My Madcap Mediaphile Diary

So it’s been a few days. And, if you’re really into stalking me, you’ll notice it’s way later than I usually post. You can thank a work holiday and then the absolute chaos that follows a work holiday. This weekend was busy, in every way except media consumption. For those uninterested, I installed a ceiling. It was a lot of work.

I still have not caught up on The Pitt. I will watch it soon, I promise. And I haven’t caught up on any podcasts since friday, but I did relisten to Emotion by Carly Rae Jepsen. There’s one of those 10th anniversary rereleases. It doesn’t have the best song off the B-Side (Cry), but it’s still worth a listen.

My distraction from all the weekend work was one simple game: Silent Hill f. I’m still playing it. As of where I left off, Hinako is making her way back through the town once more. I also experienced one of the most visceral cringe-inducing moments in any media: Hinako sawing off her own arm. Oh my God. I hated it. Not since Gerald’s Game have I felt such an uncomfortableness with gore.

Personally, I don’t like gore, despite being a fan of a lot of horror books/films/games, if it’s quick, or mostly offscreen, or funny, I can work with that. If it’s long, drawn out mutilation, I start getting a little “need to squeeze a pillow tight because I don’t like what I’m looking at”. The worst part, most of the actual cutting was offscreen. But the sound, the idea that it was happening. That’s what got to me. I think that’s why this scene bothered me, but something like Final Destination, which probably has worse, doesn’t phase me as much. 

Not to toot my own horn, but I caught on to the story being about arranged marriage before the big reveal. It was sometime around Hinako traveling through the Dark Shrine and having to solve the puzzles that essentially was killing off her friends that I put together, “hmm, she’s killing off bits of her old life” to “oh wait, Rinko just said something about needing to let Shu go, why’d she say it like that” to “Ohhhhhhh, I get it”. And when I picked up the game the next day, the ritual was blatantly a marriage ceremony and I felt incredibly clever for having figured out something that the game was probably blatantly hitting me over the head with well beforehand. 

I know. I know. I’m falling behind on reading. It’s weird, I love having read books, but while reading I always flip to see how many pages left in the chapter there are so I can take a break that I will inevitably not pick the book up from until the next day. Do any other readers have this issue? 

Yesterday was family movie night. It was my mother-in-law’s pick, she chose a film that is one of both her and my husband’s favorite movies: The Fifth Element. I have seen this film before, obviously. And yet each time I find myself not invested. I know this is a classic of camp sci-fi cinema but I bounce off of it every time. 

The costumes are too out there. The plot feels too weird. And the dialogue feels… off. I will give it this, that Opera scene, that slaps. Nothing beats synchronized fight scenes to opera, Marvel could never. The worst part of all this, I think I would actually like the film if instead of sci-fi aesthetics, it was fantasy. I have found that, with the exception of Doctor Who, if something is too science-fiction I just don’t feel as invested. I only ever casually liked Star Wars (and even that has turned into complete indifference), I never finished The Expanse (the books, not the show), and I couldn’t get into Red Rising. Maybe if they were all set in a vaguely medieval-esque fantasy world with magic instead of telekinesis I could get into it more.

In the realm of video games, I’m not like an hour into Silent Hill f. I fucking love it. The first few minutes of the game is spent walking through a rural Japanese village from the 60s. Oh my god it is stunning. There is so much green. We need more trees. That’s what I’m getting out of this horror game, plant more trees. They’re pretty, and they provide shade.

I also made it through the first Otherworld section. I’m surprised how many characters are in this game's equivalent of the Otherworld (called the “Dark Shrine”). In Silent Hill 2 it felt so isolated being in the Otherworld, even with Maria, Eddie, Angela, and Laura running around. Meanwhile all of Hinako’s friends are here and she keeps running into them. Plus this suspicious Fox Mask guy where I swear the big twist is going to be that he’s a good guy, since they are making it so obvious that he’s definitely up to something.

