How 9 Patriarchal Asshats Tried to Turn the Princess Into an Uncompensated House Servant

Chapter 3. of my glorious anti-patriarchal tale about a princess and a zebra unicorn that really pisses off conservatives and republicans

Hello Friends!

Wow, a lot has happened since the last time I got a chance to write a chapter of my zebra unicorn fantasy story. I'd been hoping to have another episode done before my family and I returned from Peru. That trip was epic by the way. It was a 3AM flight. We hit Chicago at noon and then picked up a rental car to drive back home to northern Wisconsin.

Why didn't we just fly out of Minneapolis you ask?

Because round trip tickets from MSP to LIM run about $1,000 per unit, and round trip tickets from ORD to LIM are usually $600. So that means that even with the price of two rental cars and a hotel room, I come out $1,300 ahead. That's writer math for you: SAVE MONEY!

Of course, getting back from the trip created its own form of time suck, and then there was a bunch of other work to do, and then I got sick. I did manage to write down the notes for this chapter which I'll include for you just to give you some insight into my process.

I had to take a picture of this because my computer just did another damn update, and that makes it freeze up every five minutes. So I got all these notes written and my computer froze, so I took a picture with my phone because I couldn’t print or save—technology…

Oh, and the other thing that happened was that this post ended up with 8k views and 370+ comments. I try to answer them all especially because there are a small number that need to be erased forever and have the profiles that created them blocked. Folks, please don't waste your energy getting into arguments with bots on my posts. I'm a target because I care about other human beings, that means that Republicans and Conservatives HATE me. Unfortunately, the forces of evil are well funded, so they'll send their attack bots to try and harass anyone who reads me. It's sort of like living in the world of The Terminator, but it's the stupidest version possible.

But I digress...

So now, knuckles cracking, let's get this chapter written! It's been a sprouting weed inside my mind that if it doesn't get out soon it's going to take over. Besides, I'm starting to get curious about what happens in Chapter 4. But for the time being...

Here’s a link to Chapter 1. if you need to start from the beginning.

Chapter 3. How 9 Patriarchal Asshats Tried to Turn the Princess Into an Uncompensated House Servant

So, Princess happily rode along on the back of Artemix the unicorn. She admired the blue sky. She admired the green hills that rose up all around her. She appreciated the warmth of the sun on her face.

She tried not to think of all the insignificant and disrespectful men in the world who would be absolutely furious that she dared to do what she wanted, when she wanted, and in the company she preferred.

Unfortunately, men like that have a habit of butting in and offering their lewd opinions at the worst possible time. They were prone to saying things like, “How dare you descend to my level!” if anyone ever called them out on their BS. Princess had an innate awareness of this because you don't have to live in the world for too long before you are subjected to more than your fair share of it.

“Well Artemix,” she said, patting the noble zebra unicorn on the side of the neck. “What's next?”

That's when Artemix did something that, to the Princess, seemed to be a bit strange. Even though he was still running at full speed, he turned his head around completely backwards so that he was facing Princess.

“Don't do that, it creeps me out.”

“Do what?”

“Don't turn your head backwards to look at me while you're running. You might run into something.”

Artemix snorted. “When have you ever seen a unicorn run into anything?”

“Before you, I've never seen a unicorn.”

“Okay then, when have you ever seen anything that looks like a unicorn run into anything?”

“Do you mean a horse?”

“You know I don't like to be compared to a horse.”

“But that's what you were talking about, right?”

“Fine... I was. So, go on, answer the question.”

“When have I ever seen a horse run into anything?” Princess thought about it. “Never I guess.”

“That's right, and do you know why that is?”

Princess shook her head.

“Because running is what a horse does. It's like how flying is what a bird does. When have you ever seen a bird fly into anything?”

“I've seen them fly into windows.”

“That's irrelevant, windows are unnatural. Crashing into one could happen to anybody.”

“Could it happen to a unicorn who was galloping along without watching where he was going?”

