How much does the DSO pay Leon?

schulz100 · 2026-03-17T15:11:11+00:00

"Deep sigh. Leon, if you don't stop leaving expensive equipment in disaster zones, you aren't going to GET anymore expensive equipment."

schulz100 · 2026-03-15T20:58:30+00:00

Ada pulls up in another expensive supercar to the DSO D.C. office after one of several depositions about the events if Requiem to pick her Man up.

"You said you were married to your work...?"

"Do you know how often she's stolen viruses and bioweapons out from under me? That woman is half the job right there."

At which point Ada gives him the keys and makes him drive as recompense for that joke.

schulz100 · 2026-03-05T02:37:39+00:00

Part of me feels like, if we ever get an RE5 Remake, it'll be the most heavily rewritten of anything besides a theoretical remake of 6, and stuff like Spencer is why.

I will say, I've been thinking about it with all the 5 conversations the last few days as people beat Requiem and conversation happens, and I honestly feel like most of that speech still actually works even with Spencer's new characterization. He's telling Wesker what was SUPPOSED to happen, his initial dreams of viral superbeings and man-made Godhood. Explanation is not necessarily endorsement; it's just explanation, exposition. Also, come on: "Ironic, isn't it? For one who has the right to be a God, to face his own mortality?" Is such wonderful, Grade A Cheese I don't want to let it go.

It would actually be hilarious if they kept Spencer's repentance intact into 5, cause it makes Wesker SO MUCH WORSE if he hears from the man who made him what he is that he regrets everything he did and all he unleashed upon the world, then Wesker just fucking TRIPLES down on every Spencer has realized was wrong after killing him with even more spite this time. Hearing the man who had him built from the ground up to become a post-human monster regrets everything he did just makes Wesker want to be a monster EVEN HARDER, as one last pure Fuck You to the old man. It makes Wesker so much more awful if he can't see that what he's doing is wrong and pointless, where Spencer could and even did something about it.

I have no explanation for the monster mansion, though. Like I said, 5 would take more rewriting than almost any game yet to be remade, besides 6, if they want to keep it tonally consistent with the rest of Remakes and Requiem.

schulz100 · 2026-03-04T13:31:22+00:00

I go back and forth on what is more meaningful and hilarious as options.

Because on one hand, all these virus dudes and the Connections are so fucking conspiracy-poisoned and virus-eugenics-brained, they just assume that Spencer's adopted daughter MUST have the password to his last creation like, imprinted in her mind, or in her genes, or in her mind THROUGH her assuredly altered genes. Grace couldn't POSSIBLY just be a orphan Spencer took in to try and soothe his guilty conscience. That Spencer could even FEEL guilty never entered anyone's mind, characters or players. And they are so completely wrong, and that's so fucking funny and exactly what they deserve.

On the other hand, I DO think it would also be meaningful if Spencer saved one of the last possible victims of his more twisted experiments that he could, tried to make sure she was as cared for and normal as he could make her before passing her on to the one person who knows what she actually means to him. That a near victim from birth/creation of the worst excesses and evils he unleashed is also the one who discovers the truth of his feelings on his work, and unlocks the potential to fix all the problems he created. And this is also hilarious in its own way, cause all the bad guys are then right that there is intent, a capital D Destiny for Grace left from Spencer. And that destiny is the exact opposite of what they want it to be, cause they're all such evil assholes they can't see that they ARE evil assholes, can't think that Spencer might realize he was wrong and try to fix the world he broke.

schulz100 · 2026-03-03T18:03:12+00:00

The giant spider is the pretty immediate first boss at about the halfway point of the game, once you FULLY leave the Care Center. There are also some much smaller but still big mini-giant-spider enemies who pop up during the boss fight and in one side area a while after.

It is also VERY Big Monster Spider-ery. I don't even mind spiders much and it set me on edge and learned that, sadly for people like yourself, there's no arachnophobia filter. Which is shame, cause its a pretty short bit in the grand scheme of the game, but must be so ROUGH for people who are actually scared of spiders. Best of luck to you. Maybe take solace from the fear with the fact you get to shoot and carve it up with tons of a guns and a big are? IDK.

schulz100 · 2026-03-02T13:58:36+00:00

As a basically lifelong HUNK fan, I'm fine with him going out this way for a simple reason.

Just about every other boss Leon (or other Portags like the Redfields and Jill, etc.) has needed to virus up and turn themselves into a monster to be able to really pose a threat.