So today's going to be another quick one. I’m gonna open with a music recommendation, if you haven’t listened to it, go seek out some early The Chick’s (formerly known as The Dixie Chick’s). I’m not usually a country fan, but I have a lot of nostalgia for the early albums from this band due to my aunt always having the CD’s (does anyone remember CD’s!?) playing in her car whenever I visited her. “Wide Open Spaces”, their cover of “Landslide”, and “Travelin’ Soldier” are all worth a listen.

At long last (11 hours) I finally beat Resident Evil Requiem. So beware of spoilers. Here there be many.

As with the recent games, there seems to be a last minute choice that decides if you get the good or bad ending. Thanks to TV Tropes I had a pretty good idea of which one I needed to choose.

There was a certain reveal involving someone’s parentage that made me go “Oh my god!” and text my friend who had already watched a playthrough (she doesn’t play shooting games) and then it had like an extra twist on top of it where this person also turned out to be an adopted parent. I think I’ve written enough to be able to go into spoilers: Spencer adopted Grace who then passed her to Alyssa before his death!? What!? 

I don’t actually know much about Spencer, I know he created Umbrella, he died in a previous game, and the Resident that contained Evil was originally his mansion. So this seemed a bit surprising that we find out he actually turned into a doting father despite creating some of the greatest horrors that world had ever seen. I don’t know how I feel about this last minute redemption. I do think that wrapping up this story by officially closing the door on the T-Virus and its many variations was pretty perfect. They already laid the groundwork with the Mold storyline that leaves other options to explore in the world so this worked as a nice little bow.

Alright, lets open with a quick recap of the media I consumed in the past 24ish hours: a whole lotta Resident Evil Requiem, an episode of Smosh "Culinary Crimes”, a chapter of Isles of the Emberdark, a few minutes of episode 3 of Worlds Beyond Number: Solari, and a few pages of The Science of Discworld II. Why did I begin with a list? Because, strangely enough, it’s Science of Discworld that I want to talk about.

The Science of Discworld is a series of companions to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. They are pop-science books from the last 90s/early 00s mixed with a short narrative Pratchett wrote featuring the Wizard’s, one of many groups of characters that a Discworld novel could be based around. And the chapter I read was titled “Lies to Apes”.

“Lies to Children” is one of the Discworld philosophies that stuck with me the most. There’s actually two different ways that it manifests in Discworld and I think both are interesting. The first way is that we tell children fairytales and stories because the children need to believe the little lies to be able to believe in the big “lies” like Justice, Mercy, and Duty (in hindsight, and having googled to get the full thing, this one might not actually be under “lies to children” but I think it fits with that philosophy). 

The other one, and the one relevant to the Science book, is that every year of education, you find out that everything you learned the previous year was simplified to the point it might as well not be true. You're taught the five senses early on only to learn later that the body is way more complex and you have way more senses, but as a child it was easier to explain it to you that way. You would think most of us realize that. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to latch on to “basic middle school biology” and seem to not realize that if they paid attention the next year, that “basic” was doing a lot of heavy lifting. 

Alright, right off the bat today is going to be dominated by two things (because I’m bad at reading and listening) Resident Evil Requiem and The Pitt.

Last night, I saw the second to last episode of The Pitt’s second season. The episodes are named after the hours, I couldn’t tell you what it is. Unfortunately, I don’t think this episode was as good as the episode before it. If you read my entry for last week, I really praised that episode for having a bunch of major character moments and pushed back on my acquaintance who called it a filler episode… Maybe he should have waited a week.

I know. I know. I’ll willingly take those tomatoes being thrown at me (Can you at least throw cherry tomatoes so I can make a salad? I won’t eat it but someone will.). This episode felt like the wheels were spinning. Robby continues to spiral and ignore everyone who makes a comment [even Duke called him out! (best moment btw)]. Santos continues to chart. Everyone else continues to want to clock out and can’t. Night shift continues to kick ass. And Mohan, if that is the last we see of her (disappearing into the elevator to follow Orlando), I will be disappointed. Personally, the episode didn’t work as well for me, but we only have one more left in the season so that might be okay.

