Consider Also:

Consider also:

Oliver and Felix's first genuine compromise/the start of them working together occurs after Felix gets frustrated enough to brave the embarrassment of just confessing to his family that Oliver lied to all of them about his family, and also Oliver is now dangerous and may try to kill someone.

It turns out that facing his family in the aftermath of Oliver's (admittedly violent, at this point) removal is not as bad as Felix expected... it is worse.

First he has to deal with probably the most uncomfortable conversation ever with his father, wherein Sir James makes it very clear that he is Very Disappointed in Felix for being so gullible and foolish and bringing a violent liar into the family home and then grounds Felix for the rest of summer like a child. Then, as if that conversation weren't bad enough, he has to deal with the extremely humiliating silent judgement from the rest of his family, who all now clearly think he's incredibly stupid and won't stop looking at him or seeking him out to ask him how he's doing and look, it's horrible, okay?

Frankly, he'd rather watch Oliver murder people and/or get murdered by Oliver over and over than deal with that, again.

So after that excruciatingly humiliating experience - and after Oliver murders him immediately the very next morning, in retribution - Felix calls for a compromise: Felix will not tell his family about Oliver's again as a way of getting Oliver kicked out of Saltburn, and in return Oliver will at least wait till his birthday party starts to begin any future murder attempts, so as to give Felix a fair shot at coming up with a plan to stop him each day from here out.

From there, of course, it's an inevitable slipperly slope to character growth, discovering the joy of a friendship based on mutual respect and honesty, and eventually falling in love.

Consider, if you will: Saltburn Groundhog Day AU, with Felix and Oliver both reliving Oliver's birthday over and over.

At first, neither of them realizes they're in a time loop, so they do establish mutual knowledge of the First Birthday Party together before they discover that they're stuck reliving the same day.

After that, they'd both absolutely get worse for a while. Oliver gets creative and excessive in each new murder plot, while Felix gets downright mean in his attempts to have Oliver kicked out of Saltburn before he can commit any murder, while also tying himself in knots attempting to avoid the embarrassment of his family finding out that he/they were conned by a liar.

Eventually, Felix starts enjoying putting actual effort into something and getting one over on Oliver by working for it instead of just being rich and expecting his privilege to get him through any mildly uncomfortable situations.

And then he has to come to terms with how he has used his privilege, up till now, to justify being an incredibly lazy, casually cruel, and frankly pretty shallow person.

Meanwhile Oliver starts to realize that he had apparently been building up a lot of repressed anger over his whole life of wanting to fit in and have friends and just getting bullied or ignored by his peers, and while it was kind of fun for a while taking out that anger in increasingly violent and absurd ways on the Cattons, Farleigh, and/or various party guests who came to his birthday party and didn't even know his name, he also really likes knowing that everyone will still be alive the next day and no one will stay hurt, because he kind of hates the thought of actually hurting or killing anyone for real.

And then he has to come to grips with how, on the First Birthday Party, he would have killed Felix for real if not for this time loop.

And thus Felix and Oliver start the long, slow slogs of their respective personal growth journeys, as their days in the loop slowly setting into them just talking and hanging out and becoming actual friends. Actual friends who aren't lying to or manipulating or using each other.

Culminating, of course, in the day that they accidentally finally end the time loop, by Felix planning and surprising Oliver with the kind of nice birthday trip that Oliver was daydreaming about that very first morning, before the disaster of Prescott and everything that followed. Felix actually does something genuinely nice for Oliver to make him happy on his birthday; Oliver has a genuinely nice day with his best friend, and he realizes that he can value himself just fine without a giant birthday party full of strangers who aren't even really there for him anyway.

And then Felix gets them a hotel room so they can fuck all night without worrying about getting walked in on by a maid or party guests, and they both agree it's been the best day either of them can remember having in a long time.

(It's a little awkward when they actually have to drive back to Saltburn the next morning and answer questions about where they'd been all night, but... worth it.)

I like to interpret Saltburn from the lens that, while everything Oliver says should be taken with a grain of salt, everything the camera shows can be taken as true (misleading maybe, and not always the whole truth, but not fabricated either).

Oliver is telling the story and may give certain events out of order so as to craft the narrative he wants to believe in, but the images we see do correspond to genuine events.

Imo, it makes for the most interesting analysis options between what we see, what Oliver is narrating, and what we can imagine Oliver saw/understood in any given scene.

“Poets are so shady. We are never honest and even if we seem to be too honest and raw, we are not. We are selfish and egoistic. We only write about what hurts us. We write about our pain and suffering. Moreover, we blame it on lover after lover. You have already read that a thousand times before, the story of a how a person broke our heart and tricked our mind. However, what we never write about is the hearts we break, and the pain we cause. I am not as innocent as I made myself seem in my poems, yes, I am in love with a fool and he breaks my heart every day. But sometimes I wonder if it is just karma hitting me repeatedly. Oh, there has been a boy willing to set himself on fire for me but I handed him the matches and left… I never saw the beauty of him burning for me. And later on I’ve read about him in the paper, that he is not ashes anymore. Oh my God, there has been a boy I’ve let starving because I thought he already ate too much. I did not want to be another bittersweet revenge on his plate…. only to find out that he was honestly hungry for the love he thought I could give him. I read his cooking books, and he makes sweets for a lovely girl now. And oh, there was a boy with a broken heart but with strong hands that wanted to touch me. I thought I was too extravagant for his dirty soul, and so later on I found out he had mines of gold and diamonds. I’ve hurt a lot of people. I’ve hurt them the way this boy is hurting me. And now I am screaming to God to forgive me. I’ve been so so ruthless with their good hearts. And I am down on my knees praying for the ghosts to stop hunting me every time I try to love him.”

— I Am A Poet And I Break Hearts For Art by Royla Asghar

I've reached a point in my Fandom Engagement where like. I'm not specifically looking for "problematic" ships but I am pretty aggressively disinterested in ships that feel like they were crafted in a lab to be as unproblematic as possible.

Thanks for the tag, @erisenyo!

From the cattonquick WIP that's been slowly progressing along:

He has worked so hard to make himself into something pleasing enough to keep; this latest sign of his success ruins and remakes him with devastating victory.

I'll tag @rhaegang, @nythtak, @sulkybender and anyone else who wants to join!

Last Line Challenge

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like). 

Thank you for the tag, @charmwasjess, who has already multiple times harpooned me with her stories that are an entire gateway drug. Also the most encouraging person in the world.

...

The cupboard is mighty bare, but ... there might be an "initiate Obi-Wan" (AU) WIP languishing in a folder somewhere while I finish A Garment of Brightness.

Here is a sliver.

He hoped it was, indeed, the prompting of the Force.  If not, he was probably going to end up in very deep poodoo.  He had not yet learned that poodoo could also happen from following the Force.

ABSOLUTELY NO PRESSURE tags: @frostbitebakery @outpastthemoat @the-last-kenobi @shukruut @wrennette

and anyone else who would like to play.

Lord of the Rings fanart! I watched for the first time recently and loved it