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considering how many times I've watched tgwdlm, I probably should have made the connection much earlier, but I just realised that macnamara (albeit infected) is shot with the very same gun that he himself gave to paul for self-defense. neat detail, if intentional

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haven't yet finished chapter 3 but I cannot stop thinking about the implications of this particular section

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dreaming of barbeque

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I've been thinking a lot about misinterpretation in ENA: Dream BBQ recently, specifically the theory I've seen floating around that ENA believes her job is to kill the Boss, while it is, in reality, something different entirely.

there are a few lines that suggest ENA is in some way misconstruing Froggy's words at the beginning of the game ("work target," "aiming for the Boss's gut"), but I think the most striking are these:

ENA says the Boss will be "down the drain," which typically refers to something being destroyed, lost, or wasted. This seems to point fairly clearly to ENA believing her job is to get rid of the Boss (there are, of course, other possible interpretations of this line, but I'm going to lean into this one for the purposes of this post), but Froggy reacts to these words with confusion, which is not what you'd expect if they were both on the same page with regards to ENA's job.

another important point to make here is that, while ENA completes her job(s) to the best of her ability throughout the game, it is evident that she—at least, her Meanie side, which, considering the Salesperson side falls off like a mask within the first few seconds of her first dialogue in the game, seems to represent more genuinely her feelings on what's going on around her—does not like her job. She calls it "deplorable," and states that she "craves for freedom," even though she seems to be incapable of imagining a life for herself outside of work.

alright, stay with me here. I've ALSO been thinking about this shot in the beginning sequence, which for some reason has stuck with me since the first time I played Dream BBQ.

I've been trying to figure out why for a while, and, admittedly, I don't have a lot of experience in cinematography, so I ended up needing to do some research about it. the consensus seemed to be that, while they can be used in a variety of contexts to convey a variety of different things, low-angle shots like this generally put the subject in a perceived (by the audience, or self-perceived) position of power.

"understood: aim for the target." this is the moment at which the misinterpretation, if any (again, as a reminder, this is merely a theory and only one possible interpretation of what's going on here), would come into effect, so to speak. when ENA hears Froggy's words and makes the erroneous connection "aiming for the Boss's gut; work target -> assassination of the Boss."

so why this camera angle? what is giving ENA a sense of power here?

well, what if ENA is willfully misinterpreting Froggy's words? what if that fundamental disconnect in what she is supposed to do and what she plans to do—get rid of her boss—is purposeful? ENA—especially her Salesperson side, the one saying this line—can't outright express that she wants to leave her job, to have control over herself and her life, and it seems that she doesn't even have the option to. maybe this is the way out.

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@femslashfortnight day 12: happy ending

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I think she took the wrong door

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such a cool detail that the camera becomes tinted blue after paul realises he's being watched, as though to represent that the audience is infected

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tgwdlm remount kickstarter video playing more explicitly into the looping show-within-a-show aspect. i'm going to be a menace about this

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it's really interesting to me that one of the first jobs ENA completes (on an initial playthrough, at least) in Dream BBQ—collecting pets for Shoryo—has you questioning whether the pets are "babies" or "tonight's dinner," considering the two possible routes to take in the game.

in one route, ENA makes her way towards an orb in the sky containing something that resembles a fetus. she does this by obtaining the Motherboard and then the Humanboard, about which the Shaman says this:

the pets might be babies.

in the other route, ENA attends the Purge Event, where characters are waiting to be eaten.

the entrance to the Purge Event looks like a face, with the doors being a mouth and the toll booths forming the eyes. additionally, to get the Taxi Driver's head, which is needed in order to reach the event, ENA travels through a network of gut-like caves.

the pets might be tonight's dinner.

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still figuring out how to draw her

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@femslashfortnight day 5: corruption

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@femslashfortnight day 2: cassette

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me every time I remember matt lang asking on the livestream if we would be interested in a re-run of the guy who didn't like musicals

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I'm not sure why it took me so long to realise that the mannequin we see leaning against a wall at the Hub near the beginning of the game is (presumably) the same as the one that turns into ENA during the post-credits scene. the mannequin that becomes ENA in this scene, then, is not the same as the one in the scene immediately before the credits that sheds what I'll call its ENA "shell" (assuming there aren't time travel shenanigans going on). does this mean the ENA we see regenerate after the credits is the same one we've been playing as, or different? i.e., can ENA just. reform from any mannequin as the same consciousness? are ENAs a hive mind of sorts—being "one person in two [or more] places at once?"