Got tagged by @notallsandmen for a WIP paragraph game, and I’m incredibly flattered, considering ... this doesn’t feel on the level of fic, this is fun little sketches of dialogue at most. But this is what I had, so here’s more of the mortal dreamling silliness (previous bits: modern day mortal dreamling and newlyweds with ravens)
How Hob asked Johanna to be his witness for his wedding:
He texted her asking if she was free that afternoon, because he needed her for something. Historically "something" has meant anything from "taste-testing 3 different scone recipe variations to figure out the best one" to "hustling drunk pricks at darts". Likewise, Hob has done her favors ranging from picking up tampons to providing an alibi. In theory there is a ledger of favors owed, but in reality there will never be a balancing of books (because they're best friends, even if Johanna is too prickly to admit it and Hob is too smart to).
Johanna texted back "yeah, what's up?", and practically broke a land speed record pressing "Call" when she got the response.
Johanna: what the fuck kind of text exchange is confirming I'm around and then sending "getting married today, hello, witness!" and a selfie of you and some goth twink?
Hob: it felt pretty self-explanatory
Johanna: last I'd checked, you weren't even seeing anybody!
Hob: things change?
Johanna: I got dinner with you 5 weeks ago, you bastard, and you were single then.
Hob: ... things change fast?
Johanna: how the fuck did you even meet him?
Hob: I was running back from class during that awful rainstorm last month, and he was just outside my tube station.
Johanna: Hob.
Hob: His umbrella'd broken and he was soaking wet, and he looked absolutely miserable, poor darling.
Johanna: ...
Hob: So I offered him towels and dry clothes, since my flat was just up the road. And by the time the rain stopped I knew I wanted to marry him, and he said yes.
Johanna: what lunatic just follows strange men home?
Hob: he was pretty suspicious until I gave him my phone so he could text my address to his sister.
Johanna: and she was somehow fine with it, like 'yeah, go on'?
Hob:
Hob: he got a bit distracted by my phone background and never actually texted her.
Johanna: the fuck
Hob: you know Julian of Norwich is gorgeous
Johanna: your cat is a lesser demon escaped from hell. I'm going to exorcise your cat someday
Hob: Jules is a sweetheart. She doesn't even hunt birds!
Johanna: That thing won't kill any of the bloody birds in your neighborhood because she's saving all her energy to someday murder me and you know it.
Hob: ... undeserved paranoia about my extremely photogenic cat aside --
Johanna: WELL-deserved!
Hob: --will you be my witness?
Johanna: Left it a bit late, if you're asking me today. Did everybody else say no?
Hob: Didn't ask anybody else. Been planning to ask you since Dream said yes, but I figured if I gave you too much notice you'd flee the country.
Johanna: [tearing up, because even if you're an independent badass, it's nice to hear you're somebody's person] you're fucking right I would.
(Johanna's custom ringtone on Hob's phone is from Sweeney Todd, the final verse in Johanna where you can hear the body drop ("Wake up, Johanna, another bright red day"), because Hob and Johanna are black-hearted bastards/absolutely in cahoots with each other and think it’s funny. Hob's ringtone is Being Alive from Company ("Somebody need me too much..."). Sondheim all the way, motherfuckers)
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I’m about to vomit out a bunch of thoughts, and I’m not sure any of this is going to make sense by the end, but. I’ve been thinking a LOT about these three lines in RE4make:
“You haven’t changed. You just think you have.”
“You can’t save her. You can’t save anyone.”
“This time, it has to be different...”
I’ve seen people focus in on that Krauser line and tie it directly back to Sherry, which is cool! Even as recently as five years ago, people completely glossed over Sherry’s impact on Leon’s life, and it’s cool that the remakes have had people digging into his character and realizing “oh shit, literally everything that happens to him after RE2 is because of his paternal love for Sherry.”
But... Krauser’s line is about more than just her.
With the remake turning Krauser into Leon’s combat trainer, chances are he knows about everything that happened in Raccoon City. And I don’t mean, like. He read a government file. Leon probably told him.
In OG, Krauser and Leon have this exchange of dialogue:
Krauser: “What is it that you fight for, comrade?”
Leon: “My past, I suppose.”
Krauser: “Hmph. Umbrella.”
It was axed completely from the remake, because it doesn’t make sense for it to happen in the remake. If Krauser was Leon’s trainer, that question was probably asked very early in their relationship. And since they weren’t currently in a fight to the death, and because they weren’t already six years removed from Raccoon City, chances are, Leon’s answer was a bit more involved than just “my past.”
So, let’s back up a little bit. In RE2make, they basically turned Kendo into a completely different character. OG Kendo was literally just there to point a shotgun at Leon and/or Claire and then go “oh my bad you’re not a zombie” and hook them up with some guns before he gets eaten. In RE2make, he’s a desperate and terrified father just trying to spend his last few moments with his infected 6 or 7 year old daughter before she turns. After he shuts the door on Leon and Ada, Leon turns to Ada and says, “Protecting people like that is why I joined the force.”
But Leon doesn’t protect or save Kendo or his daughter. He doesn’t protect or save... anyone. Every single person that Leon comes into contact with and tries to save dies horrifically -- and some, he even has to kill, himself (Marvin Branaugh). The only people who make it out of Raccoon City alive are people who saved themselves (Claire and Ada).
