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Okay but what if we WANT to hear the self-indulgent metaphorical reading of Frankenstein

🫵 okay so hear me out (also tw ahead for themes of parental neglect)

This is in regard to the one post I reblogged about how we usually picture the monster with stitches (not explicitly mentioned) but not with torn skin (which was mentioned: I admittedly haven’t read this far to confirm but I trust). OP mentioned that maybe that’s because Victor wasn’t really thinking clearly about the whole “hey this thing is gonna move around if/when it comes to life” thing so ended up sewing him too tightly. Then when the wretch moves, his skin is too taught and rips against the force of his muscles that are too big for him, and his flesh and veins are visible under stripes of silvery delicate skin

So the literal self indulgent bit there was “omg the creature has stretch marks just like me.” I know that’s not the same kind of stretch mark but I’ve got Thinking-of-the-Character-itis, if there’s a connection to make, by god I will find and make it

The metaphorical self indulgent bit combines the stretch marks with the mental health issues I’ve already projected onto him (did I really though??? He’s like THE child of a negligent parent, c’mon now)

To be made frivolously, without ethical consideration, your father uncaring about all but the concept of your existence. To be like a toy or a science experiment to your father, a tool, something he acknowledges only when he needs to use you as a token of his excellence or you’ve become a nuisance. To have limits so ingrained into you that they become you. To grow beyond those limits that were never meant to be realistic anyway, and to exceed not expectation, but anticipation. A surprise to everyone including yourself.

Victor just wanted to bring something to life, he didn’t want a child. He didn’t want a son, a student, a companion. He wanted to prove a point, that he could create life. I can’t confirm that my father didn’t truly want a child that he could care for/about, but past a certain age, probably 7 or 8, I had a hard time believing he wanted a real child. It seems he moreso wanted a doll that followed him around and garnered him praise. They both wanted to have their tidy little creations and that would be that. But living things grow and change, often with no regard to limits set by nature or man. Children become their own people

Sometimes we’re sewn too taught. We tear open. We become hideous to our makers. We continue on, of course we do; we find solace in the trees and the moon and fire and any other place we can. And maybe someday we’ll find someone who doesn’t think we’re a hideous failed experiment/child

(I’m very tired I hope I articulated that all alright)

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Blind people gesture (and why that’s kind of a big deal)

People who are blind from birth will gesture when they speak. I always like pointing out this fact when I teach classes on gesture, because it gives us an an interesting perspective on how we learn and use gestures. Until now I’ve mostly cited a 1998 paper from Jana Iverson and Susan Goldin-Meadow that analysed the gestures and speech of young blind people. Not only do blind people gesture, but the frequency and types of gestures they use does not appear to differ greatly from how sighted people gesture. If people learn gesture without ever seeing a gesture (and, most likely, never being shown), then there must be something about learning a language that means you get gestures as a bonus.

Blind people will even gesture when talking to other blind people, and sighted people will gesture when speaking on the phone - so we know that people don’t only gesture when they speak to someone who can see their gestures.

Earlier this year a new paper came out that adds to this story. Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow looked at the gestures of blind speakers of Turkish and English, to see if the *way* they gestured was different to sighted speakers of those languages. Some of the sighted speakers were blindfolded and others left able to see their conversation partner.

Turkish and English were chosen, because it has already been established that speakers of those languages consistently gesture differently when talking about videos of items moving. English speakers will be more likely to show the manner (e.g. ‘rolling’ or bouncing’) and trajectory (e.g. ‘left to right’, ‘downwards’) together in one gesture, and Turkish speakers will show these features as two separate gestures. This reflects the fact that English ‘roll down’ is one verbal clause, while in Turkish the equivalent would be yuvarlanarak iniyor, which translates as two verbs ‘rolling descending’.

Since we know that blind people do gesture, Özçalışkan’s team wanted to figure out if they gestured like other speakers of their language. Did the blind Turkish speakers separate the manner and trajectory of their gestures like their verbs? Did English speakers combine them? Of course, the standard methodology of showing videos wouldn’t work with blind participants, so the researchers built three dimensional models of events for people to feel before they discussed them.

The results showed that blind Turkish speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts, and the same for English speakers. All Turkish speakers gestured significantly differently from all English speakers, regardless of sightedness. This means that these particular gestural patterns are something that’s deeply linked to the grammatical properties of a language, and not something that we learn from looking at other speakers.

References

Jana M. Iverson & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 1998. Why people gesture when they speak. Nature, 396(6708), 228-228.

Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2016. Is Seeing Gesture Necessary to Gesture Like a Native Speaker? Psychological Science 27(5) 737–747.

Asli Ozyurek & Sotaro Kita. 1999. Expressing manner and path in English and Turkish: Differences in speech, gesture, and conceptualization. In Twenty-first Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 507-512). Erlbaum.

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father strange may i ask for some cat pictures to soothe my weary soul

I give you the orb

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interesting how we all think that frankenstein's creature had super big, visible stitches when it's said in the novel that he had skin so stretched out his muscle structure and veins were popping out underneath, so it's not impossible that victor actually pulled that poor boy's stitches so tight they were technically invisible up until the point he started to move and then they teared his skin apart in a gruesome manner

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ultimately the truth about frankenstein is that we are all grotesque amalgamations of the best and worst parts of everyone who came before us. and sometimes the people who are supposed to love us because of and in spite of this will not. and we can kill them with hammers for that. and i think that’s beautiful

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ultimately the truth about frankenstein is that we are all grotesque amalgamations of the best and worst parts of everyone who came before us. and sometimes the people who are supposed to love us because of and in spite of this will not. and we can kill them with hammers for that. and i think that’s beautiful

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ultimately the truth about frankenstein is that we are all grotesque amalgamations of the best and worst parts of everyone who came before us. and sometimes the people who are supposed to love us because of and in spite of this will not. and we can kill them with hammers for that. and i think that’s beautiful

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:-)

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oh by the way, since I guess people haven't heard? don't fucking get on a plane in the US right now (may 5, 2025) if you can help it. a ton of air traffic controllers have walked off the job. it's a nightmare, flights are getting cancelled and diverted. i know two different people who were just left in the wrong state. and this is also prime conditions for another crash. stay on the ground right now.

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This regime wants to exert even more control over the news and information that the public receives – or doesn’t even receive at all. That's why it is attacking publicly funded media like NPR and PBS. But it's also part of a ploy to gut vital public services and oversight in order to clear the way for more tax cuts (and subsidies) that will predominantly go to the super-rich and powerful corporations. Know the truth. (Art work by @doodlebymeg)

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This girl is an actual hero and we need to donate to her defense fund please

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I love when androgynous POC. Did you hear me I said I love androgynous POC. I really need you to know that I love androgynous POC. Androgynous POC I love you!!

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Oh yeah I didn’t mention that I went to a social event last weekend. Like a pretty decent sized one where I only kinda knew one person, basically a mini Burning Man

Long story short it felt like a really chill family gathering and I’m still not over how it affected me tbh. Like people talked to me and remembered my name and actively sought me out (???)

Also it was the first time I heard someone say my chosen name irl & I’m ONLY known by that name in the group. Also first time I’ve been referred to irl with anything other than she/her :3 I got they/themed. I hope I get he/himmed or it/itsed. Or xe/xemed? Imagine

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i always underestimate just how many people on tumblr are blogging from work. very beautiful. very powerful.

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Everything is so hard all the time has anyone else noticed that