#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

ren writing -> all of my writing in one place

ren poems -> all of my poems in one place

ren art -> all my art

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

ren hot cakes -> when i'm firing shots in the house to keep the mortgage prices down

ren plays -> video game rantings and ravings

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

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

events -> gonna start keeping track of the writing events that i want to try and do

[randomthefox]

Oh. My. God.

Whenever people complain of Colors Era they'll talk of the Adventures as the peak of the story and narrative in Sonic games, the ones with best stories in the series, the ones in which the stories matters the most...

Now it only needed an attempt to defend the movieverse to somebody go "acshually, Sonic Advenshure 2's story ain't even close to be good"... I CAN'T BELIEVE IN WHAT I JUST READ, FOR GOD!!

I just can't believe and NOBODY can convince me that person meant any other thing, there is NO WAY it was not what they meant... There's no way to interpret it... Somebody legit gone "Sonic Adventure 2's story is bad actually"

I KNOW RIGHT?

"umm actually Sonic Adventure 2 sucked, so why do you even care that the movie changed almost everything and got all the stuff it didn't change completely wrong?"

They have no fucking integrity. They have no genuine personal opinions of their own. They were TOLD that they should like the movies, so they do. And they are willing to throw the video games onto the fucking bonfire in the name of defending the movies.

I knew this would fucking happen to. It's like how when the Silent Hill 2 remake got announced, ALL OF A SUDDEN there was a DELUGE of people going "the remake is a good thing because Silent Hill 2 was actually held back by technical limitations and the remake won't have to compromise their creative vision!" Even though NOBODY WAS SAYING SILENT HILL 2 HAD CREATIVE COMPROMISES DUE TO TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS FOR DECADES, but now the remake is here so ALL OF A SUDDEN OVERNIGHT now Silent Hill 2 NEEDED a remake all along because the original game is SOOOOOO old that it's unplayable.

They're doing the same thing with Sonic Adventure 2 now. For DECADES, Sonic Adventure 2 was the pinnacle of storytelling for the Sonic series and they needed to go back to the Adventure era and all these "meta era" games suck because they're not the Adventure games. But now the movies have '''adapted''' Sonic Adventure 2 and they fucked it up, so ON A FUCKING DIME they're pivoting and claiming that Sonic Adventure 2 actually sucked the whole time and the movie is good actually because it's fixing all the problems that dumb bad stupid video game had all along now all of a sudden.

It's 1984 shit. I have no respect for these people because they're proles thoughtlessly reciting the Party doctrine. We were always at war with EastAsia. Sonic Adventure 2 was always badly written.

[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]

[eldritch-elrics]

the 5 best games i played in 2024

this is not a "top games of 2024" list, because, as always, i failed to play more than a handful of games that were released this year. instead, these are my favorites of the... 14 or so? games i beat for the first time this year. enjoy!

i tried to limit myself to putting one game per franchise on here. sorry, dark souls 3.

1. Dark Souls (2011)

a game about being one little undead warrior in a big mean world <3

dark souls! what a game! though i technically started playing this in december 2023, i think i'm allowed to count it among my 2024 games.

moreover, this is definitely going on the "favorite games of all time" list. i adore dark souls. it's rare that i start playing a game and instantly feel like we're speaking the same language. i love the weirdness and awkwardness of it, i love the grungy medieval fantasy atmosphere, the great characters, the difficult but satisfying combat, the incredibly memorable environments... the list goes on. there's a reason this is a classic. it's a very silly game and also a very clever game. i am incredibly glad that i decided to give it a try.

2. Silent Hill 2 (2001)

a game about a man who travels to a strange, empty town in search of his dead wife.

there was this one night in october in which i played through a frankly ridiculous chunk of this game in one sitting, and afterwards i felt completely insane in a way that i have very rarely experienced!!! what did they put in silent hill 2 to make it one of the most emotionally arresting game stories i've ever seen? i'm still trying to answer this one. add to that some top-notch atmosphere, excellent scares, and an environmental design philosophy that makes the world seem simultaneously more real and more surreal... and you get an incredibly tight, smart game where every part of it contributes to crafting the experience.

3. Inscryption (2021)

a game about playing a life-or-death game of cards in a spooky cabin with an old man who likes to cheat.

speaking of very clever video game stories!! inscryption is a fantastic addition to the metafictional games canon. of all of the games here, i think this one surprised me the most - it plays with your expectations so deftly, and all in service of a deliciously simple meta premise. helps that the core gameplay is extremely addictive, too. this was my balatro

4. The Beginner's Guide (2015)

a game about a guy showing you a few short games his friend made.

can i put a game on this list that i haven't played myself? though i watched courtesy play it, it's more or less a "walking simulator" sort of a game, so i got more or less the same experience. anyway, this is another metafictional game that subverts expectations in a major way that i am still thinking about nearly a year later. unfortunately, this is another one i shouldn't talk too much about - it's short, you should just play it yourself.

