You have the right to remain silent. Whatever you say can and will be used against you [in a court of law.]
It’ll be used against you whether you are in a legal situation or not, I’ve come to find out. Anything I choose to impart on another individual seems to be willfully misinterpreted and then gossiped about endlessly. Even my actions, which mystify people, have this effect.
My actions, however, generally speak of altruism. For example, I walked out on my aunt’s diner, leaving her to pick up the pieces after injecting it with an enthusiasm and niceties that it’d never seen before. She wanted me to be a slave, doing all the labor and selling all the food stuffs, just because she had signs nobody saw or read full of items that weren’t the new things I brought to the store to sell. Nobody knew she had pie. Nobody knew she had hot dogs and all the fixings, which I figured would be popular as a snack type item. Nobody knew she had egg salad croissant sandwiches. Nobody knew she had “sticky bun” style French toast. I sold it all and I was capable of making all the food; she’d said she needed a cook. She needs her head checked, is what she needs.
That woman extracted 70 hours of work out of me in a single week, no days off, and zero real breaks. Any time I was sitting down, she was talking inventory. I got to eat three times during all the time I spent in the diner that week. I can’t eat anything I took in to try to show her that Sam’s Club could inevitably become her new supplier for most things. I was going to urge her to keep Maple Vale for non-perishable items and simply buy them in bulk. Her, on the other hand, she was obsessed with their muffins. Those muffins have been sitting in little plastic clam shells in a freezer for months, I’d bet. They hardly sell, maybe three or four week. She calls that a big seller. She doesn’t even always make people pay for their coffee.
I’m tired now like I was working the diner for my aunt. Getting less sleep than I ought to just to get up early enough to… God knows what. Today, I went to Wegmans, never setting eyes on the grey-eyed wolf. He daydreams about me all the time but he won’t chase me, it would seem. I asked him where he went in ethereal today and he told me he should be in charge of chasing, so I told him to stuff it and started moving on. He’s not exactly pleased with that, but since his version of chasing is staring at me with a neutral expression, I’m out.
I need a man with a sexy smile, what can I say?
It’s not even really a neutral expression, it’s more like a minorly disgruntled expression. Like he’s got a tension he never relaxes from, probably a minor but persistent pain in his body.
Good riddance, though. I don’t need a man who talks the talk and never walks the walk.
I thought the grey-eyed wolf called me to Wegmans, that’s why I went… I haven’t seen him since right before my birthday, honestly. [What is he doing, thinking about me so much if he’s not going to do anything about it? I mean, seriously, about 2/3 of every day, he’s sitting in my brain, trying to talk to me. I’m not the one thinking of him at all, either, because it interrupts my TV shows and stuff. I seriously want to finish Love Between Fairy and Devil, dammit. Plus, those dudes are hot and they all have long hair. <3]
But who did I see instead of the wolf? A lot of people, as it turns out, and one lonely moth flying at the overhead lighting over and over… but more than even that, I saw the guy I call Bob in my head. His name more than likely isn’t Bob, but he needs a name to remain perfectly human. The first step to de-humanization is calling people terrible things. I could call him ‘handsome man,’ but all the men are handsome to someone, just like all women are beautiful to someone.
“Bob” is autistic. I can only tell because of how much care and diligence he puts into every action. He actually nearly ran into me and/or my cart one day, putting out deli goods in display cases. I was trying to walk past him and he spun to his left very quickly and we nearly collided. This was several months ago, of course, before his shift changed, by the looks of it. My eyes get drawn to him like magnets, animal that I be, so I see only him even though there’s a sea of men buzzing like drones in that deli. [I mean, obviously I am aware other people exist, it’s just that my eyes do not linger on anyone but him.]
Is this what people are talking about when they say someone is hot? I’m autistic too, but we’re asking for a friend.
He calls me Aurora in my head. Either I imagine it or he’s there, but I’ve never likened myself to a princess since I was like 7 and even then I wanted to be She-Ra. And I can’t remember ever wanting to be Sleeping Beauty, she’s so passive in nature. So subservient. I’m more like the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, except less prone to being a jerk. I’ll just walk my own way, thanks.
