Artio's The Babyface Saga

First of all: look at my werewolf Build-a-Bear. Isn't he cute? His name is Strawberry Lemonade. Second of all: band merch! Artio sadly don't have shirts in my size (though they would fit after top surgery), so I support them by getting as much of the other kinds of merch as possible. I'm still waiting on the Babyface vinyl and I'll definitely get the CD when it drops, but this post is about the graphic novel.

I did some analysis of The Babyface Saga on my tumblr when I first got it. I'm going to copypaste it here (with swearing removed):

I just got Artio's graphic novel of the Babyface saga in the mail today and it's so good! I process things slowly so it helped me with a lot of the details I missed from the music videos. It also seems to confirm a theory of mine; Pyrokid is a representation of the singer, Rae's, pre-transition self.

Like, obviously both Pyrokid and Babyface are played by Rae but while Babyface is only ever referred to by they/them pronouns, one of the Red Spider Lillies calls Pyrokid "that pyro girl." This could just be an instance of transphobia from a minor antagonist, but given this verse of Babyface i think there's more to it:

"And if you think she's still alive

That girl is dead to me

Do I gotta be in the ground before you let me be?

I know we share the same blood but go by different names

If it's the last thing I do, you'll bow to babyface"

I don't believe it's a coincidence that Pyrokid and Babyface, being played by the same person, quite literally share the same blood while going by different names. Pyrokid, having been murdered by the Red Spider Lilly mafia, is a girl that's dead to Babyface. Pyrokid was even found dead holding a piece of paper that says "if it's the last thing I do, you'll bow to Babyface" and then the coffin, which previously read "Pyrokid 2001 - 2021" changes to read "Babyface 2021 - " with the death date missing.

So Babyface is a representation of Rae's current self, an out and proud nonbinary person, and Pyrokid is a representation of Rae's past self, who has realised enough to know they prefer the gender neutral "kid" over the gendered "girl" but perhaps hasn't realised they're trans yet.

And who killed Pyrokid? The Red Spider Lilly mafia are led by a man named Lyrocis, which is an anagram of the scientific name for the genus that contains spider lilies. I believe it's a deliberate choice to change Lycoris to Lyrocis to show us who really killed Pyrokid: cis society.

The unnamed member of the Red Spider Lillies who referred to Pyrokid as "that pyro girl" is an example of cis society's obsession with gendering everything even when an ungendered alternative ("kid") is directly provided. Cis society sorts you into a box the instant you're born, then harshly punishes you if you fail or refuse to conform. As this verse of Babyface says:

"Sorry I will not remain

Trapped inside a little cage

Running on a wheel until you kill me

When your feelings change"

I believe that in this case "running on a wheel" represents trying to comply with the standards and expectations forced upon you by cis society. Even if you do your absolute best to meet the standards of the gender you were assigned at birth, it's never enough. Women are never feminine enough and men are never masculine enough to truly satisfy society. This metaphorically kills people inside by causing depression which can lead to suicide, but also literally; people viewed as "female" are often murdered for not being "enough of a woman" or the "right kind" of woman.

I'm very grateful that in Rae's case, this death is a metaphor for transformation. I've only been a fan for a bit under a year, but I already can't imagine my life without Artio's music! Thank you for choosing to share The Babyface Saga ❤️