Writing & stuff

YOU'RE NOT ALONE ANON PUT HER THERE 🤝🤝🤝 i've been on the nonbinary creature train since i first read the book about a decade ago but it took the 2025 film for me to really see the transfeminine possibilities. there's this bts photo (hi robert englund!!) of the fake bodies they used for victor's construction of the creature and some of them are women plus there's this quote from the artbook where oscar isaac says: "This is at the core of the film and of course the book: the feminine energy swirling within all of it. There was something beautiful and feminine about the way Jacob moved, the way he operated.”

then of course there's the white streak in his hair which to be fair is supposed to show that the creature is literally made from different people but also i don't think it's that much of a stretch to suggest that it's also meant to evoke elsa lanchester as the bride.

frankenstein in all its media iterations—whether intentional or not—has always carried some sort of transgender allegory or metaphor or not even subtext but actual text. for me what makes gdt creature so beautiful is that i've seen people apply literally everything to him whether it's a nonbinary, intersex, trans, or genderqueer reading. because while he is continually searching for his own identity despite being "the other" (a concept which a lot of queer people have and still relate to) he's also meant to reflect us the audience. which is why the final shot of the film is mirrored; the creature saw himself in the people he interacted with, meanwhile the audience sees themselves in him.

adding onto this point in terms of the film, i saw someone suggest that he gravitates more to mimicking women like elizabeth, the medusa head in the tower, the little girl in the cottage, even the old man can be seen as tiresias the blind prophet of apollo who is depicted as both a man and a woman. i LOVE this analysis and agree with it to a point since the creature is also able to mimic the men in his life like victor who is manic and aggressive and short-tempered. of course this ties into the main theme of the film which is how we end up taking after our parental figures (everything good and bad and it's up to us whether we want to continue the familial cycle or break it) however i think you can also make the argument that the creature struggles with his inherited toxic masculine traits along with him being more open to healthy femininity.

(i don't have the book on hand with me at the moment but i'm pretty sure there's a page where the creature tells victor that he essentially reflects and gives back what humanity shows him. if he's treated with love and kindness, then he's loving and kind in turn. if he's treated with nothing but violence and loathing, then he gives that violence and hatred back in spades)

NOW obviously the film is not trying to say "men bad, women good". it's tempting to jump to that conclusion but it also suggests a weird gender essentialism and doesn't really engage with the film below a surface level reading. yes victor's mother was loving and gentle but she's also the sole proprietress of the frankenstein name which had financial stakes in slave plantations presumably in haiti.

william takes part and thrives in a system that is held up by imperialism, industrialization, and warmongering without ever questioning it but he's also literal sunshine in a human body who loves his brother and treats elizabeth as an equal (and is a bit of a pushover understandably so).

elizabeth is the first to empathize and understand the creature but she also comes from a place of privilege (despite acknowledging the wrongdoings of her family) and doesn't see anything disturbing with victor's experiments at first until she realizes that one is being mistreated and abused by him. she also treats smaller undesirable and misunderstood creatures like insects with care but is gleeful when she suggests to victor that they trap a butterfly.

then there's the old blind man who should be the patriarchal figure of his family but we see him as more of a gentle and patient caretaker to his granddaughter than her own parents.

keep in mind that all of these characters are shown from the perspective of victor and the creature—who both have their own biases, misconstrues, and lapses in memory—but it shows that human beings have complicated, multifaceted, and contradictory personalities regardless of biological gender. a man can embrace his child, tend to his wounds, calm him down, and educate him but he can also physically beat him when he doesn't behave the way he wants him to (something that unfortunately A LOT of queer, trans, disabled, and neurodivergent people can relate to...) or a woman can be nurturing but also benefit from privilege built off the backs of human exploitation.

that was a bit of a tangent lmao BUT the creature can absolutely be viewed as transfeminine. you can also apply a transgender reading to the rest of the frankenstein trio!! victor constantly wearing his mother's gloves and her colour after her death, elizabeth feeling trapped and lacking personal choice ("the one gift god granted unto us") then only managing to find that connection through mutual scientific interests with another man then followed by someone who could be a man but appears odd and disquieting like herself. i've also always seen elements of mary shelley in all three, especially victor and the creature.

Prior to this point, when Odysseus tries to exercise Xenia (ancient Greek guest rites/hospitality code), he did what he was supposed to do. (Well, we think so anyway — notably, the most famous books of the Odyssey are told by Odysseus, who isn’t exactly a reliable narrator.)

But when Polyphemus kills and eats some of the men, the game changes. The Cyclops makes it clear he has no intention of abiding by Zeus’s laws, and will cannibalize the lot of the men. So, Odysseus responds in kind — he breaks Xenia and lies. He introduces himself under a false name as part of a trick. Polyphemus then breaks Xenia again — he tells Nobody he’ll be eaten last, and that is the Cyclops’ guest gift to him.

Odysseus’ transgression is clearly the lesser one. The Nobody trick works. It gets Odysseus and most of his crew out of the cave alive.

But, crucially, before leaving Odysseus sheds his disguise. He admits his true identity, in detail, so he can boast of his achievements and add vanquishing a Cyclops to the list. And it bites him in the ass spectacularly.

The only reason why Polyphemus can curse Odysseus, can bid his father Poseidon to curse the man who blinded him, is because he now knows who did it. If Odysseus had kept his mouth shut, he might have safely made it home from there. But while a big part of why the Nobody disguise vs. real name reveal is showing Odysseus’s hubris, it’s not just about that. It’s also about the start of a pattern that hurts him more than it helps him.

From this point in the Odyssey on, Odysseus lies about his identity constantly. And sometimes it protects him, but more often it’s a detriment or at least unnecessary. He’s lying about his identity primarily to people who are on his side — a kindly loyal swineherd, his son, his faithful wife, his ailing father.

The last one is especially damning, because happens when Odysseus has already killed the suitors and returned home and reunited with the rest of his family sans disguises. He knows from everyone else that Laertes never betrayed him or his legacy, but was mourning his son and heartbroken for almost a decade. Odysseus has publicly declared his return to everyone else — his father doesn’t know because he’s living in squalor remotely. But Odysseus doesn’t tell his father who he is. He makes up a fake identity and tells a story implying Laertes’ son is dead. And when Laertes bursts out crying, then Odysseus drops the charade and finally admits who he really was.

There was no utility to that lie. No loyalty to test. No hidden threats to worry about. But Odysseus still instinctively lies to his beloved father about who he is, only dropping the charade when he sees the damage it’s doing to his relationships.

Because at this point, lying is pathological for Odysseus. He can’t seem to stop doing it. Because with Polyphemus, a lie protected him and the truth hurt him. That is the point of the “ Nobody” disguise.

for a particularly strong version of this kind of replacement: the word "bear" comes from a proto-Germanic word meaning "brown one" because there was a taboo against saying the animal's actual name. the taboo is gone but it was so strong in the past that we have no record of what the proto-Germanic word for "bear" even was.

Something like Breaking Bad, for example, has low squiggability (that’s what I’m calling this quality). It’s tightly written, the characters are consistent, there’s little left to interpolate or extrapolate. Obviously, people DO write fanfic of Breaking Bad, but it still has a low squiggability score. Whereas something like Supernatural has a high squiggability score. Fantasy and science fiction often have high squiggability scores. This suggests squiggability could also be related to worldbuilding and potential for people to borrow a premise or setting.