a a a a a a a a a
playing dress up with aventurine. where he’s your pretty little doll. trying on clothes because he likes to show off how pretty he looks in everything. except the clothes gets progressively raunchier… and sluttier… and more revealing. until he finally comes out in just lingerie, expecting some kind of reaction from you.
but you’ve just been looking on with a mild smile on your face, barely even a chuckle as he climbs onto your lap. aventurine can feel the familiar anxiety in his belly, the doubt growing in his mind. but he can’t turn back now; instead he grabs your hands, bringing them to his waist as he puts on the overconfident expression he knows all too well.
he spills his honeyed words, his eyes drawing you in. he’s far too pretty—gorgeous even—for you to ignore him like that. so he toys with the loosely tied bow across his chest; it wasn’t meant to stay tied for long, one small tug and it all comes undone.
he feels your thumbs rubbing along his waist, hands squeezing slightly and aventurine feels right on the edge. so, so close, he’s almost got you. the thrill of winning just within reach, just a little more…
“you look amazing in this one as well, i’m sure your lover will deeply enjoy it,” your easy smile and relaxed frame gave nothing away, toying with the silky fabric of the lingerie.
and he nearly stumbles as you move to stand, signaling the end of your little ‘meeting’. you’re not sure what he’s looking to gain from doing this, especially since he has yet to propose some kind of deal to you. however, it was getting late, and it wouldn’t look too good on either of you if you were seen leaving his residence so late in the night.
“if there’s no other outfits to show me, i think i’ll take my leave then. have a good night, aventurine.”
you’re gone before he can even think of an excuse to make you stay. or rather, if him dressing up like such in front of you isn’t enough to get you to stay, what else is a man to do?
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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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The thing is I do get the, like, instinctive suspicion of JGY? Or—well, no, I think a lot of it is classism. But suspicion is honestly a really reasonable response to JGY's activities under JGS! It's worth it to ask: was he really in danger of his life? And even if he was, having had to do this to survive—what will he be like, when he doesn't have to anymore?
They're fair questions! The problem is they're questions we can answer from the text. He absolutely was in danger of his life. And as to what he'd be like when he didn't have to anymore—
I've talked about the watchtowers a lot because they're such a good example, and the kind of thing that would never have happened without him. But sometimes I want to shake people and say, look at the result of his governance! Look at the world WWX wanders through, post resurrection! Look at the peace, look at the way the juniors really get the chance to be kids!
This isn't something that happens automatically. Or really what I want to say is, it means something about the powers of the cultivation world. You can't just treat it as an interesting background fact to the juniors' characterization, with no depth beyond that! The cultivation world under WRH was the way it was because of WRH; the cultivation world under JGS was the way it was because of JGS; the cultivation world under JGY was the way it was because of JGY, and the way it was was better than any other time we've seen it.
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