But I Created You

important data

I feel there is a way to write a sort of fix-it fic that reconciles Victor and the Creature, especially since Victor had once been willing to hear the Creature out and towards the end the Creature expresses grief and remorse over Victor’s death, but the way to do it is not simply to say “Victor isn’t afraid of yellow eyes in this one.”

classic literature’s gone WOKE…

- FREAKenstein, or; the modern PRONOUNS

- IARCHMYBACULA

- strange case of dr QUEERKYLL and mr PRYDE

- the picture of dorian GAY

- phantom of the DRAG SHOW

- PRIDE MONTH and prejudice

- WLW heights

- the stranger

- the CLOSETED man

- TESTOSTERONE island

- CUNT and PUSSY

i (obviously, if you’re familiar with my account at all) don’t perceive victor’s “abandonment” of the creature as his Great Sin (which was actually the creature leaving victor’s apartment of his own volition while victor was out on a stress-induced walk), but i do think you’re demonizing the creature here a little bit in the process of defending victor.

i think calling the antagonism the creature faced “minor” is wholly underselling it: he faced straight-up violence. he was turned loose with no direction nor knowledge of himself or anything around, in a world without a single being like him, and then was shot, beaten, and/or verbally assaulted any time he faced a person. he was met time and time again with violence or malice or fear by those around him. this is undeniable. you also seem to imply the creature’s tendency to respond to antagonism with aggression was somehow innate, which it definitely wasn’t—in the creature’s early chapters shelley devotes a lot of time to establishing just that, i.e. that creature was not born violent but warped that way by the society that rejected him. the creature outlines this clearly: “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and, when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture” (1831). this transition from love and sympathy to vice and hatred is what his whole arc with the delaceys is about. 

of course, that in no way justifies the actions he chose to take, which to me have always been inexcusable regardless of the extreme circumstances that culminated in those decisions, but we still shouldn’t undermine the fact that there WERE extreme circumstances. in doing so you lose a lot of the thematic significance and commentary regarding society.

where creature’s fault lies, to me, is that he cultivated an understanding of society and its evils and of morality and empathy and of right from wrong. he feels this inherently: “For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow… when I heard details of vice and bloodshed I turned away with disgust and loathing” (1831). but despite this, he CHOOSES revenge, on the delaceys, on victor, on the world as a whole, actively turning away from his own morality, his innate humanity and sense of goodness. he consciously chooses violence and revenge instead, while knowing and more importantly FEELING, to the extent that he abhors himself, that it was a moral wrong. he would be a lot less powerful of a narrator and as a character if his propensity to react with violence was somehow innate rather than the internal struggle and gray morality that we get in the novel.

but without that external factor (repeated negative interaction with society), he wouldn’t have actually developed this fatal flaw at all, because it was what eventually caused his knee-jerk violent response in the first place. that’s not to say i think any sort of hypothetical victor-raises-creature scenario could have been successful, it just may have been less violent—but victor was physically and mentally incapable of rearing a child at the time, and even disregarding that fact, there are so many other factors on why it wouldn’t have worked, including that, like you said, victor alone could not have satisfied the creature’s needs for company, because his need for romantic and sexual intimacy with another being like him would still exist. ultimately there was no chance for a good outcome for either of them, and this is why frankenstein makes such a good tragedy!

there's something that doesn't really get talked about a lot in the critiques of victor's actions in frankenstein, which is that even if victor hadn't committed what a lot of people view as his Great Sin, abandoning the creature, it still wouldn't have solved anything. the creature's main grievances beyond being angry at victor for his abandonment are that he's hideous and therefore everyone will hate him, and that he's alone in his entire species and therefore has no girlfriend. and while some of that can be mitigated by victor's involvement, victor being present isn't gonna stop other people from thinking that the creature is butt-ugly, nor is it gonna deal with any desire he might have for romantic or sexual intimacy with someone he shares common traits with. and it is also crucially not going to curb the creature's tendency within his personality to respond to every minor antagonism with violent aggression that oftentimes culminates in the straight up murder of innocent people. that's his fatal flaw and it doesn't go away just because there's no external factor involved anymore. victor could be a father figure to the creature from day one and there could still be one person who calls him an ugly abomination at the wrong moment, or victor could say he's not making another experiment for whatever reason, and then boom! we arrive once again at the child killing and the framing family friends for it and the boyfriend killing and the wife killing as the situation escalates, because one of the reasons the book goes the way it does is that the creature himself cannot get out of his own fucking way and makes the situation infinitely worse to the point where mutual destruction is both his and victor's only way out.

we as people should be more like robert walton and henry clerval (hopelessly in love with victor frankenstein)

imagine young victor demanding to be read ancient alchemy as a bedtime story. caroline begrudgingly sitting down to read her son his nightly chapter of de occulta philosophiae 

FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley | THE MODERN PROMETHEUS, Nicole Mello | FRANKENSTEIN, Alexander Utz | MONSTER, Neal Bell | FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley | HENRY CLERVAL SCOLDING VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN: AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC POEM ABOUT GRADUATE STUDENTS AND THEIR DAEMONS, Adam D. Henze | FRANKENSTEIN, Alexander Utz | FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL, Mark Baron | FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley.

clervalstein, over several adaptations

posting these here bc i need them for a thing and my other links BROKE. heres henry signatures

compilation of mike girl moments

SORRY FOR ANY 60s cringe. but behold...

Spent some time tonight making the first version of my Frankenstein 1818 edition timeline. I made some small corrections and additions from my original paper version, but I think there is plenty more to expand up/clarify from this version. (I am using the Penguin Classics edition if you want to read along with what I've mocked up.) Edit: Link to a web version of the document with additional information.

Okay I can sleep now lol. I'll put my OG version under the cut.