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It just takes an inch of effort for a long period of time. You get used to the effort you put in and it just gradually accelerates. I started by making sure I had earrings in and lipstick on everyday. It made me feel put together and like I could do something about anything. Even if I spent the day in my room. The lipstick and earrings were on. I felt feminine and fairy like and even if people weren’t looking at me I had the confidence that they would. It started like that, just a simple ritual and it snowballed into my life changing for the better. I wanted to get ready in the mornings, so I’d have to wake up earlier, and since I woke up earlier Id get to see the sun rise, I wanted to start watching the sun rise from outside so I started walking, then running. I found a love for movement. I loved the fact I was taking care of my body and I saw positive changes which made me want to care for it even more. So I started nourishing my body well. Cooking steaks, using fresh produce from the farmers market. I felt well enough to go out and hunt for a real job I liked. I got it. I had some extra money so I bought beautiful dresses and invested in my health and had the money to have dinners with friends and buy more books to read and go on trips whenever I wanted. The world was so small. And now it’s larger than anything I could’ve imagined. I really do believe all it takes is a little lipstick and some jewelry. 

btw dating sucks as a concept.

I have an end-of-life patient to whom I spoke today. She burst out laughing and said, "It was all such fun. I just had so much fun." I wish this for everyone. I wish that we each would meet death laughing, with little regret and even less fear.

currently thinking about how ages ago my friend sent me a long-ass explanation about why saltburn is an adaptation of the myth involving theseus, the minotaur, and the labyrinth.

nobody asked but here’s some of the fun proof that exists of this:

first and foremost, icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun. during the party scene, it is evident that felix symbolises this poor ill-fated youth, and the symbolism here is potent. he flew too close to finding out what oliver truly is. he discovered something he shouldn’t have, and dressing him up in icarus cosplay is the perfect showcase for his fate and his mistakes. it’s also brilliant in terms of what icarus actually did to “deserve” death. realistically, he was told not to go too high or too low, but in actuality, such cryptic instructions were difficult to follow mid-flight, and it resulted in catastrophe. felix is trying to navigate the responsibilities of being a good friend with his baggage as someone in a family of rich pricks. it’s hard, and in flying too far away from his background, he “flew too close to the sun” and discovered things he shouldn’t have. as a small nod to further the icarus imagery, felix’s body is discovered under bright and direct sunlight as he lays motionless in his winged costume.

secondly, saltburn is in the center of a labyrinth. the labyrinth lore runs deep in this movie, because not only does the labyrinth function as symbolism, it has lore that runs adjacent to the lore of the actual labyrinth. in theseus and the minotaur, the labyrinth is a construct of greek architect and inventor daedalus, who was conscripted by king minos to create the maze. in saltburn, the labyrinth is constructed upon special request from james catton, the owner of the estate, and a very wealthy man (almost like a modern day king).

the labyrinth (in the original myth) is dangerous to all characters that reside within it. it keeps all in within a chance for escape, and those that get close die tragically. in saltburn, the labyrinth functions as an ode to the ways in which riches and fame poison those that reside in the walls, keeping them locked within its dangerous talons, or in this case, cleanly trimmed hedges. it’s suburbia on a larger and more internal scale. even those that do not have riches themselves, namely farleigh and annabel, do everything they can to remain on the estate and in the good graces of those on the property with immense money. it affects how they act and how they are expected to act. farleigh, as a good example, is very stuck on the particulars of rich people’s behaviour. as mentioned above, those that try to leave the maze die tragically, and icarus is a prime example. felix, in his attempt to be better than the riches of the estate socially allow, flies too close to a possible escape from the confines of the labyrinth and is murdered as a result.

in the story of the labyrinth, it is unsolvable, unless you are clever and quick witted (manipulative), which theseus luckily is. the same is true for oliver. oliver, like theseus, gets into the heads of multiple characters, manipulating his way to the top of the food chain. the scene where oliver views the wooden counterprt of the maze through the head office in the estate, he is told that he shouldn’t be there, and a sense of ominous foreboding takes place. we feel that he has seen something that will change him. however, i believe this is simply symbolism for the fact that oliver has figured out the secret to the maze: a secret that he, an outsider and a poorer, less sociable man should not be aware of, as he is a representation of theseus, a character who has no right being king.

