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lauren-ce · 4 months ago

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"A Nightmare at Green Lake" is a Queer Coming-Out Story

[This essay has a PDF version; the images are crisper there]

I'm probably nine months late to this particular party, but I just finished the excellent Reverse: 1999 event "A Nightmare at Green Lake" and wanted to make a case for reading it as a story about coming out, focusing on Blonney and her repressed sexuality. It's a love letter to horror films, and a love letter to girls that love girls. Crucially, it is more the latter than the former; Green Lake is a coming-out story that uses the horror film trappings as a storytelling device, not a hard and fast rule. Spoilers for the entire event.

(All my screenshots are taken from this video, which does a wonderful job capturing the entire event.)

The inciting incident in Green Lake began years before. Jennifer visits the camp regularly as a child, writing horror stories in her diary and reading them to Jessica, who loves them. Then, Jennifer suddenly has to move away, and thus, the Incident takes place.

Blonney/Jennifer threw her diary into the lake when she was forced to leave, drowning three things:

1). Her horror stories and love of horror

2). Her acceptance of her identity as an Arcanist

3). Her gay-ass self

She joins human society despite being Different and tries to blend in. She changes her name to Blonney, feigns an interest in fashion, and conforms to social norms. "Monstrous and forbidden" becomes a theme in this event which describes horror, but it also describes queer identity (this will be important later). Blonney discards her identity, drowning it in the lake.

Now allow me the rest of this rambling essay to make a point for that third thing (and to make the case that "loving horror" and "being an Arcanist" is the same thing as "being gay"). Throughout the first half of the event, we see Blonney consistently reject her love of horror movies. She calls them cliche and stupid, easy to make and low-class. Despite secretly loving them, she's built up a persona that isn't allowed to like horror.

Yet she takes an awful lot of offense to criticism of her script. . .

Anne, a recent hire to replace a sick member of Blonney's film crew (who is secretly Jessica in disguise), is mistreated by Blonney for being a naive, small-town country bumpkin that doesn't know anything. Within the movie that Blonney is shooting, Anne is typecast as the "Virgin": Christian, unassuming, sheltered, in contrast to Blonney's "Blondie": indulgent, vain, etc.

Oops, are the characters in the fake movie they're shooting maybe perhaps based on their real-world counterparts???

A contrast is drawn between the two by Blonney and the narrative at first. Throughout the rest of the event, the distance between them and their character archetypes will crumble. The important thing to remember is that Anne/Jessica is a representation of everything Blonney has rejected about herself.

As actual horror-movie type events begin to happen to the group, the characters are genre-savvy enough to realize they're in a horror story. The culprit, though this isn't revealed until later, is Anne/Jessica. She's an Arcanist and has been using her shapeshifting abilities to make a horror movie happen to the group. Ironically, the group looks to Anne as the "Last Girl", the pure and unsullied one that will survive the night.

In actuality, this is a false flag. Since Anne is Jessica is the Monster, she can't be the Last Girl.

The Last Girl is actually Blonney:

I spoiled it already, but the viewer doesn't learn until the halfway point that Blonney is actually from the area, having grown up and making frequent visits. This is why she sees herself in Anne, a gay girl from a small town. Game recognize game, gay recognize gay. Blonney uses a fake name for a fake identity. Jessica sees her actual self, and calls her Jennifer. This isn't a deadnaming, Anne/Jessica sees Blonney as she truly is deep down. Though Blonney doesn't realize it, Anne cuts her to her core, which directly leads to her mistreatment.

Anne's peculiar interactions with Blonney are some of the first hints we get of the true narrative: Why is Anne so nice to her, despite the way she's treated? And more importantly, how would Anne, a newcomer to Blonney's film crew, know Blonney's real name/true identity? Blonney certainly never would've told her, she rejects her own identity, after all. This is a big nod to the true workings of the plot. Anne knows more than what she lets on. Why does Blonney not realize that Anne knows more than she should? Because Blonney is actively trying to reject that part of her—she's blind to it. If she were to acknowledge that Anne knows her true self, then the story would already be over.

