Loved By The Narrative

I enjoy going to the grocery store. I like seeing what they have and what looks good! I like knowing that I have control over what I have to eat.

However, checkout causes me distress.

Either I “follow the rules” of how grocery shopping works and go to a regular checkout lane but I’m forced to make small talk which makes me anxious.

Or I “break the rules” and do self-checkout but feel guilty.

I know it doesn’t really make sense but I can’t get it out of my head that there’s a “right way” or a way that grocery shopping is “supposed” to go. Self-checkout wasn’t a thing growing up so I have this idea in my mind that it’s somehow wrong or cheating.

I struggle to tell if it’s an autism thing where I don’t like change or an OCD thing where I’m breaking a compulsion.

(Spoilers below)

At first I was confused when Chef Julian said that before the last course, there was the matter of payment. I was seeing the customers dying as their payment but after thinking about it, of course they’d still play at paying the bill. Chef Julian refers to the fire as cleansing, not punishing. (Yes, all the guests have been hand-chosen for a reason but the fire isn’t the whole point. It wasn’t even his idea to kill everyone).

Paying the bill usually ends the relationship between server and customer. The difference between givers and takers as Chef Julian says is a huge theme throughout the movie. What else would be a fitting last step before the final course? They’re all about to be freed from their role.

There’s also some interesting character shown in how the guests pay. The businessmen throw their cards on the table, they’re used to having stupid amounts of money and didn’t even really enjoy the food before things went sideways.

They don’t care.

They never did but now they don’t care because they know their death is imminent.

The food critic, Lilian, goes to put her card down and the fucking magazine guy goes, “No, this is on the magazine,” and puts down his (presumably) company card. He’s still thinking about and playing his role as the good employee.

Finally, Mrs. Leibrandt looks utterly defeated when she sets her card down. She’s accepted what’s going to happen and even thanks Chef Julian when he explains they’re going to be burnt to death. She’s ready for death at this point (but as others have pointed out, she still urges Margot/Erin to leave)

Interestingly, Margot/Erin is the only one who pays in cash. She sets her crinkled up ten dollar bill on the table (and doesn’t ask for her 5 cents in change) and that’s worth more to Julian than everyone else’s $1,250 payment because she understood him enough to get him to cook something he actually enjoyed making for the first time in years.

Big knight stomping around DBD realms?

Armor clanking? Big, big sword?

And he’s evil?!

Skip Button Room

I’m curious what people’s first endings were.

For Rire, mine was “You followed Rire into the kitchen” ending because I panicked when I saw it was a timed choice. Once I actually read the options, I got the attic ending.

Yeah, Chai got a prosthetic arm. It’s wicked cool

Yeah, Peppermint lost a leg. There’s some potential lore there

Yeah, almost everyone else has Vandelay parts but we never even learn why or if they’re just meant as enhancements. For example, does Zanzo have the neural implants just to get his ideas out of his head faster or because he needs that accommodation? It’s never addressed because it doesn’t really matter

The game never makes disability or accommodation feel weird, out of place, or negative. It just…is

HOWEVER, Chai is blamed for being “defective.” Throughout the game he is reduced to being known as “the defect” that needs to be wiped out (or experimented on/with in Zanzo’s case).

None of this is Chai’s fault. It’s Kale who threw the music player into the Armstrong machine and yet Chai is blamed for it. At one point Rekka even says that HE ruined her perfect no defect record as if his existence was the mistake and it’s his fault.

Anyway, as a disabled person, I think this was a wonderful way to bring in ableism and what being disabled can look like in the world into the story while keeping the upbeat, fun vibe of the game.

Do I know how to blend colored pencils? Absolutely not.

He is so small? I knew he was skinny but I kept having to make his body smaller to better match the reference.

Robot arm makes brain happy.

Why are his pants up so high? I lowered the waist band a little bit because he looked like a grandma to me

…why is there a “Be my Valentine” mug in the Memory Zone?