Foxing Peculiar

non est hic locus honoris

[foxingpeculiar]

I’m taking the night off, but my goal tomorrow is to finish Silent Hill 2. The dumb blogging of it I’m doing here is serving as kind of notes for a more serious essay about the game, my experience of it, how horror games work, the value of engaging with fears and how people do that, examined through the game’s reputation and cultural footprint, that kind of thing.

Maybe I’ll shop it around, maybe I’ll self-publish it. Maybe not. Either way, it can be a portfolio piece. But before any of that, the point is just to do it. I’m a trained writer; I should be writing things. And I’m not, and that’s bothering me.

[foxingpeculiar]

Silent Hill 2 Remake Diary:

Alright. James was following Laura, but seems to have gotten distracted. As did I, and forgot to pick up the wrench. But once I figured that out, I got through the door and back into the park.

Which was, again, refreshingly monster-free, but I did run into Angela. She seems to be losing herself, no longer believes her mama’s here. She also has a fragile demeanor, like she’s weirdly eager when James says he’s glad to see her. And then when he mentions a little girl, that triggers something. She seems to see something James doesn’t. It’s strongly implied that she’s being tormented by memories, or at least visions, of childhood abuse.

But she runs off and James is left to find the key that will “open the abyss.” To the historical society, apparently!

But it did occur to me to wonder who’s writing the note James finds with the key. They mention having a patient, so it’s a doctor of some kind. But they also address James directly, they know he’s here, will find this. I’m not sure what that implies. Also, the tone of the letter is… disconcerting. The resignation of it: if James insists on continuing, this person won’t stand in his way.

On the way, I passed a gas station and I’m pretty sure there’s more to find there than I did, but that’s okay. Also passed a bowling alley, which had some leftovers in it that James comments on: “who could sit here eating pizza?” The answer to that seems fairly clear. Who have we seen eating, who’s been associated with food since he first appeared? Eddie is around somewhere.

The paintings in the historical society were neat. Plagues, shipwrecks, shit has not been well in Silent Hill for a long time. I looked at each one and considered it, but I still feel like there’s pieces I’m not putting together. I don’t know, I don’t know how important the history is here, but I learned some stuff. And the Pyramid Head painting. He is an arbiter of judgment. But that form, that incarnation—I first thought that he must exist outside James, cos here he is depicted. But it seems clear James (and thus me also) can’t trust what he sees here. The dream logic of this place could be shaping anything, everything. I don’t know. It’s interesting to question what PH is, but it’s even more unsettling to not be sure you can trust anything.

Then there was the staircase. Which just… kept going. To the point that I was almost sure I was missing something, doing something wrong, that this was some kind of Mario 64-style endlessly looping stairs, by the time I finally got to the bottom. And I mean, the note did say it was an abyss. But that’s what I mean—physical reality seems unreliable here.

And in that moment, this world is testing James. How committed are you to not turning back? He has to jump in yet more scary holes afterwards, and it makes you confirm it more than once. How badly do you want this? As the player, you don’t have much of a choice—this game seems pretty damn linear so far. To the point where I’ve had several moments of confusion and thought “trust the game to guide you.” And it does. Follow the lights on the darkened street. Explore around. You’ll see which way to go. There is a path to follow, but are we following after James, who seems unable to let go of a path that clearly wants to destroy him? Or are we leading him to his doom by continuing to play? I dunno. I had time to think about it going down those stairs though.

And then you run into Eddie again.

And… he’s kinda scary this time. I remember after the first encounter, I was like “he’s having the most normal reaction here.” But in the second encounter, it’s like that was slipping. Whatever darkness was in him was creeping out. And now it’s fucking out. He says he was joking about killing the body you find him with. Which seems unlikely—especially considering there’s a dead guy when you first find him and he said the same thing, and he mentioned to Laura the cops were after him. But either way, that’s a predator now.

But nothing happens. Yet. He just leaves.

And so now I’m in the prison. Which is probably the most stressful part so far? It’s cramped, it’s dark, those fucking wall mannequins are creeping around everywhere and sending my radio/controller into constant conniptions even when I can’t see them. It’s all very tense.