On top of rejecting her love of horror, Blonney also rejects her identity as an Arcanist. This identity alienates her from her friends—they consider her a peer up until the horror story begins happening to them. The very second it is no longer convenient, they reject her as one of them and other her. The only member of her original film crew that doesn't reject her for being an Arcanist is, you guessed it, Anne.

However much you despise us, many brilliant playwrights are Queer. I mean—"Arcanists".

Horror events continue happening: a butcher chases around members of the group and monsters attack others. Vertin (R1999's main character), along with Horrorpedia, Sonetto, and Tooth Fairy, provide support, killing monsters and moving the plot along. In many of the monsters the groups find notes, pieces of paper that begin to tell a story—stories within the story. Using their knowledge of horror tropes, the main characters stay alive while Blonney's human film crew seemingly perishes at the hands of the various monster assailants.

After one such attack, Tooth Fairy (an Arcanist), gives first aid to Blonney. During the scene the two have a small argument. Tooth Fairy refuses to use Arcanist medicine to treat Blonney, because Blonney sees herself as a human. This gives Blonney a chance at some introspection, her first time opening up during this event.

Even Blonney's blood knows the truth she's suppressed.

All this happens while Tooth Fairy treats her wounds. Interesting that they're on her inner thigh, hmmm? A MILFy doctor rendering first aid to a girl's inner thighs while explaining that she's rejecting her own identity? I'm sure there's nothing to read into here.

As the plot progresses, Anne repeatedly risks her life to save Blonney. She leaps from a car to save her from a monster, and she later kills the butcher that's been chasing them. This earns her Blonney's trust, which leads to the big, plot-turning confession. At the halfway mark, Blonney is able to sit down with Anne/Jessica and confides in her.

A gay awakening ensues: Blonney feels down about her loss of identity, wanting to reclaim her love of horror. Her facade, she explains, is just that. Blonney threw away her identity as a horror-loving Arcanist in an effort to integrate with society. This conversation takes place after a danger has just been defeated, yet is one of the emotional climaxes. Blonney begins to want to accept her true identity. Throughout, Jessica repeatedly praises Blonney, telling her how amazing and wonderful she is, all the while the two cuddle on a couch.

*Does a gay little hair flip after holding hands. "You can be rougher with me, you know."

To her horror, the rest of the group hears. They had this discussion in the same room, after all, but in contrast to Blonney's old friend group, her new friends support her wholeheartedly. Then, Tooth Fairy hands Blonney the symbol of her self-actualization: her diary, which she'd found in the attic (yes, the same diary that had been thrown into the lake!!! Blonney has now retrieved her diary, her love of horror, and her identity as an Arcanist, all the things she threw away as a child.

Blonney retrieves her diary, which represents suppressed homosexuality through multiple metaphors, and achieves self-actualization thanks to her supportive friend group and a girl with a massive crush on her. The Monstrous and Forbidden are now part of her. Now the gay things really step up.

What happens next is a direct result of Blonney coming to terms with her queerness: a woman in a wedding dress shows up and attempts to marry her.

Monstrous and Forbidden, all in one package.

The woman is a zombie (because we're working with horror tropes, yeah?) but the message couldn't be more clear. Blonney has opened up to Anne/Jessica about loving horror (being queer). Now Blonney must face what that means. Consider: the corpse bride searches for her beloved (literally another bride, this could not be more fucking clear). Who is to play bride to the corpse bride? It's Blonney! The corpse bride forces Blonney down and puts a wedding ring onto her finger. The narrative has allowed Blonney to come out—now it will test her resolve.

The corpse bride is a mixed bag of metaphors. Textually, the corpse bride is a character from the horror story written in Blonney's diary. She was killed by her husband and searches for him so she can place the wedding ring back on his finger. Metatextually, the bride represents Jessica: Blonney abandoned her, effectively "killing" her. Now the scorned bride searches for her lost love.

