A Collection, For A Well Loved Garf

Ethan Winters Doesn't Get Enough Love and that's Heartbreaking

So I'm gonna preface this by saying yes: there will be spoilers to the ending of Resident Evil 7 and Village. If you don't want that scroll away now. Leave, shoo, outta here, go on git, *angrily shakes broom and smacks it against the door to make a loud, aggressive sound*

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Okay so I get Ethan was the "villain" of Resident Evil Village because he killed everyone's favorite vampire mommy but this is in fact a Resident Evil game. Alcina and her daughters and the rest of the four lords were always going to die. It's the nature of the game. It didn't help that Capcom flipped the script and leaned VERY heavily into the villains of Village when it came to the marketing. (Hell I'll bet Capcom is literally kicking itself for making Lady D the first chapter boss) but they really went heavy on making Ethan kind of take a backseat to Lady Dimetrescu and Heisenberg for this game. Which I think is really kind of shitty because we get to see Ethan at his best in this game both in terms of characterization and development.

I need to give a shout-out to Todd Solely, Ethan's mocap and voice actor. We don't get to see Ethan's face in the game so we have to go off of every little action Ethan does and every bit of dialogue we get from Ethan we pay a closer bit of attention to. It's like when you lose one of your senses every other sense tries to make up for its loss. Some truly stand out moments of this were.

1. When Ethan is rejecting Heisenberg's offer of using Rosemary as a weapon and Ethan just spits back at Heisenberg "Rose is not a weapon, fuck you." Ethan freaking lowers his head and leans into the fuck you. You can just tell Ethan is not having ANY of this at all and while I know a lot of people wanted an option where we could have sided with Heisenberg, I'm glad we didn't. Forcing us to pick between Mia and Zoe in RE7 was already a nightmare. Like would the option have been nice yes, but the canon of Resident Evil is being held together by duct tape and spit at this point. That would have torn down the whole house of cards that is the continuity of this franchise.

2. When Ethan is in the village and after he watches the floor cave under Elena and he watches her burn to death. Ethan starts audibly crying, "why does everyone around me keep on dying?" And when he leaves out the window he slams his fist against the pane and yells out why this is happening to him again. You partially wanna go 'come on Ethan, you're in a Resident Evil game, get with the times.' but you realize Ethan thought he was free, he thought if he and Mia cooperated with the BSAA and did what Chris told him to everything would be okay. Yet here he is, back again in Resident Evil hell and he's had three years of him trying to rebuild his life after an EXTREMELY traumatic event just thrown out the window.

3. When The Duke points out that the jar Ethan has is in fact Rose's head and we see him drop the jar like it was a bomb. We saw Ethan's brain literally break. That's his daughter, the one thing he loves more than anything in this world, in this tiny jar. His whole world has shattered. And then when The Duke tries to make light of the situation the abject fucking hatred and pure venom in Ethan's voice. Especially the line "You'll pay if I find out this is a lie." With the delivery of an almost animalistic, hatred-filled growl. It sent a shiver down my spine. It felt like Ethan was willing to freaking maul The Duke with his bare hand (and what's left of the other one)

4. It's not as serious as the last three, but it's actually rather heartwarming. The whole opening portion of the game where Ethan is walking around the house with Rosemary commenting on things throughout the house. There's so much tenderness in this opening. This is a bit of a contrast to the very terrified but almost cynical towards the end delivery we got for Ethan with RE7. We're now seeing a much more tender and loving side to Ethan. Especially when Ethan is pretending to be one of Rosemary's stuffed monkeys. It's silly and cartoonish but it really shows the depth of Ethan and just how much he loves his daughter.

5. Ethan's become such a little shit by the time Village rolls around. He may be yet another human* trapped in a Romanian hellscape with mutated nightmares, but by god is Ethan willing to verbally beat you down if you step in his way. "Looks like your outside matches your inside now, psycho witch." he shouts at Lady D. in her Dragon form." Or when he talks down to Moreau after killing him. "In death as he was in life. Disgusting." And the delivery of that disgusting too was just *chef's kiss*

6. When Ethan is killed by Miranda and is in the Purgatory state with Eveline. Even though the effects make it seem really hard to make out what Ethan is trying to say, I also think it genuinely is because Ethan is freezing, his body has gone cold, his body has given up on him at this point and Eveline reveals the truth. Ethan has always been dead. Ethan is shocked at this realization. His whole life for these past three years have been a lie. But to see Ethan drag himself up again solely for the sake of saving his daughter? UGH. SO GOOD.

