Death by Chocolate

A Brief Aside

Before I get into it, the first two chapters are actually up now as I write this and I wanted to just say, I really appreciate how friendly everyone is being.

Normally I write, like, very back-end-y proof-y and data-analytic code, with the occasional bit of "Why is PostgreSQL fucked today?" So this is my first website website in like, a decade. People were really kind in offering feature requests (RSS feed; someone lemme know if it works, it's pretty hacked together and IDK if I'm generating friendly XML or just a technically valid RSS feed that is garb-o.)

Also it's been really neat to hear which of Stef's experiences are common to people. That's, I'm realizing, what I'm going to enjoy the most about this I think - I'm learning that some stuff that's just totally beyond my experience is like, common enough that it's a milestone not a vista. I always hated Thomas Nagel's "What is it Like to be a Bat?" but there really is some qualia stuff going on that makes this thing feel richer? Harder?

First Thoughts

Oh hey, Bloodborne! That game whips ass, Christine needs to play it.

Today I read chapter three, "Death by Chocolate". Where my road dawgs at woof woof &c.

I'm going to do a tiny bit of recap, because I sense the scope of this thing tending more towards "metaphorically rich thriller" and away from "tone poem that goes on vibes alone."

Recap for Non-Road-Dogs who Already Read Dorley but it was Awhile Ago and are Somehow Reading This

This chapter, we get to see some over-the-shoulder narration from Christine's perspective. I was glad to see that; I don't think I'd enjoy this book as much if it stayed purely stuck in the cell without anachronic order or other relief.

Anyway, Christine is concerned about Stef's fate in the basement, and tries to intervene, but fails to do so before Pippa comes back to continue the ominously named Programme.

The misunderstanding rests between herself and Stefan, who's having a hell of a time coming to terms with what he believes about his gender.

We get to meet Vicky, and hear about her roommates (Indira, Paige, Abby) and girlfriend (Lorna).

We also hear about Aunt Bea, the Mother to these Avengers and/or Charlie to these Angels.

And so the Nightly Hunt Begins...o

Look, Christine has problems. The accidental rendition is not great, on her part, for example. But worse is that she hasn't played Bloodborne, which just, rules. If you haven't played Bloodborne, you should consider it, because that game is amazing.

And, also, I kind of wish Stef was super-into Bloodborne, because it would tie in so well with the theme of transformation as revelation that Greaves has been setting up.

For those without sufficient eyes, Bloodborne hinges on a mid-game genre shift from Gothic-ish Horror to Cosmic Horror. Instead of using your sword-gun to murderate feral plague-werewolves, you find yourself dealing with, for example, a giant arachnid named Rom who is Of the Void. Aliens, man.

It's also a great choice because Bloodborne has you potentially taken by The Moon, or turned into a higher being, or trapped against your will in a daydream with a doll.

So it's a rich choice of reference for this chapter where we start to get the sense that something more sinister is going on in Dorley.

Speaking of that,

Aunt Bea, Huh?

So as far as I can tell, Dorley is a forced-transitioning programme for violent offenders (sexually violent offenders? I dunno yet.) Stef(an) believes that he has to be a man because he missed the boat on transitioning and is traditionally masculine in appearance. And, now he's been accidentally thrown to the wolves by Christine.

I think that's a really fun bit of clockwork setup! I enjoy the irony of Stefan being an unwilling participant in a forcible programme that he wants desperately.

I'm struck by the parallels between the way Christine thinks of Aunt Bea and how some boys' dads act towards them. My own dad is a politically reactionary mess, but he was always fine with my being a music dork and a track/XC kid, as opposed to a football jock. I know some guys who grew up with real Sergeants Hardass as dads, who thought of the feminine as weak by definition. And, it strikes me that an obsession with only the feminine is maybe a mirror to toxic masculinity?

I dunno, I keep thinking about that Samantha Hancox-Li article and the "amphibious beings" metaphor.

Anyway, I'm kind of expecting Aunt Bea to be a Nurse Ratched, or kind of a funhouse mirror of the strict cisgender authoritarian conformity that I saw growing up at some of my dorky friends' houses.

Even just, the detail about liking baking but not if it had a certain brawn to it smacks of something a little spooky to me.

Stray Thoughts

Untouchable Face

her frosting-flaked lower lip

The relationship Christine has to Vicky reminds me of Ani DiFranco's "Untouchable Face", which is a song that absolutely fucks.

Pippa

He’s her sin in human form.

I didn't even really get to Pippa. It sounds like whatever she did before was probably pretty horrific. The idea of that self-loathing preventing her from having empathy for Stef is inscrutable to me.

Dress Go Spinny

Something that my wife and I have found really surprising about parenthood is how girly our daughter is, seemingly just because. She's young enough that she hasn't had a ton of like, pop culture or indoctrination, and my wife is more of a hardcore fan than a "girly-girl."

So it's still a surprise when she wants hot pink cat-face shoes and refuses to wear anything but a dress. But legitimately she's in her 3rd year of being a person and daily spins around in a dress going "I spin! I spin! Dance me!"

Is Lingusitics Feminine?

The trailing phrase on the quote I grabbed for the description of this post is "no matter how many Linguistics lectures she attends," and I wonder now, is Lingusitics girl-coded? I never thought it was, but I only know like, computational-linguists and evolutionary-linguists. Maybe it's a subdisciplinary thing?