[ SECRET POST #3663 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3663 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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04. [SPOILERS for Civil War II]



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05. [SPOILERS for Daredevil]



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06. [WARNING for eating disorders]



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07. [WARNING for suicide]



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08. [WARNING for rape]















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #523.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/ejNxOb9.png

[(Anonymous)]

In before people who have watched the movie but not read the book start filling this thread with how wrong you are without realizing book!Bateman and movie!Bateman are completely different characters.

For the record, OP, I agree with you! Nothing will convince me that book!Bateman isn't severely autistic... AND a terrible person, but that has nothing to do with him being autistic or not.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think Bateman was autistic, because he's able to navigate socially, have a premium career, pick up women, etc. with no one twigging that he's "off."

He counts things and recounts details because he has OCD, which I have, and it seems kind of obvious to me.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT / not OP

No, he's not able. He thinks he's able, but he's not. If you pay attention to how people respond to him in the book, you can tell they think he's off but tolerate him as the weird one. He thinks everyone is in love with him, but they're not. He mistakes any kind of prolonged attention, even if it's a waitress at a restaurant, for attraction. He has no idea people are making fun of him when they are, so he doesn't get angry... but if you read what they're saying and how they react, they definitely are mocking him. And his fiance is cheating on him in front of his face with his friend, to the point where she has the keys to his friend's house, and he has no idea. I just gave the book a read a week ago, and it was glaring to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. Maybe I'll reread in that light. I read it in like...1996 so it's been a while.

[(Anonymous)]

SA / not OP

Try it. The absolutely most telling portion which I forgot to mention is that Patrick Bateman literally mentions autism in the book. The Patty Winters show that he loves so much and talks about and memorizes every day once runs a show on autism. Which is the one episode that he conveniently has no memories of and acts like he blacked out during... even though he remembers and talks about every single other one. There are blatant pointers left by the author toward autism... and conflating it with psychopathy which pissed me off.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

More: the women he canonly picks up are prostitutes and his gay friend's beard. His ex-girlfriend clearly thinks he's weird and is uncomfortable with him on the one date they go on. He has a supposed premium career that he's never shown doing and he seems to know nothing about finance. It's brought up by someone else that he only has his "job" because his daddy owns the company. He does everything he does because he "wants... to... fit... in". There are a lot of details that point to him being completely socially unaware.

[(Anonymous)]

OP here and to add on to what anon has said, he LOOKS like he's able to do stuff... because you're seeing things completely from his perspective. And even from his perspective it's basically one anxiety attack and panic attack after another every time he has to function in a social setting - I'm not even kidding, he flat out says he's having them. He just thinks everyone loves him regardless because he can't read people for shit.

Movie Bateman is absolutely not autistic like I mentioned, but the contrast between them is probably exemplified best by the pretty iconic namecard scene. Here it is in the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY

Now in the book, JUST the part where he takes out the card:

'The maître d’ stops by to say hello to McDermott, then notices we don’t have our complimentary Bellinis, and runs off before any of us can stop him. I’m not sure how McDermott knows Alain so well—maybe Cecelia?—and it slightly pisses me off but I decide to even up the score a little bit by showing everyone my new business card. I pull it out of my gazelleskin wallet (Barney’s, $850) and slap it on the table, waiting for reactions.'

Literally, JUST after talking about hitting on girls, Bateman decides the best ???? way to continue a conversation is to show off his fancy card. It'd be too long to copy all the reactions of his friends but the sum of it is, everyone just sort of is like 'lul well THATS NICE bateman, very cool, look we've all got fancy cards too ha ha anyway back to pizza', and then they go back to pizza while Bateman gets legitimately upset that everyone has fancier cards, clenches his fist (he does this a lot), and starts touching one of his friends' cards because the texture of it calms him down.

