ok sure i'll talk about farleigh start. i'll talk about his tragedy of never being enough as it were and then having to deal with fucking oliver. sure. disclaimer: it's about class (and race) and the horrible reality of the rich. the horrible reality of living as farleigh.
another disclaimer: i'm white! and poc definitely pick up on everything i'm talking about here as it is, and better. i was and am specifically interested in farleigh vs. oliver but it's impossible to examine without considering race. definitely let me know if anything abt this sucks!
farleigh and oliver are similar. it's annoying because every intruder that is not himself is annoying, partly because felix's attention swaying from farleigh is dangerous; there is always a threat of being discarded, even if no precedent existed. the potential is terrifying.
but you'd think he's seen this before, every summer (if venetia is telling the truth) or at least often enough to learn to recognize it fast, so he should know this will pass. part of it is i think still the deep anxiety, and i think he hated every boy that was there before, and it is sort of routine.
but definitely a huge factor in farleigh's annoyance is the fact that he's a biracial (black for cattons, that's all they see) man in a white rich household. he's alert and exhausted all the time. of course he's angry at oliver, regardless of whether he's the first to crash at saltburn for the summer or the fifty-first.
but the important thing is this.
farleigh is very jealous of and angry and pissed at oliver because farleigh sees all the similarities between them. outsider, in financial trouble, whatever it is, in need of cattons; and yet oliver is preferred. and farleigh seems to be the only one to really consider it. felix does not pick up on the hint when farleigh brings up the birthday party vs. his mother. felix's clumsy "different or... anything like that" is as much about race as it is about class, of course. the "we've done all that we can" bit is felix absolving himself of guilt because surely they had, surely the mysterious collective cattons that he's not really part of had tried all they could do. to him, farleigh is different from oliver, because farleigh has been helped. felix is rich and white and twofold uncomfortable with farleigh, even if he's nice about it, even if he genuinely enjoys his company; he doesn't look too close at farleigh because he feels too guilty to come too close. and farleigh can't do anything about it. he can't nice himself into it. the fucking tragedy of him is that he's never enough in the world of the ultra-rich white, even if (especially because!) he's born into it.
farleigh is very pissed at oliver because farleigh also sees all the differences between them. you know who can be nice poor white enough to fit in? fucking oliver. felix says "just be yourself, they'll love you" when oliver first moves in. farleigh was also probably told the same thing, and felix also probably believed that farleigh could just be himself, but even if the cattons were magically not racist at all (impossible), it wouldn't make a difference to farleigh. he would still self-censor, keep in check, be in dangerous waters (because racism is not just about the individual, but about the system). we see that he'd won himself leeway by years of trial and error by the way he speaks to the family, but it's still within the boundaries of acceptable, built by the cattons. he's part of them because they allow it, and farleigh is very, very aware.
the annoying thing is oliver can be himself. like, truly, genuinely, he can just be. and farleigh can't help but envy that.
as a side note, oliver is obviously jealous of farleigh in the beginning as well, because regardless of the reality of farleigh's situation, he was born into it, and hence, at least in oliver's mind, has his position solidified. oliver's whole thing is unquenchable thirst and hunger for whatever and everything the cattons have (including themselves!). he wishes to have been a catton from birth. to oliver, at first, there's nothing farleigh can really do to lose it. and until he figures out the cattons completely, he can't help but envy that.
but i think farleigh senses something different about oliver early on. at least on the level of the text, we have "you're almost passing [for] a real, human boy", which is so important because farleigh is the first to point out oliver's weirdness. the next to do so is venetia in the bath scene calling him a freak, but it's too late. farleigh is too early.
and i like to think he clocks oliver too early because he sees the jagged edges that he recognizes in himself. i think that one other thing that farleigh envies is oliver's freedom to let go. freedom to let go is very similar to freedom to be, but not quite the same.
to be is about perception: farleigh knows he cannot fall out of line, but would like to, and oliver does not have to worry about it at all (i mean, he does, because oliver also performs for felix, but farleigh doesn't know that).
to let go is about the self: farleigh is too scared to even want what oliver eventually does, to even consider the possibility. oliver can let himself want. oliver can let himself act. oliver just can do things and want things. i'm not sure farleigh can.
and so in this scene, when oliver's wants and actions have landed him nowhere with farleigh, felix, venetia, the cattons, of course farleigh gloats. he can let himself do that, because if the cattons are slowly discarding him, farleigh can allow himself this one small victory. he's relieved because despite the dangerous similarities, oliver is, thankfully, not really the same as farleigh, right?
but like. this movie is a love letter to all things gothic. oliver is a white man. he prevails. the brief performance that oliver put on did eventually end up more effective than farleigh's lifetime of constraint. my heart fucking breaks for him to be honest.
the issue that remains is the fact of farleigh's survival. i like to think that oliver came to respect him. oliver is smart, but farleigh is clever. he picks up on everything oliver does (to refer back to the karaoke scene, farleigh immediately retaliates in the cleverest way, in the moment), and he's the only one to do so consistently (venetia, again, for example, comes close, but too late; oliver doesn't like that, there's nothing to work with). hence, stay with me for a little longer, the paradox: farleigh survives because he was never enough for the cattons, but he is very worthy of oliver's attention. in his own freaky way, oliver wants him. look at that.
so. farleigh. farleigh might come back. he always comes back. and i think oliver wants to try harder next time.