Similarly, I don’t have major thoughts on RE9uim. The section I’m in is good, not great. I revisited the RPD, which was a nice little nostalgia trip for a game I played a year ago (I know most people grew up with it, I, alas, did not). I accidentally got spoiled on the Charm’s puzzle so I found all of those, definitely would have missed them if I didn’t look it up. I liked the motorcycle chase, and I cheered when it turned into a motorcycle joust. Though I have no idea if my controller actually controlled anything in that scene. I’m playing on the normal difficulty (modern, I think?) but I felt like the motorcycle was usually starting, stopping, and steering without me needing to. Did anyone else feel that?

So, I had a very busy weekend and didn’t get much done. Barely did any reading. Didn’t watch any shows or movies. I fell asleep to Futurama, but I do that every night so that's not unusual. I tried listening to some new music, but instead just found myself relistening to Carly Rae Jepson, also not unusual. So what did I do all weekend besides working my side job and going to my nephew’s birthday, oh, that’s right, got my ass kicked in Resident Evil Requiem. I think it’s safe to say I’m addicted. 

My history with RE started with, of all games, Resident Evil Village. Which, for the fans among you, might strike you as weird. For the non-fans, REV is the 8th game in the series. And the second of the Ethan Winter duology. I picked it up because I heard it was inspired by Eastern European fairytales and I find darker takes on fairytales really interesting. So I bought it and got addicted because I liked how the game handles explorations and I thought the puzzles were fun. Plus I got to fight zombies and that’s cool. Oh, and that gothic castle is pretty cool too. And the vampire-eqsue creatures living there. Basically the series runs on rule of cool and that entry was made to be injected into my veins.

I went back to Stop at a Game store (because I refuse to get games digitally because physical media ftw) to pick up 2, 3, and 4 (the remakes). I played 2 and 3 back-to-back. I fell in love with Claire and Jill and was fine playing as Leon. I obviously loved the puzzle box that was the Racoon City Police Department, as we know, puzzles are right up my alley. And it was great to revisit it in 3.

Side note, my in-laws were addicted to this Hallmark show called Good Witch around the time I was playing and there’s a very boisterous short woman named Martha in that show. The actress who played her also was the original voice of Jill in RE3: Nemesis (I phrase it that way because the Remake dropped the Nemesis subtitle. It wasn’t until VII that they started adding subtitles again). 

Okay side tangent over, I took like a year long break before going back into 4. A lot of people say this is one of the greatest horror survival games of all time. I don’t disagree, because my knowledge of that genre is limited to this series and Silent Hill 2, but I did feel like this one dragged compared to the other games. Also, since I started with Village, this did feel like a retread, even though it was actually the original. 

After finishing this one I picked up Biohazard (the previously mentioned VII, because they switched to roman numerals and subtitles for some reason. Which becomes even funnier when Requiem switched to Requiem because Capcom wants to beat Fast and Furious for most changes in titling). Biohazard actually terrified me. It’s very obviously inspired by Texas Chainsaw Massacre and has some cool references to it, especially the dinner scene. There’s also a character that I think is based on Jigsaw, his sections are a pain in the ass. And the worst part, you don’t even beat him in the main game.

So I still haven’t played the first, fifth, or sixth game. I think I might wait to see if they do the modern style remakes like they’ve been doing for all of them just because I’m comfortable with those play styles.

Now that I’ve caught you up on my unnecessarily detailed but still lacking gaming history. Requiem. Grace might be my new favorite character in the series. I know people are annoyed with her constant stuttering but honestly #relatable. I think splitting the game into two halves, one being survival horror and the other action horror was a great decision, as is jumping back and forth between them. Some fans said that it’s cool to play one scene as Grace and then jumping to Leon to clean up her leftovers, but I personally didn’t feel like that actually happened that much? Maybe that’s just me.

