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"I wanted to live with you. That was all I wanted."

Fatal Frame 5 : Maiden of Black Water (remaster 2021)

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so this is a wip im doin for an animatic! Sorry for the bad quality of the image lolz

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sorry but i cant ignore this

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drew this one on a magma yesterday wahoo yay

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miu fatal frame....

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Fatal Frame 5 and Transgender Oblivion

So I recently finished Fatal Frame V and got obsessed with it. The game ended up haunting me a little, and I wanted to write up a little essay about one of the characters- Rui.

Before going into it, a warning for discussion of suicide and death, esp. regarding gender and sexuality.

Ren Hojo is one of the playable characters in the game, and the main focus of his story is his responsibility to become a ghost groom (ok, technically it's less his responsibility than his ancestor, but no reason to explain the entire plot). The ghost marriage requires joining with a maiden who became a pillar.

Pillars give up their lives to hold back the "Black Water", death itself. They accept their own death, but spend their unlife tortured by images of pain and loneliness. The one solace they have is ghost marriage- a living groom joining them in their deathly responsibility. Ren must decide if he's willing to become a ghostly groom. Only women can become pillars- even if men have the same psychic powers they are never able to become pillars.

Ren has visions of the maidens and is fearful of them, leading to him being anxious and unable to handle women seeing him. Rui is the lone exception, though that's something of a misnomer- the developers say that prior to the events of the game "they were living life as a man", and their outfit in the game is clearly boyish. The developer interview I read implied a non-binary identity is most accurate for the character.

Rui is drawn by the ghosts toward suicide a few times, but is saved by Ren. Rui eventually falls in love with Ren, though their diary says they are fine with the relationship as it is. "They enjoy the ambiguity" supposedly. This is an obvious lie; the ghosts on the mountain seduce Rui into becoming a pillar through the promise of entering a ghost marriage with Ren. But only women can become pillars- Rui must become a ghost Bride.

/Image here from game-- Rui in mirror as bride/

Much of the creepy atmosphere in this section of the game comes from seeing this disconnect. It feels wrong for Rui to remove their tie and pants for wedding regalia and makeup. Rui is bound between worlds- the desire to be with Ren against their own self. It seems impossible for Rui to be with a man without (de)transforming themselves into a woman.

In the end, that is just another form of Suicide. To be with Ren is to die. Rui must be destroyed utterly to be appropriate in the Heterosexual matrix. This is Transgebder oblivion: the desire to destroy ones self to become legible by an outside world that can't understand them. But Rui is saved from this fate- Ren rejects this proposal. He takes Rui out of the mountain and keeps them away from it. The last moment we see in the game is Ren watching Rui after a nightmare, and reassuring them that it's safe to sleep.

Rui's worries are not gone- the force bringing them to womanhood is still ever present. But there is still hope- they are still fighting oblivion. This is the most prominent theme of the work. Even in the bad endings, ones wounds and pain and loneliness are shared and not rejected.

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