Right On, Frankenstein!

polite greeting (it's me, boy)

introduction (i'm the ps5)

establish credentials (speaking to you inside your brain)

establish purpose (leave the girl, we don't need her)

He’s her best friend, and she doesn’t even know it. They’re so close, that in the book, people think they’re sleeping together, and poor Grace is so confused because he thought that was his platonic work wife, wdym people think we’re sleeping together, that’s my person that I crack jokes with and then she glares at me because they’re not funny.

She’s softer with him than anybody else and is only ever vulnerable around him. We see in the movie, he’s the only one who ever gets her to smile, and sometimes even laugh, and then she serenades all of them, but mainly him, and he stares at her with those big, shiny eyes so lovingly, and she points at him when she sings, “everything’s gonna be alright”, and then she gives him those eyes, so loving.

And then she’s trying to stop herself from crying when she’s sending him away because, against her will, he’s become her person, and somewhere along the way, she’s become his, and they will have forever ended this relationship on bad terms, and nothing can fix that.

It’s a platonic tragedy. It’s a platonic love story. This is something we don’t get often, or, like, ever, and it’s deep and it’s tragic and it’s sad.

But even after, Eva’s still taking care of him. Packing clothes she knew would bring him comfort. Programming the ship to know how he likes his coffee. And Grace is still watching out for her, speaking to her directly in his video logs, with that same lopsided smile he used to throw her way.

He uses Rocky’s sign for goodbye, and she uses it back, and how did this book and movie give us such a deep platonic friendship because, guys, this NEVER HAPPENS.

Example: There is a queer book club where I live, run by a cis lesbian and a cis gay man. They march at Pride with a big banner that says "Trans Rights Now" while wearing "Protect the Dolls" T-shirts. To a neutral observer, these seem like people who are really pro-trans and specifically pro-trans women, and even more specifically pro-Black and Latina trans women right?

But you will also notice that there are no trans or non-white people marching in their group at Pride. You'll notice that there are zero trans women who attend the book club meetings. You'll notice that, in the past 18 months (I've checked) at the queer book club where they wear T-shirts with a slogan about Black and Latina trans women, they have read zero books by trans women and zero books about trans women and zero books by Black people and zero books about Black people and one book about a Latina (but written by a white person).

And you'll notice that they recently arranged a group trip to a lecture by an "LGB activist" which took place in a venue with an AGAB toilet policy (which is *not* a legal requirement where I live). And if you talk to the few trans women who have been to this book club in the past, you'll hear about how they were ignored, spoken over, misgendered, belittled, how the gay men seemed to hate them but the lesbians also seemed to hate them and the transmascs also seemed to hate them and so they had to just sit on their own in a corner and they didn't go back a second time.

And somehow you can be a cis lesbian at one of these book club meetings, who hears one of the organisers say something positive about something a trans woman did 50 years ago, and you will feel resentful that trans women are taking up too much space compared to cis lesbians. Even though you're at a queer group which is nearly half cis lesbians, that's co-run by a cis lesbian, reading a book by a cis lesbian about a group of cis lesbians.

And you haven't even noticed that there are zero trans women at this group, or that you've never read a book by or about a trans woman. And if a trans woman did happen to show up, you'd feel that she was taking up too much space by trying to talk to you, so you'd ignore and isolate her and she wouldn't come back.