#I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON I KNOW

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[greatbigstorm]

/ /

[reminiscingtonight]

Ovdj ate shit bc the field is so slippery and I'm trying really hard not to laugh

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[humans-are-tasty]

crochawk exchange for a crochawker

[ruporas]

post ep 11

[overleftdown]

farleigh start and racism; oh boy.

(some people are going to find this post really annoying. some people are like felix catton.)

read this.

just some thoughts from the perspective of a person of color who is slightly too obsessed with this character. this movie leaves the viewer a lot of wiggle room to interpret how dynamics such as race and privilege come into play. there are certain parallels between this movie and the real world, and how unnoticeable white privilege tends to be for white people.

lemme lay some groundwork. from what i understand, the most prevalent form of racism and white privilege within upper- and middle-class circles is implicit bias. this is racist conceptualization that subconsciously interacts with one's perception of society and people. implicit bias is often externalized through microaggressions, differences in treatment and language towards a marginalized person, misplaced guilt or pity, and persistent denial of any existing privilege or marginalization. most of these biases are also founded on stereotypes. some racial stereotypes are heightening (e.g. asians are all smart) and some are lowering (e.g. black people are all lazy). all stereotypes are harmful. i'm going to discuss some of the stereotypes that could theoretically interact within the saltburn canon, as well as some things i've noticed within viewers. can of worms, to be honest. boutta get INTO IT.

to use one of my externalization examples, let's discuss (or, more accurately, let me discuss) the denial of existing privilege or marginalization. this is a subconscious way to uphold a sense of morality, effectively avoiding "white guilt," so to speak. as is clearly presented to us, the cattons are very attached to their methods of upholding their own self-righteousness. saviorism is a common theme within both elspeth and felix. in oliver's conversation with elspeth about poor dear pamela, you can see that oliver recognizes elspeth's need to justify her actions in an attempt to preserve her sense of decency. one can only assume that this applies to how they view farleigh's relationship with them. there's more to talk about there, but i'd like to start with the only overt mention of race in this movie.

in felix's confrontation with farleigh, farleigh makes the bold and brave decision to mention his blackness. i call this brave because it's genuinely a terrifying thing to do, and the end of this conversation is proof. "oh, that is... that is low, farleigh. seriously, that's where you want to take this? make it a race thing? i never know our footman's names; the turnover for a footman is notoriously high!" we have felix's intentional or unintentional shaming of farleigh. we have felix's appalled denial of any involvement of race or racial bias. we have felix's diversion away from farleigh specifically and onto his own inability to know his staff's names. felix made no further attempt to recenter farleigh, aside from telling him that the cattons have "done what they can." (which is SO absurd on its own. they are clearly and obviously able to do more. they are disgustingly rich). farleigh does feel ashamed after felix's response; you can see it on his face, and archie says it directly. here is a relevant and prevalent stereotype for all marginalized people: that the discussion of marginalization is exclusively weaponized to gain something or manipulate a situation. this is how felix chooses to see farleigh's implication of existing white privilege. this conversation results in nothing, does nothing, as felix chooses not to confront what he's probably thinking as he repeats the words "begging bowl" to venetia.

now. saviorism, guilt, and pity. felix specifically tells oliver that sir james made an effort to support farleigh out of guilt. i'd like to order some things in a way that i perceive them. frederica start runs from england, which is explained in a condescending way by felix. frederica start marries a so-referred-to "lunatic" who dug through fred and jame's money, although it's farleigh who only mentions fred's financial irresponsibility. out of guilt, james offers to pay for farleigh's education. the specificity of education is compelling to me. perhaps james is simply a patriotic man who strongly believes that english education is better. or this is a mobilized racial stereotype! who can truly know. i digress. james' offer to pay for farleigh's foreign education puts the cattons in an odd position; if farleigh is to attend english schools, he will need to stay with the cattons. if farleigh is staying with the cattons, he will need to be treated as equal to felix and venetia. this is all one long chain of obligations. none of these acts from one family member to another should be considered "charitable," because family should intrinsically create a trustworthy and supportive dynamic.

