#silent hill 2 meta

[the-bar-sinister]

It drives me nuts that nobody acknowledges that James Sunderland's jacket is a specific military jacket-- the M-65 field jacket-- and not the now-standard horror protagonist "LL. Bean" jacket. (like Ethan Winters wears)

it is important because it is a specific reference to the film Jacob's ladder, where the character is a Vietnam veteran.

[lemonspades]

She's so helpful in the remake isn't she?

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

when a loved one suffers and eventually passes, especially from a horrible disease, several things are true. It’s excruciatingly difficult for the loved ones who have to see the person suffer, there can be feelings of relief when the person does pass, you can be angry and frustrated that your life is upended, you can miss the person they used to be, and you can feel extremely guilty for thinking all of those things when your loved one needs you. Those feelings of guilt can eat you alive if you dwell on it, and after going through my own loss, I deeply appreciate how SH2 remake’s Leave ending acknowledges that you can’t deny every conflicting and complicated emotion that’s attached to grief, or else it will consume you whole. Mary wanted the pain to end. James was selfish. Both things are true. Grief and guilt are truly some of our most consuming emotions in the way they torture you, and ultimately there is no way to move on fully until you understand the multitudes and accept that all of these things are true.

[poemistic]

im really sad no one else saw the cult aspects of sh3 more compelling like i did when i first watched a playthrough of it. idk it maybe my religious trauma talking, but the constant talk of bringing salvation and being saved by god steams from the deep primal fear of the world and life and all its sufferings and just the gaping unknown of what comes after death and!!! idk it gripped me personally. along with heather’s struggles with identity, agency, and the constant themes of cycles repeating and rebirth?? 

Saint Alessa Gillespie Mother of God Daughter of God?? am i the only one who thought this went fucking hard as hell?? 

in this part of the game when we see this painting, Heather has been going through a lot of self reflecting, especially during the chapel section. We really get to see Alessa’s life was like when she was carrying God, and it’s during this part I think heather accepts that Alessa is an important part of who she is, even if she’s no longer Alessa anymore. I think she says something along the lines of��“I’m not Alessa, but Alessa is still me.” at one point. I can’t help but see it as an allegory for self acceptance, specifically the acceptance of trauma/abuse done unto you. Heather’s denial of being Alessa makes sense during the beginning. She has no memory of being Alessa, and people (Claudia) who clearly want to hurt her keep insisting that she is. 

But the thing is, Claudia sees heather as Alessa: Mother of God... simply a vessel meant to carry their cult’s deity. not the true Alessa Gillespie. So as the game continues with Heather recovering more memories of her past life, along with suffering the same problems as Alessa did 17 years ago, she truly comes to accept that she was Alessa, who fought SO Hard to be and to live as heather!!! Being heather, or Cheryl Mason, was supposed to be Alessa’s hard won happy ending. After literal years of being tortured in a cocoon of pain and misery, Alessa does escape in the end too, through being reborn as heather. How can heather deny that part of herself that used to be Alessa, after all Alessa has done to get her where she is? 

the symbolism of agency and autonomy with the mother of god daughter of god stuff makes me go actually insane. The cult forcing her into motherhood, but Alessa embracing that role to birth a life that She wants to bring into the world? A life that is filled with love and joy (with harry !!! 😭😭😭), her OWN personal paradise??? WAAAAAHHHHHHHHH 

[vilelittlecritter]

The device theory by Molly stars is my lord of the rings.

[hauntnseek]

"Confronting Guilt - A Battle with the Past"

One of the most intense boss encounters in Haunt N' Seek: Silent Siren VR brings Dex face-to-face with his own guilt. Dex is haunted by the memories of his cheating & infidelity, embodied by two women with eating disorders. Dex has a an attraction disorder which gives him a fat and anorexic fetish... They close in, the weight of his betrayal becomes tangible, forcing the player to fight through the emotions and consequences of his past actions. This battle is more than just physical—it's a mental and emotional descent into the darkest parts of Dex's soul. Will you survive his inner demons?

[chicksdigsaurs]

It's time for more Silent Hill 2 (2024)! We're in the Labyrinth and reality is falling apart at the seams!

