Me, two seconds ago: Aite let's see if this here us worth the hype
Me, two seconds into reading: IT ABSOLUTELY IS EAT SHIT BR*M STOKER
This writing is luscious. Between my husband Alexandre Dumas and miss Shelley here I may never read a white dude period author again, like get good
The prologue teasing the reader about the ~scientific mysteries~ to be found in this book's pages would have had me shook if I didn't know what blood transfusion were but here I am, a bitch in 2020
Mmm speaking of being a bitch in 2020 it's fucking me up that this edition has like four prefaces, one by the author herself, all to explain why a WOMAN would write something SO HORRIFIC and I'm just

Wherempst was all this hand wringing with Sheridan le Fanu's horny ass
W H E R E M P S T
Do all Victorian horror novels begin with a lost ass brit in Russia being warned by the locals not to do whatever stupid shit they're on their way to do, because i'm sensing a pattern
On a related note some goofy bitch is trying to sell his sister on moving to the north pole with him and from the way this letter is reading it seems like everyone he's talked to about this, sister included, is like "Bb don't do that"
He also seems to be under the impression that the sun never sets there and lmaoooo is he in for a rude surprise from september to march
I so hope goofball is dr. Frankenstein. I can't wait to read the rest of his dumbass poorly thought out antics
So the first chapter of the book is this expository as shit letter by an as of yet unnamed dude exploring the arctic, but because Mary Shelley has already demonstrated that she's a good writer I just have to take at her word that this dude is monumentally self involved
Dude: Yeah I've dreamed of doing this since I was a child, let me recount it in detail
Dude: But then dad's dying wish stopped me from sailing so I became a failed poet instead
Dude: but you were there for all of that lol~
The sister, reading this:
Imagine loving to talk about yourself so much that you voluntarily bring up your own failed poetry career
I'm sorry did this stupid bitch really just flop his failed poet ass onto a fishing vessel and immediately be promoted to first mate

It's been like two pages of him writing about himself and I somehow already hate him
"Your affectionate brother, R. Walton" well that'll learn me to be presumptuous
AS THE DARKNESS FALLS I RISE
Lmao and here r. walton's dipshit ass is writing to his sister about how he has no friends

Like you have a ship and a crew and you're telling me that not one of those people wanted to be friends with you dude
R. Walton: I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine
Me, a gay, reading this:
There's a bumbling found family of goofballs back in England somewhere fucking up their plans to kill Dracula RIGHT NOW and you could be a gay himbo with them if you weren't dicking around in the arctic, R
Also get a real name

Anyway
"I am now twenty eight and am in reality more illiterate than most schoolboys of fifteen" girl that's what happens when you decide you'd rather read boating memoirs than go to school? Also why are you telling your sister this she was there
Anyway congrats to him for at least being able to readily admit that he's stupid af
R. Walton: Oh sister, I have not a friend in the whole wide world
R: Especially not on this ship full of men with "rugged bosoms" (verbatim)
R: And especially not the specifically rugged captain I hired who I'm obviously in love with, let me describe him in detai-
Sister: omg
He's been writing about this man for a solid page
Omg and after all of that he's like "But he's a stupid fisherman ew I could NEVER lol"
the arctic is too good for you R(obert, which is now his name until he says his whole name)
"The winter has been dreadfully severe" does he know where he's headed to, or
"Your affectionate brother, Robert Walton" oh hey look at that
Brb gonna make some alfredo
ALRIGHT

The alfredo was delicious btw
Robert, writing a letter: HEY SIS I'M JUST FINE, TOTALLY FINE
Robert: ABSOLUTELY PEACHY
Robert: THE ICEBERGS ARE SO SCENIC AND NOT AT ALL DANGEROUS
Robert: AND WE'VE TOTALLY BEEN ABLE TO MOVE THROUGH THE ICE WE'RE NOT FROZEN AT ALL
Robert: IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING
Preemptive rip to this man
"So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it" AWW YEAH HERE COMES THE GOOD SHIT
Oh bitch w h a t this is frightening
Ok so the S.S Himbo is stuck frozen in the middle of the arctic ocean, and while they're huddling for warmth and coming to terms with their eventual demise a dog sled just slides by in the distance driven by some Thanos sized motherfucker

Again, in the MIDDLE OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN
This suddenly turned into Victorian era The Thing and I'm equal parts here for it and spooked out
Let me take a moment to be thankful that I'm in my heated home under a blanket and not trapped in the arctic somewhere about to get Snapt™
Anyway
The fact that Arthur describes a dog sled like someone who was unaware of their existence until a second ago is killing me fjdkdkkf bby get your dumb ass out of the arctic
...they ran into another dogsled the next day and this stupid bitch said the person in it "was not... a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered land, but a European" boy ABSOLUTELY get your dumb ass out of the arctic
Robert: good thing we saved you from dying on this ice float fellow european brother
Stranger: yeah w/e anyway before I get in where are you headed
Robert:
Robert: are you not aware that you're stranded at death's door in the middle of nowhere
Robert: and that we are not a taxi
Having a semi-functioning knowledge of horror tropes I'm just sitting here like "girl don't let this weird bitch onto your boat," but considering the only reason he's doing it is because dude is wh*te I'm fine with the potentially grizzly outcome
You were all shook by Dogsled Thanos but this is fine? Ok sir
From the looks of the way Robert describes this still unnammed man it seems as though he's finally found a """""friend""""""
~tHe StRaNgEr~ is telling the crew of the S.S. Himbo how he's in pursuit of Dogsled Thanos and no one in this conversation seems to know the word "dogsled"

WHY ARE ANY OF YOU HERE
This whole book could be called "the consequences of european hubris" tbqh like why