i believe that the cattons do consider their fostering of farleigh as obligatory. moral obligation, as they recognize that families are intended to have a sympathetic and loving relationship. they cannot, however, escape the truth that they're just guilty. the "begging bowl" and "biting the hand" are more symbolic of a starving dog and its charitable adopter than a cousin/nephew who's staying with his absurdly rich family. see, the cattons are fully and entirely capable of affording another child, of supporting frederica financially, etc. the only way i can rationalize their reluctance to do so is by assuming that they don't feel like farleigh deserves it. is this a crazy assumption? i genuinely don't see why else. of course, i don't think this mentality is explicit or conscious. it's more-so the reality that when farleigh walks in a room, he's not the same as anybody else. aside from background characters at oxbridge, the only on-screen black people are liam, joshua, and james' godson's wife (who gets degraded on-screen). this is the reality of being different in an environment such as the english aristocracy. the cattons choose to see themselves as the hand that feeds the less fortunate, more entertaining, and least inconvenient. the cattons' inclusion of farleigh is not only reliant on how well farleigh performs, but also on their own pity and guilt.

all of this is somehow, painfully mirrored by some takes i've seen on farleigh. maybe this entire post is presumptuous, but you know what isn't presumptuous? saying that certain people hold farleigh to an incredibly odd standard. while the cattons never canonically said anything along the lines of "farleigh doesn't deserve our love and support," mfs on the internet have. the number of times people have referred to this character as greedy, lazy, petty, and malignant is so odd to me. i'm insane, i know. i just don't understand how people can hold farleigh to the backdrop of an english aristocratic family and so passionately say that he, of all characters, is the most detestable. or that he, of all characters, has no reason to behave in the way he does.

is farleigh greedy? greed is defined as a desire for more. farleigh has no desire to climb ranks, no desire to replace or surpass felix, no desire to hold any power over any family member. he is maintaining, upholding a standard that has been set for him throughout his life. is it kind or selfless of him to meddle in other people's affairs with the cattons? no. does he have a reason to be upset that non-relatives of the cattons are a threat to his inclusion in the first place? yes. is farleigh lazy? i don't even need to explain this one. no. if you don't consider oliver lazy, then i really don't want to hear anything. is farleigh petty? pettiness is defined as "an undue concern for trivial matters, especially in a small-minded or spiteful way." farleigh's meticulous attention to trivial matters isn't undue in any sense. a person of color and their meticulous attention to trivial matters is almost never undue. elspeth is a good example of petty. is farleigh malignant? there are a lot of definitions of malignant and i've seen people apply all of them, in some way, to farleigh. that's just wrong. archie madekwe once said, "i was interested in humanizing what, on paper, seemed like a mean character, a villain, or a bully. i don't think he's any of that. he's very self-serving, but i think he's really a heartbreaking character." case closed, this was for my own piece of mind. had to write this section because good lord.

in conclusion to this post that has gone tragically off the rails, i think the in-canon and viewer perspective of farleigh is, perhaps, a little racially motivated. sue me. they are all very centered on this idea that farleigh doesn't deserve inherent respect, support, and love. to remove farleigh's rational position within the cattons family would be akin to removing his right to familial love. genuinely, that's how i see it. the transaction nature of farleigh's actions is responsive. he sees felix as a social shield at oxbridge, he sees elspeth and james as the beholders of his perceived security, and he sees saltburn as a way to escape from his lack of privilege and his lack of stability in america. boom. bam. pow.

[vikingpoteto]

I need a fic in which Sanji is crazy envious of Zoro like. I hate him, I wanna be him, I wanna kill him with my bare hands. And he just doesn't know how to deal with it until he realizes he just has a massive bi crush.

[parlerenfleurs]

Starting to think, going by the MXTX fandoms, that a lot of people are comfortable with being a bit terrible and not thriving for an ideal whatsoever, because they really really reeaaally want to believe Xue Yang and Jiang Cheng are poor cuties who weren't lucky and the heroes are a bunch of holier-than-thou arrogant bitches who need to be taken down a peg when the text says the opposite, because then it justifies their own faults and hatred of genuinely awesome people who seem to have it better in life and isn't that sooo unfair and isn't it fair that they should suffer to learn what it's like to suffer like them, poor tortured, petty, flawed humans who see themselves in the villains rather than the heroes.

[skinnypaleangryperson]

Everything has been so pathetically genuinely terribly cringe to me lately, to the point where I don't get joy out of anything anymore, but I'm trying

I'm aware enough to know that this is a side effect of severe depression and stagnance and mundaneity and generally being sick of being alive and hating everything for it

[musashi]

i JUST realized this might be related to one of my other friends in the mvk fandom suddenly hardblocking me so uh

hey y'all! if you frequent the mvk tag, there is a regular blogger there who i will not name, but who has some sort of pathological attachment/obsession with me. they and i were tumblr mutuals but we were not close. we DM'd twice and had scattered interactions here and there.

they are accusing me of:

being abusive toward them

being otherwise cruel to them

being ableist against disabled folks who are high-support???

sending suibait/having my friends send suibait

probably other things.

