the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.
three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.
two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.
their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.
one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.
i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.
i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.
and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?
you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.
a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.
someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.
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So Greg Bryk regularly goes live on Instagram to chat with his followers and answer a few questions, and almost every time, someone asks if he’d like to play Joseph Seed again if he had the chance, to which he used to always reply that, yes, he absolutely would. However, in early 2022, he didn’t seem so sure anymore and said it would depend on the script (the question was specifically about a potential Far Cry 5 movie) and the writer(s). Then, a few months later, he implied he didn’t feel like playing the Father ever again because he thought the character’s story was “finished” and that Ubisoft should focus on creating new things instead…
Well, on October 14, 2023, he once again went live on Instagram and, when people mentioned Far Cry 5 in the chat, he revealed that he had reached out to Dan Hay and Drew Holmes, two of the game’s three main writers he’s become friends with, and that they had visited him “on set” (I’m not sure what he was shooting) the day before. In the past, he had already explained several times that he had loved working with them and thought the story they wrote (along with “JS”, Jean-Sébastien Décant, the game’s third main writer) was fantastic. This time, he added that Far Cry 5 was really “special” to him because the writers “cared a lot” about creating something great with amazing characters, and that he thought the whole Seed family was really well-written.
A few minutes later, when he was asked which character he would like to play again if he could, he said it was hard for him to choose because he loves them all, but he eventually picked Jeremy Danvers (Bitten) and Cobbs Pond (Frontier).
Then, surprisingly, he also mentioned Joseph.
I don’t know why he changed his mind again or if the fact he contacted Dan Hay (who doesn’t work for Ubisoft anymore) and Drew Holmes (who recently became the new IP Director for Far Cry) means anything, and I’m not sure I want more Far Cry 5 content to be released anyway (for continuity reasons), but I guess the Seed family’s return, as equally exciting and truly terrifying as this eventuality sounds to me, isn’t completely out of the question anymore in Greg Bryk’s mind!
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Anyway. Fun thing while I'm still stuck in brain fog land.
Trans Femme Freddy from a while back. Ya know, Francine Fazbear? Now that I like to give Freddy and Roxy a 'fuck you. FUCK YOU TOO' kind of relationship, there's some new layers to Francine to explore.
My Roxy is trans. She has a fun gender, and she does what she likes. She is not male or female, she's not a man or a woman, she's not a secret third thing, she's just Roxy. That's it. She has problems with the gendered aspects of her body, and if she's able to change that? She's very well supported and is clearly over the moon about it.
She said she liked any pronouns, but still favoured she/her and there was no name change. She didn't want any of that! She's always been Roxy! She just gets to decide what that looks like now! She can be as masc or as femme or as gender neutral as she wants! She will do whatever she wants and still be Roxy! By the time this stuff happens, she's been dealing with this gender stuff for so long, and understandably, kept the majority of her thoughts and feelings about it all to a very close circle of friends. Of which Freddy is not a part of.
Now, if we take Freddy and sail him down the river towards Francine, in my head, I get something that'd be interesting to explore in a fic of sorts.
After Roxy is free to do whatever she wants with her presentation, and makes a few changes to her body she's wanted, it gets Freddy thinking. He's barely seen the tip of the iceberg of her gender related problems, but now that he really thinks about it, the few issues he did see start to make sense. Truth be told, Freddy has always struggled a lot with his own assigned gender, something he's vaguely expressed to Bonnie and Chica, but never said outright. He never let himself wonder what he could be. He never took the time to really consider what he wanted because it would never be possible. There would be no point. All he knows, is that he's not a boy. He's not a man. He's not a dad or a boyfriend either. Those words just don't fit. A lot of things just don't fit, but there's nothing he can do about it.
But Roxy has just shown him something can be done. He's there in the group as she briefly talks about how she feels about it all, saying that she doesn't know exactly how she wants to present, but that she's got ideas for days and she's ready to see what sticks. He's there when she talks about the various attempts to do something like this before (against Fazbear Entertainment's wishes) that have gone South, and even remembers a few of those instances himself. He'd never understood why she did those things and he'd wondered at the time why she clammed up and gone completely quiet when he confronted her about damages, rule breaking or going against the company. Normally, she would have told him straight away why she'd done something. She was always loud and proud but not in the moments she talks about. Now Freddy gets it. For once, Roxy makes sense to him. He gets it.
And he doesn't like it.
He's staring at himself in the mirror. He's worried, he's nervous, and he keeps thinking about how Roxy did it. How Roxy is happier now. How she said she took her time, went slowly with it and had DJ and the Minis he very rarely sees behind her every step of the way. How Roxy has what Freddy wants but not quite.
He tries not to think too hard about it. Convincing himself that it's still not possible. He's Freddy Fazbear! He can't be anything but Freddy Fazbear! That's just how it is! It's not going to change!
But he keeps thinking. The questions keep coming and the answers aren't there. The words 'boy' and 'boyfriend' and 'man' start sticking more. He can see Roxy getting referred to as a boy sometimes, with he/him pronouns, they/them and even some random ones he's never heard of and he's starting to get so fucking jealous and it spikes every time she smiles after someone uses she/her for her. He wants so badly not to be bothered by any of this, but he is and it's starting to hurt when there's someone right there that might have the answers he's looking for... but fucking hellfire does he hate her. He's painfully aware that feeling is mutual.
He can't just go to Roxy. They're not even allowed to be left alone in the same room together after they got into an actual, physical fight a few years back. The tension has dwindled since then, but it's never left. They still fucking hate each other. That will never change, he's sure.