But I found the scale lock in the yard and got through the snake door and ox door and now I’m working my way toward D-block on the second floor. And god only knows what I’m going to find from here.

[cosmonautroger]

[urlnotavailablee]

E il mal di stomaco🤘🏻

[foxingpeculiar]

Silent Hill 2 Remake diary:

I was in the hospital looking for the third bracelet. But in going back to the X-ray room, I noticed the fourth one was there, under where the memo was and I just didn’t see it earlier. I felt a bit like a dumbass, but it made getting the third bracelet easy.

Eventually I got up to the roof and the Pyramid Head jumpscare got the shit out of me. I appreciate that this game doesn’t do jumpscares much (aside from the fucking leg enemies popping out at you from nowhere all the goddamn time), but when it does do then, it’s very effective.

So James gets yeeted back down to the third floor and talks to Laura. An interesting moment. She claims to know Mary from the hospital, recently. I’m not sure what to make of that. She also says she has a letter from Mary hidden somewhere, which seems important since it’s a letter from Mary that kicked this whole thing off. But James promises he won’t yell and then he absolutely does. He is not a reliable narrator here.

I’m not entirely sure WHAT I was fighting in that second boss fight. It… um… the game is going hard on a visceral, sexual fear that I can’t quite put a finger on. But what I was not expecting was to be snatched through the ceiling after beating it.

I am not entirely clear what happened here. James seemed to be on a gurney, heard his name and that siren again and woke up in… another dimension? Some other, somehow-even-more-fucked-up version of the hospital. I remember saying in a previous entry, when the siren made PH retreat, that it was like calling him back to wherever he came from—this adds to that idea, that the siren has something to do with moving between this world and the other one.

But okay, now it’s time to truck around the hospital AGAIN. The goal this time seemed to be oriented around a very locked box. The metaphor of that seems obvious. The mannequin puzzle was unsettling, and the third lock—with the noisy clock and the pills in the sink and the diary entry—that one took some thinking. And then of course the box was empty (James isn’t ready to face the shadow yet). But there’s a creepy statue door now! Because this is a horror game, so of course there is.

In mucking about further, Maria shows up and puts on some emotion. James doesn’t seem to question how she got to hell-dimension, but he does seem at least a little suspicious of why she’s so intent on finding Laura. I mean, I guess that’s something.

What got me more, was her balking at the statue door once I found the rings. That felt like the first time she genuinely hesitated, and it threw me a little. I still don’t know what she is—what her agenda or role is in… whatever’s happening. It’s an interesting experience not being able to pin that down and that it feels so intentional—that’s a high level of control of the experience. I can see why this game is a classic.

Then Pyramid Head got her after a genuinely stressful chase sequence. I was not expecting that. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s not the last we see of her anyway, but… I dunno. Even knowing what I know, I don’t have my feet on the ground in understanding what’s happening yet.

James seems bummed about it though, and on his way out, he finds what has been the most interesting (and kind of least cryptic) memo in the whole hospital section: the doctor’s note talking about the illness pulling patients into another reality. That seems to be what’s happening again.

I don’t know if Laura’s real in the same way James is and the way I’m pretty sure Maria isn’t. But she doesn’t seem to think there’s anything dangerous about the hospital. Like, the monsters aren’t real to her. If she is “real,” she’s not perceiving the same things James is. Which makes me think Eddie and Angela aren’t either (the latter in particular). They’re in some kind of delusional reality that’s both shared and not, manifested by whatever’s going on in the town. I don’t know, something like that.

Anyway, chasing Laura through the town streets at night was a fun and (relatively) actiony sequence. The street of idling cars and the dark tunnels, it was all a great atmosphere. It’s not clear who left the note on the map that James finds and again, he doesn’t think to question it. He’s on this journey, there’s no going back.

Then I found a ringing phone and a note about “unleashing the abyss.” Which sounds very ominous and like a terrible idea, so it’s probably what I have to do now. But first there’s a door I need to find a key for.