And thats just for starters. I wasn't kidding about him PANICKING ALL THE TIME either. Here's the beginning of that chapter:

I’m on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I’m positive we won’t get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave. At Pastels McDermott knows the maître d’ and though we made our reservations from a cab only minutes ago we’re immediately led past the overcrowded bar into the pink, brightly lit main dining room and seated at an excellent booth for four, up front. It’s really impossible to get a reservation at Pastels and I think Van Patten, myself, even Price, are impressed by, maybe even envious of, McDermott’s prowess in securing a table. After we piled into a cab on Water Street we realized that no one had made reservations anywhere and while debating the merits of a new Californian-Sicilian bistro on the Upper East Side—my panic so great I almost ripped Zagat in two—the consensus seemed to emerge.

Anyway, there's much more - just one or two things absolutely isn't indicative of any kind of ASD but taken all together in the book, it is. Going to find more instances of him panicking and fucking up socially now, sec.

cont.

[(Anonymous)]

Here's some socialfail examples - Bateman attempting to make a restaurant reservation and nearly having a total breakdown:

"Dorsia," someone answers, sex not easily identifiable, made androgynous by the wall-of-sound noise in the background. "Please hold."

It sounds slightly less noisy than a packed football stadium and it takes every ounce of courage I can muster to stay on the line and not hang up. I'm on hold for five minutes, my palm sweaty, sore from clenching the cordless phone so tightly, a fraction of me realizing the futility of this effort, another part hopeful, another fraction pissed off that I didn't make the reservations earlier or get Jean to. The voice comes back on the line and says gruffly, "Dorsia."

I clear my throat. "Um, yes, I know it's a little late but is it possible to reserve a table for two at eight-thirty or nine perhaps?" I'm asking this with both eyes shut tight.

There is a pause—the crowd in the background a surging, deafening mass—and with real hope coursing through me I open my eyes, realizing that the maître d', god love him, is probably looking through the reservation book for a cancellation—but then he starts giggling, low at first but it builds to a high-pitched crescendo of laughter which is abruptly cut off when he slams down the receiver.

Stunned, feverish, feeling empty, I contemplate the next move, the only sound the dial tone buzzing noisily from the receiver. Gather my bearings, count to six, reopen the Zagat guide and steadily regain my concentration against the almost overwhelming panic about securing an eight-thirty reservation somewhere if not as trendy as Dorsia then at least in the next-best league.

Bateman again having a breakdown over a random stranger not being his waifu, Ivana Trump:

"Is that … Ivana Trump?" she asks, peering over my shoulder.

I whirl around. "Where? Where's Ivana?"

"In the booth near the front, second in from"—Evelyn pauses—"Brooke Astor. See?"

I squint, put on my Oliver Peoples nonprescription glasses and realize that Evelyn, her vision clouded by the cassis-riddled Cristal, not only has mistaken Norris Powell for Ivana Trump but has mistaken Steve Rubell for Brooke Astor, and I can't help it, I almost explode.

"No, oh my god, oh my god, Evelyn," I moan, crushed, disappointed, my adrenaline rush turning sour, my head in my hands. "How could you mistake that wench for Ivana?"

"Sorry," I hear her chirp. "Girlish mistake?"

"That is infuriating," I hiss, both eyes clenched tight.

Bateman Does a Poetry (and also makes EVERYONE IN THE VICINITY INCLUDING HIMSELF CRINGE):

:"Oh, I almost forgot," I say, reaching into my pocket. "I wrote you a poem." I hand her the slip of paper. "Here." I feel sick and broken, tortured, really on the brink.

"Oh Patrick." She smiles. "How sweet."

"Well, you know," I say, looking down shyly.

Bethany takes the slip of paper and unfolds it.

"Read it," I urge enthusiastically.

She looks it over quizzically, puzzled, squinting, then she turns the page over to see if there's anything on the back. Something in her understands it's short and she looks back at the words written, scrawled in red, on the front of the page.
"It's like haiku, you know?" I say. "Read it. Go on."

She clears her throat and hesitantly begins reading, slowly, stopping often. " 'The poor nigger on the wall. Look at him.'" She pauses and squints again at the paper, then hesitantly resumes. " 'Look at the poor nigger. Look at the poor nigger… on… the… wall.'" She stops again, faltering, looks at me, confused, then back at the paper.

"Go on," I say, looking around for a waiter. "Finish it."