But no one else has the answers. No one else could possibly have the answers. No one else has done it before. He wants to know what he's feeling is okay. He wants to know that there's an option and he needs someone to be there that understands. But he'd rather die than rely on Roxy, and he's sure she'd rather die than help him. He's certain that out of everyone, she'd be the one to turn him away. He's certain she'd use it as her next backhanded compliment, or ammunition in their next sniping match. Why wouldn't she? She uses everything else against him, and he's just as guilty of it, so he won't ask. He won't say a word. He'll watch, he won't be sad, he won't think about it, and he'll occasionally seethe with frustration and envy right beneath the surface.
Until it's just too much.
Freddy was there when some bigotted parent started shouting. That this gender stuff is a game. It's all a money making scheme. It's all nonsense and it's just a phase. They shouldn't be encouraging any of it! Why can't they just be normal about it? It's making kids believe it's okay to throw their lives away because everyone else is doing it! I mean, what's next? Freddina Fazbearella? He says nothing. For the first time in his life, violence feels like the only good response. The thought scares him, and he does nothing.
Roxy steps in. She laughs in their face with all the confidence in the world and says "Lady, gender is a race and I'm winning. Don't be a sore loser now!" and a few minutes of her taking the abuse with a smirk on her face later, they're removed to the sound of applause. Little kids that had barely paid Roxy any attention before were suddenly enamoured. She's not a boy or a girl?? You can just be anything???? Wow!!! That's so cool!!! Suddenly she has a group of little kids, trading dolls and toy trucks and playing a game called Anything where they can be anyone they want. Chica and Sunny are there now, rallying them to play dress up and have fun with who they are and Freddy just watches on in silence. Little boys in dresses are princesses of the castle, little girls are racing trucks with fake moustaches. Two kids swapped names and shirts. They're all encouraged to try everything and find what they want to be and the game is so full of fun and laughter. He leaves when no one is looking. He has a lot to think about. Is it really that easy?
No, he decides. It's not. That's a simplified version for the kids. Roxy didn't teach them about her issues, or walk them through any feelings. She just taught them to be themselves, like she's always done in her own way. Would she do the same for him? He doesn't think so... but that person's words are on loop in his head. He can't just ignore this anymore. What he felt in that moment wasn't who he is, he can't let it go on like this. So he takes the gamble.
He shows up after hours. She's on the roof of her salon playing her keytar. She's not supposed to be up there... A Mini Music Man alerts her that he's there and he remembers she's territorial. She doesn't like anyone walking in after hours unnanounced. Monty's the same. She sets her keytar aside and leaps down. He can already tell she's angry and he wonders for the millionth time today if he's made a mistake. He hears her growling and demanding to know what he's doing on her turf, she barely tolerates him during the day, and he wants to answer 'Nothing. I am sorry to have bothered you.' but he doesn't. For once he can't say a word. He doesn't know where to start. He's frozen and while he wants to back out, he can't move. She gets louder and he notices the Minis have pretty much vanished. Are they scared too...? She gets closer, gets in his face and asks if he's fucked up his ears or something. She jabs at him and he can't keep the impassive mask in place. He expects her to grab him, to drag him out of her territory like she's done a few dozen times before...
Instead, Roxy pauses. She looks him up and down and takes a few steps back with narrowed eyes. She looks around and suddenly looks uneasy. "You're alone." she says. "I am." he answers. She's expecting the worst, he's sure. A death, or something, perhaps. "Why." It's not even a question. It's a command. It kicks something in his head and suddenly five words spill out of him and he turns his head down to glare at the floor and brace himself for whatever her repsonse may be.
"I am not a boy." He'd said. He's not sure if he wants to cry, melt into the floor or just be happy he's finally said it. There's such a long silence. He's never felt afraid to look before.
"You're not...?" She sounds utterly lost and he shakes his head. Why does she sound like that? Does she not know this feeling? He was certain she would! "Okay... so... w-why are you telling me...? Of all people??" she asks. He looks up and she recoils in shock at what must be a mess of emotion on his face, a far cry from the controlled mask he always wears with her. Never before has he felt so exposed and so afraid of what he's doing.
"What do I do?" He feels like he's almost begging. Perhaps he is. He's been ignoring this for so long, he needs an answer. What does he do now?
Roxy's face falls thoughtful. She leaves him waiting for a while, and for once, he's glad she's taking the time to find her words. She sighs and nods to herself. He's left staring in confusion as she turns and walks towards the salon entrance. She looks back at him after he doesn't move and gestures more pointedly for him to follow. And follow he does. Without a word. She takes him into the back, through a door he noticed behind the shelves before, and into the warmly lit tunnel system of play areas he's never really been in before. They sit in a comfy, surprisingly cosy spot and she starts to talk, or more accurately, starts prompting him to talk.
It's awkward. It's difficult. He's never struggled to articulate himself before but he is now. She doesn't just hear him like she always does. She listens. She nods, and offers comparisons so she can clarify what he's saying and it's like she knows and like she gets it. She tells him that nothing will leave this spot that he doesn't want to take with him and while they've never been close and he's never truly taken the time to know her, he knows she'll keep this promise to the bitter end. Like he knows she always does. She answers when he asks about her own experiences, but noticeably keeps it brief to focus on him. A few things suddenly seem obvious to him, while others still make no sense, and she stops him every time he insists he can't be who he feels he truly is. He fumbles a few times, says he shouldn't be telling her this and she just shrugs and tells him this isn't exactly something she thought she'd be doing either, but now that he's here, she wants to do it. He didn't believe her, but he's still here. And so is she, her full attention on him.
He doesn't get an answer to his question. She can't give him that, he's learned. Yet, he leaves Roxy's territory a little lighter than when he went in. He's learned a lot, about himself and Roxy too. He wonders as he walks if maybe Bonnie rubbed off on her just a little bit. Or maybe she's not as bad as he's always believed she was...
And maybe she's right. If gender is a race, then maybe it's about time he got off the starting line.
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