thirdly, oliver is juxtaposed with imagery if the minotaur during the party scene, and though this costume doubles as a reference to the changeling in a midsummer night’s dream, it is still highly important. in the original myth, people are sacrificed to the minotaur on a yearly basis. at first, felix fits the profile for the minotaur: a rich, wealthy man in a labyrinth who is regularly described as going through friends the way a young boy would go through toys. it is also true that the minotaur has often been seen as a controversial figure, one that begs the question “is a monster just a tormented creature fated to behave according to the will of the gods?”. felix’s behaviour, or namely, his attempted deviancy from the behaviour he is expected to show, is a major prt of his character arch. we expect oliver to be the victim of felix’s behaviour exactly because of this. but he isn’t. an easy explanation is that oliver is the minotaur, going through the family members as though they were victims in a maze. however, oliver is NOT the minotaur, as the myth is a lot more complex than the minotaur being the bad guy. despite what we expect, director emily fennel is leaning into the concept that the minotaur’s storyline is that of fate versus free will. the minotaur is cursed by the gods to fall into certain patterns and to be punished for its behaviour, despite it doing exactly what was expected. felix attempts to deviate from what is expected, but ultimately he fits in well with the rich and social, and his death is a punishment at the hands of a sort-of theseus who believes he is more deserving. rather, oliver is also seen to be theseus, who famously invaded the maze, manipulated its dwellers in order to navigate it, killed the minotaur, and then manipulated his way into becoming king as a result. sound familiar? it is because of this that the imagery of oliver as the changeling is particularly important. the horns can be evocative of the minotaur, offering us a red herring, where he is truly disguised as the opposite. it’s a fake out.

fourthly, king minos (owner of the labyrinth) did not die directly at the hands of theseus, he did eventually meet his downfall and was boiled to death in a bath. james catton, head of the estate, dies of a supposed suicide, also not directly by oliver’s hands, but still implicitly connected to the events of the story, much like king minos’ death.

the lore in this film is incredible, and though emily fennel has not said that the film is an adaptation of greek myth, the parallels are deliciously undeniable. saltburn is fascinating, and truly one of the best films of 2023. there is so much stuff jam packed into it, and it’s one of those films that takes a few watches to fully grasp its depth. i love it!

do you guys ever like forget you're interested in something until you start engaging with it again and you go "oh wait i'm like crazy crazy about this yeah"

so, like, the bitter middle-class character is showing up more and people are not registering it?

I recently watched a video essay how Saltburn mostly falls short due to its inability to actually properly criticize class, and it got me thinking about the whole kerfuffle that happened with D20 fans about Fantasy High: Junior Year and specifically Kipperlily CopperKettle. Then, I finally got into Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang and saw the same character archetype in the narrator.

When I say the 'bitter middle-class' character I mean the type of character that is not extrodinary by any standards and blames any possible external factors for what they view as a 'failing'. Here's what I mean in narrative context: Oliver covets the type of social life and charisma Felix has and fixates on the wealth that Felix comes from as the source(Saltburn), Kipperlily thinks Riz's dad dying is an unfair advantage actually its pretty fair to assume she thinks all the heinous shit the Bad Kids had to deal with regularly were unfair advantages that gained them prestige they didn't earn through 'hard work' like she did(Fantasy High/D20), Juniper Hayward blames diversity and diverse stories as a whole as to why she has found no success as a white author in publishing compared to her 'friend' Athena who has found massive success through her writing (Yellow Face).

The three of them are meant to be wrong in the end because they were lashing out at those a flawed system chose to champion. But there's some block on really digesting these characters as being part of the 'bitter middle-class' and I can't tell if it's cuz so many people who consume this media are from the middle class or cuz people can't look deeper than the surface when it comes to the media that they consume.

In the case of Saltburn I can only assume that it was because Fennel doesn't know how to write anything that's particularly class-conscious and tried to dress the movie up at the very end like a thriller eat the rich film. The ending of the film really hurts it in the end, and I have trouble believing that it was properly workshopped to actually fit with the rest of the story. I have seen so many people take Oliver's final monologue and run with it, though. Either people use the closing monologue to condemn the way the film fails at being a class commentary, or they explain away the shortcoming with the argument of the film is that it is an upper-class horror story about the middle and lower class. But neither interpretation really acknowledges that Oliver as a character lied for attention both from Felix and his family but Oliver's parents as well (sure some of what they say is likely true but there is a good chance a decent amount of the information he feeds his parents is not the truth). Oliver spends 3/4 of the movie bitter about being mediocre in comparison to those around him at Oxford. Through his own perspective, he is putting in work that his peers can omit because of their wealth and Oliver's inability to be significant socially amplifies that bitterness. To Oliver there is only two ways to be 'interesting' at Oxford and that's to be rich and cultured or poor and traumatized.

