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starry-bi-sky · 6 months

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Stuck in the middle of a forest made of

Flesh and bones and they're all scared of

A lost little boy who has lost his heart

Fear's not enough, they have to

Tear him apart —-------

There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well:

He’s adopted.

He can’t remember anything else before that.

‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents.

What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill.

When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.

(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.)

The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.

It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one.

The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself.

His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.

(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.)

(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.)

They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.

(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)

Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe.

He turned back around and went inside.

—-------

Where do we go

When the river's running slow

Where do we run

When the cats kill one by one

—------

One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.

He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal.

It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking.

He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter.

Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind.

(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)

After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous.

He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.

—------

Hazel beneath our claws

While we wait for cerulean to cry

Unsettled ticks run through time

Enough for the hunt to go awry

—-----

There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own.

He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t.

Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward.

(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”)

(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)

He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell.

A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his.

He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it.

His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.

Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.

—-------

Harpy hare

Where have you buried all your children?

Tell me so I say

—-------

When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now.

Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.

He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.

Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own.

(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)

(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)

(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)

—--------------

It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders

And they will never

Hear me here listen to croons and a calling

I'll tell them all the

Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow

Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare

—-------

More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother.

Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten.

His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands.

They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely.

It is a fast dream.

His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.

His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods.

The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him.

The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal.

His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train.

(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.)

—---

She can't keep them all safe

They will die and be afraid

Mother, tell me so I say

(Mother, tell me so I say)

—-------

When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again.

The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person.

(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.)

(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)

Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird.

(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)

—------

Seeker, do you ever come to wonder

If what you're looking for is within where you hold

Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path

You'll soon forget

Home

—---------

When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is.

When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.

‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off.

He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.

He ends up calling himself Phantom.

(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.)

----------

Home is where we are

Home is where you are

Home is where I am

-----------------

Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #danyal al ghul au #amnesiac danyal al ghul au #songs in order of the album: the hartebeest / harpy hare / and the hound / neath the grove is a heart #musician danny has my heart and soul #yes this danyal IS an alternative danny from the other au. an au where things were a little better :) but still sucks #implied good mom talia al ghul #danyal is a momma's boy send tweet #dpxdc ficlet #dpxdc prompts #dp x dc au #dp x dc fanfic #danyal is sTILL five years older than damian in this au #no beta no edits we die like danny fenton #poc danny fentons #i didnt know where to end this :(( i was gonna go on but i blanked. i thought about going into his relationships with his rogues and so on.#but that felt too much like trying to just increase the word count rather than actually writing?? if that makes sense #ugh im gonna have forgotten to include things and im gonna be kicking myself later #morally ambiguous danny whoo! we love to see it #since this was just for fun it doesnt really go into it all that much other than like. it happens. and that danny realizes he's dangerous #phantom in a hazmat suit? nah phantom looking like an assassin >:].#danyal al ghul with damian and his mom: 🥰🌸✨#danyal al ghul with everyone else: 👹🔪#am i heavily implying that clockwork had smth to do with Danyal’s amnesia and appearance by the cabin? 👀 maybe #not enough danyal al ghul aus where him being an assassin actually. has some kind of affect on him

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koiifsh · 6 months

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i found a hatching brush finally yaaaaayyy also i turn 15 tomorrow

#digital art #ibispaint #fanart #genshin impact #genshin venti #venti #i constantly worry about not being “good enough” for my age #especially as i get older #now that im 15 i feel like i should've reached all the art goals i previously made #like being better at backgrounds #which you can see i attempted here #im pretty sure this is a universal experience so at least im not alone #sorry for the rant #but i know if i saw an artist that i liked voice their thoughts on this i might have felt better about it myself #so i hope this helps one of u #sending good vibes and peace and love mwaaahhh

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paintpanic · 3 months

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Res AU Joronia drawings. Character rambling and bonus doodles under cut.