5. Lil Gator Game (2022)

a game about a lil gator trying to build the best playground game ever with their friends!

not only is this a very cute game about a cute gator exploring a big island, it is also a beautifully written game about games. not in the same way as inscryption or beginner's guide - it's about playground games! as someone who played a lot of those as a kid, this one struck a chord with me. it's also very creative, consistently laugh-out-loud funny, and all around charming.

honorable mentions:

Sable (2021) - what a cool world. what a cool way (and cool reason) to explore a world. this one majorly scratched my "exploring and collecting things" itch.

Dark Souls 3 (2016) - dark souls 3 is just really good, guys.

and if you want to see a list of all the games i played/experienced this year, here it is!

[esdruxule]

Silent Hill 2: Not a Remake, a Rewording

A deep and personal transformative review analysis of the game through queer lenses.

Establishing Silent Hill 2 as a remake is a practical selling label: it works for the purpose of categorizing necessities and advertising spotlight, but is a disservice to what Bloober Team actually did with the original masterpiece and their own: It is for lack of a better audiovisual term: a Rewording.

Just as a rewording in a speaker's native language can sometimes convey ideas more effectively than a direct translation, the Silent Hill 2 remake sacrifices some of the game fidelity at a granular level to reconnect with its core themes and emotions through modern contextual frameworks.

Can we go a little faster?

(lyric on John Wayne by Lady Gaga)

I understand now the team's approach to the intro: to ease in action-players newcomers into the brutality of Silent Hill's psychological horror depth. I disagree however, I believe there shouldn't be such thing as easing one into a Horror Genre game, it's very tenet is the horror itself, and as such, one should be injected straight into said world. It's the new age modus operant but I disgress, it worked for most but almost put me off from giving it the chance it deserved. The voice acting and very own quality of animation scenes, the masterful change done in departing from the original game's dark, stoic, and suppressed artistic stylistic choices and James' own unique portrayal however were enough to make me feel conflicted about my very initial impression: How do they excel in some elements to comically fall short in others? They weren't, it was the easy in I mentioned, and mercifully James' fresh and genre & gender-pushing portrayal gripped me from the very first second to not let me commit the mistake of making my first limited impression being the final erroneous one.

Internet Killed the Video Star

(The Limosines Song)

Many pointed out the game departure from it's original signature and car chief marking dark stoic aesthetic. Many were against. Me included. The cutscenes are now infused with a vivacity thats seems on surface level, its own antagonist for the rest of horror it provides. Why would you want a grounded realism for a dark nightmare serie? Well Bloober Team did something else with it's adaptation and its absurd to compartimentalize as "modernization". See the reworded cut scenes aren't just realistic in graphs, organic in reaction and dynamic in interactions. You need to step back a level. A bit more. Careful with your head. Alright here we are: Bloober Team scrapped the dark stoics avatar that one could inject themselves into and raised a special 4th wall behind you while destroying the regular one in the front. The distinction is vital: cut scenes arent realism, they are realistic. You are watching a movie inside of it. James Sunderland was effectively squashed into a sheet of two dimensional story and John Herring read it and brought him to a tantalizing three dimensional level: a real breathing fictional man whose flesh you can see moving like never before. And don't forget that you are there with him. You can't escape his captive perfomance. In fact you will feel it in a whole new way.

See I'm here, I'm Real(istic)

(James is the new Meta-Maria)

James' first close-up shot: His defined jaw, covered in stubble, a pink lush mouth. His entire face: covered in droplets of water.This was an intentional setup as James as an attractive man, not a divergence from most of male protagonists, however soon, interesting further design and presentation choices start to impress themselves over:"Mary... could you really be in this town?"James new voice actor is a talented devil: his whispered purred performance hits all the correct hallmarks: from the start you know that James is a caring, naturally sensitive, inquisitive, and inherently sensual man. It feels intimate. It is the technique of ASMR that will be applied throughout the whole game to ensure the players will engage with James on a whole new level, unprecedented in terms of male protagonists:

He is a sexually guilty-ridden man and also, on this gender/genre bender version a meta/pseudo objectified sexual being, the establishing first shot close up, sets a visual sexual intimacy, a pictograma of how to associate his form with desire, his sultry voice affects directly players responsive autonomous system, his whining and crying as he stomps on monsters break the norm on the tough guy strength sonorous representation and further ties with his constant heavy breathing and groans: He is suppressing his thoughts about sex so much, it leaks into you.

