Sailor
Moon has always meant more to me than the surface story it delivers. Having
grown up not to believe in or understand love, from poor modeling or abuse, Sailor
Moon was my reference point for love. It was where I began to understand what
love was. At its core, it was the idea that love not only exists, but that it
had a tangible power. This was also a time in my life where my mother was once
again in jail (with work release). She would only come home long enough to bark
out commands and drop her anger and resentment on me. This is just after she
spent eight months in prison for an arrest she blamed on me. The abuse was the
worst leading up to this. While she was gone, I was forced into her role in the
house. However, doing so allowed me to develop into my own person. That time
transformed me from the timid, quiet, unsure boy terrified of his tyrant mother
into someone who knew that strength was the only way I could make it through
that time. I knew that how I was raised was not the way it should be. With no
friends; no family to rely on (my father failed this time too) I knew that it
was only me that I could rely on. When she got back, I would no longer take her
shit. I would never again allow her to lay a hand on me. The next year she was
in county lockup. I was again picking up her slack at home. I had grown into a
stubborn, mouthy teen who had worked his balls up. She could no longer deal
with me as she had before. She was pissed and scared of once again being in the
system. I was a convenient target due to the circumstances of her prison stay
arrest. She thought I would be that target again. And I multiplied her anger
and fear by no longer being her target. I could no longer be her punching bag
and sounding board for anger issues. I had plenty of my own genetic/environment/puberty
enhanced anger issues to deal with.
None of this gave me any idea or
foundation for what love was. I turned to my imaginary worlds that had always
served as my escape. In all of them I had always gleaned some perception of
truth. It was this time that I came to Sailor Moon.
The
new pubescent, cocksure Ryan began to branch out. I started to make some new
friends, probably the first I ever had. I had my first awkward stumblings into
physical attraction. At this cusp in my life, when I was seeking some sign of
something better, something to fill the void of lonely, emotional nihilism in
came a hero: a pretty girl in a Sailor skirt who fought all the evils of the
world with love. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t real. I fell in love.
There
was a better way. Sailor Moon and her silver crystal were my guiding light. I
was not so disconnected with reality that I did not know it was a fantasy. But,
it felt more real than this world. I can live in several realities (mentally)
simultaneously. I have such a vivid, manic imaginary world-mind that each of my
billions of fantasy universes feel just as real to me. I still have the
knowledge of what is real and what is not. I am starkly aware of this shitty
reality. My approach was always to pick which parts of those fantasies I wanted
to create; to manifest in my world; to display, to tell that story in my art
and life.
Sailor
Moon was a starting point for me. It’s where I began the portion of my life
that involved love. It’s where I began asking questions. There was this fantasy
world so unlike mine, about a real, tangible power in love. Frankly, it made me
believe that real love exists. Where was this in my reality? How could I pull
this portion of my fantasy into my world?
Even
though I CAN tell the difference between my fantasy and reality, they still
feel just as real to me. It is very easy for me to get lost in them. I forget
where the borders are. I must constantly remind myself where I am in this world
and where I am in one of mine.
To
be sure, Sailor Moon was an escape, at least at first. It’s where I ran to
avoid the abuse, neglect, and negativity from my mother and the suicidal
loneliness I felt. Tied to this, everything I do, and linked to my various realties
is my art. I have an obsessive drive to create. I must. It my main way of
bringing my fantasies into this world. Sailor Moon was a revival; a secondary
inspiration and excuse to create and learn. I began drawing anime and manga –
branching out and learning all I could of this Japanese culture. As I had
before, when I was a lonely boy and delved into American comics to escape, to
learn to read and draw and create, to connect myself to the fantasy realities,
the myriad alternate perspectives; I tapped into Sailor Moon and anime as
inspiration.
I
learned to read and imagine with Marvel Comics. I learned to love and think and
feel with Sailor Moon. She is a canon to me; my New Testament. Those of the
traditional religious (Christian) sort often scoff at me when I said that art
was my religion. They do not understand how at the core of my being the act of
creation is. I worship and obsess over it. It is a religion to me; one that I
constantly rewrite, redefine the rules, the practices, and the goals. Perhaps
that is why the religious sort don’t believe me: they cannot accept that you
can worship anything that does not have a constant to latch onto. I do not. I
was never allowed one. So, I made my own and never stopped making them.
My
tenants change constantly. I have my old, original Gods, but their divine
lineage is so spread out, so complex and interrelated, that a clear picture
will never be possible. My reality is indistinguishably, inseparably, and
irreparably interwoven with all my fantasy universes (some created by others,
some by me). All are stitched haphazardly together. It is from this source,
this well-spring, that I draw my will to create; to live. Marvel comics may
have been the genesis of my mind, but Sailor Moon is my heart.