And in other psychic news, the man I proposed to quite some time ago, who ultimately ghosted my dumb ass, finally misses me and wants me back. I entertain myself by slicing him to ribbons with an imaginary katana, but he continues to return, unabashed. He gets real angry and throws temper tantrums, which is very unlike me. He might be my anger in disguise, I guess, but why would he take on that persona? Why would he imitate this loser who decided his anger was more important than my impending fucking doom? Srsly. Dude. You should be the little red guy from Inside Out instead. Much prettier.
That’s right… the man ain’t pretty. They don’t have to be, you know, in order to be men. They need to know themselves and their boundaries and enforce those boundaries. And to be super men, they need to help others enforce their boundaries, too, especially in cases of sexual harassment, rape, and games of control (most notably with children.) We only win as a species if we advocate for one another, you know.
Real men have qualities you admire. Same with real women. Nobody needs to be pretty. That’s just vanity from the 21st century. It started in the 90s. I think I’m going to blame MTV, ultimately, for all the videos of lots of women swooning over rappers because they thought watching a dude say his piece alone on stage was too boring. [Fuck you, music industry whores, whoring out these amazing artists at their emotional and mental expense just to make a bigger buck. Ladies in those music videos, you oughtta be ashamed of yourselves putting yourself out there like a pig going to market. Men who ogle those ladies, you oughtta have your ass smacked until it’s sore and bloody so you understand this is not cool. The rest of you that just watch in abject horror: fuck you, too, for never speaking up against the start of the worst part of rape culture.]
MTV and the Spice channel, where they took out all the talking so you could get right to the fucking, amirite?
Playboy at least still tried to make it romantic. I don’t know about these days, but the channel definitely tried to encapsulate romantic love even though it was focusing on the sexual intercourse aspect of a relationship. There’s a sort of courtship going on, full of sexual intensity, until finally the people have their clothes off and are going at it. Unfortunately, men have taken instant gratification far too far and now we just have all that wham, bam, thank you ma’am crap. What the ever living fuck is wrong with you turds? You’re not even men. You’re boys. A real man can wait. A real man understands you need hand holding, kissing, hugging, and experience sharing in order to grow closer and closer, and then you let that lady knock your socks off, not the other way around.
It’s the only way not to be a rapist.
All rapists are children who never learned how to grow up. They can’t bear to accept the responsibility of someone else’s well-being, which is exactly what is necessary to form a lasting union. You wanna know why marriage doesn’t last? Boys latch onto momma’s teat and never let go. That’s why. They’re supposed to “leave and cleave.” It’s even in the fucking Bible. But you didn’t read that, did you, kiddies? No, the Bible is the devil now because it’s full of words you don’t understand and a message that only children hate to read: consent is the only way to be a good boy or girl, period.
Acting without consent of all parties involved will often get you murdered. People will admonish you, tarnish you, batter you, show ill will for you. They will talk about you behind your back to other people, trying to warn them that you’re not a goodly person because you don’t understand consent. At least, ladies do it. Boys don’t. Men ought to.
Here is what Crystal’s life would be like if boys talked to each other the way girls do:
All the men in the deli would know she’s single. Period. They’d know a lot of ladies are single by the simple fact that they never shop with anyone else, they don’t have rings on their hands, and they don’t look really all that happy all the time. They could flirt simply by smiling at the girls. That’s it. A SMILE. The girls would smile back if they liked the smile they were given, and then after about 30 repetitions of this, one of those guys would ask this girl out on a date. If he was a smart boy, he’d be exceedingly attracted to her rather than just looking for a quickie. He’d swoon after receiving her contact details and contact her right away to let her know he’s absolutely interested. He doesn’t just do this all the time, feeling endless women out so he has all the options in the world, he’s looking for one specific girl he finds hotter than all the rest of the girls. Once he’s got the girl, he’s going to put blinders on. He can see all the Angelina Jolies but they won’t move him, no. They will not be his blushing bride. They cannot compare simply because he’s attached to his woman. And why would he be attached to his woman?
Because she made him wait.
That’s the magic, ladies. Make them wait. Make them expand the space in their brains and put you in it. And then make them prove it. But how? How do we do it, this day in age?
Long-distance courtship. Correspondence, telephone chats, Discord chatting, texting… you can tell if he’s distracted, can’t you? Especially with texting… the texts come further and further apart with less substance. SO LOCK THAT ASS IN THE DOG HOUSE. Don’t text him for a fucking week. That’s how long it takes them to jump to the conclusion there’s another guy when it happened to you in 30 seconds. Unfair, innit? We feel so much anguish and pain over these dicks ignoring us when we want attention. So don’t let him get away with giving you shit attention. Lock him in the fucking dog house every single time you feel anything but happiness. Don’t be mean to him outside of the cold shoulder. He’ll know the difference, even if you’re giving him all your attention to do it.