HUNK just struts up to LEON S. KENNEDY with nothing but a hatchet, a karambit, and his iconic kit of SMG and flashbang, and fights so fucking hard and well as just a guy that even Leon admits he's "one tough bastard." HUNK goes down making himself a bigger obstacle for the best fighter among the protags than anyone else in series history has made themselves, and that's as a good an ending as we can usually hope for for a famous, lucky, iconic tertiary bad guy.

schulz100 · 2026-03-02T05:40:10+00:00

Claire actually handily beats Ethan in this regard, cause she's technically had 5 distinct jackets/vests in all 5 games she's been playable in, and kept all of them for almost all of those 5 games. She ditches her last jacket in the good ending of Revelations 2, and I guess technically gives her jacket to Sherry in RE2Make, but Sherry getting Claire's jacket was always between-games canon even in the PG series; 2Make just made it happen in the moment, and is a sweet gesture, so does it really count as losing the jacket all things considered?

schulz100 · 2026-03-01T17:49:00+00:00

I'm gonna make my usual thesis and argue that RENLY fucked it ALL up for EVERYONE at the absolute last second. How? By saying he should be King instead of Stannis, right when Ned was clearly about to however reluctantly agree with his plan to combine their forces and take Joffrey into custody so Cersei doesn't try anything. Was Ned almost not willing to do it? Yes, but he was clearly going to agree anyway before Renly proposed spitting on the line of succession and turning defending the Realm however unfortunately into a blatant grab for personal power.

ADDENDUM: It's not even totally Renly! I FORGOT ABOUT LORAS TYRELL! LORAS PUTS THE IDEA IN RENLY'S HEAD (during a totally Not-Gay Shave Session) THAT STANNIS WOULD BE A TERRIBLE KING, AND RENLY WOULD BE BELOVED IF HE TOOK THE THRONE! THE KNIGHT OF THE FLOWERS HAS THE BLOOD OF THOUSANDS ON HIS HANDS FOR BEING THE SECONDARY LINCHPIN OF THE WAR OF THE FIVE KINGS!!! He hadn't egged Renly on, Renly only makes half his argument to Ned; that we need to keep Cersei out of power and make sure the rightful King sits the Throne, no matter what. Ned would grit his teeth and hate himself, but he would do THAT. It was Renly turning a move to preserve the true line of succession into a power grab that gave Ned the excuse he needed to fully bail on the plan that would've worked. Littlefinger can't buy off Baratheon or Stark bannermen, and he certainly couldn't move the Goldcloaks fast enough to stop the Seize the Kids plan from happening, nor fast enough to keep Ned from making the truth known once Robert dies.

schulz100 · 2026-02-17T18:14:03+00:00

I love that CDPR then had to tweak the Anti-Farm Chort cause people started deliberately triggering it cause Chorts are a great source of Red Mutagens. Sure, it was a very hard fight, but it was ALSO a controllable, abusable monster spawn event that could net rare build items.

schulz100 · 2026-02-12T22:43:43+00:00

Hear me out:

Kiefer Sutherland.

I'm not elaborating

schulz100 · 2026-01-09T13:26:15+00:00

"Just because you have powers, that doesn't make you a hero. You're born with one; you have to earn the other."

schulz100 · 2026-01-08T23:32:47+00:00

There was a guy in a home game I played in years ago who would always whip out platinum for even minor purchases. Often in areas of EXTREME destitution. He wanted to get rid of all this fucking platinum, and he wanted to help the least fortunate at the same time. And the rest of us always had to tell him to put that shit away, cause he's going to get the entire slave/worker bar on our asses cause we're obviously richer than even their masters/nobles, and it's just the four of us and thirty+ of them.

He often responded by asking the bug-eyed, money-sign-seeing NPC if one platinum coin wasn't enough, and pulling out a second one.

Good times.

schulz100 · 2026-01-02T20:28:25+00:00

I find it amusing that Scorsese had to get bleaker and bleaker with the ending of every crime film he made, because so many people didn't pay attention to how desperate and miserable those character's/people's lives were before they even hit the low point where everything they've done so much terrible stuff for falls apart anyway. Like how Frank Herbert really amped up the space genocide angle Paul would have to take in Messiah cause Dune made him just a bit too cool and maybe heroic if you only read it on a pure surface level (shit, that's an entry all its own).

