About Me

I do a lot of creative stuff on the internet--used to be mostly art, sometimes cosplay, and occasionally writing, but more recently I started making videos about various video games and movies I like: "The Game Den", "The Film Den", and "Pixels as BIG as CATS!".

I don't tend to write a lot of different stories, but I take seriously the ones I do write and I try to put out a good product. My opinion is that just because it has the word "fan" attached to it is no excuse for it to be bad.

Websties where you can check out my other stuff ...

Artwork - http://

Videos - http://www.youtube.com/cyborcat

Said videos are also hosted on and can be found here: http:///bt/dn

About the Stories

Silent Hill 4: Introspection - It's inspired by Ryan M. Usher's Silent Hill 2 novelization, along with plot analyses from SilentPyramid and co. and The Hellbound Heart, it's basically a novelization of Silent Hill 4, told from Henry's perspective--since he doesn't talk much in the game, I figured it'd be interesting to know what he's thinking about his situation, how he puts things together in his head, and how all this effects him. I've also tried to enhance his interaction with Eileen, and develop the characters and their relationship a little more. Even if you're not crazy about SH4, please give it a chance--I didn't like the game much at first either until I got the idea to write this, and it made me look at some aspects of the game in a different way.

8/11/12 - After ... I don't even want to think about how long ... it's finally done. I'm sure a lot of people thought it wouldn't happen, and I don't blame you, because I basically let it sit on a shelf for a year or two. It's been reread and re-edited multiple times. It's as done as it's ever gonna be at this point. If you happened to find any remaining grammar or spelling errors, please let me know.

It's no masterpiece--hell, I'm not fooling myself, it's probably not even good enough to be published as a novel even without the copywrite issues--but I like to think that it's good, as fanfiction goes, and it's the longest and most complete thing I've ever written, and so I'm proud of it if only for that reason.

I need to show my appreciation for two people who heavily influenced this project.

The first is Ryan M. Usher, whose Silent Hill 2 novelization (it's in my favorites) got me thinking about writing in the first place. If you've read this and liked it, you MUST read Silent Hill 2: Letter from Silent Heaven. As much as I'm proud of my own little novelization, it doesn't compare to the one that inspired it.

The second is Silent Pyramid, whose VERY in-depth analysis of the first four Silent Hill games made me appreciate Silent Hill 4, which I used to dislike. After reading it, it dawned on me that it's too bad a lot of those details didn't make it into the game ... then I remembered Letter from Silent Heaven, and the wheels started turning.

Aside from that, I also owe a big “Thank you!” to Tea Diva for being my beta-reader for a few chapters that I was having trouble with, most notably Chapter 59. She was a huge help, and a great writer, so if you haven't checked out her stuff yet, please do.

Finally, “Thank you!” to everyone who read the story, favorited it, and especially to those who left reviews, sent e-mails, etc.. I didn't respond to all of them, but I definitely read them all, and the encouragement really helped keep this huge project going.

Also, you can download it to your Kindle: http:///files/3962059075/SH4_

(but please still leave comments on the story here if you're so inclined--I love getting feedback)

Some additional thoughts will be posted below, because it's gonna be lengthy*

Silent Hill 4: Waiting For You - Just a little one-shot ficlet about what Cynthia might have been thinking about as she waited for Henry to show up by the turnstile at the end of Subway World--half steamy, half tragic. Mainly it's just a little something I wrote when I needed a break from writing Introspection, and I also wanted an excuse to write some descriptive stuff about Henry (his appearance and such) since I can't really do that in Introspection since it's written in first-person. Also, it's short and sweet and simple, unlike Introspection XD.

Someday, I'll give this one a rewrite too.

Killer's Resurrection - a crossover between Silent Hill 4 and Angel (the inspiration came from the fact that I happened to be watching a lot of Angel reruns while working on Introspection and it just went from there). Takes place 2 years after the events of Silent Hill 4 and is in the same continuity with Introspection.

The Prologue is uploaded. I have written more, but since I'm not sure exactly where to go with the story, I've been procrastinating uploading those next couple chapters. Hopefully I'll get around to that soon, probably soon after finishing Introspection.

Additional thoughts on Silent Hill 4: Introspection

References and Explanations

It reminded me of a horror movie I’d seen once involving children being taken to a cabin to be killed, and their handprints being discovered on the wall years later/like some “shock” ending to a horror movie

The first is a reference to the movie Blair Witch Project—which I personally love, but everyone else seems to hate. Near the end, the main characters find a cabin where a killer had taken children to murder them. He would take them two at a time, and have one stand facing the wall while he killed the other, and on the walls you could see millions of tiny handprints. It made a big impact on me, and those handprints on the wall outside Henry's apartment immediately reminded me of it.

