leon s. kennedy loveboat

Plot twist :

According to “Mr. Baba,” the lead character designer for the original RE2, Leon was based on River Phoenix. For those who don’t know who that  here are some pictures:

The reason Leon wanted to be stationed at the RPD specifically was because he was fascinated by the murders in the Arklay Mountains

Leon was created to be a direct foil to Chris. While Chris is headstrong, Leon isn’t able to stand up for his own principles in the way Chris does due to his conscription. Hideki Kamiya, Leon’s creator, specifically stated that Leon was meant to contrast Chris’s “blunt, tough-guy” personality. 

Jill’s mother is Japanese and her father is French. 

In George A. Romero’s original 1999 script for a live-action Resident Evil movie, Chris and Claire were Indigenous. Capcom ended up brining on Paul W. Anderson instead…

In a highly controversial movie, according to the character information from Death Island, Jill’s physical aging is significantly slowed due to her past infection. 

A few years ago, Capcom released a line of official perfumes for Chris, Jill, and Leon. Leon’s scent was water lily/green citrus/ honey lemon, Chris was cloves and black pepper, and Jill’s was ozone, fruits, and eucalyptus.

Leon’s favorite movie is the French Connection. His favorite hobby is watching movies in the dark.

In the background of  Hunnigan’s cutscene in RE4R, you can see a sticky note that has “Bingo, Friday 10 pm” written on it if you move the camera. It’s especially funny when considering Leon’s “where’s everyone going? Bingo?” line because although it may have no connection whatsoever, I think it’s funny. Did the rest of the office just never invite Leon? Did he show up and everyone else was gone ‘cause they were at bingo night? 

Chris can evidently read sheet music and play piano… kinda. He’s not good at it by any stretch of the imagination, but he reads the sheet music in RE0 to play Moonlight Sonata on the piano (or what’s supposed to be Moonlight Sonata). It’s not correct by any stretch of the imagination but he seems to know enough to know what he’s supposed to do, he just can’t do it well.

 Rebecca can also read sheet music and play piano, and do it much better than Chris

While the “Leon, this is Sherry” “…ok” scene from RE2 is highly memed, Leon’s response is… not a mistranslation but that’s not what he says in the Japanese version. Instead of the awkward ok, he tells Sherry “it’s very nice to meet you”. 

In Death Island, Leon and Chris wear matching watches. Similar to the Ducati product placement in Vendetta, Death Island will feature watches from Seiko. You can actually by the watches– for a very steep price– and they’re limited edition. 

Like between RE2 and RE4, Krauser could teach Leon how to roundhouse kick dudes so hard they fly back 12+ meters, suplex them so hard their heads explode, parry everything from chainsaws to dynamite with a kitchen knife, dodge laser grids with backflips, etc, but apparently even HE couldn’t teach Leon how to drive

I like to imagine that he tried once, but then NEVER AGAIN because that was the CLOSEST he’s ever got to dying in his entire life up to that point. Like even though they were just driving a regular car in a straight line at 2 km/hr, Leon STILL found a way to flip the car and have it explode. Krauser was terrified and flabbergasted

And then, even worse, Leon still somehow had the audacity to remain oblivious to the fact that he can’t drive and somehow tried to blame the car for the crash, and Krauser decided that even he had to give up here and just made a note in Leon’s agent file to always have someone ELSE drive Leon to his missions

(Leon still grumbles about that line in his file to this day, because he’s inexplicably somehow convinced that he’s a good driver. And he still gets pouty whenever Claire/Chris/Ada/etc always snatch the keys from him with absolute panic whenever he offers to drive them anywhere)

You wanna know what's extra funny? In the Vendetta novelization, it specifically mentions that Leon was trained as a "combat shooter, melee combatant, and highly skilled driver."

A lot of the "Leon can't drive" stuff is hyped up by the fandom but there are also just some instances where it's like Leon.... what the fuck?! Like in I think it was the Raccoon City portion of Darkside Chronicles and there was a zombie in the car but rather than just shooting the zombie or getting out of the car, he slams his foot on the gas pedal and manages to drive into the wall, nearly flip the car, hit a wall AGAIN, and crash into a gas pipe that explodes. He also flips the car in re6 'cause there's a zombie on the roof and while I understand that it's a holy fuck situation, doing that is definitely not what he should do.

