I’m feeling nostalgic for the man that assaulted me when I was barely a teenager. I might just be nostalgic for Nintendo games and Cartoon Network, things I can’t enjoy without remembering our childhood.

There is comfort in transition. Comfort in the zombies Princess Bubblegum hides from everyone in episode one of Adventure Time. Comfort in the way I’ve since shaped the body he thought was his to have his way with nearly nine years ago. He owned my skin before it was inked before the eating disorder before the weight loss and then gain and then loss and then gain and then gain and then gain and then gain. He will never know my skin again.

I think I have avoided writing about this for so long due to the complexity of the issue. Now that I am here, sitting down to actually write, it’s really not so complex at all. I was a teenager, he was twenty, I was asleep, he thought he was entitled to something that should have been all mine, and now I’ve lived my entire adult life feeling like a screw up. Cause and effect. Not so complex.

That first full episode of Adventure Time begins with intrigue. I love that about cartoons. Straight to the action. In the cemetery, Finn the Human and Princess Bubblegum use PB’s decorpsinator serum to try to bring dead candy people back to life. Instead, they create candy zombies. PB then makes Finn royal promise not to tell anyone about the imminent danger and gathers everyone for a sleepover in order to protect them.

The drama escalates when Finn has to decide whether or not to break his royal promise, whether or not to speak up about danger. After hiding the zombies from even his brother, Jake the Dog, the 12-year-old has no choice. Eventually time freezes.

I guess the complexity moreso lies in the resulting politics of the assault. Stereotypes about Mexican men. Our Welita and her love for all her nietos. My dad’s existing suspicion of our closeness anyway— him always being right about me anyway. It’s complicated, too complicated to wrap up in 11 minutes.

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