W h y
"And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have benevolently restored me to life" I see someone took lessons from Count "I do not drink........ vine 😉🤫" Dracula
Arthur, 8/5: My dearest sister, I will keep you abreast of my dealings with The Stranger, so mysterious a creature
Arthur, 8/13: so I'm in love with him now
Arthur: still dk his name tho lol
Also how are these letters getting to her lol? Is it owls? Is usps running dogsleds across the arctic now? Please explain I have questions
Ok so @typodactyl's playing Red Dead Redemption in the background and my brain got confused lol this should say "Robert" and not Arthur https://twitter.com/xodrventure/status/1312565627186565120
This poncy english dipshit didn't randomly transform into the fastest gun in the himbo west
ANYWAY
Stranger: hey so tf are you even doing out here
Robert: I am here to conquer mother earth, to break the laws of nature within the grip of my white human fingers regardless of the warnings or consequences, you
Stranger, wiping away a tear: S-same hat
I hate both of them
"Sometimes I have endeavored to discover what quality it is which he possesses that elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew." It's ok to say you think he's hot ok
Wh- it is now AUGUST NINETEENTH and this man is is still being referred to as a stranger

How can you be this lit over your nEw FrIeNd and not even ask his name Robert it's been two weeks
Stranger: Bro sit down with me for a sec
Stranger: you know that thing you were talking about doing? About being a minor deity or whatever? Yeah don't do that
Robert: why not
Stranger: *stares into camera as the flashback sequence begins*
*flashback sequence ends*
CHAPTER 1
Oh my god
Stranger: Please listen to my sad tale before you embark on your quest to play god
Robert: ok
Stranger: so before I was born my dad was bffs with this dude named Beauford right
Stranger: Remember that name because I'm going to talk about him a lot evidently
O...oh, this is uuuuuuuuh

So Beaufort was the stranger's dad's bff and, after falling into destitution, ran off to the countryside with his daughter

He eventually died of grief and Stranger Dad had his daughter placed with relatives before... marrying her....... two years later
"There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents" yeah no shit
The genre whiplash from scifi/gothic/horror to r/relationships post may have actually physically injured me irl
Omg and true to form to an r/relationships post there's an unreasonably long block of text explaining why, really, the age gap is ok THIS time
The stranger's description of their parenting style sounds so loving and supportive that I aaaaaalmost want to praise them, but considering that dude grows up to toy with the veil betwixt life and death as an adult they clearly failed him somewhere
oh BOY that explains a lot 😬 https://twitter.com/ceruleanfleur/status/1312913781761040384
What on earth- are the stranger's parents shopping for an impoverished child to sponsor?? Just literally walking around the poor neighborhoods looking for a child to kidnap?? Bitch WHAT??
Whew boy the way europeans write about other eurpoeans sure is something tf else
So they just ran across a little girl in an Italian slum whose fAiRnEsS was contrasted at length and in detail against the "dark eyed, hardy little vagrants" surrounding her, to the point where she's verbatim called "fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles"
Anyway they just adopted her because of course they did
W-aaaaait noooooo

nooOOOO IS THE STRANGER IN LOVE WITH HIS SISTER
OH I HATE THIS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
"No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me-my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only."
Oh my god and also this explains why his account of his parents' weird ass age gap relationship was so fawning? Because he did the same shit oh my god

GROSS grossgrossgross groooooOOOOOSS (gross)
This book is fucking bonkers
Anyway that's the end of chapter one lol
CHAPTER 2
"We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages." Well thank god for that at least because
ThE sTrAnGeR keeps trying to underscore how totally normal and loving his childhood was like he didn't just admit to wanting to wife his own sister a page ago, like sir please
A normal childhood also rarely lands a person stranded and half-dying on an arctic ice floe, but ok sir
Stranger: it's a shame my father set me down this destructive path of playing god by saying "Victor, stop reading destructive weirdos who want to play god"
Victor: Because otherwise I like TOTALLY wouldn't have
Victor: Just keep that in mind as I continue though: not my fault
Like he seriously sat here like "Well if my FATHER had just explained that Agrippa was reductionist blah blah Chidi-From-The-Good-Place jargon in those exact words then I wouldn't have played in the face of God himself, but he didn't so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯"
Also lmao at his name being revealed through this and not because Robert at any point actually asked him
Victor if you want to be a scientist you... kinda have to go to school

Like how about this life are you REALLY if you refuse to use your parent's money and go to school
Like it's not even like his dumb ass can't afford it lol he just thinks he can essentially crack the human genome, untrained, and be hailed as a genius

I have so much pre-schadenfreude knowing that this ends horribly for him because he DESERVES
Did Victor just give up on science because he realized that it's based on actual laws and not weird gnosticism

Oh my god he's like every tech bro oh my GOD
That's the end of chapter 2

Victor Go To School Challenge
Also Stop Falling In Love With Your Sister Challenge
CHAPTER 3
Victorian El*n Musk is still talking about his teenagerhood as someone who is a) presumably no longer a teen and b) telling this whole sad tale to explain why he semi-recently committed some form of atrocity

Like dude that was... many years ago
Like you already know you're up to no good if you have to reach back to the Victorian equivalent of high school to excuse your adult actions dude
"Elizabeth [my sister wife] had caught scarlet fever" oh boy here we go
Oh NO it was the mom that died because she wouldn't leave her sick daughter's side :c jesus
Mary Shelley's writing is just... so good

There's this natural gravitas with which she approaches both death and love that quietly ties the two together to the reader and I just
But yeah it's a shame that the context for this rn is a mother's dying wish that her son and his sister get married
Holy shit is Victor actually completing the Victor Go To School Challenge
Victor: But when I got to sküle the unthinkable happened
Victor: I told my natural philosophy professor that I'd been reading scholars who wanted to kill God and supplant him on the throne of Heaven but HE TOO told me not to
Victor: Again, notice how none of this is my fault
Like dude maybe don't! You know that Not Doing It is totally an option right because you're acting like you don't know that
Bitch not the professor just straight up calling this dude's heroes musty trash 💀 I love it when old people dgaf
DKDKKDKD AND NOT VICTOR GOING "WHATEVER BITCH U UGLY ANYWAY" 💀
Like bitch excuse tf out of him for trying to actually teach you science I guess
Oh boy Victor's already got that intense "I'LL SHOW THEM, I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!!!1!!1!1one" energy for a study that he STILL HAS YET TO TELL ROBERT

