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half of angst/whump culture is just rebranded fetish tropes cuz why r u guys so intent on getting into the nitty gritty of bucky barnes gang rape idk u guys have to know u r lowk crying over disturbingly graphic bdsm level torture porn except its not even sexual, ur just snotting all over urself. and its worse when they think theyr being radically empathetic bcuz theyr making the choice to daydream about ptsd symptoms 😭😭 ur not an empath ur lowk jus spiraling and i think u needa take a walk thru a meadow and see the sunlight through tree canopies.

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plot twist: it was never one movie, they always liked him, like a mutual said, they only hated him cos bucky hated him and now that they're on the same team, they adore him and feel comfortable being their racist selfish, and the pcs gave them more ammo to shit on sam..

this is about john walker by the way ^^^

its insane because i am not going to sit here and argue that john himself is evil or nefarious and cannot be appreciated and even liked as a flawed character capable of change.

the ISSUE, tbh, is marvel dropping the ball with his character. john walker was INTRODUCED as a mechanism of white supremacy. his purpose in tfatws was to represent a system in which a white man in the pockets of the american government can replace and overshadow a black man. there are also themes (poorly done, but still) of resistance groups and how we as americans have ground them into a thin red powder without a care for the stabilization of communities, the reality of history, and the sanctity of life. we’re talking about john “war on terror” walker, guys. yes, he is a victim of white nationalism, but he did it with so much ignorant hubris and pretension that it’s borderline impossible to critically defend him. he killed a surrendering man and he believed that what he did was justified because he is a soldier, most likely deployed in the middle east for gods sake. he has a learned disregard for humanization and ethics. he misunderstands how and why we are expected to be inwardly and outwardly critical of our power.

i like to make the comparison between john walker and syril from andor (star wars). both were, at their core, insecure and starved for the recognition and attention they thought they rightfully deserved (this is also a great plot point in season 1 of the punisher, which provides an amazing exploration of how american military service and subsequent treatment by americans after discharge effects the mental health of veterans). both took an easy chance at achieving power and greatness. syril, however, remained selfish and willfully ignorant until he was confronted, immediately, with the horrors of the empire he dedicated his life to. he watched a genocide that he helped curate unfold around him and then died! the same day. he was a victim of a system, a victim of his own negligent actions, and a perpetrator of extreme levels of oppressive violence.

john walker got dropped into the mental health movie with everyones favorite beloved flawed characters. im not arguing that there is no room for critical writing of john in the future, im sure (hoping) that more will be done with john as i’ve described. that doesn’t change the fact that any foundation for the character was overshadowed by the intentions of thunderbolts, and the fact that fans so easily forgot what was important about tfatws.

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why the fuck are marvel fans so stupid bro there is no way it took one singular movie for a john walker regime to rise from the dirt and ashes of tfatws. there is no way it took ONE. MOVIE.

i need every1 to google “rhetorical analysis” right now before my eyes blow up in their sockets

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u could be talking about literally anything and a very enthusiastic person brandishing a character wiki will say “in the comics, its actually canon that….” like reading the batman wiki makes u the authority on dick grayson’s eldest daughter burnout syndrome. not to be an elitist but somehow im getting the impression that u pieced together comic canon via individual panels on pinterest?

its especially funny when people complain about how MANY comics there are because you would think, if you were interested in a type of media, you would be glad that there is ample content within that media type. and yet. and yet.

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u cannot be an mcu fan bitching about “hawkeye is under appreciated” “hawkeye is so ignored” “why does nobody care about hawkeye.” im looking at u and im looking at jeremy renner with a limp bizkit ass mohawk and im looking at u and im looking at clint barton wearing a shade of purple that is suspiciously subdued and im asking myself why YOU care abt clint barton.

hawkeye so dry that he had bitches in 2012 making up the most benign scenarios just to feel something. theres no way a multi-billion dollar franchise had free thinking young adults picturing jeremy renner crawling around in the walls. he had so little chemistry with EVERYY CHARACTER. he had like 4 good trick shots and 3 minutes with a sword after his rural lifestyle slipped through his fingers. hes so. soooooo boring.

