BlackHeart Biohazards

hellshire-harlot:

heya! Thanks for the question 🙂

My short answer is no, I don’t think Wesker was being creepy or preying on Rebecca. Rebecca is also almost certainly over the age of 20, given she’s a licensed police officer, medic, and member of STARS.

My personal interpretation of the photo of Rebecca hidden in Wesker’s desk is that, given the pose Rebecca made for the picture, it was less of Wesker creeping on her and more him crushing on her.

Rebecca’s countenance in the photo, and the fact that she’s intentionally posing, implies that she was fully aware and consenting to the shoot. If anything, the pose she’s in could imply she’s aware of the suggestiveness of the picture, and is playfully leaning into it. I’m not familiar with Rebecca’s past before STARS, but there’s plenty of explanations for why the photo exists.

Maybe it was a promotional thing for STARS. Maybe Rebecca used to be part of a sports team. Maybe it was a personal photo of hers that she and a few friends were just having fun with. Maybe she did some kind of modeling gig for a magazine or something. If Wesker had truly been creeping on her, even stalking her, I’m certain the photograph would have looked a bit more candid. He’s more than capable of sneaking his way, say, into her house and taking pictures of her while she sleeps, but this isn’t a candid photo. It’s Rebecca posing and smiling for the camera.

As for why it’s in Wesker’s desk? Any number of reasons. My personal headcanon is that Wesker has a crush on Rebecca and came upon this photo one way or another, and hid it in his desk as a guilty pleasure. The fact that it’s so well hidden (in both versions of Re2, Leon has to search the desk 50 times before the undeveloped photo is found) implies either that Wesker was worried about being caught by someone going through his things (unlikely, given his status and reputation that would scare off anyone snooping in his office) or that he’s embarrassed about his crush and is intentionally squirreling it away from himself.

Some other little tidbits I know of that may point to Wesker crushing on Rebecca (and it maybe even being mutual) are even present in the games. Wesker very intentionally shoots Rebecca directly in the chest, where he likely knew she would be wearing a bulletproof vest and would remain relatively unharmed. The amount of admiration STARS has for him implies that he’s a diligent captain, so he probably would have double checked before the mission began to make sure Rebecca was wearing her gear, including said bulletproof vest. The fact that he very deliberately shot her in a way he knew wouldn’t be fatal or even leave a lasting wound when he could have easily killed her on the spot implies that for whatever reason, Wesker didn’t want Rebecca dead. He spares people in RE1 pretty much exclusively if they’re useful to him; Barry because he’s the one Wesker’s blackmailing, Chris because he genuinely admires him and seemingly wants to recruit him to his side, and Jill because she was just to resilient for him to kill. But why else would he spare Rebecca, someone relatively unassuming when compared to Chris, unless he had a soft spot for her?

I could go on for hours about how Rebecca’s career path post-Arklay and her choice to become an influential scientist may have been her way of dealing with the grief of her crush, Wesker, being a traitor, or how the admiration she holds for him could be more than just strictly platonic, but this is already a long post. Hopefully this answered your question!