I'd wanted Henry to be a horror movie fan so I could have him make more of these comments. Unfortunately, only a couple references made it in.

Walter's attacks on Henry

Heavily influenced by slasher films in general (and especially Friday the 13th for Forest World). While the game has Walter just walking up to you and basically starting fights—which makes perfect sense in the context of a game—I figured it'd make more sense if he acted more the way a killer would and tried to sneak up on Henry, catch him off-guard and do things like pin him to the ground and torture him.

Henry

Henry is basically an amalgam of a few things.

1. The version from the game, obviously. He's quiet and awkward, but calm and focused. He cares about the victims, especially Cynthia and Eileen.

2. Some ideas I got from reading Silent Pyramid's guide. This is where I got the idea that Henry is not only sensitive, but introspective and artistic. The latter should be obvious, with the photography, but I didn't really think of him as being an artistic type until it was pointed out to me.

3. I'm an artist so I put a little of my own experiences in there. For example, linseed oil and turpentine—if you've ever used oil paint you know that smell—also with how he looks at things with an artistic eye—noticing shapes and such, thinking the design of the water prison is “pretty cool”, etc.. I am also someone who knows what it's like to be socially awkward, so I drew on that a little too—it was kind of cathartic, but a bit depressing at times.

4. Various guys I have known and read about. Especially because I drew on my own experiences somewhat, and I'm a woman, I had to be careful about not letting him come off as effeminate. Men just have a different mindset than women do and I tried to keep that in mind. Like how he doesn't open up to Eileen as much as he could (at least not in the verbal sense), how he takes on the responsibility of protecting her. Men tend to be protective of their girlfriends and female friends, I've noticed. Other than that, with how he regards Eileen, I tried to think of how I think my husband regards about me (and especially how I think he would if I were injured and there wasn't much he could do about it) and basically tried to put that into Henry's words and actions. It's difficult to explain in any more detail than that—basically I tried to be aware that I was writing from a man's perspective. It was an interesting creative exercise and I'm gonna miss being in Henry's head.

Finally, he's intelligent and self-sufficient. This just makes sense to me—he's been living alone for at least two years so clearly he can get by without help from anyone else, and it's caused him to grow a sort of “if I don't do it, nobody will” attitude, even if he is passive in some situations. As for the intelligence … again, it just makes sense. Really, Henry is as intelligent as the player will allow, but considering I have him surviving, he really had to be on his toes.

Henry and Eileen

I’m pleasantly surprised that I haven’t gotten much flack about this—maybe it’s because people expect a lot of “shipping” in fan fiction. Having Henry and Eileen get so close so quickly isn’t something I really planned—I always knew I’d have them rely on each other for comfort, and become closer than they did in the game, but I didn’t intend more than a lot of hand-holding, the occasional hug, with maybe some kind of kiss toward the end. But, I experienced what most writers can relate to … after awhile, the story starts to write itself, so I let it happen.

Is it realistic? Maybe a bit romanticized (and convenient), but it makes sense to me that two people with a mutual attraction for each other who end up in a life-or-death situation where they're forced to rely on each other that one thing could lead to another. Plus, obviously Henry is very lonely and I tried to imply that Eileen was as well (there's a reason why she looks at Henry's door and hopes that her luck changes). And I think all that awkward “is this relationship moving too fast?” stuff would seem pretty unimportant under the circumstances.

And, really, how many of us are ever going to be in a situation like this? I think that how people would handle it is up to interpretation.

There is one thing I tried to do differently. It seems like what little Silent Hill 4 fan art and fan fiction there is out there focuses on one of two things: Henry caring about and protecting Eileen, or Eileen feeling sorry for or comforting Walter in some way. Basically, the Henry/Eileen dynamic always seems one-sided, which is something I wanted to avoid. I did keep Eileen's AI in the game in mind when figuring out her character—if you equip her with a weapon, she will viciously try to defend Henry, and it's awesome.

This is the kind of female character I wanted to portray—she's certainly scared and damaged, and has her moments of weakness, but she doesn't just sit by and let the hero protect her and mope over how bad she feels for the psycho who is trying to kill them. Sure, she gets pulled in that direction toward the end, due to Walter's influence, but that's not who she is by default. I figure if she's going to care deeply about someone, it'd be Henry.

I may post more later, if I think of anything else I might wanna ramble about.