I like that Grace’s gaming style is based on Biohazard, down to how her inventory works and using Antique Coins to purchase upgrades. While Leon uses the 4 inventory system and ends up getting a store just like the Merchant. It helps keep the game fresh. As of where I left off, I’m currently trying to break into Raccoon City, which I can only see going poorly because why would you blow a hole in the wall keeping the zombies contained but… video game logic. 

I think due to just how much Season ended up taking over all my thoughts. I don’t actually have stuff to write for either of my three other media categories. 

I did do a little reading. Just not as much as I would like to. I’m up to the chapter in Isle of the Emberdark where the two main characters have finally had a single moment of interaction. Which was a nice little treat. And it was cool to see two different perspectives on the same situation and Sanderson did a good job of having each of them rationalize the events around them through the filter of their culture. For example, Sixth is viewing every move around him as a hunter and prey while Starling views each move politically. Their similar but distinct ways to view the situation. 

I watched the first episode of Dimension 20: City Council of Darkness, it’s a great prologue to the new season, though I am a bit disappointed that we spent a whole episode setting up a whole different setting only for it to get thrown away. And since this is a shorter Intrepid Heroes season, that means even less time in this Night Vale-esque town. Speaking of Night Vale, it’s been almost a decade since I last listened to it. Should I jump back in?

After a few days of playing - I finally finished Season: A Letter to the Future. So beware of a bunch of spoilers if you are interested in playing because I’m going to talk about the ending. 

The ending begins with the player character finally encountering the Monk of Tieng Valley, performing a ritual, reuniting with the last remnants of the Valley for one final goodbye, reaching the seaside, encountering one new friend, comparing your journeys, activating the warning lights to signal the end of the Season, sailing across the sea, witnessing the ending of the Season and a new one beginning, and then a flashforward to what I assume is the player character rereading her scrapbook and listening to her father’s tape.

Now, it sounds like a lot but it all flows into each other surprisingly well. The new friend on the seaside was a really delightful addition and having him mirror Estelle (player character’s) journey. I like that it turned the ending from an almost hopeless journey into a reminder that she was not alone. There were other people who shared her dream and were on their own journeys to record the world around them.

I was convinced that the Season changing was supposed to be a massive flood. All throughout the game there was the water imagery. Water was the most common sound you could record. The whole journey through the Valley had the shadow of the flood hanging over it. And the Elder talked about using Cruise Ships as an attempt to survive the Season changing. So when it turned out that the actual change was a mass-memory wipe, that was a bit of a surprise. Even though it was also foreshadowed, just by the Day Zero plotline. 

In my journey, I chose to sacrifice my pendant during the ritual to protect the people I had met on my journey. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get any confirmation on whether they were able to retain their memories after the Season ended, but I also get that it would take away from the bittersweetness of Estelle being the one to lose her memories instead. Luckily she had a nice little scrapbook she had made to help remember some of her life. Very, and I can’t believe I’m referencing this film in this context but it makes sense, like the ending of the Adam Sandler comedy 50 First Dates.

I’m going to combine my listening and reading section again today. Still reading Isles of the Emberdark and Science of Discworld II consistently. I might even finish Science and finally be able to pick up the next book in my Discworld journey. My special collectors edition already came in and I’m excited to crack it open. 

Yesterday, my husband and I jumped back into One Piece, the live action version. We watched episodes 3 to 5 of season two, which covered the cactus island and the dinosaur island. I assume there are actual names but it’s probably more identifiable for casuals to describe it that way.

Neither of us have seen the anime or read the manga. Personally, I have been scared off by some past experiences with animes such as Fullmetal Alchemist (that moment), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (that moment again), and Sword Art Online (“Wait, she's unconscious… oh no”). I have had many suggestions from friends on what to watch to get over this irrational fear, I bounce off of all of them.

