that talent of its cast, "Re: Dracula" also has a neat and absolutely on point score and sound design. And, just like the basic idea of "Dracula Daily", it really gives you a feeling of how time passes between the journal entries and letters. Haven't heard anything of Jonathen for a while? One does start to worry a bit. Lucy answering to Mina just two days after the Mina's letter? Wow, that was quick, I guess (not sure how quickly the postal service worked back then, though). Even if one has read "Dracula" again and again, I am sure this form of presentation can grant new insights!

So, if you, like me, are a more eager listener than reader, or if you happen to like close-to-perfection audio drama, then please give this a shot! I bet you, like me, will soon be finding yourself eagerly, yearningly awaiting the next bit of news from your good friend Jonathan, who hopefully soon returns from that terrible business trip of his. 9 out of 10 points.

#re: dracula #dracula daily #dracula daily deluxe #audio fiction #podcast #podcast review #audiobook #horror #classic #dracula #bram stoker #karim kronfli #isabel adomakoh young #beth eyre #i'm hooked #i'm so very darn hooked #schroed's thoughts

[ur-mousey]

~ Ground Zero ~

fanfic links included

..............................

Hey, I'm Sydney ♡ 20 ♡ She/Her ♡ Welcome to my decrepit lair that will be filled with fantasies galore! I write yandere smut for the girlies, guys, and non-binary hoes.

☉♓︎ . ☾♎︎ . ☊ ♋︎

ig = lil.thoughts.xo

.............................. GOALS:

I will make it my mission to post at least twice to three times a week!!

.............................. REQUESTS:

I take requests! There is a forum in the description of my profile to leave requests. Pls do so there or I might not get to your idea.

Rant Post suggestions can be made if you want to hear my opinion about certain medias like the fandom in the description.

I will add links to all of my posts here eventually ~

RULES:

* Leave a description of the pairing in mind and their situation. Ex: Yan! Sukuna x faun! reader + dark home * Please specify the gender of the reader! Or they will be written as I see fit. Most likely female. * I write Yandere non/con + dub/con content.

Without any other specifications to not include those topics, I will assume to write that in. * Don't Spam your requests * NO requests for incest, step-family is cool. Stories with underage characters will be age appropriate. Or the characters will be aged up. Everything else is on the table, however, depending on how graphic, your request may be denied. Certain kinks like vore, scat, piss, etc. are off limits.

.............................. FANDOMS:

Anime ~ * Jujutsu Kaisen * My Hero Academia * Blue Exorcist * Soul Eater * Attack on Titan * Hunter x Hunter * Haikyuu Random ~ * The Folk of Air Series * Class of 09' *The Coffin of Andy and LeyLey Original Works ~ Shifting Tides - Rhin (tentacle monster) Teaser 1 Rant Reviews ~ (these are posts that I share my opinion on) *Ghibli Movies + Anime Movies *Collar X Malice (otome games) *The Coffin of Andy and LeyLey

>>>

Obviously, I couldn't include all the fandoms I know cus I just can't remember them all. If you happen to request something not on this list, it doesn't mean I won't write about your fandom! It just might take me a while to research, or watch the show myself.

#masterlist #blog rules #yandere smut #link #rant review #jujutsu kaisen #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #chainsaw man #blue exorcist #soul eater #attck on titan #hunter x hunter #haikyuu #the folk of the air #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #studio ghibli #collar x malice #class of 09 #class of 09 the re up