Week 2, Entry 9

Just because something was formative doesn't mean it's worth keeping.

I loved the Redwall books when I was a kid. I read every single one at least twice, usually more. This is not especially unusual -- kids like things, Redwall is well-written and has a lot of things I like. But Redwall's...I don't wanna say worldview, because that feels like the stories were meant to instruct, which they weren't.
All the same, what, in the books, is Just Doing Business, stuff that's just casually said and done?
There's a lot of really fucked up things that the main characters consider acceptable, normal, even good, and if this is your primary form of learning about the world, about how adults (the characters are mostly adults) act...

I'm realizing how much it influenced me to view the world as hostile and violent, and that violence (and food) fixes all your problems. That if you don't scare people first, if you don't show you're dangerous, they'll fuck with you and hurt you. And if you show how dangerous you are, you'll be respected and seen as a good friend, a protector.

Also, it is comparatively realistic about its very graphic violence. Which unfortunately led to me being able to talk like an assassin by the time I was 9. The trouble is, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm not a short little elementary-to-middle school aged girl, I'm a 24 year old man with a flat bass voice, limited facial expressions, and strong enough to move the downstairs fridge.

I saw someone online post that the Redwall series is just "the fastest [hare] in all the land, committed a real ass war crime". And it all came together, as clearly as if I had seen it in a meditation. When I have the bad cold thoughts now, I tell myself, that's a real ass war crime. It helps a lot to reconfigure my mind.

This relates back to something I've been wanting to put into words, but haven't been sure about how to do so.

I've been working on building up my mindset from the very basics, and so I'm trying to consume children's media that has good and useful messages for living now. My first go with this has been watching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. I already wrote some notes on this (Week 2, Entry 2), but I'm noting where my mindset will shift into "war crimes mode". And then I go through why I felt like that, and why it's wrong. Sometimes I will turn off the episode in order to calm down.

I have my first official day of volunteering at the cat shelter tomorrow, so I should go to bed now.

Week 2, Entry 10

Malcolm's birthday is tomorrow. I know he doesn't want to be around me until I can prove to be a better person, and I don't want to push his boundaries, so I am not going to send any wishes to him. I hope that he has a really good birthday, and that this next year is amazing for him. I hope there are many things that will make him smile.

The omens look good for me to reach out again, but I don't want to rush things. So, I am going to write down something funny and wonderful that happened to me today.

I tend to tell people that it was Tenchi Muyo 2: Daughter of Darkness that turned me off anime for a decade. And, strictly speaking, that's not wrong. The DVD box set my dad got from the library did include Tenchi Muyo 2: Daughter of Darkness, but there was another DVD in the box. However, as I could never find its name, or remember more than a few key images, I did not mention it.

A man watches (or creates) monsters in a bamboo forest. The creatures start off by looking round and pink, then explode into horrible zombie things. They are clearly not enjoying the process.
...
Two girls, both lonely, agree to meet up at a playground the next day. One of them turns into a monster (dark red, snake hair, slug/snake hindparts -- a lamia?) and tries to get to the playground. The monster circles the playground, trying to play, and cries, for she can no longer speak.
...
A party of adventurers go into the forest. When monsters attack, [big-boobed lady with very small armor] shoots a single arrow into the air and yells "ARROW SHOWER". This makes a bunch of glowing arrows fall from the sky.

Thanks to some Escapade friends, I was able to find it at last, today. It's called Ragnarok: The Animation, and somehow I only saw episode 19. It is everything bad about Tenchi Muyo 2, plus the worst excesses of anime body horror.

I am of the opinion it is Bad Anime We've got five-plus minutes of padding on a 24 minute ep, we've got voice acting that could shatter glass, we've got heaving bosoms and pointless upskirt shots, we've got horrifying monsters and every cost-saving measure you've ever seen short of EVA. Horny, skeevy, a main character with no discernible characteristics but multiple women are fighting over him, and don't forget voices that can and will break glass. There's also an annoyingly "cute" little girl character and and equally annoyingly cute animal sidekick.

There's an evil skeleton wizard who turns cute animals into globby monsters, who turn into trees, who turn into zombie pirates. I am making none of this up.