Like I, in the year 2020, know this is about his thirst to Create Life™ but Robert must be so confused
Like he's sitting here saying that he prefers study that his own professor called old and busted to modern science but refuses to actually plainly state what exactly that study is, which would feel shiesty as fuck to anyone with sense (ie: not Robert)
Like I would be getting worried about being experimented on but I'm also not an easily impressed friendless dipshit
ANYWAY
"I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth." Ok calm down Mr. Musk
Victor: Then another professor, determined to send me down a path of evil villainy, did the unthinkable: he praised the old musty dudes whose writing I'd been pouring over
Victor: i know that I said people telling me no was what set me down this path but this did as well somehow
TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS OH MY GOD I JUST
That said the professor really did make it sound like being a scientist made you into a fucking wizard so to a(n extremely small) degree I can't blame him
Dkdlkdkdkdm and even that teacher was like "yeah dude those dudes... sure were dudes! Time has thankfully moved on though and so shall we off to math class you go~"
Dldkd ok that's the end of chapter 3
I won't be reading tonight on account of wanting to stay as far away from twitter as possible during the debate but I'll be back tomorrow at sundown o'clock central standard time
CHAPTER 4
Why is Victor STILL dragging this professor for telling him he needed to study real science to be a real scientist
Sitting here like "I even managed to learn from Professor Krempe's ole ugly bitch ass" Victor leave him ALONE
But evidently Krempe just openly shits on Victor's science heroes so I guess it's fair lol, rude old people are a gift
Also Robert please come back you were, somehow, WAY less self-involved than the dude who's now on the fourth consecutive CHAPTER of delivering his Sad Backstory™
Like imagine being so self-involved that you voluntarily bring up BEING IN LOVE WITH YOUR SISTER, I just
Anyway
God this writing is so engrossing. Mary Shelley was so good at writing mediocre white men with the delusions of grandeur caused by having more privilege than common sense
Victor: Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm
Me:
I'm beginning to feel like he doesn't actually regret whatever regrettable thing he did that he continues to not tell Robert (spoiler: Create Life™)
Uh
Ok so considering how like, genuinely weirdly self-involved this man is, him readily admitting that he needed to observe a rotting human corpse to continue his "studies" would have me 100% convinced that he'd killed a man
Granted I am, again, not a goofy friendless dipshit like Robert but I feel like even he should be like "uh brb I gotta go hide behind some huge sailors with Rugged Bosoms"
Oh ok and somehow through watching the romantically described decomposition of a human corpse Victor discovered how to reanimate dead tissue, or so he says to Robert (who should be running away by this point RUN ROBERT)
(NOT THAT YOU HAVE ANYWHERE TO GO SINCE YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN)
"I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope in your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted" Robert you stupid bitch
Also Victor keeps talking about how he learned he could reanimate dead tissue but continues to not explain what, exactly, he brought back to life and that feels..... conspicuous
Victor: So there I am, two years into college and a genius right
Victor: And I'm like "what if I just like, built a dude"
Victor: so I starter building a dude lol
Robert's dumb ass:
Victor said that he made his build-a-man "about eight feet in height and proportionally large," and I have a question that I both do and do not wish to see answered later in the book
Uuuuuuuuh did Victor just admit to torturing animals and digging up people's grandmas and shit to study on them

His account had been giving me wild American Psycho vibes and now I see why
Also isn't he still in school lol? I knew universities were wild back then but I feel like even they would have drawn the line at exhuming corpses
Genuinely love that Victor's sitting here describing his murder attic in detail and Robert's just adoringly taking notes because it means I don't have to root for either of their eventual escapes
Ok so he just explained that he spent basically a solid year gollum-ing in his butcher attic and never leaving so I... can't imagine his grades are looking too hot
Lol and that's the end of chapter 4, just him remarking that he forgots the taste of bread and the sound of trees

Also have some curséd knowledge to tuck you in tonight https://twitter.com/cptbaker/status/1314377304672403456
CHAPTER 5 (i forgot yesterday sorry lol)
LOUD GASP

HE'S DONE IT
Oh boy and now we're getting a... very detailed physical description of the creature, who sounds like a hot(ter, don't @ me) yellow Thanos with flowing black hair and eyes that look like they clearly belong to a dead man
Also I'm very http://girl-saying-interesting.meme  about him having chosen, by his account, the most beautiful of features with which to craft his new man like some kind of creepy tech bro Pygmalion
Wtf twitter why did you make that a link
Anyway I say all that to say that he probably has a huge dick
Victor: So I did all of this, spent basically a whole year sewing this bitch together from parts I carefully curated from only the prettiest of corpses
Victor: And I looked into his watery, dead eyes and wouldn't you know it, I realized that I did something fucked up
How did it take you THIS long dude like literally every stepping stone on the path to get here was some form of minor to moderate atrocity
Oh my god what the fuck
Victor's tossing and turning having nightmares that more inexorably bind love and death together in his psyche and when he awakes, it's to the visage of the Creature just holding back the curtain staring at him, and then like. Reaching forward to touch him
Also I forgot to mention that he was smirking and muttering something unintelligible, and is also, as has been already been noted, a Thanos-sized motherfucker

THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T CREATE LIFE™ VICTOR
Anyway Victor ran off when the Creature reached over to him (presumably to put a minor key rendition of Careless Whisper on the phonograph)
(Wait isn't Careless Whisper already in a minor key lol)
Oh my god is Victor mainly upset that the Creature isn't fucking cute enough

Like he's gone on for pages about how he's created a monstrosity but 100% of the ire here is being directed at Mr.Build-A-Man's horrifying appearance and not the dark sciences behind his creation
Like would he be fine with this if the creature was handsome?? Girl what
Anyway he's sleeping outside because he was just spooked out of his butchery attic
"AITA for leaving my (19m) creation (0m) alone in my attic after running away from him with a face contorted in terror?"
Lmao and somehow, serendipitously, as he's making his way through the streets in the rain trying to flee the boyfriend he built, he runs into an old childhood friend?