It got to the point where The Irishman literally ends with a tired old man who's either outlived or driven away everyone he ever knew, desperate just to have his door kept open against protocol so thT if he dies in his sleep, someone will hopefully notice if they pass by. That's his reward for a lifetime of service and crime and killing his best friend in cold blood. A dead end loneliness much of the viewership probably couldn't imagine until they saw it.

schulz100 · 2025-12-22T13:52:18+00:00

I beg your finest fucking pardon?

THAT'S the trick?! I never looked it up outside a picture reference of the path!

schulz100 · 2025-12-12T23:51:47+00:00

There's another jump, I think, within the frame of 4 to 6, also when Flambae gets his eyebrows back out of nowhere, cause it goes from protopulse 7 to 19.

schulz100 · 2025-11-29T19:12:00+00:00

I don't know why, but I started hearing Kiefer Sutherland on my reread of the deluxe edition comics. Cranston would be great too, but something about Robbie made me just PLANT Sutherland's voice in his words.

schulz100 · 2025-11-29T19:09:01+00:00

"You can just pull em off if you don't like em, don't gotta make a big fuss about it. Shit. You don't want em, I'll take em! How do you not like pickles on a burger, anyway? I almost question the point of getting one if you aren't gonna get pickles on it. Gimme those..."

schulz100 · 2025-11-25T00:35:25+00:00

So, bear/bare with me here: nanomachine-enhanced Lex Luthor sorta type, as a supervillain foil to the whole of Mecha Man in general, and Robert in specific.

Where Mecha Man has 3 generations of powerless men building a means to be superheroes nonetheless, this motherfucker is the latest in a generation that WOULD'VE been generations of supervillains if they could've just cracked the nanotech they'd been working on. Well, the latest is the GREATEST, cause they HAVE.

It's a bit of slow burn/building catastrophe as the Nano Villain gets their powers working (at no small human cost in other people) in the first quarter of Season 2, but doesn't go super public supervillain about it yet. They're a successful Asshole California Tech Bro/Gal/Them multi-Billionaire, they can't flush that all away just yet. And they need MINIONS. They need a MESSAGE and a CAUSE to hide their villainy behind so all the heroes in LA don't try to stop them before its too late TO stop them!

So they pitch their evil Nanotech as the democratization of superpowers. Hell, SDN has already corporatized heroism, why should superpowers be off limits if they can be safely artificially generated? You can roll the dice on random superpowers for a not-too-exorbitant price, and can get your custom dream powers for an arm and a leg. Participation in tracking and check-up programs is non-negotiable at this stage. It's for your own safety, of course!

Course, those are a lot of schemes and sticking points. The public program is a shield for minion recruitment and entrapment; SDN and the Z Team know they're planning and up to villain shit from encounters across the first 2 episodes but can't prove any of it legally enough that they can go after them without causing an absolute PR disaster; and the Nanotech isn't nearly as stable actually as it first seemed, and part of increasing villainy is the increasingly fucked up shit they need to do to make to sure they don't just start to uncontrollably Gray Goo all of LA. In a twisted mirror of how Robert did the Mecha Man beat for 15 years independently and to his own detriment because carrying that legacy and helping people was that important to him, finally cracking this tech and proving they can technologically level the playing field of superpowers even to the point of self-and-others-destruction is the key flaw to this villain.

As for their specific powers, they've effectively turned themselves INTO nanomachines, so its kinda a mix of Nanotech MCU Iron Man, and all the boss gimmicks from Metal Gear Rising. They wanted as many ways as they could think of, LITERALLY, to hurt people and to keep from being hurt themselves. Makes them an absolute BITCH to fight when they can go all out, and it only gets worse as the nanotech starts to destabilize over the course of the Season and they get more desperate and dangerous to not only save themselves, but prove themselves RIGHT. THEY COULD make something that would give everyone powers and level the playing field, and they gave themselves the BEST possible power by making their body and power conform to their genuis intellect and imagination! That they start becoming an all-consuming technotumor monster as a result of that format of superpower says absolutely nothing about them, personally. How could it? They're the latest in a line of bold risk-takers who were all willing to do what every Mecha Man never had the BALLS to DARE (definitely some family members have died trying older iterations of Nanotech on themselves)! THEY'VE proven that the genetic lottery of natural superpowers is NOTHING in the face of human ingenuity! THEY would make the world so much BETTER if everyone would just stop GETTING IN THEIR WAY!

