That’s Cookie on my shoulder, a cat I got after a custodial arrangement with my previous cat(s) fell through. I’ll never get to see Moon again because, in the rheumy and vacant eyes of the law, cats are property, not persons. Never try to plan out a pet custody arrangement with an ex. It might start out fine, but ultimately it will not be honoured, because it doesn’t have to be.
I knew the title Pussy Queens would get your attention. And here we are. There are Pussy Kings too, as well as scores of Non-Binary Pussy Sultans (I was gonna go with “Emperor” but “Non-Binary Pussy Sultans” sounds cooler and vaguely Alladin-ish), but these are fewer in number than the veritable army of bawling Karens screaming at firefighters about the least-traumatic manner in which poor Fluffy can be brought down from that slippery-looking elm tree bark.
This post is about a rather new but not completely novice cohorts of excruciating crusaders. The original Crusaders were told that all their sins would be forgiven (even if they never attended Mass again) so long as they went to the Middle East via the port city of Jaffa and fought for the cross under the brilliant military leader Richard II, also known as Richard the Lionheart for his astounding feats of bravery and sacrifice. These Cat Crusaders have no such special devotions. Like many of the other Crusaders, though, it is very important for them to appear to be loving and sympathetic to cats. A devout Catholic, Richard II took Pope Eugene III’s bull Quantum praedecessores from 1 December 1145 of that year quite seriously. And Quantum praedecessores was essentially a proclamation of war between the Catholic and Muslim worlds.
Richard II: The Guy Who Was LITERALLY Never Home But Won A Bunch Of Strategically Useless Battles In Distant Lands, Departing For England Immediately After Victory Causing Him To Lose Almost All Territorial Gains He’d Shed So Much Blood For. A Brilliant Battlefield Tactician But An Idiotic Politician.
Richard II considered the restoration of the holy city of Jerusalem to Christian control as nothing less than the sole aim of his existence. It was his destiny (and with a better army and shorter supply lines, he might’ve done it, but that’s like saying “If Germany hadn’t lost WWII, they probably would’ve won.”) It’s one of those academic statements that sounds intelligent but is really just basic common sense. 90% of my time in University was spent listening to shit like this. I once had a history teacher who’d written a sociological history of the donut in Canada. Somehow, this man managed to make a topic as light and fun as donuts as wooden and dull as an ancient rocking chair nobody can sit in cuz it would hurt your ass too much.
Don’t buy or even borrow this book. Unless you really care how much molasses was imported into Halifax harbour in 1913, the cover of Professor Penfold’s book is the only good thing about it. But enough about donuts, for now. Back to the Crusades. It’s easy to remember which King Richard fought the Second Crusade because it was Richard II.
“Richard II, meet Second Crusade.”
“Obliged, ma’am.”
“Second Crusade, this is Richard II.”
”Fruitful blessings to you and yours, kind madam.”
“And many fine and good days to you sir.”
I doubt people spoke like this in 1145, but I just wanted to add a bit of literary colour. Nothing blindingly neon, just a touch of sky blue or some shit.
Richard’s stunning upset at the Battle of Arsuf, in which just 11,200 Crusader knights defeated 25,000 Muslim soldiers, was such a surprising turn of events that most Crusaders returned home immediately. This was idiocy. You can’t just sack a city and claim to have won the war. You must hold that city. Otherwise your “revolution” will be downgraded to a mere “rebellion” by the harsh judge that is human history. Despite his stunning upsets on the battlefield, the many logistical triumphs required to bring the calvary and arms needed into a city without warning that very same city of its imminent sacking were even more impressive. Moving war machinery in the 1140s was not something that could be done quietly. Richard II did all this and more. He was also a keen lover of cats. He did not share his father’s suspicion that cat’s liked to steal sleeping human’s penises. Right on, Rich!
He’d been winning battles, but since the entire point of the Second Crusade was to restore the holy city of Jerusalem to Christian rule, Richard II was stuck between a rock and a hard place. A quarter of his men had marched or sailed for home, thinking they’d won and their souls were saved. Another quarter had died of dehydration, starvation, or war wounds. With such severely depleted forces, Richard II was no longer much of a match for Emperor Saladin.