And even if you are not sexually/gender inclined for the masculine presence he still exudes as a base: you are not immune to Mirror Arousal (Behavior) especially if you already come from the background of deeply identifying with the OG James, he was Mary, for this new one Maria:You will get hard, whether you are ready for it or not.

Everything changes, but somethings still the same:

As Silent Hill die hard fan of 19 years of twisted love and counting, I approached the game aesthetic hollistic choices from a puritan mindset: "Why is the city so wet, grubby and wind now? It is supposed to be in this limbo of conciouness, a geographic frozen dead body. It can't sing like an realistic abandoned city."It took a little *click* for me to grasp my own stupidity. It still is. A sacred ground. The energy of it a miasma so heavy that reality tears in its magnetic field, each person has their own vision of it, for Eddie is frozen: a body he has to keep killing again and again but still intact in its hurling inducing guilt. For Angela is always burning: her trauma makes her oscillate between hyper and repulsed sexual. She wants to have sex like most human beings, but that means has to let her body burn under another being rhythmic pressure, just like her father did.And for James is wind, grimmy grunge and wet. This is about sex. For James is always about sex. Love is about sex, death is about sex, guilt is about sex, sex is about sex.Even while kissing softly the insides of Mary thighs he was thinking about it. About how he should be more imposing, more above, more punitive perhaps. Like the figure he saw on the Museum.Now that made his groin burn. He wanted Mary to feel the same.

Fear amplified Arousal:

(fear-induced arousal turned on its head)

I wondered why the modernization was invoking such strong defensive reactions from the people who found it without flaws, their constant praise of graphics, combats, and atmosphere while refusing to elaborate on what other aspects be narrative, engaging, and visceral, only made sense after being mesmerized by the new James myself: It's impossible to process the fact that this game didn't just surpassed your expectations on adrenalin reward combative system and fear catharsis through contained virtual safety: it made you experience the fear induced arousal in an entire new level, you are not a victim of its horror, you are a protagonist of its twisted meta subtextual pornographic content: you made love with James and nobody, not even yourself can understand how special that was. It must have been the fight, the graphics, the scary sounds, because otherwise the admission of truth is too raw and self destroying of what you understand of horror games and your own self, what really made this game a masterpiece?There is one centrical upwarding member you keep ignoring like the sun. The orgasmic meat of it, James.

Maria

The Pink Herring

Maria has all the hallmarks of beauty: a hot body, an undeniable perfect ozempic face, thight clothing that allows you to stare at her big leather clad ass while escaping pyramid head. So why it didn't worked like before? Because she is no longer a the manifestation of "Born From a Wish" she is the "Dark Wish". This James pyramid head is less imposing, why? Because he is not his main punisher here, Maria is now. James resented the fact that Mary wasn't nor pretty and neither fuckable in the last days of her life, bit still he knew that was wrong. So wrong he would let it kill him. Maria sexiness is a sterile packaging, meant to lure the superficial appreciator, make him really believe that he still wants to fuck a blown up doll version of his wife. But this James doesn't. I believe he has subconsciously moved on from the love he felt for her and wants a new real woman to get involved with. I will let this up to interpretation and possibly another essay since is a complex angle but for me, James is no longer attracted to Maria, because who he wants in this version is Angela, trauma and all.

The Nine Layers of Hell

To wrap up this very long and indulgent essay I believe Bloober presented an even more charismatic layer with the time loops/layers/purgatory to this James. See, if the whole game was just about him realizing that he killed his wife, asking for forgiveness and saying there is nothing he can do to fix this, I would remain where I was with the OG: no there is no saying sorry, saying sorry is easy.But if we are indeed in a loop, if this infact is James second or eight run, this means something so much more alluring and beautiful about his character: He isn't saying he knows what he did is wrong, he crawling nine layers of hell, resetting his counciouness every new one he starts again to suffer through and deal with what he did, because when this James says he did something awful and is sorry for it, he means it.Someone here on ddit pointed out that each save is a layer, and with the fourth wall breaking aspect, this is further confirmed by the last one: Illness, mutilation, uglyness, reality, torment, anguish, suffering, despair and (the final boss itself).

Congratulations for Boobler Team on doing the amazing with so many set backs and missteps. I didn't expected my least favorite game to be this work of art, nor to make me fall in love with the one I most hated: a testament of their absolutely herculean feat.

[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