I mean good I guess but????
Victor: It's so good to see you! How are my dad and uh *sweats* s-sister
Clerval: You'd know if you literally EVER asked
Clerval: like EVER
Clerval: YOUR DAD AND SISTER SPECIFICALLY REQUESTER THAT I CHEW YOU OUT ABOUT THIS
Clerval: also you look like you're dying why are you dying
Oh my god this poor friend lol. If horror had been invented as a genre yet he'd probably be super worried but it hasn't

But Victor just cased the house for the dude he made and, upon not finding him there, is just bouncing off the walls with excitement while Clerval's like
Oh my gosh not Clerval staying with Victor for months to nurse him back to health after he passed out 💖 Victor doesn't DESERVE
Oh no and Victor's """cousin""" (that's what they're going with instead of sister in this edition) wrote him a letter that he hasn't opener yet on account of his being incapacitated, but now he's capacitated again and is going to read it 😬
That's the end of chapter 5! I'll be back in a sec I want some soup
CHAPTER 6
So Clerval's been taking care of Victor while he recovers from Mad Scientist Syndrome and has been writing letters to his family in his stead to give them updates

...but I guess didn't tell them that he, personally, is nursing him back to health which raises some questions
Namely: why
Anyway this update brought to you by a very affronted Elizabeth who's distraught at the notion of "some mercenary old nurse" to tenderly care for him instead of she, his """cousin"""
*bangs a pot against a pan in the middle of town square* EVERYBODY GO TO THERAPY
"Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children, has taken place since you left us" wait a second what the fuck
They had KIDS already?? please let me be misreading this
Girl why is this whole letter just gossip about other people lol

Especially this girl that their mom/aunt "rescued" from an abusive home by taking her in as their servant?? Like a whole paragraph was written just to assure us that it's fine but it still sounds sus af
Reading this renews my inability to understand people who want to live in past historical periods because I honestly couldn't imagine how shitty something like this would be without telephones or facetime
Ah jeeze that's... a lot of people's present as well I just bummed myself out
Anyway :c
"I wrote to my family after months of no contact and it took a month for me to recover from the emotional toll it took on me 😔" Victor you are a JOKE
Oh jeeze now he has ptsd from this whole ordeal that he put himself through

Don't play god if you're not gonna commit bitch
Also, because it bears mentioning and hasn't been brought up yet in the text: the creature is just like. Out there wandering around the country unsupervised, correct

Because that seems like a particularly massive loose end in Victor's plan to hide what he did
Also bitch good luck going to school for science if anything related to it triggers your ptsd like??
Victor: Professor I'm really uncomfortable being around science stuff rn can we like, not science maybe?
Professor Krempe: SMELLS LIKE BITCH IN HERE
This man is so unbelievably rude and I love it because Victor fucking sucks
Speaking of Victor sucking he just outed himself as a casual orientialist so that's cute*

*: gross, and I hate him
Victor spends a LOT of time comparing Clerval's presence in his life to a beautiful spring day

Like why build a man when you have one right there dude
The chapter ends with them skipping back to college while peasants dance in the streets? Because everyone's happy I guess??
CHAPTER 7
Victor's dad, via letter: Hey son, great of you to keep in touch
Victor's Dad: That was sarcasm, in caae you didn't catch that
Victor's Dad: Because you never fucking write
Victor's Dad: Anyway your little brother was murdered
Ok so good question and yes, he had two biological little brothers, a sister/cousin and a like-a-sister-but-technically-not-for-some-reason live in maid https://twitter.com/fadeaccompli/status/1315454354241978368
Like I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for the discussion on why that hapless child that they adopted got to be a maid while similarly adopted and hapless Elizabeth was cherished, and if I was the maid ngl I'd be asking those questions myself
ANYWAY back to this dumb bitch and his murdered brother (rip)
Elizabeth evidently screamed "I've killed my darling child!" When they found his body which is reviving my discomfort with how this family uses titles
Like unless there's some more hinky shit going on that's... not your kid...
Well at least Victor has Clerval to comfort him I guess

(Clerval if you're reading this: you can do better bb)
"I fear, friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on these preliminary circumstances" glad somebody said it
Bitch w h a t
So Victor went back home for his little brother's funeral and decided to have a nice dramatic walk in a thunderstorm to view the site of his brother's murder, and who should he see, in a flash of lightening no less, than the man he built and ghosted
Here's the thing though: Victor went to college in Ingolstadt, and his home is in Geneva

Which means ole dude just WALKED *FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHT EARTH MILES* just to creep around Victor's hometown???????
If this were happening to literally anyone else I'd be screaming at them to run but I hope Mr. The Creature beats that ass
Victor's now convinced that the creature murdered his brother which... tbh isn't a super unreasonable conclusion to draw for a couple of reasons but I hope Mr. Monst didn't do it
Victor Stop Sleeping Outside In The Rain When You're Confronted With The Consequences Of Your Work Challenge
Especially with him being like "NONE can CONCEIVE of the AGONY i spent that night in, all cold and out in the rain :c" so you're telling me that you can command the forces of life and death but somehow can't compel your legs to take you inside? Girl I guess
*bangs a pot against a pan in Victor Frankenstein's face* YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF
Victor's like "well shit it's not like I could tell anybody about this to go on a search for the Creature because I'd sound fucking bonkers" and to be completely honest this is a legitimate excuse
"How will they even arrest something capable of scaling a mountain?" Literally why did you MAKE SOMEONE THAT COULD- nevermind
Ijs you have to be actively trying to make someone eight feet tall when working with materials from people who were like 5'8" tops

So was there like... no consideration for how that unnecessarily strong body would be used or
Bitch what the fuck the sister/maid evidently murdered the brother?? Whew
It's absolutely fucked but she... def has motive
Victor: but she didn't do it!!
Ernst (surviving brother): uh dude we have like a mountain of evidence but if you say so we believe you! Hey dad!
Victor's Dad: Yeah?
Ernst: Victor says he knows who killed William! Tell us
Victor's Dad: Yeah who is it
Victor:
Oh my god and chapter ends with him being like "We'll just clear her name I'll explain later!!!" DUDE YOU GOTTA TELL THEM EVENTUALLY
CHAPTER 8
Victor keeps underscoring how he couldn't tell anyone about Lord Monster (esq.) because they'd just assume his tale was the result of an illness-based hallucination but at this point he needs to at least try
Now Victor's like "And as I looked upon my sister-maid's lovely face I knew that she was innocent because she's just too beautiful to be a murderer" and I just. I hate him so much oh my god
Monster sweetie go walk to some other city and find you a good man
Somebody planted evidence on the sister-maid to implicate her in the murder oh my g-
Oh boy Elizabeth is taking the stand
"I am... the cousin of the unhappy child who was murdered, or rather his sister-" turns out the reason why we don't play fast and loose with kinship terminology is because words mean things
Aww she stood up for the sister-maid! Who has a name! It's Justine! Idk why I keep calling her sister maid it's so disrespectful smh
Victor: as I watched this innocent woman weep on the stand as her community turned against her, I realized that I'm the real victim here
Victor: Because she can at least take solace in her innocence
Victor: like yeah she'll be executed or whatever but at least she has that
Me:
Justine just confessed?? This has prosecutorial malfeasance written all over it
Oh hey this book passed the bechdel test

