---this is a freaky dream i had wherein i was watching a longplay of some obscure adventure game called Owl Barrel Industries
the game takes place in some kind of post-steampunk cyberpunk era where you are investigating the abandoned remains of the game's titular company. they were apparently known for producing lots of clothing items during the steampunk era, but the company's presence had ceased to exist for no apparent reason
throughout the game you would explore a lot of abandoned factories and laboratores, frequently encountering these beings which resemble puppets or crash test dummies. you would always find that these puppets have mild "injuries" all along thier bodies, such as claw marks or an area that's been slightly melted. if you spent too much time around one, you would learn that they are in fact alive and dangerous
at a certain point in the game, it is revealed that the company's owner had a weird fascination with hats that double as torture devices. there was one hat in particular which they wanted to make involving some substance i forget (nitrogen? napalm?) but attempting to perfect its design drove them insane. it is not known what excatly the puppet-like beings are, only that they are a byproduct of everything that went into making such hats
i just got out of another one of those sticky "chain dreams" where i keep waking up wondering if i'm actually awake or not. these are the situations i can remember from it:
- numerous times i was able to bring up some sort of pause menu with a blurry orange+black aesthetic to it. in the bottom right corner was a menu box with two options in it: "JILL" and "FORGOT", but i didn't have a cursor to select either
- one time i woke up to find my hair had been reduced to some awful-looking buzz cut. my father denied being the culprit so i pointed out that hair doesn't just vanish overnight and called him a transphobic piece of shit
- one of the sub-dreams involved me waking up in a car on a long drive with my father, and watching with worry as the ride grew progressively more chaotic and f-zero-like. cars were literally blinking in and out of existence in front of us prior to the road becoming all skate park-y and launching us into the abyss because we had too wide an angle going up a quarter-pipe
- there was yet another one of those "light sources refuse to work" dreams in this, but strangely the lights eventually turned on and then my father walked in. idr what we talked about but at some point i followed him out and then asked him why he rearranged the entire house while i was sleeping. i don't remember what his answer was, only that it sounded like he was trying to disguise the house so ~the evil spirits~ that had it out for us wouldn't be able to recognize us based on our furniture layout (???)
- i have the vaguest memory of a dream where we were visiting family and my cousins all wanted me to come outside and sing or something??? i spent this sub-dream avoiding them because a) i can't sing and b) i don't like my cousins very much