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Hi!! Since pocketwei just recommended a bunch of your fics, I just wanted to tell you that I think you're the gold standard of dofuwani and mishanks on AO3. Actual inspiration. I need to sit down and devote a day to commenting on your fics because I've read most of them and your writing lives in my head rent free.
AOADFDUKIDUFLJ ??!!!! HOW DO I EVEN RESPOND TO THIS AAAHHA. "the gold standard" aahhadufdgu what the hell, dudedfkdufj. Thank you thank you!!
^^ Live Haze Reaction
Please don't feel like you have to leave any comments or anything, it already means the world to me that you took the time to read my writing, and be so fair and generous with it, (eyes glazing over, maniacal air) bringing it to life inside of you by considering it and letting yourself think about it (normal again), aaaahhaa it makes me so sentimental. We are alive !!!!
That said, of course, I'd be happy to hear anything you want to share in the form of a comment (getting the emaail is like a syringe to the spine for me), but don't overthink it or feel pressured to comment on everything or share in utter Platonic eloquence, blah blah. Just whatever you feel like saying, long or short, critical or flattering, observational or analytical or reactive, or even just an emoticon, it's all good!
(I suppose, too, it doesn't really matter whether you'd like to share them with me in particular--sometimes it's nice to give fixed form to your thoughts, and know they're worth that effort, so there's your explicit permission to simply use my comment sections as a medium to prove you exist, haha.)
but um. tldr. thank you! one million kisses.
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not to be a dick but if you've been through actual university level art school and you still think that it's unreasonable bullying to be asked to push yourself or experiment with different art styles or to have aspects of your artwork criticised by people you asked for an opinion. what was the point of art school for you exactly?
when people say shit like 'my art school tutors told me my art was bad bc it was too anime and cartoonish ☹️' that may be true but I'm not gonna lie what I suspect happen is they told you 'you should work on developing a solid foundation for any art style you choose by pushing yourself to try more representational art Anne getting comfortable with ways of seeing and understanding images' and what you heard is 'NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO DRAW CARTOONS EVER AND YOUR WORK IS WORTHLESS'
and furthermore I suspect that you were really annoying in crits and took any even slightly negative comment or suggestion as a personal attack even though literally the point of art school is to learn to take and grow from constructive advice from your peers.
shout out to the girl on my undergrad who burst into tears literally every crit for three years even though about the nastiest thing anyone said to her was 'it might look cleaner if you rubbed out any of your pencil lines after inking and also used a clean rubber while sketching.' and guess whose art didn't improve at all over three years and whose technique actively got sloppier while other people were moving forward in leaps and bounds? yeah.
there were people who started uni as the best in the class and ended as some of the worst bc they just weren't prepared to listen to criticism or change how they did anything. and there were people who started out very mediocre and went on to produce incredible professional work to a high standard bc they listened and were open to change. and that's got nothing to do with who was more painterly and who was more cartoony or whatever it's just. when you ask advice and get something you don't want to hear do you chew on it and try it out or do you dig your heels in and do more of the same?
and like I'm not saying there's anything wrong with sticking to your guns and doing art the way you want to do art and the way that brings you joy. I'm just saying if you don't want feedback, teaching or advice on how to improve I'm really not sure what the benefit of art school is that you couldn't get several thousand pounds cheaper by staying home and drawing there.
(and I'm also saying if you come out of art school like BOOHOO NOBODY LIKES MY STYLE AND MY ART IS WORTHLESS you might. need to pull yourself together and say either I'm committed to this style regardless of whether people like it and I'm going to keep building on this style and make it amazing, or I want to make art that's more like the work people like and I value, what could I change to get more where I want to go? but if you lie down and say waaaaaah it's so unfair that my art is bad and everyone else is just more talented than me then bullshit. by the time you've graduated art school talent is not the deciding factor in the quality of your work. it's a question of your willingness and capacity to put the work in, take criticism, understand what you want to achieve, and slog through trying and failing to get a certain effect until it improves. professional level art is not an innate talent it's a trained skill, and some people might start further along the path than others bc of their talent, eye or training, but the distance between someone who's talented but unpractised and someone who's less talented but puts a lot of thought and work in closes extremely rapidly. it can be disheartening but if you want to do this professionally rather than for yourself you gotta feel your frustration, have a good scream and cry about it, then get back in to figuring out what you need to build on. bc we're all guilty of sometimes going HOWEVER HARD I WORK I'LL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS MY PEERS but no offence if you just lie down and give up where does that get you? if you just start going 'actually you should all feel bad for not liking my work more' instead of making your work more appealing or finding the right audience for it, that's on you not on anyone else. what was the point of art school????)
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