Saladin, a man who was not easily impressed privately expressed to his inner circle his astonishment at Richard II’s seemingly suicidal tendencies to ride right into the midst of where the fighting was fiercest. It reminds me of a quote Seth Rogen once made about Tom Cruise: “Tom Cruise is amazing. That man is determined to die on camera for our entertainment.”
Saladin: Sultan of Egypt and Syria, Conqueror of Damascus, and a Man Brave Enough To Attack The Assassins, The Real Historical Ones, From Whom Merciless Professional Killers Take Their Trade Name
Saladin had an identical assessment of Richard II and marvelled at his adversary’s willingness to “put himself in harm’s way both so casually and so frequently.” Despite being enemies, the two men respected each other. Emperor Saladin had a brilliant tactical mind that frequently used his own natural surroundings as fortifications, berms to hide battalions who would then spring up at the blast of a pre-arranged whistle signal and utterly annihilate the enemy. He also commanded the largest army in the world at the time (there may have been bigger ones in China, but even if there were, they weren’t as well-equipped or trained. Saladin’s soldiers were killing machines.)
Richard II had a similarly fearful reputation, though one more narrowly militaristic than the more refined perception of his Kurdish antagonist. Saladin was said to be a fine singer, a good poet, a talented writer, and an excellent cook. While Saladin was a renaissance man years before the term came into vogue, Richard II didn’t seem interested or even capable or talking about the things that defeat us all: time, money, God. His was a military mind, period. If he could have made it happen, Richard II would’ve fought the fucking Moon.
Richard II was at least politically savvy enough to know better than to ridicule Saladin for commanding from a position so far from the front, using binoculars (also known as “perspective glasses” at the time). Richard II was at least dimly aware of the caste divisions and made sure to send his highest ranking men to deliver messages to Saladin, as a sign of his respect. Saladin showed that he appreciated the gesture by not beheading Richard II’s men. He knew how much Richard II cared for even his lowliest privates. It even struck Saladin as odd. It seemed only natural that his life should have higher value than his subordinates. This is closer to modern management than we might like to admit. James Quincy, CEO of Coca-Cola, earns $16.7 million annually (1,016 times the typical employee. That means the average Coca-Cola worker makes a pathetic $16,440 annually.) Kevin R. Johnson, of Starbucks, makes $13.4 million (1,049 times the typical employee. Average Starbucks salary? $12,754) Our modern kings and queens are much more like Emperor Saladin than Richard II. And guess which of the two men lived longer and better, the one who fought for his ideals or the one who fought to maintain the status quo of his empire?
Anyway, Saladin commanded from the rear like almost all other generals and colonels of the age, whereas Richard II almost always led the first calvary charge, racing towards thousands of pointed spears all poised to impale him. This made Richard II brave but it also made him a complete anomaly. Hardly any other famous warrior, save Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great, would stoop to be even personally proximate to the battles, never mind actually fight them. Richard II fought shoulder to shoulder with newly enlisted privates, something Saladin would never have done. Indeed, if Saladin had even uttered a spoken comment to a lowly serf, his own kingly reputation would have taken a hit. So it’s not exactly true to say that Saladin was a bad person. He was a product of his time. Only the laziest historians apply modern standards to ancient figures, find them lacking, and judge them for it. Of course Richard II and Emperor Saladin are nothing like us. The past isn’t even planet Earth as we know it. The past is literally a different world.
But history has a long memory, and Richard II had a lot of failings. As a local King, he was absent. Asa husband, he was uncaring and selfish. As a person, he was impulsive. But as a fighter he was sublime. As a religious person he was deeply spiritual and pious. He had nothing to do with the sacking and raping of earlier and later Crusades, and he punished those he caught doing such despicable acts with immediate public execution by his own sword.
Therefore perhaps it is Richard II’s devoutness, selflessness, or perhaps even simply delusions of invincibility that he should be remembered for. Unfortunately, due to Shakespeare’s depiction of him in Richard II, he is remembered now (if he is remembered at all) as a vengeful, politically ignorant man whose actions and inactions directly led to the Wars of the Roses. Even two centuries after his death, it remained a popular sentiment in England that Richard II was an absentee landlord. Richard II died in 1400. Richard II was first staged in 1597.