I’m going to preface this brain dump by stating that a lot of my thoughts come  from growing up in a neighborhood with a high crime rate and some entry level sociological texts so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

The biggest thing that jumps out at me is that Leon (probably) never had an ounce of stability in his life. From experience, growing up around crime is anxiety inducing. You are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop because, statistically, where you were born has already set you up to be either a victim or a perpetrator or maybe even both. And that’s from simply growing up around crime. Leon - from the breadcrumbs we have - grew up in a crime family; he was exposed to these things from a very early age (early enough to understand and remember at the very least). This is also purely headcanon but I’m also assuming that his parents probably weren’t the best. Exposing a child to crime already constitutes abuse but something about Leon’s reactions makes me think that his family was likely intentionally abusive That had to have been somewhat traumatizing and destabilizing already but then The Incident™ happens and he is most definitely traumatized by the murder of his entire family. 

The whole “entire family murdered in front of him” detail is also so heartbreaking because it sets a precedent for his survivor’s guilt. There’s nothing in both the og RE2 and the remake that hints at him feeling any type of guilt over surviving his family’s murder, but the way he beats himself over and over again over not being able to save people feels like it’s linked to his preexisting trauma. He became a cop because he wanted to save people the way he was saved as a child - that goal is what pushes him through out the entire series - but he is incapable of doing so due to circumstances out of his control. Racoon city (and everything after that) completely shatters his world view and, most likely, his own self image. In Vendetta he clearly states that who he would become was something he worried about (likely because he didn’t have any good role models and the one role model he mentions is linked to a traumatic event) and he likely doesn’t see himself a good person because good people can save others and he can never save anyone.

Since there’s a lot of new fans and fans in general that don’t know the timeline, here’s a simplified version of Leon’s timeline in the series spanning all of the games, canon novelizations, and CGI movies.

Leon + Mullet💈✨

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - ■ Twitter | Instagram

Leon was peer pressured into getting a Facebook by Ashley and Sherry because "get with the times old man." He exclusively posts memes only 80-year-old grandpas find funny, which is to say they're all puns and dad jokes. His timeline is FLOODED with tags. He doesn't know what an Instagram is, but he regularly uses Snapchat to communicate with the girls.

(Leon Alternative: he has an insta, and it's a thirst trap)

Ashley's Instagram is a mommy blog. She's a former president's daughter so her image is CLEAN. Her Instagram has tons of pics of her and her family: perfect lawyer husband, two beautiful kids, amazing mansion in the countryside of Virginia, and the family golden retriever (no it's not Leon). In between posting DIYs, she posts about important upper echelon events happening in DC, meeting cool people, and the work her anti-bioterrorism foundation is doing to help people. She has a Facebook page dedicated to her Foundation. Her husband has banned her from Twitter.

Hunnigan quit social media because it took over her life. She had everything- Twitter, Instagram, FB, Youtube, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr - all lurker accounts (except for Twitter where she was an anonymous verified gossip account). She became obsessive with all of it to the point an intervention was staged and Leon had to hold her down as Helena physically deleted the apps from her phone. Leon still has a couple of scars from the scratches.

(Hunnigan Alternative: she never had social media and never wanted it "guys, my job is to know everything about your lives, I'm not going to do it at home too unless you pay me")

Helena has a FB but never posts on it. It's her only social media. Her profile pic is still the sad empty grey default face. She doesn't have a single post of her own, but everyone posts on her timeline.

Claire is very clearly an activist on all her social media (she has everything). She is constantly getting into fights on Twitter and Facebook, usually calling out bigots and human rights abusers/apologists. She takes her work seriously, and reports on any and all major issues. She promotes her work with TerraSave and constantly uploads fundraisers/charities for bioterrorism survivors. Her insta is used to follow fashion blogs.

Sherry has all your basic social media (FB, Twitter, Insta). She thoroughly enjoys her socials and posts whatever her heart desires at the moment whether it's cute pics, reposting commentary from Claire (or tagging her in political arguments), tagging Leon in dad jokes, tagging Helena in sarcastic humour. Everyone gets tagged in group photos with a "this us," the photo being five angry frogs staring down at someone. She likes to show off her cute boyfriend Jake.

If Leon's bad at social media, Chris is so much worse. He accidentally posts 'Piers Nivans' on his Timeline while trying to search the man up. Chris and Leon take turns resharing the same few pictures of guns and bikes. Occasionally Claire will join in.

Sherry, Claire, Ashley, and Leon are the only ones with Snapchat. Most of the girls' snapchats are just candids of Leon doing Leon things. They all get plenty of "who's your friend in that pic 👀" messages. One time Claire is taking a snap of Leon crashed out on Ashley's sofa chair. His mouth is open and he's snoring and she thinks it's absolutely hilarious. She would have got away with it too if her camera didn't flash and Leon didn't chase her around the house to steal her phone. Of course Ashley and Sherry caught the whole thing on video.

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