#rants.and.rambles

(most of this is probably soooo obvious but I’m sharing my thoughts anyways)

the main thing I noticed was how Adam absolutely dominated the “session”, steering Sydney rather than having Sydney lead the sessions in the direction he wanted. Sydney wanted to acknowledge his positive feelings towards jedidiah, and Adam constantly steered him back to negative feelings, only seeming to validate them. it presents Adam as being in control in the dynamic, despite his insistence that jedidiah is creating an unbalanced dynamic and that it’s wrong (jedidiah and Sydney’s power balances are a whole different question that I won’t get into much now). It’s obvious why he did this, he wants to control Sydney, but as adams role as a therapist, it’s a really interesting dynamic. A good therapist may suggest how you feel, and may ask questions to delve into certain feelings or topics, but will never force a topic or feeling on you, and probably won’t dominate the session either. not only that, but Adam was actively trying to create a dynamic of therapist and patient, and pursuer and pursued. Obviously, those two dynamics should *never* go hand in hand, so it’s really telling about adams character that he tried to force both at once. Both of the roles he plays feel meticulously crafted and incredibly inauthentic. He uses “technical” language, however it feels more for the sake of using it rather than as a method of communication. When Sydney questions whether it would be harmful for him to give blood to Adam, Adam refers to the act as “self harm”, saying it wouldn’t count as that, rather than actually answering Sydney’s question. His other role, the pursuer, is a strange mix of jedidiah in the current season and Elijah from the previous one. The compliments/ flirting and the insistence of deep, personal connection almost seem like he’s trying to become jedidiah in a weird way, appealing to Sydney’s need to be heard and desired/ wanted in a way almost identical to Elijah. Either role is incredibly interesting, but together it’s a really unique take on this kind of manipulative relationship.

Slightly off topic but I also LOVE how language is used by the narrator to show their own discriminatory bias’. Sydney is infantilised by being referred to as “the boy” instead of the man, which could be both a commentary on how trans men are often infantilised, but also could reflect how Sydney is seen by other characters like jedidiah and Lucile, who may not exactly see him as a child, but certainly treat him a little like one. Also blue wolf has kinda explained the use of it/it’s pronouns for Adam and how they’re used by the narrator to demean and dehumanise Adam due to the history of them being used more as a slur, and it’s a very significant thing to be brought to light. Alongside the social commentary, it also presented whatever organisation has the tapes and whoever is narrating as not entirely good, and may be observing or studying the camp for less than positive reasons

the characters and the way they behave feel so timeless. even though it’s clear they’re from 1940s/1950s New York, their attitudes and behaviours feel so relevant today.

biff’s character stood out to me most, and not just because he shared a name with a kids book character which really threw me off. At the end of the play when he told his dad that because he was praised so much, he thought he was too good for everyone was something I haven’t actually seen before. Usually with characters like him, it’s everyone else telling him that hes a cocky shit, but the fact that he himself recognised it and said out loud how he turned out that way stunned me. Like yeah, he’s an adult man who could have got his shit together, but also there is a degree of fault in his father. The man who once praised him for neglecting his schoolwork and mocked Bernard for encouraging him to study was now scolding him for not being like Bernard. Of course that’s gonna piss you off if the man who instilled negative attitudes into you has a go at you for having those attitudes. Also the trauma caused when biff caught Willy cheating adds a whole other level to the complications of their relationship.

another theme that really stuck with me was this desire for a loophole. a quick easy fix. a step by step guide to success. the idea that success and wealth can be gained through some secret technique only known by a few really hit. It reminded me of the way people involved in hustle culture act: the only way to success is through a secret backdoor, and the key is a £500 per session course you can buy from them. It’s one of the more subtle ways ideas of reality vs non-reality is discussed. Willy constantly begs Ben- or the idea of Ben- for the steps to how he gained wealth, describing it almost as a black box. He was a no-one at 17, then came out at 21 wealthy. Willy wanted to use the information to help his children get successful, meanwhile Bernard ended up presenting in the Supreme Court all through focusing on his education. Now I know education isn’t everything and you don’t need to be academically gifted to do well, but there’s definitely some kind of message being put forward. Something about how searching for a quick and easy fix instead of legitimately putting in the work through rational routes ends in disaster. I don’t know. I might be phrasing it wrong. I might be wrong all together.

the obsessive amount of brand mentions did get so dull, as did the massive amount of description of seemingly arbitrary routines. HOWEVER, as a method to represent the obsession with appearances and the way America/ success in America is almost entirely defined by brands and appearances, it’s perfect. I mean, even though the book was published in 1991 before all this shit happened, it conveys how America has turned into extremist capitalism so well. You can’t escape brands, everyone is surrounded by advertisements- from tv adverts to now undisclosed ads in influencer content. And yet, even in the top rings of success, even above it all, you can’t escape the constant reminder that the system has failed most people, and you’re just profiting on it. Les mis and its messages haunts the narrative, through every homeless person he mocks to each prostitute he mutilates. The fact that he, as the upper class, as pretty much the non-monocracy version of the ruling class, is a perpetrator of a class system he benefits from, and one where he is enemy to most. The book is called *american* psycho, of course.

despite Batemans reception as the typical “alpha male”, he seems to be, in some respects, so far from those people’s ideals of masculinity. Yes, he’s rich, he’s powerful, he sleeps with loads of women, he’s at the gym all the time. All of which does align with the aspirations of toxic masculinity. However, batemen also spends half of the book talking about how he’s on the verge of tears, how he’s crying because he’s not being listened to, how he wants to be loved. He may be one of the most immoral/ evil characters in literature, but you can’t deny he’s emotional as hell and is in touch with his emotions. I don’t know where I was going with this point, but I just thought it was interesting.

the gore was sickening, naturally, in a way that I haven’t felt from other books with gore in them. I managed perfectly fine through blood meridian, but I nearly threw up many times at this book. It was jarring and depraved and again, not sure where I’m going with this point, but I couldn’t yap about this book and ignore the heinous shit he gets up to.