I have enjoyed this show, so maybe I’ll give the original a chance, or that remake where they add “The” at the beginning so you know it’s a different show (I see Netflix is taking a slice of the DCU pie on that one). It’s a fun little campy romp. I enjoy the colorful costumes and the exaggerated personalities. I do feel that this season is getting a bit repetitive with each episode following a formula, which I guess is the downside for an 8 episode season.

Alright, starting the day off with video games because I think I actually resolved a bit of my issues with it. If you read yesterday’s entry, I talked about struggling with the over abundance of choice and lack of guided structure that I felt with Season: A Letter to the Future. So I switched up how I was playing. Instead of immediately filling out every single scrapbook page as I went along, I explored. I took photos at the spots that interested me, talked to the strangers in the Valley, and stopped to record sounds when I heard them. It wasn’t until this morning that I cracked open the journal and started filling in the pages. And it worked.

I was going to original do my other three categories in one post but I actually remembered something, I did more reading then I thought. And the reason I forgot… is because I did it at 6am. My husband has to get up an hour earlier then me for work so there are a lot of mornings where I just try to keep my eyes closed and hope I get one more hour of sleep. And during the spring and summer that doesn’t work because the rising sun just happens to line up perfectly with a tiny circular window to send one beam of the sun to the exact spot where my head is to shine through my closed eyelids and burn my retina's. That is to say, I caught up on some comics this morning, 

I’m bad at consistently reading them. I’ve been trying to read X-Men: The Krokoan Saga for like a year and a half now. But there’s been two series that have been keeping my interest. Marvel’s Ultimate line and DC’s Absolute line. They’re reimaginings of the current status quo, but in alternate universes from the mainline so they can kind of do whatever they want. I started with Ultimate because I trusted Marvel a little more due to a previous affection for the MCU, but my god, the Absolute Universe blows the Ultimate out of the water. 

This morning I caught up (caught up means one month behind for me, I read them on the DC Infinite app and they get digital copies 30 days after release) on Absolute Superman #17 and Absolute Flash #12. Both of these are probably on my bottom half of the rankings for Absolute stories. I do think Superman does a way better job of telling a darker-and-edgier Superman story than a certain unpopular film series. Having the world around Clark being darker and edgier while keeping Clark as the moral center trying to inspire others is perfect. 

I haven’t read much of the mainline’s for either character. In fact, my only experience with either is the DC K.O. story that’s happening now. Both feel very different. Obviously. Unfortunately, I just find both the mainline and Absolute version of The Flash kind of boring. At least the Absolute version had the Rogue’s to keep my attention. They seem fun, and based on the old CW show I think they were originally villains so the twist on them being allies is actually pretty fun.

I watched a lot on youtube, but I didn’t sit down and watch any shows or movies. We’re supposed to do a family movie night at my house on Monday but that keeps getting kicked back. I think it’s my mother-in-law’s turn to pick which means tonight will probably be some mainstream blockbuster. It’s nice but they’re not always good. I still haven’t forgiven her for making me watch Venom 3 two months ago. 

On youtube, Swell Entertainment had a new video. This one was talking about the Barbie event that went badly. It caused me a bit of damage when she said Mischief Management and I had, whatever the opposite of the critic in Ratatouille had when he finally tried the food. Picture the camera zooming in on my face and then like bad memories from my awkward teenage obsession with the-fandom-that-shall-not-be-named and specifically my addiction to PotterCast. It’s a past life, I promise, I changed, I’m not that person anymore. Anyways, the main host of that podcast ended up forming an event company and apparently a lot of the recent events that haven’t gone well have this company in common. 

Okay, it was a chaotic weekend but I finally settled back into my normal media habits so hopefully this will be a little more indepth today.

Let’s start with video games. At the request of my lovely husband, I took a break from my survival horror addiction (which hurts me deeply because I finally at long last found a physical copy of Resident Evil Requiem yesterday!) to play something more positive and wholesome and cozy… I chose the game about a girl putting together a scrapbook to preserve a piece of her culture in the face of an imminent apocalypse. It’s a beautiful little game called Season: A Letter to the Future. How’s that for positive and wholesome?

