On a wing to a strange and wondrous place

It is time for me to be disproportionately bothered by a single detail in a videogame! Today, we're watching me get frustrated over the story implications of the Silent Hill 2 remake's Wood Side Apartments coin puzzle.

There are major spoilers for the entire story of Silent Hill 2 below the cut.


( Silent Hill 2 remake: the narrative problem with the coin puzzle. )


Please acknowledge receipt of my suggestion, Bloober Team. I look forward to seeing it patched in.

I'm still enjoying the remake! But this one detail is sticking in my teeth.

I've started playing the Silent Hill 2 PS5 remake! I picked it up in a used electronics shop.

Cashier: Oh, great choice.
Riona: Thank you! I went insane about the original when I was sixteen.
Cashier: Me too. But I wasn't sixteen; I was, er, eleven.
Riona: Wow, that is not the right age to go insane about Silent Hill 2.

I'm a little over an hour in! I can already tell I'm going to regret this, but in an 'I'm so bad with horror' way rather than a 'why did they remake this?' one; the remake itself seems pretty great so far. It's clear that it was made by people who love the original, which makes such a big difference.

Playing through the opening was an absolutely insane experience. I know that sequence so well, and suddenly it had been completely transformed while still feeling like the same place. Seeing that familiar car park in modern graphics! The long walk down to Silent Hill! So pretty and unsettling!

Regrettably, I thought it was cute when James was leaning on the barrier at the start of the game. There's no hope for me at all. I'm so much fonder of James Sunderland than I should be.

(Although not quite as fond as half of Tumblr, which, it turns out, is startlingly horny for remake James.)

The first thing I did, when I gained control of James, was turn around and try to leave Silent Hill. Unsurprisingly, James did not allow me to do this, but I was delighted when I got a trophy for the attempt.

I was concerned that the remake's voice acting might feel too good, but so far it's working for me! They've taken the interesting and clever approach of hiring people who can act, but directing them extremely weirdly, with a lot of strange awkward pauses. Even if the voices and the line delivery aren't the same as the original game, the dialogue has the same feel to it. The creators of the remake evidently understand how the limitations of the original, like its restricted visibility and bizarre voice acting, ultimately contributed to the atmosphere.

After James and Angela's first meeting, I spoke to Angela a couple of times to see if she had any more dialogue, but I felt very bad about it. Angela's a severely traumatised young woman with no capacity for trust, and an unknown man lingering to talk to her a little too long is probably going to make her uncomfortable!

I like how violent and frantic James's fighting feels. No finesse to it; he's just desperate and terrified. You can just keep stamping and stamping on the enemies once you've knocked them down; he doesn't know when it's safe to stop!

Every blow feels like it has a real weight to it, both the ones James lands on enemies and the ones they land on you. I very much feel in danger from even the most basic enemies, despite playing on easy mode. It's stressful!

I initially thought I'd be fine with the stresses of this game after my experience with Little Hope, the most stressful game I have ever played. In a Silent Hill game, if you get the character you're playing killed, at least you can just reload and try again; Supermassive games are considerably more stressful because character deaths can't be undone!

But I'd failed to consider the stress of Silent Hill 2's ending system. My actions during the game determine how this story ends! I'm trying to keep James in good health, because that's one of the details that impact the ending, but how can I look after him when I'm bad at the combat and I keep burning through my very limited healing items?

I'll try my best. Come on, James; we can get through this together.

House has been one of my favourite shows for a very long time; it's strange that I've never written more fanfiction for it! Here is my first attempt at House fanfiction in, er, nineteen years.

It's really struck me, on my current House rewatch, that Wilson and Cameron seem to be friends. They get along well; they have some good conversations. In the episode 'The Right Stuff', House doesn't question the idea that Cameron would call Wilson socially. I've always found the interactions between Wilson and Cameron interesting, but somehow I've only just registered that there seems to be a real friendship there; it's endearing!

Anyway, I made them sleep together.


Title: The Unseen Third
Fandom: House MD
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Wilson/Cameron, unrequited Wilson/House and Cameron/House
Wordcount: 1,900
Summary: Wilson and Cameron spend a night together. It’s no secret that they’re both thinking about House.
Warnings: Infidelity, by which I mean Wilson cheating on his wife as per usual.


( The Unseen Third )