To sum up: Jessica=Corpse Bride:

1). She searches for her lost love every night (Jessica misses Blonney)

2). She wears a hempen collar (brides don't wear collars, but Jessica does)

Blonney rises to the challenge, she defeats the corpse bride with her newfound arcanist powers, and the group pieces together the clues that the bodies carry. Her new friends are proud of her!

Horrorpedia (annoying fuckwad that he is) nicely sums up the message: by embracing their identities, they can fight back.

All the horror story clues lead to the dead body in the water. "But wait," you say, "Green Lake doesn't feature a dead body in the water." Wrong! Blonney was dead all along, remember? The corpse is Blonney's diary! Her dead body is the horror-loving gay self she killed when she threw her diary into the lake to reject her identity!

More plot happens; the story reaches a climax with Blonney using her magic to aid the group's escape from a lighthouse. On the same shore that Blonney first told Jessica all her horror stories, the same shore she killed her identity on, they confront Jessica, now revealed as the Monster. This whole plotline is the result of Blonney rejecting her identity; now is the time to make everything right.

Jessica is proud of Blonney becoming her true self. However, she's also tired of waiting for her. She's tired of being alone. Jessica offers Blonney a life of bliss: a soft bed of moss for them to share, the sweetest forest fruits, and monsters to keep her company.

When Blonney refuses to live at Green Lake forever with her, it's taken as a rejection. A fight ensues—Blonney and her group win, but the emotional arc of the story has yet to resolve.

Blonney has a chance to reject her queer identity once more. She both does and doesn't. Blonney accepts the monstrous and forbidden by accepting Jessica, a literal monster, and her queerness, the Forbidden. She rejects the monstrous and forbidden by asking Jessica to come with her, to rejoin society, to hide their identities as Arcanists (queer) and live together. Jessica rejects this. She will not be closeted. (The fear she feels at being outed as an arcanist is very similar to the fear of being outed as queer in a hostile society, eh?) This of course puts Blonney under duress—how can the story end happily?

Vertin comes in with a grenade of an offer: Jessica can come stay in the St. Pavlov Institute with her and learn to coexist with people like her. She can live with people that don't see her as weird, despite being monstrous (queer), an Arcanist (queer), and a lover of horror (queer). Vertin hasn't done much up to this point outside of moving the plot along and fighting monsters; this is her time to shine, and she shines like the lesbian lodestar we know her to be. Her conversation with Jessica is tinged with language that could easily be read as romantic, but Vertin isn't here to steal anyone's girl, she's here to offer a happy ending for everyone that guarantees the goal of each party is fulfilled. Vertin's presence is what allows this story to ultimately break free from its horror trappings. Her third option is not a compromise; it is the ending we wanted.

And what an ending it is! It's happy and good in every possible way it could be. The happiness of the ending is a large part of why I call this a coming-out story primarily rather than a horror tale. A slasher film like the ones this event draws inspiration from would see Blonney (the true Final Girl) as the only survivor of her group, still running from the monster and her own self. Instead, all her friends survive, having been held captive in Jessica's den. Blonney comes into her own; she and Jessica reconcile—we get the gay end!

Blonney leaves to finish college as a self-actualized queer woman; Jessica acheives her wish of never being alone and joins the institute to gain an education herself. I have no doubt that they will reunite, and soon: the entire plot of R1999 is Vertin recruiting every arcanist she can to ensure their safety from the Storm. Blonney's future leads directly to St. Pavlov. (For further supporting evidence, see her voice line about taking Jessica for a walk! Even before Blonney graduates, they get to be togetherrrrrrrrrrr!)

Even if you don't play R1999, please please check out this event. It has a lot to say, and it's one of my favorite things I've read all year. The soundtrack fucking whips, and it goes far in helping balm the weeping wound of the tragic yuri that is Vertin/Schneider.

Again, give some love to the video that made this document possible.

I've rambled long enough, so I'll let Tooth Fairy wrap this up with a bow: Love Wins