Now that we know a bit about Richard II and Emperor Saladin, we can get to the cat parts. The Crusades were a logistical nightmare with no analogue in history. Dozens of nations speaking different languages had to be corralled, processed, trained, and then marched to the Middle East to fight. Thousands died of disease and dehydration before they even got there, and the heavy-chain mail armour was so heavy that most soldiers who wore it died with it on their backs. These wagon-train processions were the longest in history and they brought European felis catus to the Middle East and Middle East felis catus to Europe. As they approached the desert regions, food became scarcer and the “soldiers,” who had never been unified under a single leader, began to bicker and sometimes murder each other.
But not even the poorest Crusaders would scavenge those awful chain-link things. The rich and royal personages who wished to witness the Christians retake Jerusalem from those savage Muslims were in for a long wait. They’d expected to be gone 8 months. Many of England’s Second Crusaders left Normandy in June 1147 for Jaffa, where they waited and waited for their army (and promised funds) to arrive.
With each passing day, the hoteliers of Jaffa grew more and more belligerent, but Richard II had more pressing issues to attend to. He wrote a promissory note signed by the Seal of England, which in the 1140s was enough to get you into any hip restaurant in town. Eventually, the English Crusaders arrived amid appalling and widespread reports of Crusaders resorting to cannibalism in the open fields.
When Richard II heard of this, he merely shrugged as if to say “they were dead anyway, weren’t they? Why waste good meat?” Even the devout Richard II was beginning to tire of his endless responsibilities. He did, however, issue a decree that any Crusader caught killing a cat for food would be executed on the spot. Richard the Lionheart makes even more sense as a nickname now. “You can kill my people, for my God has homes for them in his heart. But you may not kill my cats.”
Saladin and Richard never met face to face. This was common practice given the ample opportunities for poisoning. Facts were relayed through messenger boys. The two men had great respect for each other though. Military historian David Miller tells us why:
One of the recurring problems during this period in the Holy Land was that reinforcements would suddenly appear with little or no warning – those already engaged [in battle] in the Holy Land seldom knew what to expect, while the newcomers had little idea of what they would find when they did arrive.
Saladin was savvy enough to suspect that perhaps Richard II’s “returning knights” was a false flag operation. Either that or a delay tactic. Maybe he was only pretending to send them away and they’d be returning soon at a very inopportune moment. It is not known if Richard II knew this. He was a brilliant military mind, not a politician. During his entire reign as King of England (June 22 1377 to September 29 1399), he stood on English soil for less than 6 months.
Nobody was happier than Saladin then, when Richard was called back to England on urgent business. The Second Crusade was over. The Third one didn’t do so well either. But this contemporaneous Cat Crusade will never end. Not with these these self-professed “experts” from the University of Nowhere.
Like people, all cats are different. I’ve stroked a feral cat’s back and when it stuck its tail straight up, I continued petting ALL the way to the tip of her tail. She purred like a lawnmower. The only time she hissed at me when when I stood to close to her when I fed her, which is totally natural but, once again, not a universal rule. Some cats LOVE being pet while they chow down. Don’t know why but they do. Cat YouTube is the WORST for these people.
The Pussy Queens, Pussy Kings, and Non-Binary Pussy Sultans are are self-appointed experts who watch videos over and over so they can identify local landmarks and then dox the poor unsuspecting animal owner. Oftentimes the cat or dog is taken away too, which is bad for the human and the non-human.
These people make the most complex medical diagnoses based on 20 seconds of shaky camera footage. They tell you why your cat is acting a certain way just based on what kind of kibble you’ve been mixing in with your wet food. They shame certain people for allowing their cats to go outside - you know, in the suburbs, where all the big band bears and lethal megafauna live. A cat’s biggest suburban enemy? The sprinkler. They don’t get them, they don’t like them, they don’t like to be attacked in gentle waves by cold water and they hate to lose. But lose they do. Against sprinklers at least. Seeing a cat scamper away from a sprinkler is just the cutest thing. Sopping wet but dignity intact. For the most part.
In Toronto there used to be a panhandler on the sidewalk who had the most gorgeous cat. People would take pics (by the way...if you’re gonna take pictures with a panhandler...give him/her/them some FUCKIN MONEY. The REASON they’re sleeping on a subway grate is lack of funds. Don’t just shoot (a pic) and run. Take your cute cat photo with the nice homeless man and give him a few bucks. This man was a Toronto fixture from 2007-2013 or so.