Patrick Bateman is almost a parody of the kind of man hes representing. I know the book is largely inspired by the authors own experiences with a lack of fulfilment despite being rich, but there’s surely more to it. He (patrick Bateman) is a satire of masculine ideals at its worst. Now I’m not saying men are inherently bad or whatever, but the way a large amount of men are socialised- due to the media, gender expectations, role models, bad behaviour not being given consequences- does lead to gender influenced crime, such as seen through Bateman character. His actions almost take on a dystopian approach: pick a societal issue and amplify it to highlight its danger. For example, obsessively consuming porn have lead to cases of violent behaviour against women due to the violent nature of the content. This also links to the fetishisation of lesbians. Both of these issues are seen, and amplified, in Batemans character, to the point where (due to how graphic it is) the issue is impossible to ignore. The issues of the wealthy (especially wealthy men) getting away with crimes due to their privilege is amplified through him.

also a quick note at the end before I finish this yap, very very interesting how he’s violently prejudice towards gay men but not towards lesbians. Something something, viewing others only as methods for his own pleasure. Something something many homophobic men are threatened by gay men because they worry gay men will treat them how they treat women. Something something there is definitely something homoerotic about Batemans character.

To me, this whole situation is less about shipping a fictional character and more about people’s general view of aroace people.

I get that aro ace people can be in relationships, I’ve been in one myself. Aro ace is a spectrum and it’s good people know that, but it sucks when it’s only brought up to disregard a characters identity. Shipping isn’t a problem, but it gets to the point where fandoms are hardly about the show itself and are more about all the different romantic situations they can put the characters in. this whole “Alastor situation” really shows how a lot of queer people don’t like aromantic rep, to the point where I’ve seen people say “I just ignore that Alastor is aromantic because I want to ship him” or “I headcannon that he isn’t aroace” (literally not how headcannoning works but whatever). It’s also highlighted the weird hierarchy of sexuality in fandom. Achillien ships are generally loved most, with the most fanart and the most ships in a fandom, with straight ships coming just under and then sapphic ships at the bottom, with not as many people caring about them or about sapphic characters. And then right at the bottom is aromantic and asexual characters, who almost never exist and when they do the fan base generally ignores their identity to draw them fucking half the characters.

Firstly (I’ve already mentioned this on another post about this band), going all the way back to a verbal equinox, the character of dr sunshine shows up again in self- ish in dr sunshine is dead. Also the line “I’m far too weird to live, but I ain’t too weird to die” is reworked to “too weird to love, too scared to die” in outliars and hyppocrites.

Going to EIAL, the phrase “draw a line in the sand” from chemical overreaction is also seen in Marsha thankk you for the dialectics. And omg destroy to enjoy is pretty much just a reference to self- ish. The line “glory be satori but it’s all hallucinatory…” is in 2012, also with a reference to “mahaprajnaparimita” which also is mentioned in 2012.

Self- ish is pretty much all connected, with the first and last songs, self and ish, basically being one song split into two. Dr sunshine is dead, cotards solution and mr capgras are all connected musically, and also interestingly capgras and cotards are both mental illnesses, specially delusions, which makes their connection to dr sunshine make more sense (that might be a bit of a stretch though). The song with five names and hand me my shovel I’m going in are perfect parallels, and the repeated lyrics less tune of “gotta get to the bottom of this” playing in the second verse of the song with five names can also kinda be heard in wealth and hellness by human zoo in the bit will wood sings in. There’s also the reference to hand me my shovel I’m going in during half decade hangover. The song had come out in 2016, which was just over half a decade before icimi came out. 2012 is interestingly the only one without much of a connection. Not sure why yet, might just be for the sake of it.

The normal album. I love the normal album. Suburbia overture references the other songs so much and I love it. (There’s only one other album that I know does this: enter a beginners guide to faking your death by jhraiah- go listen to it). The first reference to another song is the line “myers briggs, okultra” which is a reference to Blackboxwarrior okultra. It’s also kinda interesting that it’s referenced alongside a “psychology” term as the song is full of psychology references. The second reference is “everybody knows that, nobody knows that, everybody’s all up in my- everybody’s all up in my- everybody’s all up in my business” which is a reference to …well better than the alternative. During the spoke part of vampire culture, the backing music is from Blackboxwarrior. The line “you pull out your roscharch like a paint by numbers treasure map” could be a reference to outliars and hyppocrates, in the line “prints of your fingers in the roscharch jigsaw say you saw a treasure map”. Finally and obviously, love me normally is referenced in the title of the song, and the end of the song is the beginning to love me normally. I don’t know if this is a stretch/ coincidence, but a part of good morning campers from chnt (or welcome to camp here and there, l can’t remember) kind of sounds like the part of outliars and hyppocrates: “who’s wanna be human anyways, i mean what do people do”.