7. The entire ending cutscene where Chris is helping carry Ethan and Rosemary out of the Altar and back to the Helicopter. It's honestly so heartbreaking. Once we saw Ethan's good hand start to disintegrate, we knew. Ethan's time was up. Ethan's body had taken on too much damage and the Mold couldn't keep him alive much longer. His final words while alive in this phase still make me choke up every time. "Mia..? I'm so sorry... I love you... Keep Rose safe. Watch over her.. Teach her to be strong.. Goodbye Rosemary." In Ethan's last conscious moments the only thing that mattered to him were his wife and his daughter. I.. i need a moment..

Ethan Winters was different than any other Resident Evil protagonist. He wasn't some ex-air force pilot turned sharpshooter, super-cop who punches boulders. He wasn't an ex-army master of unlocking turned international savior and founder of a paramilitary group created to stop bioweapons. He wasn't a rookie cop turned direct operative for this universe's version of the Secret Service who saves the president's daughter. Ethan is just a regular systems engineer from California who loves his wife so much he was willing to drop everything for a chance to save her. Ethan's just a civilian forced to survive the world of Resident Evil. Hell, Ethan didn't survive, Ethan Winters was killed by Jack Baker after Jack stomped on Ethan's head. What we know as and see as Ethan is really a collection of mold that re-animated Ethan and took over his body and personality. It's downright horrific when you think about it.

Ethan being a dead man walking is something that I've thought about a lot since finishing Village for the first time. To know that Ethan isn't Ethan, but instead is just a collection of mold cells that used his body and has dog-eared his consciousness and personality is insane to me. Not only was Ethan able to resist Eveline, the source of the mold that created the thing that became Ethan, but he was able to resist The Black God (the Megamycete) completely. The mold collective that was Ethan Winters was able to fully retain Ethan's shape, form, appearance, consciousness and be completely unaffected by most external factors. Even in Resident Evil biological terms, what Ethan Winters was, was nothing short of a miracle. When Ethan "dies" in the game during a game over screen we don't see him mutate into your usual flavors of Resident Evil biological nonsense. We never saw Ethan disintegrate after dying (if he did it was done off screen but bleh) Ethan was a full-fledged human while absolutely not being one.

The complications and plot holes that this opens are very numerous. Why exactly was Ethan able to maintain so much of himself despite purely being a mold being? How was Ethan able to resist even Mother Miranda even while being directly connected to the Megamycete? The source of ALL of the mold infection? How was Ethan able to sexually reproduce and make a (mostly) normal human? How did Mia not get re-infected with the mold by having sex with Ethan? Why didn't Ethan mutate as opposed to say Jack despite having similar regenerative abilities? If the BSAA was able to physically remove mold spores from both Ethan AND Mia, how did they not realize that Ethan was even more infected than Mia?

Don't get me started on Mia, she's getting her own rant soon enough but Mia while being just as much a victim of this situation as Ethan, Mia Winters is easily one of the worst characters as a person in Resident Evil. She lied to Ethan about her occupation as a researcher for The Connections, she physically assaults Ethan on multiple occasions (she was infected by Mold and under Eveline's influence I'll give her a pass here.) But most importantly Mia is fully aware that Ethan is still infected with the mold. This is compounded by the fact that originally in RE7 we were told that Mia was just Eveline's handler. When in reality at the Exposition Bombing at the end of Village we see a photograph (see below) showing that Mia and Miranda weren't strangers. They knew each other enough to take a picture with each other. Mia wasn't just a handler, she was a full-blown researcher and scientist with The Connections and she was fully aware of the extent of Ethan's infection. Yet she willingly allowed herself to be impregnated by a molded Ethan. She sits on the secret for a long time, she almost even tells Ethan the truth in an argument a week prior to the events of Village. Yet she doesn't. I want to give a lore-related theory/explanation to this. I can't remember exactly which game it was but Wesker had entered into a file that he hypothesized that the human psyche plays an impact on mutations on highly mutagenic strains of viruses. I.e. think about how Alexia became this bulbous, insect queen in her second form because she saw herself as royalty, genetically superior and above all else. Mia had no idea what would have happened if she told Ethan the truth, she didn't know what would have happened to Ethan whether he would have just had a full-on mental breakdown or if he would have mutated because his psyche would have become so fractured. Let alone what would have happened to her family. Because while Mia may have been duplicitous and lied to Ethan both in RE7 and Village: Mia genuinely loved Ethan. I don't think there's any way we can debate that.