If he won’t give you the attention you need, fuck it. Let that shit go. You’re better off being alone, working on some bad ass skill while you pretend you’re a Super Spy Dominatrix Barbie with me.
Let me break that down for you so it makes sense… because this is what I do. I break apart ideas like Crying Freeman and call it a show about Tattooed Ninja Pirates in Submarines. [Spoiler alert: it’s a hentai.] It’s an autism thing. I liked the first 2/3 of that series, by the way, but then it stopped being monogamous romantic and I tapped out. I don’t get why they had to ruin the character like that… The first episode is that Freeman refuses to kill a woman whose only wish was to know a man’s body and instead kidnaps her (rather willingly) and marries her. How fucking awesome is that? She touched his heart and he spares her to marry her (willingly) and have great sex with her. It’s like every woman’s dream, outside the part where she was threatened with an execution. [It’s her fault for painting an assassin, I assure you.]
So, anyway, I grew up with a tomboy mother, two brothers, and a Viet Nam vet with extreme P.T.S.D. My childhood consisted of a ton of G.I. Joe [YO JOE!!!!1], Danger Mouse [Crumbs, DM!], He-Man, Fraggle Rock, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [Heroes in a half shell!], Smurfs [just one girl, huh? weird…], Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers, VOLTRON!, Ghostbusters, Heathcliff, Gummi Bears, THUNDERCATS! [Thunder, thunder, thunder cats!], Reading Rainbow, Quantum Leap, The Labyrinth, Steve Urkel, Babar [aka Ba-boring], Inspector Gadget, Transformers, Teddy Ruxpin, Duck Tales, Super Mario Bros Show, The Flintstones, and a little bit of Jem. The Land Before Time, The Last Unicorn, The Muppet Show, Winnie the Pooh, Freakazoid, Beetlejuice, Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, Superman [Reeves], Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Scooby Doo! My Little Pony [the original]. Garfield, so much Garfield. The Black Cauldron, Sword in the Stone, Masters of the Universe, Pinocchio, The Flight of Dragons, Alice in Wonderland, Thundarr the Barbarian, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Project A-Ko, Tank Police, Popeye!, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, The Berenstain Bears [yawn], Richie Rich [yawn], The Fox and the Hound, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Gilligan’s Island, The Secret of Nimh <3, Mr. T, Ed Grimley, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, The Wizard of Oz, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Power Rangers, Johnny Bravo, Futurama, Beavis and Butthead, Family Guy, South Park, King of the Hill, Dexter’s Laboratory, Rugrats, Animaniacs! Batman, so much Batman. And, of course, X-Men. Space Ghost, Ren and Stimpy [what do you wanna drink? meeeeat.], Pinky & the Brain! Captain Planet. The Addams Family. Gargoyles! [Ah, Desdemona… you were so great.] Cow and Chicken. George of the Jungle, Mask, The Pagemaster, more TMNT, James and the Giant Peach, Mr. Magoo, Aladdin, Thumbelina, Cool World, 101 Dalmations [yawn], Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Balto, Tale Spin, Darkwing Duck! Pirates of Dark Water.
You might see a theme by now. Almost none of it is action-less. I certainly saw every Disney princess film but I didn’t care enough to watch it again and again. My brother, on the other hand, watched the same few things without end. Then, my nephew took over that slot, watching nothing but Batman and other boyish things for years. I think I’ve seen Mr. Freeze [a la Arnie] at least a hundred times. And yes, I know, the Keaton Batman is way better, even if it’s campy. In fact, I don’t mind campy, I like it. Cheesy and corny, too. It’s about the story they’re trying to tell.
I think I’ve seen everything Disney up until 2010ish, probably, at least once. I can’t say I’m overly familiar with the stories as Disney presents them. The only story I re-watched here and there was Alice in Wonderland. I have an obsession that’s probably unhealthy, leading me to own silly films like Malice in Wonderland and all three Disney films about Alice and a few that even include a rabbit on roller skates and such nonsense. The thing with Alice in Wonderland is that I feel lost like she does all the time. She’s got this outlook of everything is wondrous, so I tried to adopt that, it seems like she’s less perturbed that way. It works!
