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"Average age of Minecraft player is 63" factoid actually just statistical error. The vampire Armand, who is 514, lives in Dubai & spends approx. 7.5 hours a day playing is an outlier adn should not have been counted

I need to kiss him and cuddle him and cradle him and spoon him so bad it’s not even funny

Inflamed Sense of Rejection: Chapter One

~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: This is that Angel Face backstory I was talking about. His name is Caleb Handover because I'm not going to call him Angel Face the whole time. There will be no "spice" because I type this on a school computer and honestly I want to expand my writing abilities. ~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a horrible way to start a journal, probably the most over-done and unintriguing sentence used to start a story, but my name is Caleb Handover. I’m 16 years old, and I live in Wilmington, Delaware. I go to Mt. Pleasant High School, class of 2001. That makes me a Junior.

It’s boring. Every single day is the same. The ducks pass over the sky when I’m walking to school, and it looked cool when I was nine, but nowadays it just feels like I’m watching someone drive to work. 

Delaware duck schedule: 6 AM, wake up to the same alarm as everyone in the neighborhood. 7 AM, fly to the pond for breakfast and a bath. Pass by that blond kid again. 

My hair was born white. People on the street asked my mom while she was pushing the stroller, why do you bleach your baby’s hair? 

She never did. 

 First period is Advanced Placement Calculus. I’m thinking about ducks. Derivatives, ducks, hyperbolas, ducks, factorials, ducks, integrals…

My mom called my hair duck-fuzz.  

I like math, but I only say that because high schoolers have to like something. If you say you don’t like any subjects in school, you sound like a wannabe-dropout loser. I’m 16 years old and taking AP Calculus. I don’t think I’m a wannabe anything, but I don’t think I’m genuine, either. I’ve already done the warmup question on the board. Find 34! It’s just a factorial. Does anyone see me?

“Caleb Handover?”

Only during attendance. 

I raise my hand until my elbow is about six inches off of my table, parallel to the smooth, fake-wood surface. Not high enough to seem like a geek, but still giving effort.  

Invisibility is a science.

“Here.” 

There’s a pause. My hand stays in the air.

“Caleb Handover?” my teacher tilts his chin up and surveys the room, his pencil hovering over my name, ready to write truant. 

“I said I’m here,” I said louder as I raised my hand higher. My pen balances between my peace-sign fingers. My teacher flicks his eyes to me, and his eyebrows soften. He adjusts his glasses. The sad taste of desperation lingered in my mouth after essentially begging to be accounted for.

“Oh, hello Caleb. Sorry I didn’t see you.” My teacher laughs dryly and clears his throat. “Serena Hofstadter?” 

She has mono. 

“Gordon Jacobs?” 

That’s how Serena got mono.

For a moment I picture Serena and Gordon as Romeo and Juliet during the final act. Gordon drinks from a tall, crystal vial of mononucleosis extract and collapses. Serena, covered head-to-toe in orange spray tan and blonde highlights underneath her Shakespearean garb, discovers him on the floor and gives a tearful soliloquy before kissing him feverishly in an attempt to drink the mono from his lips. In the end, they’re both bedridden, and everyone knows. 

In fair Delaware we lay our scene.

I don’t know why, but I’m angry at them. Serena and Gordon. My knuckles turn white as I grip my pen harder, gritting my teeth and thinking about my peers who go to parties to drink and kiss and do drugs. I didn’t even think parties were a real thing until I started listening to rich kids’ conversations. 

“I got home so late last night…” quote from the boy wearing the same clothes as yesterday.

“I’m, like, so hungover.” quote from the girl wearing sunglasses indoors at 8:30 AM.

“Her house was so tacky.” quote from the girl whose locker is head-to-toe in sequins and leopard print, who uses perfume to cover the smell of anxiety pheromones. 

I’m not jealous, and I’d rather have lifelong diarrhea than be in the same boat as these kids, but it would be nice to have a life. 

It would be nice to be a part of something bigger than myself.

~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: Please let me know what you think, and if I should keep writing this. It would be appreciated :)

farleigh start and racism; oh boy.

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

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.

OMG

Going crazy over the sleeves, it's too long for him 🥺🥹

[image description: the bugs bunny in a tuxedo "I wish all (blank) a very pleasant (blank)" meme edited to say "I wish all of my Jewish followers a very pleasant rosh hashanah". In front of Bugs there is a jar of honey, a stack of apples and pomegranates. In front of bug's mouth there is a shofar.]

*Macrinus trying to comfort Geta*

Macrinus: I want you to know that someone cares

Geta: ...*hopeful* Really?

Macrinus: Not me. But ....someone!

Geta: ....

Class of 2013 dune animatic

big day today