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Silent Hill: Promise
is a
Silent Hill interactive fan web comic created by Greer-the-Raven, currently hosted on deviantART and
LiveJournal. An attempt to create a full-fledged
Silent Hill "game,"
Promise uses the faux
Adventure Game style of
MS Paint Adventures to
involve readers in deciding what the heroine should do next.
A
Fan Sequel,
Silent Hill: Promise follows Vanessa Sunderland as she blunders into Silent Hill in search of her missing Uncle
James. It's
Better Than It Sounds.
Started in June 2010,
Promise was updated daily, sometimes more than once a day. In October 2011 it went on semi-hiatus, but resumed in April, 2012. Read it
on its own website or
here on deviantART.
Silent Hill: Promise provides examples of:
- Abandoned Area: The hotel since it burned down.
- Adventure Game: The comic strives to imitate this.
- All Just a Dream: Happens in the beginning. Maybe.
- Art Evolution: The first few screens do not have colored backgrounds.
- Author Appeal: Vanessa has a somewhat curvy physique.
- Bad End: Vanessa suddenly 'died' because she went into a particular room. However, there is an 'autosave' function, lampshaded by the author.
"What's a
Silent Hill game without the character dying at some point?"
- Bag of Spilling: Almost everything Vanessa picked up in the hotel has disappeared with no explanation.
- Big "NO!"
- Call Back: The wedding photo that Vanessa is carrying is starting to warp like the letter from Silent Hill 2.
- Can You Hear Me Now?: Vanessa's cell phone hasn't worked normally since she arrived in Silent Hill, with the exception of her mother calling to ask why she hasn't shown up for their lunch meeting yet.
- Character Portrait: Used for dialogue and inner monologue.
- Chekhov's Gunman: You know the engraving of the man in the mask will be important later.
- Possibly subverted. It was one of a set of four literary-themed plates needed to unlock the final door in the hotel "level." So far, there's been no indication of it or the masked man becoming relevant again in the future.
- Continuity Nod: Vanessa wears the same coat as her Uncle James. This is Hand Waved early in the story.
- Creepy Doll: The kewpie doll
- Creepy Cathedral: St. Stella Church
- Distracted by the Sexy: The gag ending where Vanessa promptly forgets all about her search and jumps Borje, leading to a long, satisfying relationship with him.
- Distress Call: A cell phone call years after her uncle's disappearance leads Vanessa to Silent Hill.
- Dream Ballet: Evoked when Vanessa pricks her finger and hallucinates that she is trick or treating as a literal ballerina.
- Evil Phone: See Can You Hear Me Now?.
- Expy: Borje is described as looking like a more attractive version of James, just like Maria was a Hotter and Sexier Mary. Probably just a coincidence.
- Eyeless Face
- Fair Cop: Sergeant Vaan
- Fan Sequel
- Flaying Alive: This appears to have been the fate of a corpse Vanessa finds.
- Follow the Leader: The comic apes the "play" style of MS Paint Adventures, though not the plot style.
- Gender Blender Name: Evelyn. He's touchy about it.
- Gravity Screw: The Room Full of Crazy hotel room is upside-down; when you leave, gravity reasserts itself, leaving Vanessa with vertigo.
- Harassing Phone Call: Vanessa is continually harassed by a "Weird phone lady" who wants her to leave town.
- Depending on how her the story unfolds, it could be that the "Weird phone lady" is trying to save Vanessa's life.
- Hell Is That Noise: "SHHHHRACK!!" Also the scratching and clicking noises coming from behind the door to room 314.
- Hell Hotel: It's the Lakeview Hotel from Silent Hill.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Possibly averted, as we have yet to see Vanessa put anything in her coat that would not fit there.
- Played with in that there is a reference that the pockets are starting to get full. Also, she didn't pick up a traffic cone since she wouldn't have a place to put it.
- Improvised Weapon: A curtain rod. So far, it hasn't worked so well.
- Insistent Terminology: Pages are referred to as "screens".
- Konami Code
- Jammed Door
- Lovecraft Country: See Where the Hell Is Springfield?, below.
- Male Gaze: The comic often gives a nice view of Vanessa's large chest or butt. Additionally, her character portrait is never shown wearing the heavy jacket she always has on.
- Meaningful Name: The "Weird Phone Lady"'s name is Marissa. Following the names of Mary and Maria from Silent Hill 2.
- Mr. Fanservice: Borje
- Murderous Mannequin
- Nice Hat: Vanessa finds one in the Otherworld's church. Evelyn thinks it makes him look "fucking hard-boiled."
- Nuns Are Spooky: There's something a little off about Sister Edith. It's hinted at that she is developmentally challenged.
- Ominous Fog: After falling through the floor in the hotel, Vanessa finds this to have descended over the town, despite it having been bright and sunny before.
- Ominous Music Box Tune
- Original Flavour
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Par for the course in Silent Hill, but special mention goes to the walking rotary phone/mother and fetus-based thing in the church.
- Patron Saint: Vanessa swears by an increasing number of saints, in different situations.
- One of the puzzles in the Otherworld church involves identifying four particular saints (although one of them isn't officially canonized as such) based on what they are the patron of.
- Peek-A-Boo Corpse
- Point of No Return: The "weird phone lady" warned Vanessa that if she didn't leave Silent Hill as soon as she escaped from the church, she wouldn't get another chance. Vanessa chose to ignore her and keep searching.
- Psychological Horror
- Reality Warper: The town itself. In a subtle case, it's starting to warp Vanessa's memories and a photo of James' wedding.
- Religious Horror: Shades of this in the church.
- Room Full of Crazy: Played with in that unlike most examples, the writing isn't blood, it's hot pink lipstick. Ruins the effect a bit.
- Second Person Narration
- Shirtless Scene: We first meet Borje right after he's come out of the shower. It's quite distracting, both for Vanessa and the readers.
- Shout Out: There's a Problem Sleuth poster in Vanessa's bedroom.
- Smoking Is Cool: Vanessa smokes Lucky Strikes. The supposed cool factor is Lampshaded.
- Solve the Soup Cans: Silent Hill
- Spooky Painting
- Survival Horror: Silent Hill, again.
- Tears of Blood: The mannequin, once activated.
- Town with a Dark Secret: It's Silent Hill.
- Walls of Text: The comic, like an old graphical text adventure, supplements the images with narration.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Silent Hill has no canonical location. The area code Vanessa sees on her cell phone puts it somewhere in upstate New York.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Silent Hill: Promise is written similarly to MS Paint Adventures, updating daily using commands from readers.
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