I have always found myself interested in art that pushes the boundaries of reality, art that questions the notions set in place by tradition. Throughout all mediums, especially video games, there has been a constant attraction towards that which is absurd, abstract or insane. It was not until realizing my identity as a trans woman that I began to dissect these ideas.
The phrase “truth is stranger than fiction” gets thrown around by pseudo-intellectuals excessively. I, however, feel it’s an aphorism that is useful to scrutinize in this examination. The quote suggests two separate worlds: truth, the world we experience and that which is physically manifested; and fiction, the worlds created as a part of human expression. The phrase, perhaps unintentionally, draws a border between truth and fiction—two worlds that can interact, but never mix. Taking art (or fiction) to its logical extreme would mean the replication of truth, but just off by enough to be noticeable. Thus comes the uncanny, the meeting point between truth and fiction wherein reality is made unreal.
My favorite video game ever made is Yume Nikki, a game that falls between being uncanny and entirely incomprehensible. The 2004 indie RPG developed by the mononymous Kikiyama is about exploring the dreams of a girl named Madotsuki, who refuses to leave her bedroom. The game makes use of absurd imagery and has no discernable plot or purpose, with the only set goal being to collect items that allow Madotsuki to change form. The rejection of normative ideas of what constitutes a game is exactly what makes such a work intriguing to me. It dilutes the walls between truth and fiction. I can get lost in the unexplainable worlds of Yume Nikki just as I can get lost in a forest. The game transcends the traditional narrative structure common to most RPGs by creating a game based entirely around interpretation. In an ironic way, the dissonance between absurd truth and absurd fiction is exactly what makes them similar.
Shelby Criswell
While I reject the notion that I, as a trans person, was born in the wrong body, there is something to be said about the dissociative feeling that comes from viewing myself as something entirely different from what those around me see. To those who do not see my identity as valid, the body is truth and the self is the fiction. To those who see me as I truly am, truth and fiction are swapped. However, reducing human consciousness to such fickle terms creates issues, just as it does in the world of art. Furthermore, which is stranger? Strangeness is born from social norms, so it would be whichever is less socially acceptable. These social norms are built on community, and there isn’t a single community that decides what is normal. There might be a culturally dominant community in this country—cishet white men—but I am no cishet white man. Why should I be judged by their standards?
Every time I play Yume Nikki there is a sense of unmatched freedom. I know every dream world by heart, every obscure event and character, and yet I still feel drawn to play it. My identity as a trans woman doesn’t act as the single reason I love the game, though. I find the history of its creation fascinating, and I love the community who play it. I find the use of its medium to be boundary pushing, even 20 years after its release. However, when I think of the emotional core of my experience with the game, there is something inseparable from who I am as a person, which makes sense for a game that offers no direct meaning. It is abstraction at its peak; it doesn’t make sense, but because the mind craves sense in the senseless, it reflects the viewer, and by proxy, reality itself.
Who am I, then? If reality is unknowable, how am I (my consciousness) to know that I (my identity) exist? This is the question I found myself asking as I came to accept my gender identity, which was around the same time I began playing Yume Nikki. While questioning who I was, I was also asking “what the hell am I playing?” I was questioning both truth and fiction, and I ultimately found an explanation: While Yume Nikki and other abstract works expanded my definition of fiction, I never thought to expand my definition of truth. I was trapped in a state that was limited by my preconceived notions of not only art, but of reality, of myself, of my gender.
There is the fatal flaw in the statement that truth is stranger than fiction. To impose a universal truth on either truth or fiction prevents the two worlds from being at peace with each other. It prevents either from influencing the other, for through separation both are made into vacuums of regurgitated ideas. Art has allowed me to question the norms imposed on reality, has allowed me to question myself, has allowed me to question my preconceived notions of sex and gender. At last I am myself, and I am truth.