[queenofbaws]

just spent roughly 20 min typing up a meta post only to realize upon rereading it that i hadn't even come CLOSE to making sense, so here's the shortened version:

uh oh, the silent hill 2 remake was really good and i'm still having immense feelings about it, uh oh, uh oh, oh no, uh oh

[sankakuto]

hey hmu if i can ramble nonsense to you about silent hill 2 meta 🗣️ for the last hour ive been reading the names of the songs on the new soundtrack and going insane in tha membrane

[dalimoor]

Been playing the Silent Hill 2 Remake lately (and falling for every jumpscare) and this meta-joke about saving the game made me laugh a lot

[vacantgodling]

RE. ABOUT

WHO: REN (renjamin, rimz, vacant, lotus) writing as R.A.A

WHAT: he/him. black. queer. transmasc. 27. audhd rizz. libra (10/02)

WHERE: main/writeblr (here), rbs blog -> @babylonsfalling, discord -> @/vacantgodling (feel free to add me if we've talked), bluesky & ao3

LIKES: video games (infinity nikki, botw/loz, and overwatch mainly—though i do enjoy the lore of other games i just can’t or won’t play them pff such as silent hill or elden ring tm), history & mythology, anime, gothic literature, unsolved mysteries, visual kei & kpop—and more probably 🤷🏽‍♂️

RE. WIPS

i have many wips and hundreds of characters. i talk about them all whenever inspo strikes. find more about them on my linked wip masterlist. however, the main wips i'm usually losing my mind about are:

PARAMOUR -> powerpoint intro || s: paramour

THE CHRONCILES OF LATHSBURY -> main crash course || origins of terrae || the first age pt. 1 || main plot ppt intro || s: tcol || tcol character tournament pt 2 || character intros

BETWIXT THUMB & FOREFINGER -> powerpoint intro || s: btaf

HE WHO SMITES THE SUN -> intro (coming eventually) || conlang intro (coming eventually) || s: ph

i am open for ask games of any sort or just general inquiries about my wips, and just talking in general.

to see a list of all my wips: CLICK ME!

RE. NAVIGATION

talking -> musings and personal thoughts

about renjamin -> insight to me / who i am

ren analysis -> when i get meta about my wips

ren mix -> a treasure trove of my music taste

ren polls -> any polls i make

ren reads -> for my ramblings and analysis as i try to get back into books

friends tag -> talking with friends or boosting my friends work

others work -> boosting other writeblrs work

hall of fame -> praise / things that make me happy that i want to keep

ren writing -> all of my writing in one place

ren poems -> all of my poems in one place

short stories tag -> micro or flash fiction bits and bobs

ren art -> all my art

q eh you eh -> queue

sex mention -> tag for any sexual content.

worldbuilding -> all of my worldbuilding notes across all my wips

ren hot cakes -> specifically for my overly opinionated opinions

to read -> others works that i need to get around to reading

rens ocs but sims -> for when i make my ocs in the sims lol

ren plays -> me talking about video games but it’s usually overwatch

ren is jopping on main -> for the rare occasions where i talk about kpop

character stats -> when i decide to compare and contrast my ocs to see trends

ren rabbit hole -> i like history and mythology and the ancient world and i Will ramble about it

ren fights linguistics -> i'm starting to try and conlang!! it will be hard!!

writing in review -> for my end of the year lookback at wtf i was doing writing wise that year :) usually done in november bc december is a bad month for me usually

[dailyfigures]

DAILYFIGURES WRAPPED 2023!!

[image credit]

i posted a grand total of 886 figures this year! let's take a look at the hits and the flops together!

my top 10 most popular figure posts! ;

10. Kirby from Kirby by Re-Ment with 1432 notes

9. Heather Mason from Silent Hill by Gecco with 1458 notes

8. Isabelle from Animal Crossing by Good Smile Company with 1535 notes

7. Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid by Taito with 1547 notes

6. Kirby & Waddle Dee from Kirby's Dream Land by Bandai Spirits with 1568 notes

5. Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid by Taito with 1717 notes

4. Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid by Taito with 1879 notes

3. Yuuko from Junji Ito's Slug Girl by Dodowo with 2121 notes

2. Ayanami Rei & Asuka Langley from Neon Genesis Evangelion by Union Creative International Ltd with 2332 notes (special shout out to this meme)

and....this year's biggest winner!

1. Kirby & Waddle Dee & Meta Knight & Magolor from Kirby by Re-Ment with 3542 notes!!!

my top 5 least popular figure posts ;

5. Nikkari Aoe from Touken Ranbu Online by Orange Rouge with 43 notes

4. Arthur Boyle from Fire Force by Kotobukiya with 41 notes

3. Ayano Keiko from Sword Art Online by Broccoli with 41 notes

2. Jolyne Cujoh from Stone Ocean by Medicos Entertainment with 39 notes

1. Akito Izuki from Ghostwire: Tokyo by Good Smile Company with 26 notes

and ofcourse a big thank you to everyone who interacted with my blog this year!!! thank you for making this hobby extra fun for me! happy new year everyone!!! <3

[<<< dailyfigures wrapped 2022]

[thesmumbo]

Smumbo's top 10 games he happened to play in 2022

Not necessarily games that were released in 2022, just my favorites that I played for the first time last year.