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of the things that make my tummy hurt, child soldier bucky barnes might b top of the list

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HIII it’s me the same anon who sent that rlly long ask abt Farleigh’s monologue to Oliver, the plates, etc.. and i’ve had another Farleigh thought that i feel like u would be very good at going in depth about.

so like, even Archie talked about how Farleigh sort of felt ashamed after talking to felix and confronting him about the very obvious bias etc, and i know this might be kind of a stretch or me just thinking nonsense, but Farleigh’s last few conversations with his cousin were all just… bad. Like, they “argued”, obviously, and the next time we saw Farleigh and Felix interacting was whenever Felix scolded Farleigh for making oliver sing rent during karaoke night. After that, it was pretty unclear whether or not they’ve encountered each other during Oliver’s party (but i doubt it since Farleigh said they haven’t seen him yet), and the only time we see Farleigh together with Felix (and Venetia) is when they’re singing happy birthday to oliver (kind of lmfao) and they seemed pretty chill there but like???? I can’t stop thinking about the fact that the most major (and final) parts of Farleigh and Felix’s relationship on screen was them arguing over that little freak (i know the Farleigh/Felix conversation was about so much more than that, but Oliver was kind of the starting point of that as well, since Farleigh brought up how shitty it was that they were throwing Oliver a party considering the circumstances with his own mother etc. etc.). And in conclusion i guess I’m just wondering if you think Farleigh ever felt guilty about that later on. Like, the fact that he got kicked out and before that he bravely confronted Felix, only to be shut down, and then when he came back, his cousin died the same night. Idk maybe I’m just thinking way too much but I really hope this makes sense I’m terrible at wording things. So all in all i’m just talking about how the last few moments they shared together was all kinda shitty, thinking about it.

so sorry for the late response, u probably do not care anymore BUT. that makes a lot of sense yes. i think there's a lot of turmoil that must have been involved with post-canon farleigh and if i think too hard about it i get sad! somehow.

i imagine post-canon is very conflicted and very bitter. it's difficult with white family, especially white family that treats you like that. the death of the cattons, the ruin of the cattons, evokes an unimaginable lack of closure. how hard would it be to forgive your family while grieving them? and how hard would it be to forgive yourself for the way you commodified your relationship with them? every interaction became a transaction, and is that necessarily farleigh's fault? the acting, the pretending, the calculated risks, the begging, the "peddling," as archie put it. i'd imagine he'd begun to depersonalize himself. finding your identity while dealing with the loss of a family that led to the bastardization of your identity! yummy. i don't know. he makes me sad.

to answer your question, yea, i think he was guilty. but maybe not entirely because of those last few days of bitterness, but for the whole thing. every decision he made, all those schools he got kicked out of, all those hollow conversations and his time spent drifting between sterile relationships. for family to become a twisted form of escapism the way it had, tied up with the money and the gucci and the cocaine. there is so much to regret.

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I hated farleigh when I first watched saltburn because people like him bullied me in the same way he bullied Oliver.

But also, he's a very neat character.

thats fair, i suppose. but i don't really see how you could end the movie hating him, as i think it's made pretty clear what farleigh's motivations are and all of that. at the end of the day, i think farleigh's treatment of oliver was quite mild. there was a lot of snobbery but yk, it comes with the territory.

he is a very neat character and i love him very much and he is my favorite ever.

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the quickstart ship is devils brew. that is evil potion.

farleigh and oliver are not enemies to lovers. that is enemies to victim-and-perpetrator. enemies to file-a-restraining-order. enemies to he’s-not-even-freaky-he-is-just-rapey. enemies to racism im sick.

ill let felix and oliver slide cuz white on white violence isnt rly my area of expertise.

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for any of those who haven't moved on from saltburn entirely, i would like to say something.

i hope oliver quick is strung up scarecrow style for a fortnight before being quartered in the town square for what he did to my beautiful, gorgeous diva farleigh start. i pray every day for god to give oliver quick a UTI that results in sepsis that results in amputation so he will never again prowl around with his member swinging.

if there were ever to be a saltburn sequel, it better be 120 minutes of archie madekwe as farleigh start, mogging at the camera with a restraining order in one hand and nitric acid in the other.