This AU takes place a good while after the events of Triple Deluxe happened. Since then, Taranza's mostly recovered mentally from everything. He was able to move on from his grief and (somewhat) forgive himself. Now that Joronia's in his life again, seemingly back to her former self, some of those wounds he'd thought were fully healed have started to ache again. He still feels ultimately guilty for what happened to her.

He's thrilled that Joronia's been given a second chance at life, but is somewhat wary deep down. This feels to good to be true, that she's just back with seemingly no strings attached. The other shoe could drop any day now, and he could lose her all over again. Fearing this, he wants to make the most out of what could be a short time to be together again with his friend.

Joronia senses that there's a distance between the two of them now that wasn't there before. It shouldn't be surprising; he's probably still hurt from what she did. Other people definitely are. She's determined, though, to work hard to make it up to everyone she's hurt, and to prove to them (and herself) that she's not really like that, that she's capable of being better.

The Mirror's influence twisted her mind and her perception of reality. It made her feel like she was inadequate, and that everyone else were enemies to be subjugated. Now, she's supposed to be normal and better, but she still feels like there's something wrong with her head. She still doesn't feel good enough, and it still feels like everyone hates her. It's hard to trust herself. She's not sure if it's some lingering effect of the Mirror, or if there's just something inherently wrong with her now. She's scared.

She's afraid that something will happen, that she'll revert to how she was as Queen, and that she'll hurt Taranza again. Someone who'd always helped her, who'd stuck with her even when she was absolutely horrible to him, and who's kindness she's relying on again now, staying at his home as she worked on getting her life back together. She's a burden on him, and she always has been. She hates it.

Still, her deepest, most selfish wish is that they could be real friends again.

---

These two need to have a long, honest discussion about their feelings toward each other and themselves. Both of them are absolutely terrified about that prospect, though, because they each think that the other secretly resents them to some degree. If they actually talked through it, they'd quickly realize that they both want the same thing.

#apologies for anything confusing or whatever in the text; it took me a while because i'm not very good at expressing my thoughts with words.#i hope that all made sense and that i was able to get my ideas across coherently. i really struggle with that; sorry.#if you have any questions for me; please comment on the post or send me an ask and i will do my best to answer.#also please remember none of the details for this AU are set in stone at the moment and all this is subject to change somewhat.#kirby series #res!au #taranza #joronia #queen sectonia #i need to stop posting things this time of night. everyone's asleep so i end up reblogging it in the morning so people can actually see it.#anyways if you read all that you win a cookie. you can redeem that in my ask box.

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accirax · 4 months

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Could you please draw Ally and Tess sitting on Hunter's shoulders like he's their personal steed?

#disventure camp #disventure camp all stars #dcas #ally disventure camp #tess disventure camp #hunter disventure camp #ellie disventure camp #gabby disventure camp #huntessally #gabbellie #i uh. went a little fast and loose this one because i too was not entirely sure what you were talking about #but also disventure camp comic yay! love to make a good comic #also i just want to establish that if people send in drawing requests i am NOT necessarily taking them #i just wanted to do this one bc it was the first time i was directly asked and it made me happy to know that people wanted me to draw thing #i might make another post on this subject in the future though so look out for that #but thanks for sending in i believe my first ever dc ask! yippee!!!#i could tag spoilers but like. is it really. come on #also i hope you don't hate gabby and ellie i included them bc they were my best thought as to a punchline #my art #comic

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caeslxys · 2 months

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Something I think is extremely interesting thematically when it comes to connecting what Downfall and the ideas it tackled to the overarching narrative of campaign three is that the things Downfall made a point to showcase of Aeor—Cassida, Hallis, the visual of an aeormaton proposing to her partner, the specific and intentional decision to shed light on a far from insignificant amount of the population being civilians or refugees—is that it plays in perfect parallel across from what is happening (and, really, has been happening) to the ruidusborn on Exandria in present.

