Like A Disney Movie

So the other day I was talking to someone about relationships, and people staying in relationships that are bad for them, and the mentality of it. I've even done a blog on the topic right here, and a blog on a semi-related topic right here.

As we were talking it occured to me that, throughout my childhood and my teenage years, very few of the relationships I was presented with in the media I consumed were what I, in later life, would consider to be a healthy one.

That is, perhaps, because such things aren't exciting. They aren't what we all thirst to read about or see or hear about - but then, perhaps our idea of a fairytale romance is informed by the fairytales we were subjected to.

We all love a good Disney movie, right?

Well here's the shit - we grew up with princesses and princes and love's true kiss, none of which prepares you for, you know, relationships. They are profligate with shitty messages about love and trust. A quote that I borrowed from Stephen Colbert a few years ago:

“So, Disney, I demand that you drop this two mommies plot & go back to delivering wholesome messages. Like teaching our children that they can be a princess if they let a man make out with them while drugged, or that there's nothing wrong with bestiality if a candle says it’s OK.”

Change yourself and you will have value because a man will want you, says The Little Mermaid and Cinderella. Relationships are something that happen to you rather than something you do, says Sleeping Beauty. They want you, and that's enough, says Snow White. Any level of deception is acceptable once they see the REAL you, says Aladdin. Stay in your lane and accept what you have, says Wreck-It Ralph. You can change them to make them into something you want, says Beauty and the Beast.

Disney isn't the only culprit, of course. The very notion of True Love, of the kind of love that you know full well happens to you and that you can't resist and that you should pursue at all costs et cetera - that notion is implanted into us real young, and is...well...dangerous.

Imagine you are taught from a very early age that needing to urinate is what a healthy relationship is, and nothing deviates from this reinforced teaching. (It's ridiculous, I know - but it's meant to be.)

I will state at this point that I am probably very biased. I'm socially a little malformed, and have had social anxiety for a long-ass time. So perhaps my word shouldn't be taken as academically sound - but then this blog is all opinion anyway, just sometimes backed with statistics.

So if we are raised in a world in which love is a thing that scares you rather than comforts you, and something that you can't ever give up on no matter how bad it is for you, and something that you MUST pursue in every aspect of your life, and that a life without love isn't worth living...well...

...okay, does anyone actually believe this is true? Like, really?

Is anyone going to truly claim that the best relationships they have in their lives aren't about comfort and trust and knowing each other and being able to exist in each other's company for basically years without going crazy? That they are based on mindless devotion and anxiety?

My mother once told me that before you can go out with someone, before someone can be your girlfriend, they have to be your friend. I scoffed at this. Film and television teach us that you fall in love with someone you meet out of the blue and charm and woo and then they love you and this is symbolised with a kiss which is obviously the desired result.

It took me a long time to realise what she meant. That to have a sexual and romantic relationship with someone that I can't be friends with is...well it's idiotic. If I can't hang out with someone and just be okay with them, how am I meant to be their other half? If we can't goof around with each other and laugh at dumb stuff, then...how complete and happy will our relationship really be?

It's easy to believe that relationships that are objectively harmful are the right way to do things, because all through our lives they always have been. We dismiss feeling like we are being mistreated because "shrug, well, that's the way love goes". We have all heard the story of "we're from the era when you fixed things rather than threw them out". That is held up as a virtue while we ignore the fact that domestic abuse was absolutely rife, and the notion of leaving that relationship was stigmatised to the point that you'd take the beating rather than the sidelong looks.

It does not have to be like this. It never had to be. We can change - and we can change the media that teaches people.

Steven Universe is something I come back to time and again. It has very healthy examples of relationships working, and examples of people resolving problems in a safe, smart way. It's just the tip of what needs to be an iceberg, though.

Creators - put healthy relationships in your books. Let them be friends first. Let people not be obsessed. Let people recognise that Romeo & Juliet is actually harmful, that infatuation is a form of obsession which is also harmful. Let people recognise that loving someone is an ongoing friendship, not a cycle of abuse.

Because my fairytale romance isn't a fairytale. It's a friendship. Just more.

3 of 7 - Strong In The Real Way

(The third of seven blogs this week! This isn't so bad! Famous last words!)

WARNING: Below this point, there will be a LOT of spoilers, if you aren't caught up with Steven Universe - at the very least to the episode Mindful Education, Season 4, Episode 4.

Here's a nice picture of Garnet to provide some space between warning and spoilers.

Okay so. I REALLY like Steven Universe. To the point that Steven was my first (albeit lazy) cosplay ever, which I wore at this year's Nine Worlds.

I even had the cheeseburger backpack.

I love this show for a lot of reasons. It is smart. It is sharp. It is funny, without being cruel. It is understated in the epic scope of the overarching plot. You don't even know there really IS one until late in Season 1.