Granted it's a tearful conversation through prison bars about being entrapped by the law but still
Oh my GOD and while he's watching these women weep V*ctor is over in the corner still FULLY convinced that the person hurting the most in this jail is he and not the person currently imprisoned to be executed outside its walls

Robert throw this bitch back in the ocean please
Me: this interaction between Justine and Elizabeth feels super gay
Book: "And on the morrow Justine died"
Me: Welp that's unfortunately confirmed
Also not for nothing but it's odd to me that Victor doesn't try to bring either of his siblings back to life, considering that he rather famously just made a dude

Like it's got to be easier to revive a whole body that's recently deceased
This chapter ends with Frankenstein dramatically caterwauling about how HE'S the real murderer for dooming his family thrice-cursed hands and you know what he's not wrong
Dooming his family with*
CHAPTER 9
I'm sorry did this bitch really open this chapter by forgiving himself
VICTOR COME HERE I JUST WANNA TALK
"None could love a child more than I loved your brother" is certainly a thing to say to one of your children, but considering that Pop Frankenstein is saying it to Victor I get it
Me, calmly reading a book:
Mary Shelley, through a megaphone: 𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊 THE DEATH PENALTY
Like Elizabeth's going off rn about how poisoned the system has to be to put a woman to death for a crime she didn't commit and I'm just proud of her. Out here showing more deductive reasoning than Victor's ole goofy bUt i'M a sCiEnTiSt ass, bless
Speaking of: I genuinely can't remember the last time Victor spoke a single word to any of the people whose lives he's recently ruined

Like bitch are you going to just be silently buffeted by the consequences of your past behavior or are you going to tell ANYONE *ANYTHING*
Omg now I understand how he was on the S.S. Himbo for weeks without barely anyone speaking to him: he evidently spends every waking moment fetishistically miring himself in his own misery and can't make room in his schedule to say two words to people
Did... did victor just dramatically tuck and roll off of his moving horse because ~hE FeLt sO bAd~

Is there even a single soul, alive, dead or undead, that's more dramatic than this bitch
This chapter ends with him, having exhausted himself by feeling bad through an otherwise scenic country stroll through the mountains, immediately falling asleep upon returning

Mary Shelley pls bring the Monster back my crops are dying
CHAPTER 10
It's raining out now so there's about a 40% chance of Victor dramatically sleeping outside in it
Victor's been going off on a tangent about a mountain he really likes for way longer than makes sense for a not-about-that-mountain-tale that he's telling someone else
Henry Thoreau's somewhere taking notes
Anyway this constantly fainting ass bitch has somehow summoned up the will to climb a glacier
Oh my god Victor decided to shout an entreaty to the spirits (???) to take him to the other side with them, and I guess Mr. Monst heard that shit because here he is SPRINTING over to make sure he gets his wish
GOD i wish I liked Victor more so that I could be scared for him because this shit would be legitimately SO terrifying

I don't like him though so I HOPE HE BEATS YOU UP BITCH
Did perpetually malnourished Victor Frankenstein just try to intimidate this 8-foot tall man with the prospect of a fight
I hope he punches you into the earth Victor but I know he doesn't because there's still a bunch of book left
*Deep, DEEP inhale*

BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH
THIS MONSTER IS NOT HERE TO PLAY WITH YALL HOES

HE IS HERE TO L I T E R A L L Y SLAY, I JUST
Oh my god this book was just Victor's endless whinging about hOw bAd he is was getting super tedious but this?? THIS??
Also WOW I love how deftly Victor is written, that slimy douche

He's willing to make dramatic shows of grief and speak at length about how rent with guilt he is, but when offered a solution that would both do right by his creation AND prevent future violence he's like
Like he doesn't give a SINGLE fuck about anything other than making sure that no one knows his connection to his brother's murder, and he's too repelled by taking any form of real accountability to just be honest with himself about that
An absolutely odious motherfucker. Hats off to Mary Shelley cause she really did that shit, and with fairly deft subtlety
Anyway all of this became apparent after Mr. Monster said he wouldn't enact his plan to violently chew through Victor's loved ones one by one if Victor could just make him happy, and Victor's subsequent violent refusal of that extremely simple and singular request
Monster: Make me smile? Please? Just once? :)
Victor, skinnily: FIGHT ME
Monster: :(
Monster: also dude are you serious about that fighting thing because lmfao
Oh my god this poor Monster is describing all the horrible things he's been through since his creation and how deserts and glaciers are the only places he can find respite from humanity and I just want to give him a hug
Ooh bitch this speech the Monster's giving rn is a whole ass mood
"I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share in my wretchedness." Girl????? Bars
Oh this got... confusingly gay
Monster: Hey I've been through some shit can I talk about it
Victor, flailing: REMOVE YOURSELF FROM MY SIGHT
Monster, tenderly covering Victor's eyes with his hand: *whispers* there
Me:
I thought the Monster's being like "I will literally murder each and every last other hoe on this planet in front of you but I would NEVER hurt you, Victor" to be kind of clownish but now... now it makes sense

Still clownish as hell but at least sensically so
The Monster invited Victor to his hut in the mountains and then said this and I AUDIBLY hooted dkdjfj Victor better come correct
Oh and Victor... feels compassion? Allegedly? And wants to learn more and do right by his creation?? Allegedly?? Sounds fake but we'll see

It did say that he came to this realization as the Creature was walking away so maybe a glimpse of that ass changed his heart
That's the end of that wild ride of a chapter

Monster you're doing amazing sweetie
CHAPTER 11
The Creature is describing how he had to figure out everything about existing physically on his own and it REALLY underscores how aint shit Victor is for abandoning him, poor thing