Bear with me for a moment. Aeor is ultimately a city that was collectively punished for the decisions of its leadership. We could (and, judging by the amount of discourse around this particular topic already, probably will) argue about what the Gods’ motivation for all of this was—whether it be that they could not, in the end, bear to kill their siblings or that they were terrified at the prospect of mortality—for me it is a very healthy dose of both—but for this I am much more interested in the latter. They were scared. That, really, is the driving force behind both this arc and their role in c3 as a whole.

Why I point this out is: It is far more interesting to me, especially as we go back to Bells Hells this week, to dissect the Gods and their decisions not purely on sympathetic motivation alone but as beings in the highest seat of power in the highest social class in Exandria.

So, having established that the Gods (in relation to mortals) are more a higher social class than anything we could compare to our real life understanding of divinity and that Aeor was eviscerated largely because of their fear—what is the difference between those innocents in Aeor caught in the trappings of their autocratic government leadership and a divine war on the ground, and those of the ruidusborn being manipulated both by Ludinus and by the very thing that inspired such visceral fear in the Gods to start with. I would argue very little.

I think of Cassida, doing what she genuinely thought was right and good and would save people, her son, and the object of her worship—and how that did not matter enough to any of them to spare her because of the fear they held at the very concept of mortality. I think of Liliana and Imogen, one of which we know begged for the gods to help her or send her a sign for years on years, and how every single one of their largest struggles could have been avoided had the gods loved them, their supposed children, as much as they feared what they could be. I think of how the thing that did save Imogen, in the end, was a woman who herself existed in direct defiance of the gods will. I think of that young boy, sixteen years old, that Laudna exalted on Ruidus.

I think it’s completely fair to judge Aeor’s overall society as deeply corrupt—it was!—but its leadership and police force are not a reflection of every one of its citizens. Similarly, it is fair to judge the Ruby Vanguard as corrupt—it is!—but its multiple heads of leadership and even the god-eater further are not a reflection of every one of its members.

Notably, and what I think the Hells will latch onto, this did not matter to the Gods. It did not matter that Cassida was trying to help. She was still too much of a risk. Will it matter, what Imogen does? Will it matter, if that young boy is in the blast radius when they decide to take no further chances?

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Hells will side with the gods and I don’t think I agree. Especially as Imogen has been scolded and villainized over and over for daring to try and save her mother—who herself has been seen by some as an irredeemable evil in spite of her drive being the exact same—her family—but when it’s the Gods it’s justified? When it’s the Gods, it’s sympathetic? Too sympathetic to criticize further than “they’re family”?

I obviously do not think the Gods should die or be eaten or what have you, and I certainly don’t agree with Ludinus (though I find him much more compelling than just a variation of hubris wizard), but when talking about the Gods in Aeor and in present it isn’t really at all about their motivation or their family. It can’t be. Too many people, including our active protagonists, lives have been effected for it to be as cut and dry as “they’re family”. These are your children. They are your family, too.

#critical role #cr meta #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #imogen temult #liliana temult #ludinus da'leth #does this make sense. I feel like i lost my initial thread somewhere around the middle bc my brain is currently spread very thin #but tldr: it is extremely interesting to me that the fall of aeor is such a perfect parallel to the ruidusborn #i could also go on endlessly ENDLESSLY about how cassida and liliana play the exact same role #and also i could go on even longer on what divinity as a concept even means in a world like exandria #and how trying to compare it to our real life understanding of divinity is a bit fruitless #on the basis that a person can become a god alone but also that they themselves undeniably exist #but its so good. it ties in so well. brennan did a fucking fantastic job at capturing the abject horror of it all #also aabria iyengar if you can hear me PLEASE bring deanna back i will send you fifty dollars #and also hello i very briefly said hello at the live show and wanted to tell you how incredible i think you are but alas #where did these tags go #anyway #WOAH this is long. I should’ve been writing fic. alas.#really I don't think any of the hells are gonna be able to just. gloss over the casualties of it all. but especially mog and ashton and lau #tal has even already said that downfall made some things better for ash and some things Worse so I know I'm not too far off #I have. many many thought on how laudna will see it all too.#truly think she is going to be the most vocally horrified