[foxingpeculiar]

Listening to MBV’s Loveless. And it’s fascinating how hard is to pick apart the sounds of this record. It just kind of dissolves. There’s something kind of Beckett-ish about it—construction so elaborate, it circles back to deconstruction.

[huariqueje]

Moon Light - Paul Ferney , 2026.

American , b. 1976 -

Oil on linen panel , 18 x 24 in.

[foxingpeculiar]

I am drinking a homemade grape slushie, but the blender didn’t really combine the mixture well, so it’s more of a slush suspended in grape drink. Which means, through a wide metal straw, I’m getting like… a short tube-ish shape of slush surrounded/followed by liquid. And it’s quite refreshing, actually, but I can’t shake the disconcerting image that the straw is having a wicked ice shit in my mouth, every time.

See, this is why I keep my tumblr. What else am I supposed to do with this kind of thought?

[born-from-a-fish]

[foxingpeculiar]

Silent Hill 2 Remake diary:

Alright. When last we left our story, was taking the highly suspicious Maria through the motel.

James’s comment, that room 106 felt wrong piqued my interest, but I could find nothing amiss about it. At least nothing more than anywhere else. I did also find a curious note about fixing pipes in room 107 which, as far as I can tell, doesn’t exist, so I’m not sure what that was about. But figuring out the safe wasn’t that hard.

Then Maria gets attacked by the leg monster (mannequin?) that was hiding in a closet or whatever. And it just felt very… staged? Like “oh help me Mr big strong man!” But okay. James seems to go for it, but I know that I am playing Silent Hill.

I did find it a nice little touch that she comments on me saving my game, though. Like James spaces out for a minute.

I don’t know exactly what Maria is. So when they’re jogging down the street and encounter the chasm, I don’t know how seriously to take her when she says “This shouldn’t be here.” Like she’s part of whatever weird shit is going on here, but how aware of that is she? Was she really not expecting to have to take that little detour?

Whatever, I got a pipe now. My ability to fuck shit up has increased.

But okay, then we’re at the ominous red door. And red is clearly an important color here—children’s hospital, etc, but also the save points are red. So I’m thinking “something’s going to happen in here.”

And it does, but it’s not a gameplay moment. Instead there’s a scene with the two of them where James almost becomes introspective for a second. Questions whether he’s crazy. And clearly yes, but here we are, the train has left the station. Maria acts scared of the monsters again, in this way that feels very transparent, but again, he’s going for it. So off we go.

Turns out where we were going is another garden/park place where she tells the story of the lake lady with the candle. What James does not seem to appreciate is that the lover dies following her light. That it’s Maria telling this story kind of has me thinking she’s like the light on an anglerfish. The bait. She looks like his wife. She’s moving him along, guiding him into the jaws of whatever malevolence is clearly happening here.

And he resists for a second. He’s like “she’s not here” and starts questioning the whole thing. But he’s already in the thick of the dream logic of this place—it’s too late, bro.

Then, a scream. Which… doesn’t seem like it can be good. In the theater, before I found them, I was thinking “okay, Eddie and the girl are here in a theater. This is a bad setup.” It turned out not to be that elaborate a set piece, but it was interesting. The girl—Laura—runs and Eddie seems pretty indifferent, even though he has some kind of rapport with her.

Eddie is interesting here. He’s spacier, like he’s succumbing to darkness. He’s also clearly a little resentful James left him alone (told ya, dude). But I was also watching him stuff his face from a popcorn bucket (though I am loathe to question what was actually in it) and I’m thinking “okay, Eddie is gluttony, Maria is lust…” I don’t know if there’s a full correspondence there, but it feels like something. He also commented the cops were after him. Given what I do know about this story, it seems like this place is punishing people, but what did he do? What is his deal? Who ARE any of these people?

But okay, time to find Laura. Who, of course, runs into an abandoned psych hospital cos this is a horror game. It’s like a sewer level in an RPG—you know it’s coming. But, at this point I started picking up shells and my note on that is: “hospital bad, shotgun good.”

This is another full, elaborate, apartment-style set piece. More scary holes and gross things to reach into, weird puzzles and sinister machines. A maze of locked doors. All the horror game stuff.