Already this game causes me stress because there is too much of an open world, even though there really isn’t. So far it seems more like there are little regions that you can explore, take photos, and record sound. And then you use that to fill out pages of the scrapbook. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have choice paralysis. If I have too many options, I can’t pick any because I don’t know what the “correct” option is. So having an open world to explore and a blank sheet to fill out. That’s a stressor for me. 

In one of the first levels, you get one page that actually has outlines, so as you’re exploring, you have a guide for what locations to check out and what sounds to record. Except that it isn't there for the second level, it has come back twice since then and I’ve gotten very excited both times because it’s the only time I haven’t felt the crushing weight of not knowing the “correct” choice. 

So I actually have a lot of thoughts but thanks to work and the last two days have been very stressful between a holiday and a DIY home renovation project, today's entry will be quick.

Sunday I rushed through all the remaining endings for Silent Hill 2. My personal favorite is “Stillness”, I think it’s a very cool alternative to “In Water” and it feels most in line with where I feel James is, where he has heard Mary forgive him, but may not fully believe he deserves it. I also really like “Bliss” as a potential ending for how mind-fucky it could be. There’s two interpretation’s I have seen, where James fails and immediately gets pulled into another loop because he’s given in to a delusion. Or the one I like, James is so delusional and, like the town of Derry in It, the town is so tied to the power of belief, that he accidentally forced the town of Silent Hill to give him a life where Mary didn’t get sick because his drugged delusion made him believe that always happened. 

My husband and I finally picked up The X Files again. It was our nightly watch show but his Minecraft addiction and my Expedition 33/Resident Evil/Blue Prince/Silent Hill addiction meant we were playing games every night instead of watching TV. It was a season 2 episode called End Game. Funnily enough, it was a still of the Russian submarine from this episode that made me want to watch the show. I was interested in seeing how a 90s show managed to make a submarine work. Turns out the exterior tower was a set built on a soundstage, while the interior was filmed in a military ship docked in Vancouver at the time. Gotta say, the exterior looked realistic and I’m impressed they did that on a 90s network budget.

I barely did any reading over the weekend, though I did get a chapter done on Game Changer by Rachel Reid. It was the first explicit sex scene. I read it in the car. A lady walking by definitely recognized the book and gave me an eyebrow raise because of it (not a judgemental one as my friends originally thought when I told them). Can’t believe Scott Hunter was the bottom, definitely didn’t get to see that in the show. So excited to read more.

You know what else I did yesterday? I caught up on The Pitt. As usual, I fucking love this show. It causes me nothing but stress and raises my anxiety and confirms why I didn’t go into the medical field. I still love it dearly. 

 At long last Robby finally confirms what everyone around him knew all season: he doesn’t intend to survive this motorcycle sabbatical he is going on. Katherine Lanasa continues to knock it out of the park, please hand deliver that Emmy to her asap. Her reaction to Robby’s spiral this episode was just *chef’s kiss*. She also got the amazing scene with Emma and Digby, where the two nurses show a simple kindness to an unhoused patient by giving him a shave and a haircut. The tears on this man's face afterwards, could only be matched by the real tears on my face. 

I love Mohan, she’s one of my favorites (controversial but my favorite is Santos, fight me), and I’m really sad to hear that she will not be a main character in the third season. I hope she at least stays on as a guest so we can continue to follow her journey. I really related to her struggle with taking the next step in her career. I think everyone in their 20s could find this incredibly relatable. Especially in the year of our lord 2026. 

An acquaintance of mine called this episode a filler. There is a reason I call him an acquaintance and I believe a moment like that proves I am correct in that assessment. No, the episode with a lot of pivotal character moments does not a filler episode make. Robby finally has a culminating moment, so does Mohan, so does Evans. And all of them contribute to the crux of this season, as life itself, (if you’ve seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6 you should know) is the true Big Bad.