“No.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because even though I'm facing you, I can see in front of me.”

“You can't!”

“I can.”

“But how is that possible?”

“It's because I'm not a predator. Therefore, unlike you, my eyes are not on the front of my face. Go on, look.”

Princess looked. She realized it was true. “Your eyes are on the sides of your face.”

“Yup! That allows me almost a complete field of vision. To be honest, about the only thing I can't see is the base of my horn.”

“Essentially, you can't see the nose in front of your face!” Princess said with delight.

Artemix gave her a skewed look. “I don't see the humor...”

“Oh, it's just that's a saying among the humans,” Princess said. “We're always looking at our noses. It's said that some humans look down them.”

“That's because you're predators,” Artemix said. “Your eyes face front. It's to help with depth perception. You need that when you're chasing down something you want to eat.”

“Surely not me!” Princess said. “I'm just a meek, helpless, beautiful and innocent princess.”

“Ha!” Artemix said.

“What do you mean 'Ha?'” Princess replied as if offended.

Artemix wasn't completely certain if she was genuinely offended or playing, but he decided to be on the safe side. “I meant no insult. It's just that we both know that's not true.”

“You're saying I'm not beautiful?”

Artemix rolled his eye. There was no need to roll both because he'd turned his head to avoid skewering the girl with his horn and the other eye was facing forward. “I meant I know you're not meek, helpless, and... well, I don't know about innocent, but we did kill a man together.”

“Well he attacked me so he had it coming,” Princess said. “If men were more accustomed to dying every time they showed disrespect, I think we'd live in a much more civilized world.”

“Yeah,” Artemix said. Then he became thoughtful, “Just one quick point of clarification. A moment ago you said, 'Among the humans,' did you mean...”

But he wasn't able to finish because a voice hailed them from the road ahead.

“Ho there rider!”

Artemix turned around. He'd seen that something was approaching, but he hadn't taken the time to look at it carefully. Now he did, and he didn't like what he saw.

Nine robed figures stood in the middle of the road. They'd arranged themselves to block it rather than stand in single file to allow busy people a way around. That was the kind of deliberate and inconsiderate behavior that really irritated Artemix. He also hated it when people walked around staring at their hands and running into anyone who they happened to meet.

Like... take two seconds to recognize that you inhabited your space with other living things. A good motto to live by is, “It's not all about you.”

He noticed that the nine robed figures were not getting out of the way, so he came to a reluctant stop.

The first robed figure smiled, but he was wearing a hood. The only thing that could be seen was his teeth.

“That looks creepy,” Princess said.

“What?” the man replied.

“The way you're smiling at me. Stop it.”

“That's funny,” the man said, “I was just about to tell you that you should smile more.”

“No, you should smile less,” Princess said.

But the man didn't obey. He continued to smile. “Don't think of me as a stranger. Think of me as a father or a grandfather, or maybe even a husband.”

“Gross.”

“Speaking of that,” the man said, completely indifferent to how uncomfortable he was making Princess feel. “My companions and I were wondering where your escort is.”

“My escort?”

“Yes, it's unseemly for a young woman to be riding out across the countryside all by herself.”

“I'm not by myself, I have Artemix.”

“Artemix?”

“Yeah, this guy,” Princess said, patting Artemix on the neck.

Artemix waved his horn at them and nickered.

The man in front's smile twisted into something more disappointed and he chuckled to himself. “That's not an escort. That's a horse.”

At this, Artemix stomped his foot and let out a bellow. But though Princess could understand him perfectly well, the smiling man in the hood and his 8 creepy companions just gave bemused looks. Apparently they believed that anything said in a language they didn't know simply didn't matter.

“It doesn't seem like you can control your horse,” the man said.

“It doesn't seem like you can control your tongue,” Princess replied.

“Now, now, don't be rude.”

“You first.”

“When was I rude?”

“You were rude when you misidentified my steed as a horse.”