EDIT: someone's informed me they're accusing me of posting private stuff from their vent account? the only account i know of theirs is the one we were mutuals on

i can't stress enough that none of this is true. there is no proof of it and if you press this person they will have none. all that happened was some time about a year ago when we were mutuals, i feared they might be vagueblogging about me when i was having depressive episodes and i sent them this message about it:

i was being honest here, but they then turned around and said i was spot on--they were vagueblogging about how badly they wanted me to shut the fuck up, stop whining, etc (paraphrasing, but that was the vibe exactly) every time i needed social support. they have since deleted their message admitting to this. i am so sorry i cannot prove it.

since then multiple mutual friends of ours have unfollowed them because they squat on ym blog and, again, pathologically blog about me. they revel and make posts about "justice" and "karma" whenever i am upset on here. they scream and yell and cry whenever i am happy. they have admitted to wanting to convince their mutuals to abandon me:

again, i can't prove this is about me but i have a lot of testimonials from people who noticed this being in both our circles and can vouch for it. initially i was just going to roll my eyes and move on but i think they might be telling other people i'm some horrible fucking abuser who mistreated them when i wasn't even close enough to them to do so.

anyways, sorry to everyone who tracks the tag! i don't know how to prove that i didn't hurt this person. but... like... if they approach you, please do your best to use best judgement and consider the facts in front of you.

again, i will not be naming them. this is not a callout post. this is a preventative measure, because i am a traumatized wreck and i really cannot deal with things of this nature.

[beforetimes]

tbh i think after logan resets the past at the end of days of future past and wakes up in this timeline that's better than he could ever imagine it'd be very hard for it to settle in his mind that this is real and he gets to keep it.

like, after decades of living in a dystopian hell he's not going to wake up in seemingly in paradise without having some sort of ptsd or residual nightmares from before where all his friends died horrible deaths that he couldn't stop. i feel like to him, scott and jean would feel more like ghosts than people for a good while because if we're operating under the assumption that days of future past happened in the same timeline that the original trilogy happened in, it would've been about half a century since logan had last seen the two of them alive and well. i feel like to him it would be similar to knowing you're dreaming and waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole way through.

and then after that there's the fact that he has no idea who he is in this timeline now—that's what i feel was implied, anyway, with how he woke up years in the future and couldn't remember anything past 1973. but he still has relationships built up with the people there and he's an entirely different logan than the one who woke up in his place. so i feel there would be some fumbling there as well, to figure out those relationship dynamics again. unless you just want to assume that things went about the same as the og trilogy minus the plot of the last stand.

idk! i feel logan wouldn't bounce back as fast as it seems he would. think he would have nightmares and be overly-wary and always feel like he's on the cusp of losing this too good to be true world he's stepped into. but i also feel he would soften some of his rougher edges—in the og trilogy he seems more like a flight-risk than anything, still bouncing from place to place and coming back to the x-mansion for a few people, but here he would stay for more than just jean and rogue—clings on for all the kids he couldn't save the first time and the allies who became close friends over the course of them living out that first dystopian future only he remembers. just thinking out loud

[crownedwille]

.

[myriad--starlings]

have you ever gotten away, you ran away and it was basically the same but it felt different, you thought you made it out of the place that was killing you. but then the years pass like seconds and you blink and it's all the same somehow? you're still dying. and so you have to put yourself back in the coffin and you don't know if it's going to work it could be the worst decision you've ever made but it's dying this way, maybe, or dying for sure if you don't. so you put yourself in the fucking coffin. and maybe one day you'll break out the other side and you keep thinking you have but the time keeps passing so fast and it's so hard in here. but if you weren't in the coffin you know you'd be dead?

[caelysiiium]

okay we all knew MDL comments are complete ass but I just saw the absolute worst take on the TanFang scene in ep12 and I'm just ???????

[silverwhittlingknife]

can we have a hint about what the spring break tim patrol chapter of red letter day contains? (you kept having dick say "if the joker shows up" and tim's "he won't." for me to be convinced that goes off without any trouble)

i'm sure it'll be fine. :D

i am delighted you're enjoying the story <333 i haven't updated it in soooo long but i got some very sweet comments lately so i have been looking at my scribbles again <3