ErebosBlue

I love original RE2 Leon so much. (not to say I don’t love RE2make Leon.) I wanna gnaw on him. I know it’s just the horrid audio mixing and honestly poor voice acting, but he seems to be so soft spoken when he’s not actively being confused or scared. like you don’t need to tell me I’m reading too much into it, I am, but AUGH.

my little guy.

to be clear, playing on an emulated version and also playing on the built in rookie mode. but still!

(shitty pic because I’m playing on a ps4 lol)

also. 0 saves is not accurate. I never used a typewriter, but I saved a shit ton.

okay so me and my cousin are playing Umbrella Chronicles after beating Darkside Chronicles. (which is the sequel, I know, but I care about Leon and was gonna play his game first.)

when Billy got introduced in the first cutscene I paused because I know Rodger Craig Smith's voice and that was definitely it. but I also knew that Chris' was voiced by him both in Darkside Chronicles and 5 and 6. so I was curious if Chris and Billy would have the same voice actor in this game, which would be funny.

on the wiki I saw that Chris' VA was listed as Kevin Dorman and went "ah okay I guess he's just Billy in this game" and then saw that Billy was listed as Steve Van Wormer. which. confused me.

at first I just took that as me mishearing or the voice actors having similar voices but NO. as soon as we continued playing and switched over to the normal gameplay, Rodger's voice was no where to be heard. Billy sounded completely different.

Rodger Craig Smith is mentioned no where on the wiki for this game and me and my cousin could not find any information about him voicing Billy in this game. but I swear I'm not crazy.

we just started the game, but honestly this was so distracting we only got one level done today because???

not even using it as my main weapon because I like that the submachine gun doesn’t have any sort of wind up or down. (you also have infinite ammo for the submachine, gatling gun, and rocket launcher in this mode, but not the handgun funnily enough. you start with the submachine gun and can find your normal ass handgun in the box.)

trying to hit the zombie crows with the rocket launcher and failing miserably because how in the absolute hell are you supposed to hit those fuckers??? literally the best strat is to just run from them or they will kill you. (or, well, get you very low on health. I didn’t technically die to them.)

going up to the door the helicopter smashed in, seeing Claire go “the only choice is to blow the wall down” and going “hmmm. I wonder if the rocket launcher will work.” just for shit’s and giggles. it didn’t. :(

also, unrelated to the rocket launcher but still a joke that comes from playing on baby easy mode is me and my cousin joking about Leon having to go through the game normally as I go through my Claire A run. like there is just something so humorous about imagining him suffering while Claire is just mowing down enemies.

I genuinely recommend playing the original RE2 so much. playing it emulated with the ability to save whenever, rewind if I really fuck up somehow, and then being able to play with the built in Rookie Mode has genuinely made it so fun. like yes there’s now no skill involved besides navigation (which I am BAD at,) but I’m not really playing these games for difficulty. I like the characters, the story, and the atmosphere.

I already appreciated the old games for what they were, but genuinely they do such a fantastic job of making the atmosphere really tense. like I know for a fact that I can probably kill whatever the hell comes my way, but I still tense up at the door animation because I know there’s a chance I’ll be surrounded as soon as it loads. or turning corners! those fuckers sometimes hide really well.

at first I was like “oh I remember a fun fact that Matilda the gun was likely named after a character in a movie” and went to go check if there was a name there I could use for a fun easter egg. there wasn’t really so I did what I should’ve done first and checked to see if there were any pre-Leon names for the character and-

Grant? Bitman is very fucking funny ngl, but Grant? no offense towards any Grants but honestly thank god they landed on Leon.

but now I do feel obligated to name one of the Leons Grant and I’m not looking forward to that. I cannot fucking see puppy-dog RE2make Leon as a Grant, but also RE2 Leon is my little guy and I don’t wanna name him Grant either.