(The person on the far right of the image is Mia. The woman to the left of the little girl is Miranda. The little girl is Eveline. Mia and Miranda weren't strangers. Which begs the question: why did Miranda keep Mia alive in her lab?)

Ethan Winters is a character who has left a huge impact in only two games. While he's your generic everyman protagonist with a little bit of biting sarcasm in RE7. By the time Village rolls around Ethan is a fully-fleshed character. We get our actions survivor back but this time with basic military training, even more sarcasm, and now with the full range of emotions. We get to see Ethan as a tender and loving father towards his daughter, from criticizing Mia (Miranda) for reading a scary pop-up book with Rose to him swaddling his daughter as she starts stirring and crying. To holding onto Rose tightly but ever-so tenderly as Ethan is physically falling apart and carbonizing. We watch Ethan cry as the people he tries to help die around him, we see Ethan filled with abject and carnal rage towards his adversaries. Ethan truly is Resident Evil's titleholder for best dad. (Sorry Barry lol) and for a character with no face that we can see during the main game, Ethan is exceptionally expressive and emotional and shockingly so human for this franchise.

I'm beyond excited for what Shadow of Rose: the DLC for village will bring. My theory is that since Rosemary has gained access to a remaining sample of the Megamycete, we probably will see Ethan again in some way/shape/form since the Megamycete absorbs the consciousness of all who die within the reach of its roots. Whether or not Ethan is corrupted or he finally reunites with the daughter he loved so much is yet to be seen. But I would love to see a tender moment where Ethan pulls Rose into the tightest of hugs. He remarks how he's been inside of her watching her through her connection to the mold. Ethan would be profusely apologetic about not being there for her, but that he's so incredibly proud of the strong young woman she's become.

Ethan Winters deserves more love and recognition and it's a crime he doesn't get his pearls. I love this daddliest catch of a man who literally goes through HELL just to save his daughter. It broke my heart when Ethan died, just like it did when I saw Piers die from Resident Evil 6. But we got a fantastic character out of all of these two games. So go on Mr. Winters, smile. I hope whatever afterlife you are on you're loved and valued.

soldier is my spirit animal

Cosplay Tips: Repair Kits!

Let’s face it, at one point in time you’ve experienced a wardrobe malfunction and needed a quick fix. When you’re at a con, your cosplay is subject to lots of abuse at times! Heat, pushy crowds, drunkeness (lol), food accidents, etc. Stuff happens. So here is one way to be one step ahead!

Bring a repair kit with things you may need to permanently or temporarily fix your cosplay. Here are some ideas on what to bring:

A small sewing kit containing thread that matches each of your costumes and a needle or two.

Safety pins are great to have with you when you aren’t in the hotel room in case something pops that needs to be temporarily held!

A small first aid kit with some form of pain killer, band-aids, and hand sanitizer. (Band-aids come in really handy for blisters on your feet!)

Try to bring extra supplies. Hair nets, bobby pins, clips, things of that sort. Small things are easy to lose! This also goes for pieces of your costume that could potentially fall off, like rhinestones or small pieces of trim. Bring extra and the tools you need to reapply those!

Super glue. Just bring it, you’ll use it. Haha. Or a hot glue gun!

Scissors are handy too

Addition: I forgot to add bring a bleach pen or wipes for your clothes in case you spill food or something! 

These are just a few things that can make a really big difference when something goes awry! Keep this kit in your hotel room or nearby in your car and everything should be a-okay!

Happy cosplaying! 

Con-going Cosplay Hacks

- Check out of your hotel early Most hotels accept cash payment at any point during your stay. If you are splitting up the payment of your room, head down to the front desk as soon as you have everyone’s share of the money. They will still hold the credit card for any extra incidentals, but this way you don’t have to wait in a long line at the end of your con stay to check out.

- Put bandaids on the back of your uncomfortable shoes You’re wearing a shoe that cuts into your heel, something you only notice after walking around the con for two hours. If you happen to be wearing tights, you can place a fabric bandaid into the heel of the shoe itself and have it be just as effective. This way you won’t have to remove your tights to get the bandaid on your skin!

- BRING FABREEZE AND SHOUT WIPES/TIDE PENS Someone in your group is going to stain their costume. It’s 100% guaranteed to happen. Whether it’s from food, drink, or smudged makeup, Shout Wipes or Tide Pens will save you from the stress of now having a stained costume.

Also, Fabreeze. It will make you feel better about wearing the same clothes multiple days in a row (not just cosplay!), AND it is a good idea to spray your cosplay down before packing it back up for the trip back home.