10: Night in the Woods (2017)

by Alec Holowka, Scott Benson, and Bethany Hockenberry

Peak fall vibes game. Night in the Woods features a compelling mystery and some great spooky moments. The setting and characters really resonated with me, so I got a lot out of it.

9: The Pedestrian (2020)

by @skookumarts

Pleasant puzzle game inspired by the signage that surrounds us in our day-to-day lives. Some of the puzzles were quite difficult, and I kind of dislike the direction the game took in its last act, but it was still a very fun and unique experience.

8: South of South Mountain (2022)

by @colorbomb

Cute & hilarious visual novel with a fantastic art style. I could not stop laughing throughout the whole experience.

7: Portal Reloaded (2021)

by PORTANIS

From a pure gameplay standpoint, this was a very satisfying sequel to Portal 2, and it's possibly the closest we'll ever get to a Portal 3. Portal Reloaded introduces a third portal which allows you to travel to the same place at a different time, so certain things have been moved/removed. It gets really complicated, and I’m amazed this was able to be created as a free standalone mod for Portal 2.

6: Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery (2022)

by Grace Bruxner and Thomas Bowker

Approximately 3-4 hours of pure, unadulterated joy and whimsy. I can’t believe it took me this long to play Frog Detective, but I’m so glad I did. Everything about these games resonated with me strongly.

5: OneShot (2016)

by @girakacheezer, @nightmargin, and Eliza Vasquez

A transcendent experience. Explores the unique ways in which video games can tell stories, and the nature of free will. Features some interesting meta game mechanics which require you to interact with files outside of the game. The visuals and soundtrack are spot-on as well. Weird how there’s so many great RPG Maker games which work so well in spite of the engine.

4: Scorn (2022)

by Ebb Software

An incredible audiovisual experience. I liked the gameplay too, even though it seems like a lot of people were disappointed by it. I'm amazed that a game like this even exists. Absolutely oozing with atmosphere and symbolic meaning. The story spoke to me on an incredibly deep level despite lacking words, or even any semblance of humanity.

3: What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)

by Giant Sparrow

One of the greatest games ever made. All of the vignettes and set-pieces throughout the game are flawlessly paced, with a wide variety of gameplay and visual styles. Packed with detail, made with love, and so emotionally resonant. I loved this game.

2: Bloodborne (2015)

by From Software

For years, I would try to play Bloodborne whenever I had access to a PlayStation 4, but I wasn’t able to do a full playthrough until 2022. It lived up to the hype. This is my favorite From Software game, and it’s already one of my favorite games of all time. I really hope this gets a remaster/PC port some day. It’s a masterpiece.

1: SIGNALIS (2022)

by @rose-engine

One of the greatest horror games I’ve ever played. Amazing visuals and atmosphere, fascinating world and lore, and a captivating, mind-blowing cosmic horror sci-fi story. I especially loved the evocative UI designs throughout. Highly recommended if you like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Dead Space, PS1 style games in general, or if you have even a passing interest in survival horror. This is my #1 game of 2022.

[eldritch-elrics]

i started playing the silent hill 2 remake!

uhh... buckle up i guess, because i have a LOT to say. probably too much to say. (and probably will have even more to say in the future - i will make a liveblogging tag!)

i got as far as the entrance to the woodside apartments and then stopped. overall, i'm really enjoying it!

i think that what surprised me most - as someone whose experience with game remakes admittedly comes most from nintendo games and the 2018 shadow of the colossus - is how much this is not an attempt to redo sh2, but to rework or remix it. i knew this would be the case to some extent, but it both surprised and excited me how little of the original game's finer details of progression are left intact. i thought i would know where to go, which paths to take, which items to look for, and then... i didn't! this is very fun! it means that even though i played the original about a month ago, and it's still fresh in my mind, i'm still getting the "new player" experience to some extent. on a meta level, it feels like the town's ever-shifting nature has caught me off guard. it's leading me to doubt my memories of the original game, and that's just very cool!

side note: there have been a handful of moments so far where the screen pixelates a little and james clutches his head. i wonder what those indicate! i know that one of these moments happened when i tried to get onto the road where you get the radio/plank in the og, so perhaps they're little hints like "hehe, you're remembering the wrong game!" (i also love all the new little mysteries: new memos, new strange photographs that have their own space in the inventory...)