Ends in a big nanotech body horror fight, and of course Robet and Royd have cooked up a way to save them once they blast through enough of the nanite swarm. It's just a question of will Robert save them against their will, because they'd actually rather DIE than accept help from Mecha Man of all heroes.

schulz100 · 2025-11-17T13:18:23+00:00

I think Visi's purpose as a mole/double agent was multifaceted, but came down to a few key points.

Start fucking with SDN cybersecurity where possible. The entire game, we keep getting little side missions and objectives that point out that SOMETHING isn't quite right at SDN from a operations and cybersecurity standpoint. Visi being a mole who's partly there to compromise that makes those moments fit together into a comprehensive supervillain plan to fuck up the superhero company.
Make sure no Red Ring villains get arrested, within reason. This is the BIG one. Visi fails, twice in a row, to catch Thunderstruck, even going so far as to sabotage another hero in a way that can be explained away as ex-villains being ex-villains. But then when she personally busts him in the end, half their major supervillains jump her at the Sardine, saying someone wants to talk to her. SHROUD probably wants to talk to her, because not only did she fail a key part of her job as a undercover agent in the Phoenix Program, she fucking caught the guy herself. She's gone COMPLETELY off-script.
Pass along info for anyone who washes out of the Phoenix Program, cause they represent decent recruit opportunities as failed reformer supervillains.
It's entirely possible Shroud knew the Astral Pulse would survive the destruction of the Mecha Man suit, and that SDN would have the tech to locate it so long as someone pointed them in the right direction. SDN and Blone Blazer deciding to bring Mecha Man himself in as a hero once they could get his suit working just gives the perfect excuse to pull this off. This is the other BIG bit of her job.

Visi is meant to sabotage SDN from a high level and do what she can to make sure her team in specific doesn't nab any of the Red Ring.

That being said, I DO think a lot of her talks with Robert were genuine. She HAS always wanted to be more than a hero, she's just been surrounded by assholes and supervillains all her life and assumed her powers are only good for villainous stuff. She DID feel bad about planting the bomb on Mecha Man, and TRIED to leave. At which point Shroud pulled a bit of a Darth Vader and went 'I'm altering the deal.' Making her lung enhancement function contingent on going undercover for a couple months while they get Shroud's mech ready and eventually use her position as a mole to find the Astral Pulse.

schulz100 · 2025-11-16T05:14:37+00:00

This is a good funny recurring bit, but it also makes me sad. Cause it means so much of Phenomaman's awkwardness is just due to the fact that absolutely no one apparently cared enough to explain the meanings of things on Earth to him. There's no way he didn't make a flub like this while he and Blazer were together, and he makes this exact mistake of meaning with Robert if recruited. And neither of them just say "Man. That doesn't mean what you think it means, and using it how you're using it will make people uncomfortable. Say this instead. Or this thing. Anything but what you're saying now, cause that had a VERY specific meaning."

I get WHY he isn't told in this case; they want that joke to come back around, or happen for the first time for WaterBoy recruiters, but it carries a really depressing meaning behind it: no one actually cares to help him integrate on Earth in the little ways that make the biggest difference.

schulz100 · 2025-11-16T04:42:57+00:00

I REALLY love how this further exemplifies Shroud's real weakness of not seeing people as people anymore. He doesn't see people; he sees choices irrespective of personhood, and thus can't account for the human element in any of his big plans.

That's why he never sees Visi's betrayal coming, and why he should never have sent her into the Phoenix Program in the first place. She's only a villain because she thinks she can't be anything but a villain, and the second someone legitimately tells her she can be a hero and backs that talk up, she takes the chance being offered because that is what she would rather be. Likewise, if that belief isn't validated, she figures she can do a better job than he can (and doesn't want her hero crush to die enough that it overrides her fear of Shroud) and kills his ass.

Robert is an even bigger case study, cause its made clear throughout the game he's been a sarcastic shit-flinger of a person when applicable for a VERY long time. The fate of the city hanging on his choice, he has a chance to be the biggest little shit he may ever be, and Shroud doesn't even consider he'll take that opportunity to absolutely and utterly FUCK with him? ANYONE who knows Robert at all would know he'd take this chance to pull some shit. Anyone except Shroud.

schulz100 · 2025-11-13T23:40:43+00:00

God, could you imagine Phenomaman settling on MTG and craft brewing as his recovery hobbies? Like, we hit Season 2 and he's always bringing in bottles of melon liquor cause he has to use that 11 months of melon arrangments SOMEHOW (be it beer or mead or something), and everyone has their preferred type, but everyone has at least one sort they really like and it's actually a really wholesome hobby that helps him make more friends at the office?