- Bag up what you can of your cosplays Buy the galleon storage bags for your trip and squeeze what you can of each cosplay into the bag. Label the bags as needed (ex: McCree 1 of 2). This way you have everything you need for that cosplay together in one place, thus saving yourself from tearing apart your entire suitcase every time you want to change cosplays. If parts of your costume don’t fit into bags, that’s okay! At least they’re big enough not to lose track of. Or you can upgrade from a storage bag to trash bags!

Keep reading

How to make a pumpkin head

Since I defs didn’t want to carve a real pumpkin to put on my head and get nasts pumpkin insides all over my hair I decided to paper mache one. Unfortunately there was no good tutorials anywhere so I will share my trial and error knowledge.

First I got some supplies: 1 Punch balloon (they’re rounder and larger they regular balloons), some paper mache stuff in a bag, cardboard, a glue gun, paint, sculpey clay, tape, some news paper and some water and flour mixed together.

I then put at least three - five paper mache layers of newspaper with flour water on the balloon. I also measured my head and left an opening at the bottom. (NOTE: Don’t put tape on the balloon and try to peel it off after you’re done paper macheing, RIP)

After that’s all dry I put glue gunned some cardboard onto it to give it some pumpkin like ridges.

Then I filled the gaps between the cardboard and the newspaper with the paper mache in a bag stuff. Wait for it to dry. (Note: Don’t pop balloon until the paper mache in a bag stuff is dry cause it holds a LOT of water and your paper mache project will sink, RIP) After that I popped the balloon and lightly dampened the top with a sponge and water until it was wet enough to slowly press down into more of a pumpkin shape.

After it’s all dry I taped a stem I made out of card board on the top and put another layer or two of newspaper mache over top.

More drying wait time (you can use your oven on the lowest setting to make it dry faster) then I sanded it down and cut out a face with an exacto blade.

I added a little bit of backing behind the face on the inside with the paper mache in a bag to give it more of a 3D look which wasn’t that noticeable but oh well, it kidna worked… After all that stuffs done I painted it all white otherwise the newsprint would bleed through and make my colours not as bright, I also added some sculpey clay to the brow area to give it some more emotion in which I used an iron to dry it with cause it was too late to put it in the oven with paint all over it (Note: Put clay on before painting).

I sprayed it with a sealer before painting colours on it cause I find acrylics do weird things sometimes. After it was all dry I begin to paint.

I also painted the inside a red and added a kinda head rest thing on the inside since when I pushed the top down it made an uncomfortable point at the top when putting it on your head. Then once it was all dry I sprayed it with some more sealer, added some cool stuff like stitches with some ribbon and blood which I used nail polish for a shiny effect and put in some lights which weren’t very effective when my head was in the pumpkin but that’s okay, it still looked cool.

And that’s that!

Hope this helps some people, Enjoy!

$10 says that fangirls are still going to love Evan Peters character even though he's a literal trash bag in the season just because it's Evan Peters. Just saying

Oneiromancy

o·nei·ro·man·cy [oh-nahy-ruh-man-see]

noun

Divination via the interpretation of dreams.

Origin: 1645–55;  < Greek óneiro ( s ) dream + -mancy

Sentence: I’ve been having the weirdest dreams lately, and I want to know what they mean; do you know anyone who practices oneiromancy?

What we forget about the elements

Fire - Aries, Leo, Sagittarius: Fire is not just limitless energy that gives and gives, these Signs are not the joyous, endlessly outgoing people they are portrayed to be. Fire is also the Element of destruction, hunger and pain. Fire Signs are not just happy go lucky kids, they're hungry for power, they're determined, they're not to be reckoned with.

Earth - Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn: Earth is the Element of support and cold strength but without the proper care and attention Earth becomes lifeless, unable to create and maintain the way these Signs are meant to. Earth Signs need interaction, attention, and care the same as all other Elements to stay as strong as they are.

Air - Gemini, Libra, Aquarius: Air is known for its focus on the mental and avoidance of emotion but these are not the mechanical people they are often portrayed as. Air Signs need to interact with others, to speak and communicate about all things, including emotion. Connecting with others is always key to this Element. They are warm and open, not cold or inhuman.

Water - Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces: "Emotional" is the word that comes to mind when most think of Water Signs but we often misinterpret "emotional" for "sad" or "weak". Water Signs feel their every emotion: rage, desire, joy - every single one - as if it were a tidal wave. They are in touch with their true selves and there is nothing more powerful than that.

*Remember to check your dominant element*