Oh you want more list of stuff I’ve ingested so you can figure out what’s wrong with me, eh?
Lion King. Some Hey Arnold!, Doug, A Goofy Movie [How many cups of sugar does it take to get to the moon?], Bobby’s World, Cat Dog, Antz, Fern Gully [Batty Rap!!!!! also ❤ Robin Williams <3], Mork and Mindy, Felix the Cat, Sylvester & Tweety, The Tick, Casper, Droopy, Speedy Gonzalez, The Critic [as painful as that animation was], Spawn, Bebe’s Kids, Arthur, Sabrina the teenage Witch, Madeline, The Neverending Story, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Snow White, Pocahontas, The Rescuers Down Under, Mickey’s Christmas, The Little Mermaid, Rock A Doodle, The Hulk [70s, I think? Not animated.], Swamp Thing, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Space Jam, Johnny Quest, Fantasia [yawn], The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Prince and the Pauper, The Tazmanian Devil, Mr. Bean, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Magic School Bus [the teacher is the best character], Invader Zim, The Maxx, Iria: Zeiram the Animation, Green Legend Ran, Demon City Shinjuku, Wicked City, Sin City, Akira [snooze fest], Ranma, Ninja Scroll, Heavy Metal, M.D. Geist, Elfen Lied [they saved a fortune on wardrobe], Armitage the Third, Record of Lodoss War.
James Bond is the reason I want to be a super spy. He seemed like he had all the cool toys and everybody loved him for being excellent in espionage and all that crap.
Godzilla. Krull. Dead Leaves.
I never really felt left out, but I definitely didn’t have too many characters to identify with or view as a role-model. As you can see, Disney Princesses pale in comparison to She-Ra and all those bad ass women in anime. They never carry a sword. I have been watching Nausicaa (the Americanized version) since about the same time I was seeing all the TMNT and Super Man and all that, though I have to tell you that the 1980s import of it leaves out one very important detail: THE TOXIC JUNGLE IS HUMANITY’S FAULT. Nausicaa is going into the jungle, collecting seeds, and growing them with clean soil and water, finding out that they’re not at all toxic in that environment. That’s why she’s there… but I bet you never asked yourself why she went to the jungle at all because we see her quest being interrupted by the warmongerers that target the Valley of the Wind.
Nausicaa is a willful young lady, to put it mildly, and she became my earliest role model of what a woman should be like in society at large. Regal, cool-tempered until family/friends are threatened… a honey badger, I suppose. The next best thing was She-Ra. At least she had a sword. Then people parade around Ariel and fawn over the red hair and I’m like, “So? She sacrifices herself for a dude. Get bent.” You know there’s a parallel here: she’s being raped and has no voice to say so. That’s what Ariel is teaching your little princess, Peach.
Ellcia. Excel Saga. Faeries’ Landing. Violet Evergarden. Thor. Grave of the Fireflies. Howl’s Moving Castle. Gunslinger Girl. Gurren Lagann. (dot)Hack. Lady Death. xxxHolic. KenIchi the Mightiest Disciple. Kiki’s Delivery Service [yawn-ish]. Legend of Crystania. Mezzo. Outlaw Star. Trigun. Paradise Kiss. Patlabor. Ragnarok. Saber Marionette J. Sekirei. Serial Experiments Lain. Seven Deadly Sins. Soul Eater. Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Spirited Away. Street Fighter. Tales from Earthsea. Altered Carbon. Blood+. Vampire Princess Miyu.
I was always more into music than I was cinema because my brother got to dictate everything. It wasn’t fair. My mother’s favorite phrase was, “Life isn’t fair!” She loved to use it when I said it wasn’t fair that my brother got to play video games for the past hour but I didn’t get to play at all, having to go to bed instead. Apparently I should have asked before bed time… when I couldn’t even read the fucking clock yet.
Regardless, I came to view myself as being equal or the same as a boy. Rather than obsessing over the fact that none of the stories were about me specifically, which I guess is what all people want at some point, I instead identified by story through music, which is way faster to communicate to another human being, as it stands. Instead of trying to identify myself in cinematic characters, I cherry-picked the traits I adored in my idols and started to incorporate them into my every day being.
The Japanese taught me honor.
The white man taught me courage.
The black man taught me strength.
The Indian man taught me gentility.
The Native American man taught me silence.
