Plethoraflora

Now I know philosophy, I know that nothing really matters, that we decide what matters and I can decide that doing good for selfish reasons is good enough. Like I don't want to go around making my friends unhappy. All this pain would make me a very sympathetic character. I deserve to be around people who don't make me feel like a terrible person, and I have the right to remove myself from those kinds of people.

But that just makes like me exactly like that ex-friend who started this emotional domino effect in the first place!

How can I possibly blame someone for looking after their mental health, even if it means hurting me? Why should I expect them to shoot themselves in the foot just to appease me? I used to be that person. There were people who were being toxic, and they might have felt they could react like that because I'm super horrible to be around but I can tell they made choices they didn't need to, I could recognise the toxicity in the situation.

I was watching Amanda the Jedi's video on Forbidden Fruit. That got me interested in the word Coven and why it was in everyday language (in wordscapes I know if I can get Coven I can also get cove and other stuff), but like I didn't know what Grimoire is till last year. So similar use (as only really used in occult stuff), but not as well known. So then I learned about Margaret Murray, all that was very interesting and not relevant to this post at all.

I also got curious about Mean Girls and it was loosely based on non-fiction book, Queen Bees and Wannabes, which has since been updated to address social media, and that’s where I read the one line from the author to the parents 'If kids use social media, it is a privilege, not a right.' Now that was a term I never fully understood because I always saw 'privilege' as something someone has when they're born into high society. So 'privilege’ was really just meant the cushy stuff people had if they were a member of a club. Not a specific club, just a group of people who because they were part of that group, they had advantages. Like ‘admin privileges’ meant people part of the ‘admin’ group could boot people out of a group chat but not vice versa. When used in authoritative settings like prison or child rearing, a ‘privilege’ was something cushy you got if you performed well. Ie, it was something you had to earn, while ‘privilege’ in the general use was something you had whether you earned it or not.

‘Right’ on the other hand was something I understood well, because I understood it in terms of ‘human rights’. A ‘right’ is something you deserve to have no matter what group you’re part of or if you’ve earned it or not. So, in this regard it is my ‘right’ to have food, but it is not a right but a ‘privilege’ to have ice-cream. It is a ‘punishment’ to only be served nutritious but disgusting broth forever. It might serve my nourishment needs, but to be exclusively and deliberately served something that will make me unhappy actually makes the ‘rightful’ food source a ‘punishment’. In this way having something that would be considered a ‘privilege’ becomes a ‘right’ given a long enough time.

Examples aside, the line 'If kids use social media, it is a privilege, not a right’ got me thinking about my teenage years which would have been when this revised version was published. I was a very lonely and bitter teenage girl, with no hobbies (I was too emotionally exhausted after school to pursue hobbies) or social group (I was led to believe I was horrible to everyone I talked to) to let those emotions vent out. The only freedom I found was on the internet. I didn’t even want to use social media; I just wanted to watch YouTube videos and nightcore and maybe comment once in a while. But that didn’t matter, I was a teenager, by internet access had to be restricted. In that regards, social media or the internet on a whole might still be a ‘privilege’ but for it being my only escape, it went beyond a ‘right’, it was a necessity. It was like my parents were holding the food out of my reach and telling me ‘to eat is a privilege’.

And they weren’t being deliberately cruel, they saw the internet as a corrupting influence simply because of it’s potential dangers. Had my parents dove into why it was dangerous and had they listened to why it was important to me, maybe things would have been different. I didn’t want to join any social medias other then the feeling of to belong, and I didn’t want to use the internet in any way that strangers would prey on me (because I just wanted to watch nightcore, drawing and education videos). Dangers can still happen and my judgement on what was real or not could have been clouded but it wasn’t. I was already internet literate at that stage, but it didn’t matter because my parents would never believe me. They just didn’t listen to me. They thought I’d just sit up in my room, wasting time on tv, movies and the internet instead of going outside and getting a real hobby, or times when I’d just sit on the couch for hours and do nothing but think. Then I wrote a book. It wasn’t a good one, but it was long and high fantasy. That’s when their attitude to things changed because they could actually see the fruits of my labour.

And yes. One can have all those good things. But at the end of the day, communication is a two way street, and it doesn't matter how much communication skills you have if the other person has no communication receiving skills.

You could tell the truth in a polite way, and they ignore the question. You could tell the truth in a more assertive manner, and suddenly to them, you're the one picking a fight, and nothing you say will get through to them.

What's left is to tell them the information you need them to know by tricking them into listening, and because what you say is a harsh truth, it will come off as passive -aggression. And it's justified by the aggressor because sometimes, it's information the other person needs to know, even if they're not going to like it. That doesn't make passive-aggression right in most cases, it just means sometimes people have made for themselves the bridge that they can only receive honest criticism that also doesn't set off their fuse to either fight back or ignore the question; a thin tightrope that only the world's best balancing act can possibly walk across.