A couple things of note. First, in one of Laura’s drawings, as James observes she doesn’t like him much, we see she’s drawn a wolf threatening her little bunny character. That seems to be sending a clear message that whatever James is doing here, it’s not a good thing.

Second, at one point Maria goes to sleep in a side room. At some point later in my odyssey of crawling through horribleness, I was at a loss for what to do and I went back to her to be like “hey, any pointers?” And there was this little scene between them, but it didn’t change the game state—she’s still asleep in the room. But checking on her like that, that did something. I don’t know what, but something. There’s a reason that cutscene happened.

Third, the whole hospital segment seems to be oriented around these three mysterious patients. You got the creepy hand in the directors office and I seem to be mucking about looking for wristbands that correspond to each of them as the notes I’m finding give insight into… how fucked up they were, basically. So I’m curious to see what, if anything, the game does with that. Is this just background lore or is something more immediate going to happen?

In any case, I have done all kinds of absurd and esoteric things and have acquired the second bracelet from the pool at this point and I’m not totally sure what to do next. I found the third x-ray picture in the world’s worst bathtub, but in putting it on the lightboard with the other two, it still feels like something’s missing. But I will poke at it more another day.

[foxingpeculiar]

Silent Hill 2: Remake

Alright. So I was right: I needed clock parts. Hands, specifically. The clock puzzle was cool. The H/M/S names corresponding to hours/minutes/seconds I got to pretty quickly The time to set them to took a little more reasoning to figure out, but I got there.

Of course, I had to find the hands. Which involved James sticking HIS hands into a number of gross things. While figuring out weird shit about birds and bugs, because why not? This was a stressful section for multiple reasons. For one, I kept running low on health drinks—every time I’d find one, I’d get clobbered by a monster I didn’t see in time and had to immediately use it.

But then, the game is also giving me a relatively large amount of bullets. Monsters kept shutting off my light and ambushing me. You can hear creepy disembodied voices and the big guy shuffling around. It’s all building to something.

But first I found the girl from the cemetery, Angela again. And once again, James is very chill about encountering a clearly unstable woman with a knife. She’s clearly going through something—flashes of aggression, apologizing for being bad. And she seems more… in tune? aware? of what’s going on than James, who’s just like: “Monsters? That’s crazy. Welp. Gotta find my dead wife.” But she fucks off before we find out what her deal is. But she leaves the knife. And it’s a key item, not an equippable weapon. I don’t know that I like the implications of that.

So then I went through the S door and yep. Pyramid Head’s in there and he’s pissed. But it wasn’t bad. I had like 80 bullets at this point cos I’ve been mostly meleeing things, so shoot him a couple times where he’s NOT made of metal this time, dodge his fuck off cleaver swing, run away, repeat. He got me once or twice before I got the rhythm of it, but Elden Ring this ain’t.

(Speaking of, because I’ve been playing that, I keep pressing triangle to pick up items or interact and accidentally using a healing item. It’s an annoying bit of muscle memory to unlearn.)

I’m not really sure what the siren means or why it made him fuck off, but it did. Curious about that detail. Who sounded it? Was it attracting his attention or was it like… a class bell for spooky shit, like “oop, time’s up, gotta go back to hell dimension now.” And if it’s that, what are the rules around that?

So then we meet the little girl again and she’s got an attitude. She also knows who Mary is, and she’s holding a letter. Once again, James is just like “huh, that’s weird” and not “I’ma nope the fuck out of this shit” like a normal person.

The park was a refreshingly monster-free (and relatively well-lit) area. Suspiciously so. And then at the “special place,” James finds Maria.

So let’s pause for a minute here and asses her, shall we? She looks and sounds uncannily like your dead wife, and is waiting in the spot where Mary’s letter said she’d be. That clearly is not a coincidence, but okay. Then she’s aggressively flirtatious, but tells you nothing about herself. And THEN she’s like “come with me to this place but I’m not gonna tell you what or where it is.” And when he resists, she immediately emotionally manipulates him: “you’re just gonna leave me alone with all these monsters around?” Bitch, you already were alone and you seem fine, this is the first time you’ve even mentioned the monsters.