Also not for nothing is he like. Clothed.
Oh ok he put on clothes before leaving the mad science attic so that's good at least
The way the Creature describes being bombarded with physical and psychological sensation upon waking feels more human than anything Victor Frankenstein has said or described feeling throughout this whole book
GOD this writing is so good AUGH

I may write an essay on this later but honestly she so, so deftly and so IMMEDIATELY inspires sympathy for the creature through him plainly stating the facts of his existence, in contrast to Victor's dramatic and empty expressions of remorse
Like it would boggle my mind that anyone reading this wouldn't side with the creature here, but posh white dudes seem to love nothing more than glomming on to the most abhorrent depictions of themselves so here we are lol
A n y w a y
The Creature's description of genuine joy at the tiny discoveries he makes is a breath of fresh air
He's talking about how much he likes birds and I just-
...oh boy and now this man, who is cobbled together from other people and who doesn't at this seem to know what he looks like, is heading into town because there's food there and I'm already like, pre-sad for what I expect will happen next
Jesus so he (predictably) gets run out of town after going into someone's house and is now living in a tiny shack next to a violinist's house, and... has learned how to love? Poor bb doesn't know what feelings are yet but is doing his best to describe them
There are so many things to love about the Creature's account of his experiences, and it sticks out to me that he seems to really, genuinely see people as individuals capable of both great beauty and great cruelty, and is smart enough to know, heartbreakingly, not to interact
Like I'm fully convinced that he feels more affection toward this family he hasn't even spoken to (because he DOESN'T KNOW WHAT WORDS ARE poor bb) than Victor feels towards anyone in his own family, cousin sister wife included
CHAPTER 12
I really fuck with how smart The Creature is like fr

To say it's a breath of fresh air after Victor's chapters of dipshittery is an understatement, it's like a gale force of fresh air
We love a competent bitch who never makes the same mistake twice
The Creature's describing his confusion that the two younger members of this seemingly happy family stow away together to weep (presumably about how the violinist mood is old and at death's door) and I just! HE'S SO EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT I JUST
EAT SHIT V*CTOR FRANKENSTEIN
Ooh not The Creature going off on the evils of poverty, loving this energy from him
And he chopped firewood for them in the night to help out because he wanted them to be less stressed out???????? Oh my god?????????
learning a language as someone who doesn't even understand the concept of words would be hellishly frustrating, especially without guidance, so the fact that The Creature managed to master that shit in roughly a year should terrify victor tbh
Like he's enormous, demonstrably vengeful and smart to a scary degree. I cannot think of a single other entity I would strive harder not to make an enemy of
Nooooooo the Creature saw himself in a pool and knows what he looks like now :C I want to dive into this book and give him a hug
Ah jeeze he's imprinting on this family and I can't see it ending well
Aww he ends the chapter excited about spring and the possibility of introducing himself to this new family (which 😬) but ugh HE should be the main character, not Victor's ole wack ass
CHAPTER 13
Creature: So this fine ass honey shows up one day right
Creature: Just beautiful
Creature: and then Felix, the old man's son, ran out to meet her with a face flushed with ecstasy and he was exactly as beautiful as she was
Me, a gay:
THE BISEXUAL NATION HAS NO CHOICE *BUT* TO STAN
There's something so validating and beautiful about him stating this attraction as though it were as natural to him as breathing, I just
I feel more represented by three chapters of this bajillion year old book than by most media out nowadays. Mary Shelley you DID THAT SHIT
The Creature just said that Felix called the hunnie "my sweet" in Arabic which raises a lot of questions, namely how in tf The Creature managed to learn Arabic while living in a hut in the backyard
"She did not appear to understand him, but smiled" ok now I'm even more confused, is the family... not white?
AH
*SHE'S* NOT WHITE

ok Creature I see you're a man of taste as well
Aww she's there to learn German and the Creature is going to learn alongside* her ;---;

*: from a hut in the backyard
Creature: I then began to learn history from the lessons Felix gave Safie
Me: *deep sig-*
Creature: and you know what colonialism is garbage dude
Me:
I... did not care for what was said about Asians though
OH NO THE CREATURE IS SO WONDERING IF HE'S A MONSTER NOO BB
I know this is The Point™ of the novel but I HATE that society makes this beautiful angel feel like a monster just because he's different and I hope he just beats up everybody
Oh my god his loneliness is gut wrenching
@/God LET ME GIVE HIM A HUG
Before I start chapter 14 I have to acknowledge a part of the last chapter that I somehow glossed over where The Creature learns where babies come from
Can't believe he sat there and watched them fucking lmao?? Probably sitting there like
Anyway lol
CHAPTER 14
Aw the family he's been watching is French

Actually come to think of it I wonder where tf the Creature even is at this point, considering his already demonstrated ability to walk for hundreds of miles unhindered
So Safie (the Beautiful Stranger) is Turkish and moved to Paris to live with her father who, on the day of her arrival, was arrested and sentenced to death for being successful while brown, essentially, and I just
Thankfully the Creature and everyone in this house he's watching is ACAB
OH BITCH AND FELIX IS BUSTING HIM OUT IF JAIL???
I'M LOVING THIS ENERGY BB
Also jesus christ this story is a flashback matryoshka. We're three flashbacks deep rn and I worry there are yet still more to come
Omg and of course the only compensation Felix will accept is Safie's hand in marriage which 🙄 buuuuuut considering that he busted her dad out of jail for no reason other than indignation at his sentence she could do a lot worse
It hasn't escaped my notice that all of this detail has been gleaned by a dude in a backyard shack lipreading a language he's still learning through a poorly boarded-up window. Like damn bitch put these other hoes to shame I guess
Omg now we're learning Safie's mother's backstory WE'RE IN TOO DEEP THERE ARE TOO MANY BACKSTORIES
I... what the fuck
So Safie's mother evidently instructed Safie to be a Christian like herself because she'd have more ~rights than the poor oppressed Muslim women in Asia which is... rich, considering that, text for text, Christian women take the most Ls of the Abrahamic faiths
Ugh this lie makes my ass itch. It's so untrue and so damaging, and I really hope it's corrected for later because what the shit
Ah yes and "now" this duplicitous Muslim man is scheming to not hold up his end of the bargain because he doesn't want his daughter marrying a Christian and getting Ideas™, how novel please do go on
Oh jeeze, Felix's whole family got arrested, lost their fortune and were exiled and the dude they helper just... left them like that

