It's fine if you never watched Centaurworld on Netflix (or otherwise), however, that means you also never experienced the beautiful (Adventure Time-flavored) dichotomy of goofy fun happy laughs and the dark horrible memories of war and nightmares that will never leave you.

The main character (a horse named Horse who single-mindedly seeks a way back to her rider, a human named Rider) is suddenly whisked away from a world of brutal warfare to a fanciful land of magic and earworm sing-alongs, resenting every moment of it and somehow being changed against her will by the compassion thrust upon her by her silly, overly-affectionate new companions.

More than a year post-watch, Centaurworld still leaves me processing. Somehow this story felt like a hundred tales of queer identity; like leaving my conservative, rural upbringing for queer friends in college, tackling some deep-seated fear of vulnerability hidden within me, in a strange dance between fun and happiness vs. serious intellectualism.

Why does this story still haunt me?

Why does it cling to me like the fear of being shunned, and like the answer to a scream I don't remember giving voice to?

Is it neurodivergence? Queerness? Isolation? Theatre? Art? A desperate attachment to analysis as a means of connection? I need to know. I need answers.