#<-- im allowed to tag it as that because aled and daniel are in this chapter

[d1etlem0nade]

chapter 2 is out now!!!!

[rjshepherd]

4 Lords headcanons - Karl Heisenberg

Karl is my new favorite resident evil character. He’s just so unlike anything we’ve seen before in any of the other games. Ricardo irving MAYBE but he didn't quite hit the nail on the head with the dark humor and likeability. I saw a tweet from Al yang ( resident evil resistance’s director) who said that Karl and daniel fabron would be besties because they have the same style and interests and i am 10000% behind that. You all know how much I love daniel.

Anyway, here are some of my headcanons for Karl heisenberg. Long post under the cut.

So im getting this one out of the way first: i've been canoning karl as jewish since before the whole N*zi discourse started. No reason for this in particular besides the fact he’s german and he reminds me of my best friend who is also Jewish. It made my friend happy so I just decided to roll with it.

I don't think Karl is practicing, or that he follows a particular belief system. I doubt miranda would allow such things and he really strikes me more as an atheist, particularly after all he’s been through. It's mostly a heritage thing, something he might actually be interested in learning more about if given the chance.

Speaking of discourse, that necklace of his is just a trinket. It's not his or even a family heirloom, hence why it's blank. I canon that Karl likes to collect stuff from the junkyards or post war scrap yards around the village. When he was younger he often snuck out of the village to go exploring and brought back things he found to keep or repair, like Moreau’s television or the Half-track motorbike Ethan uses.

I imagine he found a large box of factory reject dog tags and just decided to take some. He strikes me as a “well I'll find a use for it” kind of man. When he got distracted by more important projects, he decided to just wear one. It went with his aesthetic after all.

Also that compass on his necklace is now completely non functional. Karl’s powers have ruined its magnets. He keeps it for aesthetic and sentimentality, yes but he also likes to use it to check his power levels, the faster it spins the stronger he’s getting.

Despite mostly collecting Junk that he can use or repair, Karl also likes to find intact things. He can be a bit like a magpie, taking things he just finds cool or aesthetically pleasing. He had a room much like Ariel from the little mermaid, filled with stuff from the outside world. Unfortunately, much like Ariel, his treasure trove was destroyed by Miranda when she discovered it. Thankfully though, she never tied it back to him. He’s sad that it’s all gone but is too afraid to start collecting again, lest it get destroyed once more.

His favorite things to collect are tokens from Germany. Things from the DDR, Metal figurines, war medals, pins and old money are his favorites but he also has a few old toys ( like train sets) and even has a piece of the Berlin wall in his collection.

He’s not fussed on war memorabilia. He has no use for it, prefering to take scrap leftovers so he can make something new from it.

He can't speak german unfortunately. Maybe a few words here and there but nothing substantial. He was able to speak it as a child, but since Miranda raised him to speak English, he lost more of his mother tongue the older he got. He can speak some basic romanian, mostly for communicating with people just outside the village or trading for scrap but he’s far from fluent.

He can , however, speak decent sign language.

Miranda was a terrible english teacher. I'm very surprised Karl doesnt have more of a stutter. As a child, when he spoke german, she would hit him and if he spoke english incorrectly, she would berate him in front of others.

Speaking of stutters, Karl has mostly grown out of his, but when he is tired, frustrated or nervous for whatever reason, it comes back .

He’s trying to teach himself german again as an adult but he has little time for it. His german books are gathering dust in some forgotten corner of the factory while he works on his plans for revenge.

In his very rare moments of free time , he can usually be found either reading, listening to LPs or tinkering. His favorite books are , unsurprisingly, Science fiction but he also likes crime novels as well as technical manuals.

Given that Karl enjoys collecting things, I believe he likes to create collectibles too. I can see him making a series of little metal sculptures to have around his factory. They're only small, he doesn't like to waste precious scrap on frivolous things.

Despite his family crest being based on a knight, Karl isn't fond of chess. He can play, but he just doesn't have the patience for it. Not to mention all the other lords take it far too seriously and are both sore losers and sore winners. Looking at you Alcina.