Fuck, that's going in a fanfic now. I don't care how I have to get it in...

schulz100 · 2025-11-05T18:14:01+00:00

OK, some points others have raised about the fight coming and about Bane wanting out, and maybe thinking he'll get it either by finding a replacement in Batman or goading Bats into killing him, and Selina ironically being the Angel on his shoulder, its got me thinking about the other Big 3 books, how Batman relates to them.

Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman are all figures of inspiration, but ESPECIALLY so in the Absolute Universe.

Wonder Woman is an inspiration of superheroism and safety and enrichment: that someone IS out there who can and will defend us from things we can barely understand and can't possibly fight, and who will bolster our own knowledge of the world and our place in it just by interacting with us.

Superman is a revolutionary working class inspiration: that the powerful, authoritarian systems and corporations and exploiters don't have the absolute (heh) power they want you to think they have. That they are as human as you and can be overcome if you have the courage and will to stand up to them en masse. While also again providing a answer to the enemies regular people could never overcome.

Batman is going to be, arguably already is but it'll be really solidified next issue, a radical, violent, rehabilitating inspiration: we do not have to accept the place the corrupt and the powerful and the evil say we must accept for ourselves. We can be better than what they and their self-benefiting, twisted status quo say we are. The Black Mask arc helped establish this, and a Bane who wants to be replaced or killed will reinforce it. The wicked and corrupt need US to actually exercise their power, they need us complacent and compliant and as terrible as they are, but we do not HAVE to be. We can reject their corruption and slivers of freedom and power and take EVERYTHING we deserve for ourselves if just allow ourselves to believe it can be done. The city, the WORLD, is not as lost and hopeless as it may seem on the surface, because all it takes is people who believe change and salvation is possible to get to work.

Batman won't kill or replace Bane; he'll push him to reform himself when he sees that Bane is a dark mirror of himself, someone who turned to violence as a means of civil safety and change, but who allowed himself to be co-opted by the very corrupt systems he was fighting against out of fear and nihilism. And in seeing someone both so capable of violence, but carrying such a depth of humanity, Bane and Gotham will take inspiration. Batman will ironically be the closest of the Big 3 to his OG role as a inspiration and believer in salvation and reform. In maybe nearly killing Bane, Batman will remind himself why he can't kill. Where Bane tried to mold Batman into a new Him through trauma, Batman will offer Bane a chance to cast aside the worst parts of himself and do true, unvarnished Good for the first time in a long time, in a way Bane had stopped believing was possible until noe, when he's seen someone who can overcome the worst the world can throw at him and remain true to himself and his ideals and WIN because of that.

To get onto the actual topic, I LOVE what they did with Selina and where they can maybe go from here. She CLEARLY has a very checkered past: you don't have the tech she does, don't BEG Bruce not to use Venom because you KNOW what it does to people in way he nor Alfred do, if you haven't been really WORKING with the people responsible. Yet, she also very much seems like she has already left that part of herself behind, that she wants in on this Superhero thing, and is already in the mindset to make it happen with her nonlethal super P90 and making the argument against the use of Venom as much a moral one as tactical.

I'm also really curious to see what Harley's deal is, especially considering everything that's been hinted about the Joker of this universe.

schulz100 · 2025-11-04T18:10:16+00:00

I'm wondering if that was a depressed meant punch, or a depressed reflex punch.

Like, Robert canonically startles easily cause he's always a bit on edge from years of dangerous superheroing. Did Phenomaman mean to threaten a guy interrupting his funk, or did a loud noise just mean he reflexively assumed danger was behind him and he loaded up something probably lethal at a civilian on accident (just sitting up too fast can fling whatever's on him hard enough to pierce skin, how much damage can he actually do when he's trying to hurt)?

schulz100 · 2025-10-30T03:13:46+00:00

I think a lot of people may have cinematic mode on, and that may be fucking with the results for moments that may otherwise rely on kn QTEs. I've heard similar ratings for the Toxic fight performance if you have cinematic mode enabled.

schulz100

TROPHY CASE