Everything about her screams “do not trust this woman.” But he’s gonna, because of course he is. And I guess, in fairness, if I was like… clearly going through some grief and trauma and someone who looked just like my dead partner suddenly appeared, maybe I would too. I mean I’ve already brushed off the existence of hordes of nightmarish monsters and a number of other clearly fucked up encounters at this point, so why not?

So that’s what I’m doing now—following Maria through the motel parking lot. What fresh hell will this lead to?

[foxingpeculiar]

Alright: Silent Hill 2 Remake diary:

This will contain spoilers for the first couple hours of the game. (Specifically, I have made it to the save room with the clock puzzle in Bluecreek Apartments).

For what it’s worth, I know… I guess the gist of this game. What actually happened to Mary (kind of), what Pyramid Head generally represents, that whole thing. I do not know the specifics of the story beyond that.

So right off I’m into the atmosphere here. The sound design in particular is ominous as fuck, and makes that whole long walk at the beginning surprisingly tense, considering nothing’s happened, really.

Then there’s a weird girl in a graveyard looking for her family. It’s sort of unclear if she’s looking in town (as James is), or if she means they should be in the graveyard, but aren’t. Either way, spooky and cryptic, but… I don’t know what to do with that yet.

James sees something lurching through the fog and follows it. Now, if this were me, if I saw a spooky figure moving at an unnatural gait and making throaty gurgling grunting sounds, I would simply NOT follow it through a foggy alleyway. But this is James, apparently, and you gotta do what you gotta do, so okay.

And then when he actually encounters and nail-boards the shit out of it, he’s like “whatever it is, it’s not human.” And my guy is SURPRISINGLY chill about that. He just discovered monsters exist which, presumably, is new information for him. And he just kinda shrugs it off. Okay.

So then there’s a burned guy on the street with a matchbook for a bar, so I guess we go to the bar, cos there’s no other clear objective yet. This is solid game logic, but it’s just funny to me to think about it from an immersive perspective. I imagine James in his head is like “this place is crazy, I’m gonna get a drink.” Sure dude.

So then there’s a jukebox in the bar some guy freaked out and fucked with. Aka: welcome to horror game puzzle time.

So I poked around for a bit. Knowing what I do know about the story, the game is not THAT subtle about it. The posters: “Face the Music” in the record store, “Spill the Beans” in the cafe/coffee shop—there was a good one in the laundromat too, but I don’t remember it.

So I glued the record back together, found the infamous hole, and got the coin from the register and then James got the feels and remembered where their “special place” is. So now we’re going to the park. What horrors will await? Only time will tell.

So, then, the Woodside Apartments. I like the way the game guides you: you find the note about how there’s definitely not gunshots happening in 217 and it clicks “oh, there’s probably a gun there.” It’s always pretty clear what you’re going for, step by step, if you think about it.

The article about the serial killer who committed suicide made me laugh (a weird thing to say, particularly out of context). The friend at the end, quoted about the killer’s insane ramblings as saying “I guess now that I think about it, it was kind of crazy.” Apparently it’s not just James—everybody in this world just kind of takes things in stride.

So there’s a creepy little girl about. Because of course there is. But so far not much more there that I noticed yet.

And then the coin puzzle. Which is elaborate! I love how like this and Resi and what have you all have these weirdass, very specific machines. Who builds these things? There is clearly some kind of thriving mechanics trade in the horror universe. Also, why does an apartment complex have this in its office? That’s… I was gonna say that’s weird, but it’s on the relatively mundane end of the weirdness going on here, so okay. Fine.

During the search, I came across Eddie, who is having what I would consider the most normal reaction to this town so far, and to the dead guy in the fridge in particular. I cannot help but observe that Eddie is a portly young gentleman and it seems like there might be some thematic connection to the refrigerator there, but I don’t know what to make of it yet. But James is just like “maybe you should get out of here.” Maybe? James, YOU should get out of here. But you’re not gonna, so just leave the scared kid puking by himself, surrounded by horrible monsters, I guess.