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one thing abt comics is u’ll be slurping up a GENERATIONAL run, a masterclass in political commentary, tasteful drama, dynamic action cuts, creative use of paneling and lettering, awe inspiring dialogue— and then.

and then some greasy 40 y/o white fucker gets a hold of the drawing board and suddenly theres a woman w a 15in waist getting sexually harassed and brutalized for 10 straight pages. captain america’s tits are practically jiggling from their sheer mass and was that ab shot strictly necessary? from the distance, batman is asking himself if its ethically sound to torture kids and someone is making a bad take on fridgeboxing and oh god, since when did john constantine fuck monkeys? no, it is NOT okay to tie up teenage girls and leer at them, miguel o’hara what the fuck. why are we talking ominously about necrophilia while threateningly swinging about our bare breasts and does a sandman comic require this?

in a liminal sense, i understand the vision. in an abstract way, i can understand why hawkeye just got erased from existence because he tried to play the long game with the scarlet witch. but aren’t there more important fascists to fight, or was that american propaganda the whole time? uh oh. “i can’t tell which comics are good and which canon to endorse!” UH OH.

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breaking my silence today.

tired of seeing the same comic panels of queen-never-cry bucky barnes mogging at the viewer with a perfectly structured beard. show me that obnoxious teenage sidekick w his little blue boots. reject modernity, embrace tradition.

hes so fucking annoying u guys need to HEAR me.

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RIP 2006 coke princess farleigh start, u would’ve loved the 2024 indie sleaze revival

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transgender.

i saw the tv glow reference

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whenever Felix told Farleigh “WE HARDLY NOTICE UR DIFFERENT 🙄🙄🙄” I got secondhand embarrassment it was probably meant to be a weird and off putting line but also that will not stop me from going “what the FUCK Felix” like he could’ve said anything normal I get they were fighting but idk felt condescending (maybe?? Idk the word maybe it’s something else)

I genuinely almost lost my mind when they line came up in the movie cuz like. Oh so I am different and we both know I'm different and you're currently pointing that out but somehow also claiming that it has nothing to do with how you treat me--yet I can clearly tell this is something you've thought about before, it seems like you're just freaked out now that I've finally brought it up!

Like Okay. Okay Yeah.

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HIII bro first of all I just wanna say that the way you write is so insanely genius and smart and I’m so glad you like farleigh as much as you do bc I feel like people who have that one character they are so invested in just spend so much time genuinely overthinking their scenes, dialogue etc. (i meant overthinking in a good way ofc😭😭 i can relate to wanting to examine characters on a more extrospective level too if THAT MAKES SENSE, i mean these things in a good way) and I’ve just been thinking about something for a while related to farleigh, and it’s more of a minor thing but I’m curious about what you’d have to say about it. soo we know he got invited back to Oliver’s party, even though the Cattons believed that Farleigh wanted to sell the plates. AND I’M CURIOUS, what do you think farleigh’s inner thought process might’ve been when he got the invitation? like, obviously he’s probably used to the absurdity of his family (in a sense of how they operate i guess). but idk i’m just asking if you think he felt almost kind of bitter about the fact that not long after he got kicked out (for no reason, really, other than his family believing the email), he gets an invitation to OLIVER’s party, to his OWN FAMILY’S HOUSE, after being distrusted like that. and I’m saying distrusted because I feel like believing that your nephew just randomly decided to sell some crazy expensive antique is bonkers from Elspeth and James. and like yes obviously it was made clear that he needed money beforehand to support his mother, but still just choosing to believe that farleigh would actually do something like that is crazy to me. but idk I’m rambling I’m just really curious if you had any other thoughts regarding that entire thing about farleigh saying “they invited me.” and yes while I know that it was more so meant to be a dig at Oliver in many ways, I’m just wondering if you could delve a bit more into what farleigh’s thought process might’ve been regarding that whole thing where it’s just casual for them to invite him back like that after assuming he did send that email. OKAY SORRY I’M YAPPING SO MUCH anyways I love ur writing you’re officially one of my favorite character/media analysts.