“Well, he's got four legs and you're riding him, what else could he be?”

Princess took a deep breath. She'd already felt her brow heat up and she didn't like it. She didn't like the fact that she was being forced into a conversation with this dope and his pack of merry bunglers, and she didn't like... well, there were a lot of things she didn't like.

“If you call him a horse, you're twice wrong. The correct word is unicorn, but if you missed the horn, I'd have at least expected you to notice the stripes, and perhaps you could have provided less insult by calling him 'zebra.'”

“Zebra?” said the man, then he made a big show of turning to the side as if it wasn't possible to notice the stripes from head on. “Ah, I see.” He put his finger to his lips and thought for a moment. “Okay, horsey, tell me, are you black with white stripes or white with black stripes?”

This time Artemix got so angry that he turned his head completely around to face Princess. That at least got the attention of the nine weirdos.

“I really dislike these guys.”

“I know, but we only have to put up with them for a moment so try and relax. Please?” She blinked her lashes at him.

Artemix was not immune to this and he’d already started to calm down. Still, he didn't want to let Princess off too easy, so he muttered a frustrated “FINE!” then finished the rotation of his head.

The sight of the unicorn's head spinning completely around on his neck clearly unnerved the nine and Artemix loved every second of it.

Princess leaned forward, “I didn't know you could spin your head completely around.”

“I can do all sorts of things,” Artemix replied. “I'll show you the next time we get into an impossible situation where there doesn't seem to be any way out.”

“Ha! Convenient. That just sounds like bad writing to me.”

Artemix's voice became very sincere, “It's not though! It's really not!”

By now the first man had recovered and he was clearing his throat though he kept smiling his creepy smile.

“Well, which is it? White with black stripes or black with white stripes?”

“Why does it matter?”

“The way we treat you depends on your fundamental nature. I mean, what is he?”

Princess grimaced at this, it was wrong on a number of levels. “But you refuse to recognize his fundamental nature, so why should I answer?”

“Well, he is only a horse after all.”

Artemix stomped his hoof again, and Princess gave him a pat.

“Oh, I get it, you're the type of people who think it's hysterical to misidentify race.”

The man laughed. “We're hardly the problem. The problem is people like you who try to find complexities where there are none. It should all be as simple as black and white or man and woman. The world was made perfect with two choices. There's a certain order that must be followed. When individuals refuse to follow that order, it creates chaos. That chaos eventually leads to suffering.”

Princess gave her most annoyed smile.

The man misinterpreted it completely. “Ah! There, you see? You look so much better when you smile.”

“This isn't a smile, it's a grimace,” Princess said.

“It looks like a smile to me.”

“It would.”

“Can I please teach them a lesson?” Artemix asked, not really expecting to get her agreement, but kind of hoping. He had a vague memory from a few centuries ago of shooting fire out of his eyeballs. Good attention getter. Totes awesome. He wondered if he could still do that.

“You know, this has all been very… well, it's been awful and I'm tired of wasting my time on you,” Princess said. “Now move out of the way so I can go about my day.”

“How intolerant! How spiteful!” the man said.

Princess started to feel like that meme of Elmo standing in front of the flames. She put her arms out to the side to mimic the pose.

One of the other robed men spoke up. “You see, this is what happens when girls are allowed to ride across the countryside on their own without an escort.”

“I'm afraid,” said another, “that our deeply held beliefs prevent us from allowing you to continue any further.”

Princess snorted at this. But her curiosity got the better of her. She recognized that although she was powerful and armed with a battle unicorn (plus a few tricks of her own), there might be other girls out there who would fall victim to this notorious crew.

“Is what you're saying a widely held belief, or is there a lunatic asylum y'all escaped from near here?”

“So disrespectful! How dare you mock our sacred faith!”

“Sorry to break it to you, but it sounds to me like your sacred faith is just a bunch of misogynistic bullshit!”