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ash-and-starlight · 1 month

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Baoxiang gives sooo much shit to his brother for not thinking about things while absolutely not being aware that he's also pretty damn excellent at Not Thinking About Things

#wbx seeing the ghost of the maid with dimples: ahhh damn so 'going back to her sick parents' was a lie? who would have thought #people showing him genuine affection: hhmmm fake. they all Despise me deep down #consistently doing the worst thing imaginable and killing everyone he got close to for an Evil Plan that ->#he doesn't even want to carry through but now he feels like he must bc he's Sick and Twisted:#hmm I wonder why I feel so horrible all of the time... it can't be bc doing bad things makes u feel bad surely. it must be The Ghost #for priding himself into being the smartest in the game he is sooo fucking dumb good lord holy fuck #kicking him down a flight of stairs #tre reread #send post

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lorephobic · 10 months

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literally nobody asked for it, but here's my list of saltburn essays that i've slowly been drafting over the course of the last week which WILL be required reading for anybody trying to engage with me about this movie. my very personal saltburn 101 syllabus just dropped

A Wolf in Deer's Clothing: Saltburn's Attempt at Innocence

an examination of party costumes and our character's last attempts to masquerade as something they're not: felix—an angel, all-forgiving and all-knowing, something to be worshiped; and oliver—a prey animal, prey to class-divide, prey to saltburn, prey to felix.

thoughts about oliver specifically are loosely organized in my #bambi tag

A Midsummer Night's Mare: Farleigh Start as the Ultimate Victim of Saltburn

a farleigh character study, about the ways he was mistreated and manipulated at saltburn, about fighting to stay alive and the scars left behind by knowing when to give in

alternatively titled "QuickStart", may be adapted into a conclusive essay specifically focusing on oliver and farleigh's relationship

The Eye of the Beholder: On Saltburn's Voyeurism & Violence [working title]

how wealth and class pushes the catton's toward the volatile reality of being able to look, but not touch. on desire and the lack thereof, and portraying yourself as an object to be desired

may end up as two separate essays on wealth and aestheticism but i'm pushing toward a conclusive essay about the intersection of the two, which i feel is at the heart of saltburn

alternatively titled "Poor Man's Pudding: A Melvillian Approach to Saltburn's Class", again, may be adapted into it's own essay

Gender-Fluid: A Study in Sexuality and Saltburn's Desire to be Dry

a deep dive into the bodily fluids of saltburn and how oliver upsets the standard of men who are just so lovely and dry. on the creative choice to lean into the messy wetness of sex and desire and the audience's instinct toward repulsion

a celebration of the grotesque and an examination of why we would label it as such

least developed of the four, heavily inspired by @charnelpit's lovely post about the fluids in saltburn

if anybody is actually interested in any of these, i can work toward something closer to a finished piece instead of just bullet points and quotes in a google doc, but mostly this is so i can share my very brief takes on a multitude of themes in saltburn that have been haunting me

edit for people seeing this in the future: all posts about my essays are being organized into my #saltburn 101 tag if you’re interested in following these through to development!

#saltburn #saltburn posting #really desperately need someone to pay me to write saltburn essays all day #or else these will never be more than a smattering of bullet points #and these are only the most developed of the millions of the thoughts that i've had rolling around in my brain this last week #idk if lengthy meta-essays are interesting to literally anyone other than me #but if any of these speak to u and u have thoughts abt them #of course u are welcome to send them my way #i think all of these were born out of either seeing bad fandom takes (ie. everything ive seen about farleigh and oliver)#or rly good fandom takes that haven't been talked about enough like the fluids thing #anyway #oh also if u want any interview clips that back up any of these ideas i have a list thats like a million miles long #and would be happy to dig for any specific things im talking about here #bambi #also also im sorry i kno the colon in academic essay titles is so overused i just love a subtitle sm #i love love love a clever little essay title. titling my essays was literally my favorite part of the essay process in college #saltburn 101

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