The music is wonderful - both the incidentals and the songs the characters themselves break into with just enough infrequency that it feels like a treat every time. As I understand it most of the cast were chosen in part due to their singing ability, and Estelle - voice of Garnet - does a killer job at bringing life to her as a character, both verbally and chorally.

I love the characters; I love the parts of me that I see in some of them. I love that they are whole. Even if someone seems like a stereotype at first, you get to know them in the ten-minute snippets of life in Beach City. Even characters that seem throwaway and background gain a life of their own, which teaches you a valuable lesson - even people in the background have a story and a history.

Which brings me onto what I love the most about Steven Universe: the lessons.

It teaches us things. It teaches us important, valuable things, that I think everyone should know. It teaches us about love, of all sorts. It teaches us about insecurity and how it is okay to feel it, but to not let it hold us back. It teaches us about strength, and weakness, and moments of each. It teaches us about consent, and about respect, and about devotion and obsession - and the fine line between the two.

I don't know a lot of people who have watched the show who haven't felt their heart break at least once while watching it. In order to do so, you'd have to be a robot with no capacity for empathy.

Listen to Pearl singing about Rose - about how she can't believe that Rose would pick the human over her, and now she's gone, and why can't she just...move on? Who hasn't been there? Who hasn't met someone that turned their entire world upside down, like Ruby and Sapphire? Who hasn't seen someone going the wrong way about something and silently pleaded for them to realise, like Pearl in the song this blog is titled after? Who hasn't fucked up so monumentally that you would do literally ANYTHING to make it better, like Amethyst?

The songs add so much to the show. They sum it up in so many ways. Even the seemingly throwaway songs - Connie and Steven's jam song, or the snippets of the song Rose Quartz sings at the end of each episodes - gain meaning, gain traction.

It is the most recent song, however, that I find myself thinking about the most; a song about thoughts, about being hung up on them, about being afraid of even thinking them because they hurt. It's a song that poignantly, pointedly and accurately deals with anxiety - with things we have done wrong in the past and how we deal with them.

It's called Here Comes A Thought, and unsurprisingly, Garnet is singing it to Stevonnie. Because of course their relationship / fusion is a scary thing, and of course Garnet has been through the same thing more than any of the others. It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Steven Universe. A comforting cartoon for people living in a flawed world. But that's okay - if every pork chop was perfect...

...we wouldn't have hot dogs.

Nine Worlds 2016 - Somewhere In Time And Space

For one weekend of August, Novotel London West - just next to Hammersmith Broadway bus and tube station - became Nerdhome.

Nine Worlds Geekfest is my first con. The first time I went was last year, which I blogged about right here. This year I kind of knew what I was doing - and it was awesome.

Less social anxiety this time. Less weirdness. We didn't stay on site - which is a mistake we'll correct next year (already bought the tickets for next year as it stands) - but despite that, all the time spent on site was magnificent.

I went in cosplay for the first time. Not a complicated one. I went as Steven Universe - and the sheer joy I got out of it was something to behold. Every time someone went past and shouted "And STEVEN!" or started a chant of "Cheeseburger Backpack" - every time I ran into someone else cosplaying as one of the Crystal Gems, it was an experience. It was so good. For such a lazy cosplay, because hell it's the stuff I wear to work or around the house, the payoff was fantastic. It's encouraged me to go more complicated next year...I'm thinking a certain Overwatch character, a one-man apocalypse if you will...

...the people as always were wonderful. The convention volunteers were courteous and friendly, the fellow guests were as up for the con as I was, and the hotel staff were basically incredible. Last year there were complaints - this year it was nothing but love. They did everything they could to make our lives easier, even going so far as to tell various con-goers that they'd miss us when we were gone.

I desperately hope we are back at that hotel next year.

The cosplays were wonderful. It's hard to pick out favourites but there were four Rose Quartz's that I counted, one Stevonnie, Luci from Wic/Div who trebled down as Jon Constantine and Spike, a good friend showing great form as Scar, Spike AND Loki, several X-Men, at leas tone absolutely KILLER Ghostbuster with the proton pack on form, and...well anyone that went will know what I mean when I say No-Face.

I only went to three organised events - a talk on MST3K which was deftly delivered and truly fascinating, the annual Whedon singalong, and a Steven Universe singalong - but all of them were so, so happy-making. Like, my life was genuinely better each time I stepped into and out of one of those rooms.

It was so good to be surrounded by happy people too. To be around those that wanted to be there, who thought like I did, who could be confident and happy in this space when the rest of the world isn't so welcoming. It's a world that I wish was universal - that I wish existed everywhere, not just in one hotel for one weekend.

...and then we were stuck in tailbacks on the M3 for two hours, but...you know something?

Totally worth it.

I'll see you next year, Nine Worlds. I'll miss you until then. You put a light in my life that simply won't go out.