Additionally, Karl is a little uneasy around horses. When he was a child, one kicked at him. He only got a small scar from it but since then he hasn't been too fond of them. He is able to ride one but would rather walk if there's a choice.

We all know that in another world or another lifetime, Karl would have made an amazing performer. Maybe he would have had a youtube channel for showing off his creations, like man at arms .

He comes across as someone with a bombastic personality, someone who likes being the center of attention. Part of that is the lack of attention given to him as a child but more so his lack of self esteem. His confidence is all surface level; he fears rejection and is perhaps even more self conscious about what Miranda has done to him than Moreau, although he hides it better.

Behind closed doors he’s a very quiet introverted man. He prefers his own company and has gotten to the point where he even finds meetings with the lords draining. He's not shy like donna nor does he purposely lock himself away but if another lord came to his factory he would absolutely pretend not to be in.

Karl suffers from severe nightmares as a result of what Miranda has put him through. He often doesn't sleep for days at a time, only to collapse when the exhaustion becomes too much.

I know we all canon karl as a lycan and an outdoorsy type. I write him that way a lot because it's what people seem to like, but it's not actually how I envision him. To me, he’s sort of a stay inside type. He rarely leaves the factory and has little interest in hunting or survivalism or even in the lycans .

That’s not to say he’s bad at these things. He’s skilled at tracking, hunting and surviving off the land, but he would prefer to remain at his factory with electricity and indoor plumbing.

Speaking of hunting, Karl prefers not to use guns. Ammo is at a premium in the village, not to mention very loud. He is far more accurate and silent when just using magnet controlled knives or scrap to kill his targets. For bigger targets, or when he wants to make a statement, he’ll use his hammer but it is mostly for show.

He’s kind of a nerd to me. His background is in mechanical engineering, but by the time of re8 he’s branched out to electrical engineering and biomechanical engineering too. He’s a rough and tumble hands on kinda guy but he’s also surprisingly delicate when he needs to be, with an eye for detail and a genius mind.

I canon he has some medical training. I know he’s based on Dr Frankenstein but I very much doubt Karl has the patience or training of a medical doctor. I'm thinking more like EMT, First-aider or maybe a combat medic? I don't think he’s ever been to war or even ever enlisted, but it's possible someone from the village is a veteran and was able to pass on their knowledge to him.

Aside from the medical training, he is entirely self taught.

He really has little to do with the Lycan pack. They're too dumb for his purposes, too hard to organize and worse of all, loyal to Miranda. He can direct them, probably better than any of the other lords , but he tends to stay away from them unless he needs something to test his soldat against.

He rarely leaves the factory except for the above headcanon, lord meetings and getting parts for his experiments ( either scrap or dead bodies). He despises the cold of the village in winter and the insane amounts of pollen in the summer

I don't think Karl was ever fully brainwashed by Miranda. He is an incredibly stubborn individual and is skilled at pretending, charming and manipulating. I believe he had miranda fooled or at least they reached a point where he had certain freedoms or she didn't care to rein him in because she saw him as little threat. Alcina has never been fooled by his act.

His favorite food is anything from a german deli. He would love to go to the KaDeWe some day and try all of the deli’s there.

Karl has the biggest sweet tooth out of all the lords, even over donna who practically lives on cakes. He metabolises energy very quickly, particularly when he’s generating electricity himself for his experiments. Virtually all his favorite sweets are from Germany: black forest cake, gummy bears, Berliners , marzipan and stollen to name just a few

what else? Man loves his carbs, definitely the type of person to fill up on bread before a meal and take a few more rolls home with him for good measure.

He doesn't have a least favorite food to be honest. He’ll eat pretty much anything you put in front of him and always tells you how much he enjoyed his meal. I canon miranda used to starve her experiments as punishment, so he’s always grateful for food. I think he might turn his nose up at Liver however. It's not the taste or even the texture, but with its incredibly high iron content he swears he can feel it moving around in his stomach when he uses his magnet powers. Whether that's true or just psychosomatic is unknown.