Okay dude, do NOT apologize for this ask. It's 1am and I practically started jumping for joy when I saw this. I had to go back and rewatch the scene because it's been some time and I've lost full memorization. Silly me.

First of all, I want to say that when viewing Oliver and Farleigh as character foils, you can pick up on a lot of Farleigh and Oliver's lines that are directed at the other but are also quite self-applicable. This is very relevant to the Birthday Bash Confrontation. Farleigh has this entire monologue in which he says "This place? It's not for you. It is a fucking dream ... You'll cling onto it, and comb over it, and jerk off to it, and wonder if you can ever, ever, ever get it back. But you don't get it back ... And I come back here. This isn't a dream to me. It's my house. So, whatever happens, I always come back." Now, what we know concretely is that Farleigh has actually never had confidence that his place within the Catton family dynamic is secure or assured. He might not even have confidence that he's entitled to it. Yes, there is a thought of entitlement that comes with wealth. Yet the sheer weight of otherness that Farleigh experiences has to have create some kind of ghoulish disturbance in his self-worth. Imagine you've grown up with an abundance of material possessions but a lack of emotional and psychological support. You've been placed in this strange precarious place where you are more privileged in many ways yet constantly reminded that others do not believe you fit into a more privileged class.

"They invited me," Farleigh says, like it's a burning hot announcement to the world. I can imagine how easy Oliver thought it would be to get rid of Farleigh, simply because Oliver understands privilege more thoroughly than any character besides Farleigh (Yes, Venetia understands her own mistreatment in the family and in the world, but she doesn't seem aware of other types of privilege and lack of privilege). What I mean is that Farleigh knows exactly what Oliver knows; that stability is nearly impossible in a world that expects you to be lesser-than. By saying "they invited me," it feels like Farleigh wants to believe, and wants Oliver to believe, that he's not easy to get rid of. Even in Farleigh's monologue, his cocaine addled brain is overcompensating. He's going on and on about how Oliver will never beat him in a battle over territory; neither of them believes it.

You asked if I think Farleigh was bitter when he was invited to Oliver's birthday party, and I think he was. I think the Plate Incident was such a significant hit to Farleigh's stability that it left him reeling, yet even he knew that there was still a game to play. He wasn't banned from Saltburn when he was being passed between schools for his sexual misconduct, and I doubt he believed he would be banned for allegedly stealing plates. It's a thing if shame, I feel like. Can you imagine the horror of waking up one morning after confronting your cousin about money a few days prior, only to discover that you've been accused of pawning your uncle's plates for pocket change? Can you imagine your family knowing that they've denied your mother financial support despite your efforts, and yet it's this supposed act of theft that's reminded them that you might be desperate for money? The feelings I'm trying to explain are so complicated. Add on top of that the fact that this little freak living in his house has just borderline assaulted him the night before, dangling his power over Farleigh like its somehow a charity. Farleigh knew it was Oliver who set him up, because it was Oliver who let him know that he was fully capable of it the night before.

To be so easy to blame is a hard thing to cope with. To know that despite the shame you carry and the condescension and disregard you face from your family, you'll still be pulled into their game again and again. There's a guilt associated with estranging a family member that even the Catton's can't ignore, especially since guilt seems to be the foundation of their inclusion of Farleigh. Despite Farleigh knowing that his inclusion is kind of ingenuine and hollow, he still wants so badly to prevent his exclusion. I mean I could talk forever about why someone like Farleigh craves acceptance (or even accommodation) in a family like his. It's like I said before; he's been raised with this incredible standard of living and simultaneously a lack of self-worth. He wants to believe he belongs in a place like Saltburn, with people like the Cattons. Not only because they're wealthy and white, but because they're his family. This is my house. They invited me.

To sum up that spiel, I think his thought process throughout the incident was something along the lines of "I want to prove I belong here, despite everything telling me that I don't. I want to keep what I deserve, although it never feels like I deserve it. I want to know that someone like Oliver could never ruin what I've built here; that more than anything, my family loves and values me enough to think well of me. I want to, for once, know that everything I've done to end up here is worth it. I've sacrificed parts of myself for this life and I'm still unhappy, but if I lose this then I lose everything I feel like I need."