Safie took some of his money and went out to find Felix and the rest of his family herself, which is sweet I guess but I hate this story
CHAPTER 15 (I need a palate cleanser because wtf was that Mary Shelley)
The creature found three books on the ground and is so excited about them ;----;
Ok wow this fictional man living in a hut is officially better read than me in cAnAnOnIcAl literature
I say this because he's going on at length about books that I very much haven't read
Reading The Creature openly empathize with Satan is weirdly reassuring after the tomfoolery of the last chapter
Oh boy I could not imagine how fucking weird it must have been for the Creature to find the plans for his own creation, especially as someone who doesn't know shit about where he came from or why
Omg YES FINALLY SOMEONE TELLING VICTOR ABOUT HIMSELF, CREATURE SWEETIE THANK YOU
That actually alerted me to the fact that this incredibly gentle Creature, who has done nothing but express tender affection toward the beauty of nature and this family, is somehow the same bitch who threatened to tear down Victor's life earlier
And it's perfect because the magnitude of his fury is absolutely appropriate considering, like, everything
The Creature wants to meet this family so bad and I already know by virtue of him having sought out Victor to tell this story to that it won't go well
Oh jeeze his plan is to "enter the home" when only the blind old man is there to introduce himself, but it appears that he somehow hasn't been introduced to the concept of knocking on doors
Oh god the Creature is introducing himself to the old man I'm SO NERVOUS FOR HIM
I'm sitting here making the Tina Belcher noise reading this
Aww!! The old man is being so sweet ;-; please scene, please don't devolve
OH NO BITCH NO WHAT YOU CAN'T JUST GRAB A STRANGER'S HANDS AND DEMAND THAT THEY PROTECT YOU BUT YOU DON'T KNOW THAT BECAUSE YOU SPENT YOUR SINGLE YEAR OF LIFE ISOLATED IN A HUT
I ASKED *ONE THING* OF YOU, SCENE
Oh my god what a bummer chapter ending. I'm going to go make some pasta
CHAPTER 16
The Creature allowing himself to feel pain and anger, and realizing that he needer to calm down to reassess his feelings before acting, is sf emotionally intelligent

Like ESPECIALLY on the heels of an traumatic event
I JUST. WANT. TO. GIVE. HIM. A. HUG.
"After much consideration I resolved to return to the cottage, seek the old man, and by my representations win him to my party" NO OH MY GOD
I get why he doesn't know that continuing to push this is a TERRIBLE idea but it's so painful to read
Oh damn the whole family skipped town and the worst thing about it is tbqh I can't blame them

Like even in the best of circumstances you'd have to be ok with someone essentially spying on your family for a year and that's a pretty big ask
Did the Creature really just Waiting To Exhale this family's house
I feel like every time a character starts to feel happy Mary Shelley forcibly reminds them them that spring is fake and happiness is a lie
Case in point: the Creature was feeling nice enough to walk around during the daytime because the weather was nice and just got shot by a little girl's dad for the crime of trying to save her from drowning
Mary Shelley Give The Creature A Break Please (PLEASE I Am Begging) Challenge
um is the creature about to kidnap a kid to train it to be his friend I DON'T CARE FOR THIS SIR
Kid: Wtf let me go you're an ogre and I, a kid, have no way of knowing those aren't real
Creature: be my friend
Kid: no??? I want my dad???
Creature: YOU'LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN YOU'RE COMING WITH ME
Me: bro wtf
That is... not how you win friends and influence people bb
UM??????
The kid said he was a Frankenstein and the Creature was like "Oh dope time to die lil dude!" UM????
Omg rip to Victor's little brother (again) but damn

Wait did HE frame Justine?????? No omg please don't be the one who did that
Oh boy and he found the locket with the photo of Victor's mom in it and boy howdy did this take a turn into incel territory

Like I get where he's coming from within the context of this novel but the "I'm too ugly to get laid" refrain activates my fight or flight response
ESPECIALLY when that refrain is used as an excuse to exact harm against women, which I have an inkling is about to happen
OH MY GOD CREATURE YOU CREEPY FUCKING FUCK
Is he just in his version of puberty? Is that why this is happening because it's REAL upsetting
Anyway he just walker up on a sleeping Justine and, after having judged her as less beautiful than her adopted mom (which is... rich, for obvious reasons,) he whispers for her to wake up and greet he, her lover, knowing good and damn well what would happen if he did
Creature: thankfully she didn't wake up, but I could just tell that she would never fuck me so I framed her for murder lol
Me, screaming from a rooftop: @WholeManDispose TAKE HIM AWAY
The thing that's particularly galling about all of this is, ignoring the fact that the Creature doesn't even know Justine's relationship to the Frankensteins, that he's absolutely smart enough to know that what he's doing is fucked up and just does the shit anyway
Did this bitch just demand that Frankenstein make him a wife that's too deformed to leave him, I-
That's the end of chapter 16 and omg
PLEASE Mary Shelley my feelings need a rest from this violent rollercoaster you've put them on
Me, empathizing with a male character in a Mary Shelley novel: This is going well
Mary Shelley:
CHAPTER 17 BECAUSE I'M TOO MAD TO STOP READING
Ok as much as I hate the Cr*ature he really knows how to beautifully word a death threat
"If you consent, neither you nor any other human being will see us [Mr. and Mrs. Creature] ever again; I will go to the vast wilds of South America" PEOPLE LIVE THERE YOU DIPSHIT
Hello I am back, let's see what happens betwixt these two m*n in this chapter
The Creature is going on about how he's going to make a two-person vegan compound in South America but like. How. Are you gonna swim dude
A recurring theme in novel is women being doled out to men as rewards for... existing, and it'ssss uncomfortable to read
This tweet brought to you by Victor deciding that he owed the Creature a wife, who will of course love him because she serves no purpose outside of that
Shot in the dark but did Mary Shelley not get along with her dad
Also Victor's been gone all day is no one looking for him
Victor's being exactly as dramatic after this conversation as he was before it but for once his intensity feels appropriate to the situation