even with the changes, it feels like, so far, the new/remixed levels are in keeping with the spirit of the og. for one, you've got displaced iconic moments from the og that have been inserted into new contexts - such as the "james sticks his hand in the suspicious hole" bit, which also has a fun little difference in the fact that you have to make him stick his hand further in. (does this indicate that remake!james is less unhinged?)

overall it feels like the game is taking full advantage of the fact that it has a ton more processing power to work with. it is legitimately so cool to see silent hill rendered in such realistic detail. it makes it feel like a real town! it's so beautiful, even when it's gross and run-down. i looooove being able to enter into so many of the buildings around town. i love how much it feels like people really did live here. i love the rendering of the fog and how much consideration has been given to even the smallest, most mundane of visuals. i LOVE being able to smash windows and interact with objects inside display cases. it's like a whole new layer of the town has been unlocked. that's exactly what a remake should do - reimagine the original game with new technology.

speaking of new technology... my god are the autosaves a welcome addition. by far the aspect of the og that felt the most dated!

the acting is also very good. don't have much to say on that front yet. james undeniably feels different - a little more open, vulnerable, cautious, certainly more emotive - but i still completely accept him as a version of james. there's lots of good additions here, such as the way he clutches his side when he's hurt (had me going "poor baby..." out loud way too many times, to which my friend who was watching responded "that is a grown ass man.") or the way he looks in the direction the camera's pointing. the one James Thing i sorely miss is the way he comments on random objects he interacts with. even if it's not a lot, it's a great way to learn about him as a character, and i'm sad to lose it.

i'll use this to segue into some of the game choices i don't like:

the ui decisions are for the most part quite bad. i haaaate that the main font looks exactly like the default font in microsoft word. doesn't fit at all. i also hate the way the screen goes red around the edges when james gets hurt. it's way too unsubtle an effect, and it makes it suck ass to run around at low health. (i turned it off pretty quickly - james's slow pace and stumbling at low health are more than enough incentive to keep him healthy.)

i will begrudgingly accept the general "tutorialization" of the whole game; that's probably a necessary addition to a modern game that doesn't come with a manual, even though one of the things i enjoyed about the early silent hills was how little they explain themselves to you. some parts of the remake veer close to encroaching on the "fuck around and find out" spirit of silent hill - i didn't appreciate the reminder (like 2 hours into the game) that you can break windows to find pathways and items; that's something the player can figure out from earlier tutorials. but it's probably for the best.

another "probably for the best" decision is the little dot that turns up on screen to indicate an interactable item. it's a change that i'm definitely grateful for, but it does ruin a little bit of what i might call the "rpgmaker spirit" of running around trying to interact with every item in case james has some funny dialogue about it. (hmm, maybe that's why they have less environment-thing-description dialogue now?) but overall, in a world with this insane level of detail and realism, you kind of have to find a way to signal to players what they can interact with. maybe that could have been done in a more elegant or diegetic way? maybe they could have preserved that feeling of "oh man, the protagonist could potentially have something to say about anything!" or "whoa, anything here could be important" somehow? but who knows. it's an interesting dilemma regardless.

i'm not a huge fan of the combat so far. it seems too fast-paced. wish it were clunkier. i'm sure i'll get used to it, though.

by far i think the worst decision in the game is the "over the shoulder" camera perspective. i know that this is ultimately a holdover from resident evil 4. i know that it probably makes combat easier. i do not care. it makes james feel too separate from his environment. i want to see his whole body in the frame! i want him to feel small! like he is just one more character in silent hill! it's unfortunate but understandable that the remake had to do away with the iconic fixed camera angles of the og, but, if they were willing to make that change, i don't understand why they couldn't be more lenient with player camera control. ugh.

my final thought for now is a bit of a larger scale question. as i wandered through the town, listening to the familiar, spooky akira yamaoka ambiance, i had a very strange thought: why is there silent hill music? which is obviously a silly question, but i phrase it this way for a reason. despite everything, despite all my positive feelings on it, there is some significant way in which the remake, at least so far, does not feel like silent hill. i'm not sure what it is. it might be the slight surfeit of ui. it might be the fact that there's no grainy filter, that i'm playing it on my friend's 4k monitor. the extreme level of detail creates a fundamentally different type of realism than that which was achieved on the ps2 in 480p - a world that was uncannily realistic because you could see light and shape but little detail. honestly, it might just be the fact that the lighting and shading is so, so different. the original trilogy has an incredibly strong identity, and this remake just... doesn't fit in with a lot of the hallmarks of that identity.

