I am still thinking near-constantly about James Sunderland and, going by my experience with the original Silent Hill 2, will be doing so for the next twenty years, but I can spare some time to talk about a little indie game nobody's heard of.

A few weeks ago, proustbot made a post about Death Trick: Double Blind, a murder mystery game taking inspiration from Ace Attorney and Ghost Trick. I like Ace Attorney a lot, and I absolutely adore Ghost Trick, so I was tempted into checking it out.

I stressed myself out more than necessary while playing Death Trick, I think! The game has a time mechanic; you have a certain number of time slots in an hour, and actions like questioning a suspect will take up a slot. Sometimes, these actions will lead to new evidence items that you can use for further questioning.

When I ran into a long sequence where I wasn't getting any new evidence, I started to freak out; was I asking all the wrong questions? Was I going to run out of time and fail to solve the case?

I think the issue here is that I'm used to games automatically moving the plot along once you have all the information you need. Because things weren't moving on, I assumed I was missing something. In fact, I'd already gathered all the necessary information; the reason I wasn't getting new evidence was that I already had everything. But that's not what moves the story along; the story only moves along once a certain amount of in-game time has passed. I should have just relaxed and enjoyed having non-plot-essential conversations with the characters to pass the time.

Anyway! Because my misunderstanding of the mechanics led to me constantly feeling I was playing the game wrong, I started to get a little frustrated with it, although I was enjoying the writing. But then it won me back over with an excellent little mystery-story moment: I noticed a small detail and went 'wait, that's weird??' and started trying to make sense of it, and, in pulling that one thread in my mind, I suddenly found myself unravelling a huge knot of mysteries, some of which I hadn't realised were mysteries until that moment. It was extremely satisfying!

Spoilery details on my sudden revelation below the cut:


( Spoilers for Death Trick: Double Blind. )


There is no Death Trick: Double Blind fanfiction on AO3, and I doubt there's a market for any, but a part of me still feels I should write fanfiction where the Detective and the Magician make out.

I've just finished the Silent Hill 2 remake!

'James, you can't keep doing this!' I exclaimed, as James prepared to jump down yet another seemingly bottomless pit. I paused for a moment to consider. 'Although he might be thinking the same thing about me. I always have to press the jump button twice before he actually jumps, as if he's going "are you sure it's a good idea to jump into this pit?"'


( Notes on the Silent Hill 2 remake, up to the end of the game. )


The ending stats screen gave me two stats that combined alarmingly: I'd been playing for 19h4m, or 1,144m. I'd checked the map 1,131 times. I can't believe I checked the map almost exactly one time per minute.

That's a lie. I can absolutely believe that. I'm frankly surprised it wasn't more; I love checking the map in Silent Hill. It makes me feel so much more secure when I know where I am and where I'm going!

I just darted into the sitting room, where Tem was hanging out, and picked up the Silent Hill 2 remake's box to bring back to my bookshelf.

Tem: Going off to be alone?
Riona: I was just thinking that it does look like that. 'James and I are going to go upstairs now.'
Tem: 'James and I are just going up to my bedroom.'

What a fantastic remake! It's so clearly built on a deep love for the original game, and that really pays off. I absolutely loved it. It's been so good to spend time with James Sunderland, one of my most longstanding and unfortunate blorbos.

It's time for the end-of-year fic meme! As is tradition, I'm doing this right at the start of December, because I'm impatient. Last year I ended up posting two more fics after doing the 'end-of-year' wrapup. I evidently learnt nothing from this.

I've written a lot of little ficlets throughout the year, e.g. for promptfests, but for the purposes of this meme I'm only counting fics I've posted to my main AO3 account, or I'm going to get overwhelmed by indecision.


Number of fics written in 2025: thirty. You can find them on my AO3 account: Riona.

Fandoms: Danganronpa, Danganronpa 2, Danganronpa: Despair Time, Project: Eden's Garden, Final Fantasy XVI, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Severance, The Hundred Line, Horizon Zero Dawn, Deltarune, Star Trek DS9, Kingdom Hearts, Metaphor: ReFantazio, House MD. Ten videogame fandoms, three television fandoms, one web series. Mainly things I've written for before; only four of these are new additions.

One crossover: Kindred Spirits (The Hundred Line/Horizon Zero Dawn), in which Yugamu and Nil bond over their shared passion for murder.


( End-of-year fic meme, 2025. )


Here's to the next year of writing! And... possibly also the next month of writing, because this is by no means the actual end of the year.

I just tried to post this, and the Dreamwidth post editor told me 'you can't post this, it's got an unclosed italics tag'. Which is a useful feature! Unfortunately, Dreamwidth did not specify where the tag in question was, and there are ninety-four italics tags in this post, so I had a real adventure tracking it down.