Karl doesn't drink often but when he does, he drinks a lot in one go. He has a terrible habit of mixing beer and spirits and spending the rest of the week regretting his poor decisions. He likes German beer, obviously, as well as polish and russian vodka and the occasional drink of expensive whiskey. He really , really doesn't like jagermeister. He says it tastes like cough syrup left in the sun.

He’s sort of a sloppy drunk. Lots of singing and dancing on the villagers tables and getting carried away. One of the (many) reasons Alcina doesn't get on with him is that he lacks decorum when drinking and prefers to party or drink with others ( like the villagers) rather than have a “sophisticated” drink after dinner.

Alcina invited him to a wine tasting once, forgetting to mention you aren't actually meant to swallow the wine. Karl didn't get this memo and now feels quite nauseous when presented with red wine. Alcina had to throw out her favorite rug after he left.

Sexuality headcanon? Hmmm well much like the others, i don't hold a particular one as true. I tend to treat most of my characters as fluid so I can write them for anyone. If absolutely pressed i would say he's got some strong bi/pan vibes. He flirts shamelessly with anyone and everyone but the moment it actually goes anywhere or someone reciprocates he starts to malfunction and forgets how to talk or act like a human.

Karl has no love for any of the other lords. Looking at them and how brainwashed they still are makes him uncomfortable. That being said, he still feels a great deal of pity for them. I canon Donna was the last infected, I imagine Karl may have tried to prevent this without giving himself away to miranda. He carries a lot of guilt around for not being able to prevent another child becoming like him. Moreau disgusts him, both physically and morally but he still cant help but pity the creature he’s become. I hc Moreau used to be a doctor, an intelligent and respected man who actually gave a shit about the village. These days Karl finds it hard to look past his grotesque form and even more disgusting devotion to miranda.

As for alcina? In some way’s hes a little jealous of her. He hates that she got to live a normal life and still threw it away to come to the village. She’s still one of Miranda's playthings but she takes an absurd kind of pride in being their abuser's favorite that he just doesn't understand. He does pity her at the end of the day but that pity is buried under a lot of animosity and dislike.

When he was a bit younger, maybe a teenager, he had a habit of pulling his hat down over his face when embarrassed.

He’s a very fidgety person, although not as bad as daniela. He has plenty of fidget toys to play with while he works, sometimes they help him think or concentrate. Others are just to keep his hands occupied so he doesn't scratch at his scars.

Karl is very good with his hands, he always has something to keep them occupied. He likes to roll his own cigarettes and cigars. His favorite cigars are cuban, imported by the duke but he saves those for special occasions. He chain smokes regular cigarettes when he’s stressed but usually only smokes a few a day.

He’s ambidextrous, he writes with his right and does most other things with his left.

Like most of the lords, he's very good at art! He leans more towards sketching and sculptures than crafts like donna or painting like alcina. He’s also really good at sewing! Almost as good as donna! Mind you, he’s mostly sewing himself from the various cuts and scrapes he gets or stitching up dead bodies.

Karl was crystalised like Zoe Baker at some point in his life. Possibly as a punishment from Miranda, possibly when he first merged with the cadou. This resulted in his white/silver hair despite only being around 30 years old. Similarly, he was born with green eyes that have faded to blue/gold as a result of his crystallization.

His facial scars are from fighting with alcina but he has many more that we cant see, particularly across his back.

He can generate static shocks of his own will. He mostly uses this to zap people he doesn't like coughalcinacough. He gets power from thunderstorms but has difficulty with cold and damp conditions as they don't conduct very well.

Scent headcanon? I know people like these for some reason. Karl generally smells like oil and cigar smoke but that's sort of a given. When he’s been using his powers a lot he smells like ozone and damp and when he’s freshly washed he smells vaguely minty.

Animals really don't seem to like Karl. Maybe it’s his mischievous aura or mayne his magnet/ electric powers make their fur feel weird. Birds don't like him because he messes with their navigation and cows don't like him because as a child he liked to run through the fields and spook them. They have very long memories.

wow i absolutely have more but i had to take a step back and think "maybe you should keep some things a mystery". if i over elaborate on him there wont be any room for headcanons will there?