there's a bit of the "shadow of the colossus 2018" question in here. i've talked before about how i think the sotc remake creates a beautiful but ultimately uninspiring atmosphere because it goes for a very generic sort of video game realism, as opposed to the bright, stark emptiness of the original game. it's hard to say that sh2r doesn't benefit from the particular aesthetic it's got going on. the level of detail legitimately does so much for it. but it also loses some parts of itself too. loses some of the spookiness for sure - i talked earlier about how much it looks like it could be a real town, but there's also some important affect that's gained from the og's feeling of stylistic wrongness, the ways in which it doesn't feel as real as it should. just something to ponder...

[herearedragons]

oc questions 2, 18, 28, and 32 <3

2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?

...will anyone be surprised if I say Selene

18. Any OC crackships?

YES. shoutout to the AU where the Dalish clan Aqun was hanging out with as a teen was Clan Lavellan and Neil (the clan craftsman's son) (saw the half-qunari shem kid staring at the ironbark-working tools and went Hey I Can Tell You What That's For) had a never-realized crush on him which then resurfaces when they both end up in the Inquisition, either as co-Heralds or as Inquisitor and companion

28. Your most dangerous OC?

........I think it might be Selene again. there's a very specific advantage to being a cipher which is that her powers work fast and are hard to defend against, and also she. you know. can literally read and control minds. and as a last resort there's always the decades' worth of Trauma Noise just stored away in her brain that can be unleashed at the enemy's mind. at her most ruthless, when morality or harm she might cause to herself or others are not a concern, she's kind of terrifying.

32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why?

IT'S SELE -

okay no let me come up with an answer that isn't Selene. for the record she WOULD be a great horror protagonist, but she would be an even better horror antagonist and I have the AUs to back it up. honestly, as a Horror Enjoyer Lite, I think most of my characters would fit into a horror videogame pretty well.

but to choose the best options:

- I think Aqun would be very fun for either a survival horror or a cosmic horror setup. survival horror because he would be competent as heck, cosmic horror because he's NOT equipped to deal with things that can't be easily rationalized and you could get some great sanity-unravelling mileage out of that.

- Evelyn, because I feel like her well-mannered, already slightly unhinged demeanor would really shine under the pressure of The Horrors. true for basically any genre, but the more outlandish the better. the cracks in her put-together facade become deeper and deeper as the game progresses, until it shatters completely. might be fun for meta horror like Doki Doki Literature Club, tbh

- Neilar is basically already living in a horror videogame post-Trespasser. that's just his natural habitat.

- sure I'll throw May in also. put her into survival horror. make it about Perseverance. let her tear her way to a normal(?) life through hordes of monsters. PUT HER IN SILENT HILL

- yes my 'best options' are just my Inquisitors

[acastleintheair]

oh i just saw it, ao3 wrapped qs - 2, 5, 10, 13, 20, & 29!!!

2. What is the latest fic you're reading?

I just finished if this is a romcom, kill the director by shaekspeares which is a my hero academia todobaku fic based on the premise of one of my favorite manga (Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai Vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko or A World Where Everything Definitely Becomes BL vs. The Man Who Definitely Doesn't Want To Be In A BL) where the main character is aware they're in a BL manga world and try to avoid getting caught up in the tropes and pairings. The fic (and the manga) is just very fun and meta.

5. How many tabs do you have open with fics "for later"?

I've gotten a lot better about this so I only have 17 😌

10. What's the longest fic on the last page of your history?

It's Peter and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good... Very Best Day by beetle (Deadpool/Spider-Man) that is 7,489 words! I've just rolled over onto having 620 pages of history so I only have a few short one shots I read when I first got my account on that page.

13. What's your favorite tag on a fic on the latest page of your bookmarks?

Hehehehe it is Absolutely "what the fuck is the ace non penetrative version of the magical healing cock" on Blink, Snow, Corduroy by Brezifus which is an absolutely incredible Silent Hill fic focused on Henry and Eileen from SH4 healing from their trauma.

20. Favorite fic you've read this year?

I'm cheating and giving two because I'm indecisive. I really loved That First Spark by kenyizsu which is a fun Diablo 3 fic imagining what could've happened after the end of the main game and dlc. And I also adored Gold Heart by gardengalaxy which is a PJO time travel fic focused on Percy and Kronos and it's so fun and cute.

29. Favorite author you've discovered this year?

I'm also cheating on this one and giving two - IzzyMRDB for their great PJO fics and deadwriter16 for their my hero academia fics.