Of course, there is Sherry. But Leon didn’t save Sherry; Claire did. ESPECIALLY in remake canon, since nearly all of Leon’s scenes with Sherry got severely shortened or removed completely in RE2make.
But then, when Claire entrusts Sherry to Leon’s care (on his own insistence, per her RE3 epilogue), he goes and fucks that up, too. Gets her kidnapped and held hostage indefinitely by the federal government, and the only thing he can do about it is do exactly as they say and just hope they keep their end of the bargain and not hurt her.
So, when Krauser says “You can’t save anyone,” he means anyone. Ever. And even up to that point in RE4... Leon got the two officers who drove him into town killed, and he watched Luis die a slow, agonizing death right in front of him. And then, past that point, Leon has to kill Krauser with his own hands. Then he watches Mike die.
Ashley is literally Leon’s first and only success story, up to this point in canon. (And even when you go all the way up to current-day canon, Ashley is one of... three? People? I can think of? Total? Who Leon actually saves?)
So, Leon saying, “This time, it has to be different,” he doesn’t just mean Sherry. He means Ada. He means Kendo. He means Marvin. He means the entirety of Raccoon City. He’s staring down a repeat of what happened back then, not in terms of the bioterror situation, but in terms of his own personal failures. His survivor’s guilt. He can’t handle the thought that he’ll be the only person to walk away again -- and he refuses to be.
And that’s why Ada’s line bothers me so fucking much.
I mean, first of all -- Ada, you haven’t seen this man in six years, and you’ve spent a total of like five minutes with him since meeting up with him again here, so how the fuck would you even know -- but even aside from that...
To be clear: she’s right.
But she’s also wrong.
Leon has changed -- to an extent. In RE2 (OG or remake), Leon honestly believed that if it was lawful, then it was also morally right. He doesn’t believe that anymore. There’s no more “letting the law sort it out” or trusting in the power of authority for him anymore. His moral compass has been boiled down to: “If you hurt or murder innocent people, you’re a fucking asshole, and I don’t really care who you are, I’ll kill you myself.”
RE2 Leon was willing to hear people out and give them an honest benefit of the doubt -- even Annette Birkin. RE4 Leon just tells people to shut the fuck up before opening fire.
RE2 Leon was honest and trusting to a fault, and he felt stronger as part of a team. RE4 Leon is suspicious almost to the point of paranoia, and he just wants to be left the fuck alone to do his job.
These are all things that were really important to who Leon was in Raccoon City, and they’re reasons why things turned out the way they did for him, back then.
But at the same time, Ada’s right in saying that, at the core of it all, Leon is still that kind-hearted, decent guy who just wants the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. That’s why it hits him somewhere sensitive when Krauser says: “You can’t save anyone.”
It’s just that, now, the way he approaches it is different. His outlook on life in terms of his goals is different. His expectations for it have changed.
So, if Leon had been smarter/wittier, he absolutely could have turned it around on her and said: “No, I’ve definitely changed. You just think I haven’t.”
And not only would that sound threatening as fuck, he’d also be right. They both would be, at that point.
And for all of those major parts of him to have changed and still be facing down the possibility of failing every single person he comes across, especially Ashley...
"This time, it has to be different.”
And this time, it was.
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I don't want think about Jouno, being that. Nor do I want to think about Chuuya being undead. Which means dead too, right? My heart is in pieces.
Little guy just demanded that I stopped watching latest episode, because he wanted to watch too. I teased him that would still watch the last few without him. You should have seen his face. It was so adorable.
Oh, he and I talked about Chuuya being cured of his vampirism (don't know of that's possible, now that I think of it), how pissed he's going to be. And how devastating duo Dazai and Chuuya would be then. What do you think? -🦒
bsd spoilers!!
i'm not sure undead = fully dead!!! chuuya's case is different from aku's and jouno's because he wasn't killed before he was bitten; he was fully alive. but i totally feel u!!! all my faves are dying :// jouno makes me fuCKING FERAL THOUGH oh my good god i swear to the lord i become so fucking primitive every time i see him i can't even explain it!!! i love him!!!!!!!!
AWWWWW HEHE that's sooooo cute omg <3 i think it's really sweet that you guys watch anime together and have something you can share and enjoy together like that!!
oooh okay! so take this with a grain of salt but in bram stoker's novel dracula, there technically is a character that gets cured of her vampirism, so i wouldn't be surprised if there is somehow a way in bsd to cure those bitten before they died as well. i think all hope is lost for aku and jouno tho, which really kills me to say because they're two of my absolute favourites :(((
chuuya is definitely going to be beyond livid if he does come back from being a vampire HAHAHA aaah i have no idea how he'd feel to learn of what he was forced to do to dazai, but i'd put money on him being upset that it happened. truthfully, i don't think chuuya actually wants to kill dazai despite how much i do think he genuinely dislikes him (hates him but respects him, essentially), but i could see him framing it as being ‘upset’ that he didn't get to kill dazai of his own accord, in his own way and by his own choice.
if dazai isn't actually dead, i could see him holding this above chuuya's head in his trademark silly sarcastic condescending way without actually harbouring any hard feelings toward chuuya for what happened, since it was technically fyodor who did this.
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