Kipperlilly Copperkettle is real interesting just from a solid fandom perspective for me. So many fucking D20ers complained about the lack of redemption of any of the Rat Grinders but especially Kippers despite the fact that she's the one with the foulest mindset. Girl, you cannot be complaining about how people with dead parents get a leg up in life and expect any sort of sympathy. She's probably the best demonstration of this character archetype (would you call it archetype?) simply because Kipperlilly is just so deeply out of touch with reality. She's mad that the way she specifically approached adventuring doesn't get rewarded in the type of world that she's in and on top of that there is nothing else to make her standout amongst the crowd of other decent adventurers. Except Copperkettle Fourdogs is also one of those middle-of-the-road kids that's incredibly upset that none of their work will ever be recognized because it simply does not hold a candle to what other people are doing. I think this is why she got the amount of sympathy that she did from certain parts of the fandom too, a lot of y'all saw yourselves in her huh? Because it is a flawed system to be like: if you show up and do the work then you'll be acknowledged, and then turn around and require more because now everybody's done the work so who really deserves it now? But the way Kippers handled that by lashing out at some of the most traumatized kids in school not even about shit that happened while they were at school and being menaces but rather something that happened way before the Bad Kids were even a party is insane and out of touch. And sure you sort of see the work being put in by Jawbone to change that mindset but Kipperlilly doesn't care. She willingly accepts the rage in order to better dominate this group of kids she believes coasted into saving the world several times.

I forgot where I was going with this outside of : There is more than just eat the rich and wrongfully outraged rich people narratives when it comes to class, and I feel like this ignoring of a whole like a subgenre of narratives involving the bitterness surrounding what society deems worthy of interest.

Jesus Christ this is long I commend you if you got this far and didn't think I sounded like a total idiot because I definitly think that I sound like one at this point

they hate me for my slutty waist and my ability to see the good in everything

this is so true

This new Sabrina Carpenter video is so funny. The concept entirely depends on being able to buy her bf Barry Keoghan as a sexy bad boy. Like sorry but that's the cum guy. That's the bathtub cum guy. You can't expect me to buy that he's getting into fistfights with cops, I have seen him lust after a brainless himbo so hard that he drank his cum out of a bathtub. You cannot secretly rub your face in someone's bathtub cum and then play Mr. Sexy Bad Boy in a music video you simply can't I'm sorry

SALTBURN IS NOT A STUDY BREAK TYPE OF MOVIE WHAT BULLSHIT ARE YOU ON?

saltburn is NOT dark academia just bc they’re at oxford for a bit of it there was no academia happening those bitches were passing around a copy of harry potter and the deathly hallows. i’m still not convinced felix could read

I know he’s like the Anime Donald Trump but I heavily relate to Francis because I too become more strong and powerful the more money I spend😅 (atleast for the first 1 hour).

Also he was being a menace just to see his wife happy? He gets points from me for being a wife guy 🤷

I kind of love how, for all his wealth and privilege and popularity, Felix spends his last night avoiding his problems like he always does, running and running away until he winds up trapped at the center of his own labyrinth with his minotaur that he and his family helped create.

And so Felix dies alone in the labyrinth, and the minotaur walks free to take his place in the castle instead.

the way felix is convinced he's living in a romance movie to the extent that he dresses up like juliet. he considers kissing oliver in the maze. he makes himself off limits but not quite with the open door while he's in the bath; he's the damsel of the film, no doubt. but felix's tragedy is that oliver is convinced it's a horror story and a tale of revenge. so he doesn't play his part as romeo. he vomits up the poison so he can't die from "some poison more" and leaves felix to die alone.

I do believe Felix was 100% willfully oblivious about many things he simply did not want to acknowledge, and I do enjoy the idea that his commitment to willful obliviousness of uncomfortable things made him as delusional as Oliver, in his own way.

I also think one of the key foundations for a lot of Felix's behavior was a rock-solid, bone-deep belief in the idea that his privilege made him untouchable in any meaningful, permanent way by anyone who might want to hurt him.

And then I like to imagine the most hilarious progression of this belief:

Felix in the maze, actively dying from the drugged champagne Oliver gave him; laying on the ground, throwing up, heart clearly in the midst of giving up the ghost; and still thinking with complete delusional sincerity, "I can't believe Oliver tried to kill me! When I wake up tomorrow, I'm gonna kick him out of my home so hard."

“Give a guilty man enough rope,” replied Dr. Akechi philosophically, “and he’ll supply enough evidence to hang himself.”

Edogawa Ranpo, “The Psychological Test” from Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Yeah the fnaf movie was pretty good, the Matpat x Springtrap mpreg scene was a little weird but other than that it was a solid movie

careless whimper

fukuchi, dropping off teenage tachihara with the other hunting dogs: here's your government-assigned little brother