Then one day, some crusading Karen got it in her head that the cat was being actively sedated. Yonge-Dundas is the busiest intersection in Canada, so for a cat to be so calm and chill amid such urban cacophony just has to be suspicious right? Because all cats are the exact same right?
Cats are much more adaptable than humans. They can live under sinks, in shoeboxes, and on top of fridges. They can live outside in winter. They can find ways to feed themselves even if they don’t have a person doing it for them. Anyway, this Karen started a flyer campaign, one designed to make the homeless man look as evil as possible by using a grainy black-and-white photo in which he was squinting. Of course the cat looked as angelic as possible. And Karen’s cat campaign worked!
The man began to get harassed constantly. People tried to catnap (I always wanted to use that phrase in its proper context) his pretty kitty 5 different times. And he couldn’t enter a homeless shelter cuz the shelter system doesn’t take animals.
Someone read about the man’s plight and rented him a room downtown Toronto for $300 a month, which is insanely cheap. That’d be like $150 a month now. I last saw the cat lovin’ dude on a bus in 2020. His cat, Blade, has slowed down but she’s still kicking and clawing and purring.
The moral of this story: Most people are absolute garbage human beings.
To think that a homeless man could even AFFORD the drugs to sedate his kitty is laughable. And what vet would even give him such a constant supply? No vet would. It was manufactured cat outrage and it happens ALL THE TIME.
I recently watched a video where a man pet an angry cat. These kinds of videos are hotbeds of conflicting advice and vitriol of the most cat-like kind imaginable. So I scrolled down reading comments and almost instantly came across a self-professed cat guru giving “Tips for petting angry cats.” But the video had already been filmed and uploaded! All this user is/was doing is using the popularity of the video to advertise his/her/their alleged “cat expertise.” It’s Captain Hindsight. That’s all this is.
Captain Hindsight is a popular character on South Park. He’s a parody of superheroes because he has no power to prevent catastrophe. He can only show up after the incident, and point out the various infrastructural failures that led to the disaster. He’ll point to a rickety fire escape and say “that should have been upgraded and modernized ten years ago!” What’s funny about this is that the ordinary people cheer for Capain Hindsight even though he hasn't done a single thing. That’s what these Pussy Queens and Pussy Kings and Non-Binary Pussy Sultans are. They’re all just version of Captain Hindsight.
I’ve been to parties where people have argued that pet owners without pet insurance shouldn't be allowed to have pets. Pet insurance is great. But less than 6 billion people on this planet can afford it. Should they be denied the love of a pet because some dickhead drunk on white wine says “it’s the only ethical thing to do. If you can’t afford pet insurance, you can’t afford a cat.”
I’d bet $500 000 that douchebag is an animal surgeon.
Let me conclude with a funny story. There was a viral cat vid in 2015 where this guy’s cat made really loud, almost orgasmic sounding yowls of pleasure whenever he rubbed his cat’s back. Half the commenters on that video were CONVINCED the dude was fingering his own cat’s butthole even though you could CLEARLY see him rubbing the cat’s back. Forget fake news. Fake news is not the worry anymore.
Now it’s fake reality. “Speak your truth” means that there are 7.96 billion “truths.” I’m sorry, some truths are simply absolute. Not everything can be subjective. Speak THE truth, not YOUR truth.
Stop falling for this Orwellian doublespeak. And stop telling people they’re not fit to be cat owners because some innocuous bullshit thing happened on Cat YouTube.
I’m not convinced they even like the things they crusade for. These eye-poppingly obnoxious brand of internet users who troll every single cat video in existence looking for an infraction they can then use as proof that they are more compassionate than said cat’s chosen human.
You know the saying that “you don’t choose the cat, the cat chooses you?” These people must believe that cats are complete fucking idiots. Only THEY know what’s best for a cat they’ve seen for 20 seconds of shaky phone camera footage. These are the Pussy Queens. Pussy Kings. And non-gendered Pussy Sultans. All shall heed their indignant proclamations. All shall donate to their causes (and only their espoused causes. Causes and campaigns started up by other cat aficionados are inherently corrupt. Otherwise, surely these revered Pussy Queens and Pussy Kings and Non-Binary Pussy Sultans.
I’ll leave you with a passage from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which the languid Lord Henry expounds on some man he knew who kept trying to do good in the face of crushing indifference:
You remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, or some unjust law altered – I forget exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment. He had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of ennui, and became a confirmed misanthrope.