“The outrage! Why must those like us always be persecuted!”

“Maybe it's because you're a bunch of assholes imposing a deeply flawed belief system on everyone you meet. Did you ever think of that?”

But the nine robed figures were impervious to any argument other than what they already believed, “It's a shame what has become of the youth of today, they're all so lazy and willful! The problem is that there has been a decay in the moral fiber of our society. The only way to fix it is to restore our commitment to the way things were done thousands of years ago.”

“Or maybe your way sucks and we should try something new,” Princess said. “I'm just throwing that out there. After all, isn't it fair to give equal attention to both sides of the issue?”

But the nine were not interested in listening to her.

“In the name of democracy, we must put it to a vote!” the first figure said.

There were rumbles of agreement.

“By what authority?” Princess said.

“By our authority, we're the supreme council of judgement.”

“Oh, did you win an election or something?”

“No.”

“Then how did you get the job?”

“We were all granted lifetime appointments. Now, be quiet and listen to our vote.” The first robed speaker turned to the others. “Vote yes or no. Should we detain this willful girl and her horse...”

“I'm a god-damned fucking UNICORN!” Artemix growled, but it came out as an angry whinny. He also stomped his hoof hard enough to make the ground shake. It was low-key awesome.

The nine pretended they didn't notice, but they didn't say “horse” again.

“...uh, detain her and keep her in our custody until we can marry her off to an appropriate man, who will then 'do the right thing' and provide her with food to eat and a house to clean and a bunch of babies to take care of?”

Princess shook her head, “Why is it that they always want the same thing?”

The vote ended up being 6-3 in favor of detaining her. As the robed figures spoke, Princess was surprised that one of those that said “yes” had a woman's voice.

“You there!” Princess said. “You're a woman.”

“I am, what of it?”

“Well, you voted that I should be detained because I don't have a right to make up my own decisions about myself.”

“Yes,” the woman robed figure said. “I'm an originalist. I interpret the sacred documents in the way they were written.”

“And those documents say that women can't determine their own destiny?”

“Yes.”

“Those documents say women should be banned from holding positions of power?”

“Correct.”

“Then why are you allowed to be a member of the supreme council of judgment?”

The woman's smirk became even wider than the original man's. She turned to him and nudged him with her elbow. “Isn't that always the way it goes? Folks like this princess act like they're all progressive and tolerant, but the first opportunity they get, they try to remove women like me from positions of power.”

“I don't think you should be removed because you're a woman, I think you should be removed because you’re a hypocrite!”

But the vote had been cast and the nine judges lurched forward to grab Princess.

Fortunately, Artemix didn't have any patience for that. He quickly, but gently so as not to disturb his rider, backed up.

“Get back over here and submit to us,” the lead robed figure said.

“Nah,” Princess replied. Then she gave Artemix a nudge with her knees and he did what he should have done from the beginning. He trotted off the road and went around the obstacle.

“Come back! You'll regret this! Studies have shown that women who don't submit to the control of men are miserable and unhappy!”

“Oh yeah?” Princess said. “What studies?”

“Just take our word for it! You'll see! We only want what's best for you!”

“What happens when the man loses his job? What happens if he dies? What happens if he's just a lazy, ignorant pig?”

“Oh, nothing like that ever happens, you're being hysterical, come back, come back...”

“Princess,” Artemix said, “don't waste your breath. Let's look forward. We're not going back.”

Princess was startled to realize she had been facing backwards with both hands clenched screaming at the 9 ignorant robed figures that had made such a mockery of what should have been a rational process.

She turned to look forward, and found the voices faded, but still she was troubled. “Not everyone has the privilege to go around.”

“That's true,” Artemix said. “So, it will be up to us to mark the path so that others may follow.”

Princess nodded to herself. It was an incomplete solution, but for the time being, it would have to do.

Chapter 4. Using Primal Scream Therapy to Expel the Poison of the Patriarchal Asshats

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