I know Operation Javier can’t be canon the exact same way anymore if we take RE4make as the new canon, but Krauser being a bastard The Whole Time is a lot less interesting imo and not really true to his character.

like yes he is also Agent Kennedy, but I feel like characters drop that so fast. and I'm pretty sure that in some material he's straight up told people to just call him Leon, which makes a lot of sense. I don't think Leon would love to be referred to as Agent Kennedy when his job is barely his choice.

however, Leon seems to change what he calls Chris purely by his mood. like in RE6 I believe he was very consistent in calling him Chris, but in Vendetta that man was Redfield.

if they’re gonna make Steve look like Leon in the Remake of Code Veronica.

because in the original, Steve looked like his own man but in Darkside Chronicles?

like generally I know the RE presidents follow the same general vibe as our reality because the whole “War on Terror” thing was still very present in the RE universe but like… they’re also clearly different in a lot of ways.

and we don’t even know who the hell was in office in 2015 because Benford was shot in 2013. like obviously we know there was one, but there’s no information besides logical inferences.

on a more silly note, Leon does work directly under the president so like… maybe that affected things in the RE universe.

like what do you mean Leon is getting flirted with from literally every angle? everyone wants a piece and it’s so damn funny.

in a collectible in Umbrella Chronicles, (and I think in a couple other things,) we learn that Leon chose to go to Raccoon City as a police officer because of the “weird murders” happening in the area. and then in RE2make he’s directly warned not to go into the city, but even in the original there were absolutely moments where he could’ve turned around. it’s not like Claire where she still had to see if her brother was alive.

and then you read canon sources and it’s like “no he’s the agent.”

partly because it’s just fucking weird to police what fictional characters people ship together, but also Kennecroft is so… baby’s first “problematic” ship. (I think calling any ship problematic is stupid, but using the terminology here is easier.) and this is in no way a diss to the ship or Kennecroft shippers it’s just very… normal?

is he nearly 30 years older than her? yeah, but they’re both adults. yes she is in her early 20’s and that would be creepy irl but we are also talking about characters that were literally fighting zombies the whole game. we’re not exactly talking about real life here.

is he also vaguely married to someone? yes. and? older vaguely married man falling in love with a younger woman has been a trope for how long??

did Grace call him mom? indeed she did, but considering that I don’t exactly think the game is woke enough to be implying Leon is a mother figure for Grace, it’s more to show that he is the first safe person for her after her mother died. does that mean she seems him in a parental light? possibly! probably, even. but that doesn’t even mean she’s not into him but we don’t have time or patience for that.

if you put a gun to my head and asked if I think Leon would ever date Grace or someone as young as her I would say no, sure, but if you ask Capcom they would say Leon is a straight man and would never end up with Chris and considering that I’m currently writing a Chreon fanfic, maybe other people’s thoughts on a ship they don’t like don’t really matter.

and this isn’t a case of a character being rewritten or anything, before 6 the person who directly coerced Leon was a nameless, faceless government agent. it was 6’s guidebooks and other material that said it was Benford. they made a character and backfilled information.

like we knew Leon was coerced from the RE3 epilogue and the aforementioned Darkside Chronicles cutscene, but like. this is the epilogue:

“man who claims to be a government agent” is not very descriptive and they could’ve said it was anyone.

it’s very stockholm syndrome-esque like??? I know that stockholm syndrome as a real world concept is not backed by basically anything and is rooted in misogyny, but in this fictional reality I cannot see it as anything but tbh.

the Birkins? Sherry got yoinked.

Javier? he stole away Manuela. (though this is more of stretch since that whole incident was more Wesker’s doing if you really look at it but eh. he still injected his daughter with the Veronica virus.)

Spencer? Grace is his now too.

fuck we can even extend this to Wesker too if we really fucking tried. if Jake and Sherry get married that practically makes Jake Leon’s son-in-law. (yes I know that Leon has no legal attachment to Sherry but that’s her dad damnit.)