It's not fair then to ask someone who's already a good communicator to become a tightrope walker. They will inevitably fall to the side of; too soft and they ignore; too harsh and they fight back. A good communication-receiver has a bridge as wide as a road. They can sort through respectable feedback and unwarranted jabs. They can sort through what they should be emotional about, what they feel emotionally about even if they logically shouldn't, they can choose to respond to cruelty by brushing it off, or standing up for yourself.

– They ask for a CV.

That's it. I once went for a recruitment event where the companies were only allowed hire people who attended that specific day. After I got to chatting with some of the recruiters whose projects I was interested in. Mind you this a job industry where people only really hire their friends anyway. They had the audacity to ask me to send them a CV. I'm sorry. No. I'm so numb to no one hiring me because they hire their friends and my CV apparently isn't good enough for any job even though I have the same or more experience then the people the do hire. Here I am networking like I'm suppose to. Here I am being interested in their project. Here I am being in a pool where they must hire from. There was enough jobs for everyone in that event. And they fucking asked for a CV. No. Fuck no. I am done with their bullshit. I have tried their methods and it does not work. They do not respond to a CV. They do not respond to an excellent CV. It is being in the right place at the right time that gets you job.

I'm outside, wearing sunglasses, cuz ya know, it's sunny. And everything looks lovely but I know the glasses are darkening everything so I take them off. While everything's bright, and being in full sun everything should theoretically be in its truest, most illuminated glory, it's not. And this is after my eyes have adjusted so I'm not squinting. Everything is this hazy, warm-toned, yellowy amalgamation. Like someone took a black and white photo and then overlayed a super bright yellowy-green overtone. No nuance in colour at all. And no, I'm not colour blind.

But ya put on some glasses at overlay all that with red, and boom, you see all the slender of nature. Even things that aren't green look more naturally saturated and I see more nuance within green foliage. It also draws the colour of things in shade. The blue sky looks richer. I'm debating whether to just shoot picture through the lens of my sunglasses because I keep seeing a cool nature scene, remove my glasses just to see that it wasn't so nice.

thankfully i never had to read if for school but my family watched the movie when it came out. i was 13 at the time. i really don't think they should show that movie/book to teenagers or force them to read it. not that they can't understand the point, more so they can't appreciate the point. like in inside out, when riley's emotions get more complex when as she grows up, i understand themes better as i grow up. it's not even brain development, i just experienced more life so i can appreciate different perspectives more.

like when i was younger i just lumped the great gatspy into all other tragedies. mice and men, the boy in the striped pyjamas, romeo and juliet, lord of the flies. their points were that good things end in tragedy and it's pointless to try. but looking back i see it's more then that. reading the synopsis back (i'd never waste time reading the whole thing again) gatspy isn't great, he's just an idiot. daisy is a one-dimensional female character, and f scott fitzgerald didn't do anything wrong by writing her that way.

when i was younger i was a massive romance fan, which is ironic because i wasn't taken in by the romance of romeo and juliet, i thought they were dumb and immature and people should not be basing their love lives off the 3 days these two knew each other. if daisy and gatsby weren't going to get together, there should be a good reason for it, but daisy just doesn't choose gatsby over tom, even though tom is made out to be a massive dick. daisy doesn't need a great reason not to like 'oh she's a woman in 1920s, and divorced women don't get good social standing... yada yada' this is 1920s new york with emphasis on the free spirited liviliness of the time. daisy would have been fine whether she was a mistress or divorcee. and even if she wasn't, she's still so fabulously wealthy as old money was, she could have lived a comfortable life.

the heart of the matter is, gatspy, in all his grand ideas, massive parties, (like dude could have just introduced himself to daisy, but that's been said enough) was a massive idiot going after someone as one-dimensional as daisy. he had an immature approach to love, and he really shouldn't have tried so hard for someone who isn't as committed as he is to the relationship, and he shouldn't have been that committed in the first place. daisy for her part, did exactly as what was expected of her. she was born to the uber rich, she liked gatsby because he treated her well, but married tom because tom would maintain the wealth she was used to and also present. To quote Lorelei from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 'if a girl spends time worrying about the money she doesn't have, how will she have any time for love?' now i don't believe daisy would ever have to worry about money, but the uber rich expect to remain uber rich. when daisy says she loves both tom and gatsby, it's for the same reasons she felt for them back when she intiated both relationships. tom's from her social circle, even if he is a dick, and gatsby is much nicer but not from that same old money. gatspy doesn't love daisy —because to love someone is to know them, and if he knew daisy well he knew she would react like this and isn't worth his devotion. instead he spends all this time being in love with the idea of being in love with daisy. while 13 year old me could understand this on paper, i couldn't understand it enough to write a tragedy over.

what i love about romance, and also what i loved about romance when i was 13 —i just didn't know how to put it into words back then— is when the love is like the brightest light in one's life that persistently shines even amidst discord and destruction. even if daisy didn't love tom, she liked him enough to stay married to him. she does not need a love that shines so persistently because her life is pretty cushy. gatsby didn't need that kind of love either (in fact no one really needs it, but they do need love, just not romantic love, and really good not romantic love is much easier to come by), because he'd also made a cushy life for himself. he just needed honest, kind-hearted friends and a worthwhile occupation to pass the time. and if he met the right person, someone who he really got to know, someone who was so persistent in making him happy, and put the same amount of reasonable, non-love-bombing, effort into their relationship, then he could have found a love so bright it outshines all discord and distruction. but it wouldn't have been angsty, and i like my romance angst.