The Japanese taught me that appearances are incredibly deceptive.
The white man taught me I should live in fear.
The black man taught me how to hold my head up.
The Indian man taught me to be a foodie.
The Native American man taught me magic is real.
The Russian man taught me that my life is expendable.
The Japanese man taught me fealty, loyalty, fidelity.
The Chinese man taught me that glamour is not beauty.
The Asian Man taught me purpose.
The Chinese man taught me what friendship between man and woman looks like.
The white man taught me that might makes right, gun-toting rapist bastards that they are, forcing their way of life on all those around them without remorse.
The Brown Man taught me a second kind of honor.
The Muslim Man taught me brotherly love.
The Christian Man taught me self-loathing, hatred, and projection. Shame. Guilt.
Books taught me that my internal world is important.
Psychology taught me how to modify myself to serve The Greater Good(TM).
Music taught me that I am not alone in my struggle(s).
God taught me respect.
God taught me kindness.
God showed me the pattern of The Universe(TM).
God taught me what The Greater Good(TM) is.
Mankind taught me hatred.
Mankind hates me as I use God’s pattern to achieve unmitigated success.
Mankind taught me to grow to please them.
Mankind disowned me for being Super Spy Dominatrix Barbie.
Mankind lopped off my psychic appendages and tarred and feathered me.
Mankind ignored my screams of agony, begging to live and let live. I died.
Mankind taught me I am different.
Mankind taught me that different is wrong. [Ani DiFranco – I.Q.]
Nature taught me that being a wily fox spirit is better than a bull.
Cats taught me how to love unconditionally.
Cats taught me how to respect boundaries.
And so did a priestess in Poseidon’s temple. Back in the day, I mean. I was a snake.
My many lifetimes on Earth have taught me that humanity should be wiped out.
Annihilated. Without a single drop of remorse.
Just like they’ve done to everything around them.
Every day and every way.
Just kill the spider, it’s in your house, after all.
Just kill the bees, they might sting you, after all.
Just kill everything around you because it’s not what you want, after all. [“Narcissist,” hisses the snake.]
What’s wrong? Don’t like snakes?
I think I have learned everything there is to learn that’s pertinent to judging this planet’s fate:
You all die. I’m hitting the reset button.
This is Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I summon the Toxic Jungle. Deal with it, humans. It’s already here, you just don’t know it yet, as you eat the food that once nourished you and it begins to poison you from the inside out. I’d read product labels more carefully, if I was you.
However, since I’m me, and I know you deserve to die now, don’t bother. Just do the same old, same old, day in and day out. Your ignorance will do all the work for me.
Thanks,
God
I’m going to leave you to cherry pick your own message out of all those animes, cartoons, and movies I listed. The list is about 3,000 items in totality, including books like The Witches of Karres. The Rowan. Ender’s Game (the whole saga.) Ice Pirates. I Am Legend. The Sandman. The Time Traders. I, Robot. A Wrinkle in Time. Flowers for Algernon. Slaughterhouse Five. Pretty much everything by Vonnegut. War of the Worlds. 1984. Passport to Eternity. The Dragon Masters. The Man Who Fell to Earth. The Penultimate Truth. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Anything Terry Pratchett. A Plague of Pythons. Dune. The Squares of the City. The Mayor of Casterbridge. Earthblood. Mindswap. The Crystal World. The Crystal Crown. The Crystal Sword. Chthon. I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. A Wizard of Earthsea. Dragonflight. Rite of Passage. The Last Starship from Earth. The Andromeda Strain. The Pollinators of Eden. The Ship Who Sang. Ringworld. The Gods Themselves. American Gods. A Mote in God’s Eye. A Scanner Darkly. Whipping Star. Half Past Human. Moderan. Fantastic Planet.
Crack the code, save humanity.
Vermillion Sands. A Choice of Gods. Beyond Apollo. The Sheep Look Up. The Iron Dream. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. Rendezvous with Rama. The Godwhale. The Dispossessed. The Infinity Box. Women of Wonder. The Woman on the Edge of Time. The Word for World is Forest. Inherit the Stars. Lucifer’s Hammer. Dreamsnake. The Faded Sun: Kesrith. The Fountains of Paradise. Neuromancer. Speaker for the Dead <3. The Warrior’s Apprentice. The Blue Sword. Hyperion. Replay. The Visitors.
Angel-Sansara 