And then there’s Pyramid Head. I forget where it happens, but his first appearance jumpscared the shit out of me. He’s just… there, all of a sudden. Not doing anything, just hanging out behind a grate, being ominous as fuck, the static on the controller going apeshit. If I didn’t know what he was, that would’ve been even more terrifying.

Speaking of the static, it’s a really good mechanic. You know something’s around, but not always where it is. Like, you can tune out the soundtrack and the ambient sounds, but putting that sound in the controller speaker just makes it more present and visceral. It’s well done.

Anyway, then you get to the third floor and there’s a dead mannequin there. And I had a moment like “wait, have I been here? No. Then… what killed that?” Another nice touch.

Then there’s his proper introduction scene. Which is… creepy. Psychosexual. But I love James shooting him through the door. Like first, even though he clearly knew you were in there, he wasn’t doing anything yet. Second, look at him. It’s thick metal. What’s your little pea-shooter gonna do?

But he just kinda stared me down and fucked off, so okay. And now I’m in a DIFFERENT hellishly dilapidated apartment building and there’s a clock, so I guess I need some clock parts or something.

[foxingpeculiar]

Also, glanced up at the credits for Sea of Stars (currently rolling) and I saw the name Johnson Poon. I… Okay.

[foxingpeculiar]

Video game diary:

So, in Elden Ring, I’m now up to the Promised Consort. Nothing else gave me too much trouble—got both Midra and Bayle in about 5 tries each, Metyr and Romina on the first go. Trucked through Rauh and Enir-Ilim without trouble. Radahn 2.0 remains a wall. I do still have a lot of the muscle memory, and I can get him down to his name (roughly the last quarter of the health bar). Whether it’s my build or the patch or both, he’s definitely easier this time. Haven’t got him yet, but that’ll be my “I want to play something for a little bit but not get too involved” go to.

I finished Sea of Stars. I know there’s a lot of side content I didn’t do, but I just wanted to see it through. The combat was great, the dungeon design was cool. The story was… fine. There were a lot of cool ideas and design points in it, but it all felt very surface level at the end. It’s solid and a lot of fun, but it’s not trying to be narratively ambitious, the characters aren’t that deep, it doesn’t explore all the interesting possibilities its admittedly cool world brings up. It’s still good, it’s just… light.

So okay. No commitments for what’s next, but my inclination is to see if can still get the Silent Hill 2 remake on PS+, since it’s relatively short and I do want to play it. Then I might bite the bullet and start Baldur’s Gate 3. We’ll see though. I’m gonna browse around, see what ticks my fancy.

[foxingpeculiar]

Roy Andersson movies are kind of hard to describe. I’m watching Songs From the Second Floor (2000), having also seen A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014).

“A series of highly-composed, loosely/thematically connected vignettes that linger on quietly absurd situations which are kind of funny, but kind of devastating sometimes too” is the best I can do, but that doesn’t really capture it. There’s not much else out there like them though.

[foxingpeculiar]

Like in this one, there kind of a narrative thread? A lot the scenes are taking place around a fire at a business, a traffic jam, certain recurring characters. But it’s less a plot than like… a constellation. And it does this thing with repeated dialogue (“He wrote poetry until he went nuts!” eg) that kind of grounds it in a weird way?

[foxingpeculiar]

Roy Andersson movies are kind of hard to describe. I’m watching Songs From the Second Floor (2000), having also seen A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014).

“A series of highly-composed, loosely/thematically connected vignettes that linger on quietly absurd situations which are kind of funny, but kind of devastating sometimes too” is the best I can do, but that doesn’t really capture it. There’s not much else out there like them though.

[forestgreenlesbian]

The Parody of a Tangled Thread, Summer Wagner

[utopians]

people aren't even exaggerating indeed is literally like that. walmart attendant $13 an hour, target attendant $13 an hour, AI dick sucker $40 an hour, home depot attendant $13 an hour, guy who designs bullets that can only kill children $160k a year plus benefits, gas station manager $18 an hour