Snakes are serpents.

Legless lizards are not snakes.

Do legless lizards count as serpents?

Every time I see someone mention serpent it's almost always used as metaphor (those evil serpents), or used as an adjective (the serpentine features of Voldemort). So serpent or serpentine just means "snake-like". Legless lizards are not snakes, but they are snake-like.

I go and I say I like movies, and suddenly people get the impression that I love the art of cinema, and I do, but that does not mean I want to go out and watch all the Oscar contenders. Same goes for tv shows. I say I like to write, and people assume I'm a big fan of novels, when actually reading text is one of my least preferred methods to consume a piece of narrative fiction. It's just easier to do then draw a comic or have friends and budget to make a movie.

I say I like comics, but does that mean 'funny people', short comic strips, graphic novels, manga, manhua, manhwa, webtoons? If I say I like graphic novels people might get the impression that I like all genres of graphic novels. I'm not a particular fan of downer, political dramas, even if all the characters are cute animals. I could say I like webtoons, but not all drawn stories are online. I like manga, but not all manga-like media is from Japan. 'Animation' covers a lot of what I like, but a lot of things that are animated, are not representing fiction, like advertisements. Both Beavis and Butt-Head, and Akatsuki no Yona can be considered 'animation', but they are so vastly different in terms of the media environment they were created in that it could give outsiders the completely wrong impression of what people like.

Take TvTropes, the number one library containing any genre, cliche or trope one would like. 'Tv' is a very expansive definition that includes many popular franchises, dramas, country-specific media, and animation. But it can also include the news, sports, documentary, a physical television, and it does not include novels or comics or movies. I say I like watching Tv, does that mean I like watching news/sports/documentaries/static screen/fiction? Does it mean I like watching what the tv companies make, or streaming services like Netflix? For streaming, which could convey I like Netflix, but maybe I mean Twitch, or YouTube. Those two are streaming on the internet, but you need the internet for Netflix. In a way tv is tv, Netflix is mostly tv but also internet, and YouTube and twitch are fully internet and not tv at all, all those you can watch those things on a tv. All the while TvTropes, fully encapsulates the stuff I like, even if the naming is a bit misleading.

The problem comes up when fishing for an ice breaker, I ask a potential friend, 'do you like watching tv, if so, what shows do you like?' And they might not like tv at all and say as such and they prefer movies. And that's a literary correct answer, but my intention of asking in the first place was not whether they like tv, I was trying to find what 'media fiction' they liked, in the hopes we both might have one in common we enjoy and can thus talk about that. But 'media fiction', while it's exact, it's not a common enough term and someone's gotta think about exactly what it means and that's too much brain power for small talk. Suddenly, I'm grilling them "are there any tv shows you particularly like? are there any movies you particularly like? are there any books you particularly like? are there any games you particularly like? oh, I’m sorry, i meant video games not board games. oh, I'm sorry, I meant rpgs, not mobile games. I like mobile games too but not enough to talk about them. oh, you like Skyrim? now we're cooking. I’ve never played it but how do you think the story is handled...'

My parents know I like manga, and they know I like drawing, so they got me a copy of Bakuman. A manga about becoming a manga artist. A nice safe option from someone who doesn't know anything about manga, to someone who loves manga. But I don't like manga for the medium, I like manga for its variety of genres that I don't find a lot of in western comics. My mum knows my book preferences, she does not know my manga preferences, even though they're the same. And Bakuman has a level of misogyny you just wouldn't get in major western publications. I was so mad when I first read it, I threw it across the room.

What a story ends up being is very much shaped by its medium, but also the societal tropes around that medium. That's why a book where a story is conveyed across panels with the text only being featured in speech bubbles, has so many different names. Even though the medium is the same, it's genres are different. The genres and the tropes I like. Unfortunately, 'fiction media' is categorised in the mainstream by its mediums. the mediums are all different, but the terminology, genres, tropes, cliches, they all share. I do like certain mediums over others, particular 'comics'. And I like certain genres over others, particularly romance. So, I'm not going to read a romance book, simply because it has romance in it. And I'm not going to read a neo-noir graphic novel, just because it’s a 'comic'. But I will be drawn to seek out stories of a certain media production industry, if they produced as lot of the stuff I like, particularly the webtoon app or manhwa. South Korea produces a lot of fiction media of the romance genre.

Even Tumblr has a problem with it, I follow the tag 'romantasy' because if there's anything I like more than romance, it's romance mixed with fantasy and action. Luckily for me, action and fantasy often goes hand in hand. Fantasy/action without heart does not make an interesting story and contemporary romance, unless it's really funny, can get terribly boring. But romantasy covers it all. But because of that Tumblr thinks I'm interested in booktok, because that's where the term is mostly used, and i don't read a lot of books. but when people make posts about their preferred ship dynamics? That's the shit.