She clears her throat and staring steadily at the paper tries to read the rest of it in a voice below a whisper. " 'Fuck him… Fuck the nigger on the wall…'" She falters again, then reads the last sentence, sighing. " 'Black man… is… de… debil?'"

The couple at the next table have slowly turned to gaze over at us. The man looks aghast, the woman has an equally horrified expression on her face. I stare her down, glaring, until she looks back at her fucking salad.

"Well, Patrick," Bethany says, clearing her throat, trying to smile, handing the paper back to me.

"Yes?" I ask. "Well?"

"I can see that"—she stops, thinking—"that your sense of… social injustice is"—she clears her throat again and looks down—"still intact."

Also copying them all out was a pain but I did screenshot a bunch of parts that stood out as particularly cringey awkward earlier, here is the album, I would say it is worth a look: http://imgur.com/a/iAWCn

One thing to note is he has a lot of other traits - utter reliance on routine, needs things to be in order, people ask him questions and hes like SOMEONE HAS ASKED ME A THING, I WILL TLDR ON IT NOW meanwhile his 'friends' are literally going oh GOD who asked bateman lol now you've got him started. I think that's one of the things that stood out as more ASD than OCD, the whole 'it is time for me to tldr on my interest I WILL DO IT NOW'. Plus when he does counts things it's when he's stressed. Comes off more as a very bad attempt at self soothing than anything.

[(Anonymous)]

I always figured if Bateman were a real person and not like, an extended metaphor, he would have a cocktail of disorders. The most common theorized one is something I have though, which doesn't... make me feel... great...

[ketita]

So I've neither read the book nor watched the movie, but I have read a bit about psychopaths (in part because I'm trying to write a character who is closer to a genuine one), and the major thing I get from them is that they have very little emotional depth, because they mostly don't really feel empathy the way other people do. So if what you're describing there is accurate, it doesn't sound much like psychopathy to me, no /armchair psychiatrist

(It's actually funny trying to write this character, because damn is he shallow as a puddle. Lots of fun to work with, though)

[(Anonymous)]

got halfway through this book. kept getting so pissed off that i had to drop it. i know it's fiction but there are people out there who really do think like him.

all i wanted to do was dissolve bateman (and his asshole buddies) in a big vat of acid.

[(Anonymous)]

Funny how you criticize Ellis for taking his psycho too seriously.

Else: get your head out of your ass if you're able to, and do stop (mis-) explaining other people's fun to them. That part is not funny, just irritating.

[feotakahari]

American Psycho is "fun"?

[(Anonymous)]

http://flavorwire.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/dfw.jpg

I'm imagining you're him and having fun. You have the tone spot on.

[(Anonymous)]

I HATED this book and ended up chucking it 3/4 the way through.

I was a true crime nerd and Patrick definitely doesn't operate like a "real" serial killer, and that kept throwing me off.

It was a book that always made me feel worse off after reading. I felt the same way after reading Rules of Attraction.

I figured out that I just hate BEE's writing.

[(Anonymous)]

The book is one long darkly humored meta commentary/criticism and diagnosing Bateman so far, far off the point, so relax on psychologist amateur hour, autistic buddy.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[tabaqui]

I haven't read the book *or* seen the movie. I thought he murdered people? *wanders off to wikipedia*

[feotakahari]

It's supposed to be deliberately ambiguous whether he actually kills people or just drifts off into elaborate fantasies about doing so.

[tabaqui]

Ah. The bits i've read made it seem like he did (reviews and discussions). Interesting. Still doesn't sound like a book I want to read, but you never know.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, I've never read the book, but reading your list of how people treat him and how he reacts... it's all really familiar to me on a low-key leve, and I have aspergers. :( People can sometimes be dicks when they don't understand what makes an anxious person tick. That makes me sad.

[(Anonymous)]

The real question is, what the fuck is going on with that lady's hair?

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Oops, wrong secret. Sorry!

[tentaclecore]

Ellis has said point blank that he based the character after his father. Say what you will about your headcanon that book!Bateman is autistic, but please remember that the author didn't shove it off as all fun and games. It's darkly humorous in tone, yes, but he was making a point about the type of person he saw his own father as.