Anyway SERVES YOU RIGHT BITCH
Victor, upon finally coming home to his worried family: "I felt as if I were placed under a ban - as if I had no right to claim their sympathies -"
Me: YOU DON'T
The chapter ends with ~poor victor resolving to do more of the cursed work that ruined his life

it's almost like he should have listened too the multitudes of people telling him not to do this stupid shit in the first place but gone head and feel them consequences bitch
CHAPTER 18
Victor's dad is finally realizing the fatal flaw in his "raise someone alongside your child as a sibling with the eventual goal of marrying them" plan, namely the possibility that they'll actually see eachother as siblings
Victor's quick to reassure his dad that he loves Cousin Sisterwife and I can't help but again wonder if like, anyone asked her about how she felt about this
Also Victor
Oop and he can't get married immediately like his dad wants because he knows The Creature will beat his whole family's ass if he does and for the first time in this book I feel the tiniest smidgen of sympathy for him
Like at this point what's happening is so fucking bonkers that people wouldn't believe him even if he told them
Victor's decision to not build another unholy facsimile of mankind in Pa Frankenstein's attic may be the first decision he's made that hasn't been 100% self-centered

Like is this growth? Yes I guess but the bar is so, so low
The way Victor's family works with and around him is one of the most realistic in the book

This brought to you by him deciding to go to England to employ his hands in service of the Dark Arts and his family being like "Absolutely tf not by yourself, Clerval's going with"
"Does this dipshit really think we're going to let him fuck off for another year and a half without writing? Lmao at him"

-Victor's Dad, probably
Victor's like "this is fine with me because I needed a bodyguard anyway" and I just
Clerval you are WASTED on this man GO LIVE YOUR LIFE BB
It could be that I'm reading this concurrent with a Bojack Horseman rewatch but Clerval reminds me a lot of Mr. Peanutbutter
What the shit did Clerval DIE
Um ok I guess not yet, but they made it to england in one piece at least
CHAPTER 19
LMFAO CLERVAL IS A *LITERAL* COLONIZER
So much of this chapter is just Victor and Clerval having their own dark version of the Spider-Man: Far From Home tour of Europe and honestly they're enjoying themselves too much; Creature honey please come shake the table
I cannot believe that Victor really sat here and recounted the scenic views of his vacation with Clerval in the middle of what was, again, supposed to be a cautionary tale

Like there's a murderous titan dogsledding around RIGHT NOW and he's talking about mountains and shit
"I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless-" BITCH NO THE FUCK YOU ARE NOT
Victor and Clerval's relationship is just... so gay

Like you don't tell someone that you never feel at home unless they're present if you aren't deeply in love with them
Lmao at him going immediately from this scenic wonderland with Clerval to a dilapidated hut in the most miserable and desolate town available to do his Work
Omg Mary WHY https://twitter.com/NightoftheLark/status/1318721934805422080
The chapter ends with the plot finally returning from the random vacation it decided to take on the English Countryside
The way this is The Creature's theme though https://open.spotify.com/track/5GXuUITCCWAG4h8ABnQ8ve
Tipsy - Chloe x Halle

https://open.spotify.com/track/5GXuUITCCWAG4h8ABnQ8ve
I... still may st*n a little
(i'm taking a break tonight)
CHAPTER 20
Victor: So i was building this broad out of other broads right, but dude like
Victor: She's like
Victor: gonna have a mind of her own and shit
Victor: and that's just a bridge too fucking far
Granted his reasoning is pretty sound (like what if she legit hates him) but considering the fact that he's putting off marrying his sister-cousin who was essentially betrothed to him from early childhood to do this it's hard to take his concerns in good faith
This story keeps reminding me that Victor gave this man a dick

Like did he choose out the most perfect dick or did he build that too I want to know
I was reminded about dat 🍆 because Victor brought up the Creature wanting kids, which... raises so many questions

Namely: if all the parts are repurposed from other people wouldn't the resultant kid just be a regular human child
Oh the Creature is just watching Victor through the window this is so unsettling
Ew wtf did Victor tear the WIP girlfriend apart? Ew??
Wait hold up Scotland has deserts?
Thanks google
Anyway the Creature is complaining about having hid out in the deserts of Scotland (??) in his stalker pilgrimage across Europe just for victor to tear apart his wife in front of him
OH omg thank you https://twitter.com/Seunte/status/1319427581188386816
Which of these two would win a Poetic Death Threat battle because I honestly have a hard time deciding
Anyway this brought to you by the creature beautifully reminding Victor of the ways in which he can be physically and emotionally unmade
Oh my god Victor please keep fucking up I love reading you getting promised a future of violence
"I go; but remember, I will be with you on your wedding night" CREATURE BABY 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓
I????? DUDE????????
Like EVERY SINGLE TIME he's reading Victor for filth the tone of the speech goes from rage, to this kind of stirring and almost romantic prose, and then RIGHT after something fucking horny happens
Anyway Victor's like "not if I beat you up first!!!!1!1!1!" And like. Bby. Stop this. No one is convinced, not even you
Is Victor's goofy ass really sitting here thinking that a being this thirsty to see his prolonged suffering would kill HIM on his wedding night
Like no girl at best he's killing Elizabeth in front of you. At BEST
Nice of Victor to clean up his murder cave before going on European Vacation with Clerval 2.0
Someone with a history of not waking up for days at a time when he falls asleep should probably not decide it's totes safe to take a lil nap in a watercraft but here Victor's stupid ass is, doing exactly that
Anyway he's in Ireland now
Ooh and they HATE him here evidently, like to the degree that I momentarily forgot that I wasn't still watching my girlfriend play Red Dead Redemption
Victor, bedraggled and just washed ashore: Hey where am I
Villager: Welcome to Ireland! You're under arrest
Victor: What
Magistrate: Where were you the night of this man's murder
Victor: W H A T
Lord and the chapter ends with Victor gearing himself up to recount something he considers horrific, which... actually doesn't mean a whole lot considering the things he's done and managed to excuse
CHAPTER 21
As Victor's dragged before the town magistrate I can't help but wonder how much simpler his life would be if he'd just pretended the Creature was his brother with a rare skin condition or something
The witness recounting how he discovered the body reminds me of a Law and Order cold open
Witness: yeah after my son comically tripped over this cadaver we noticed that he'd been strangler by a hand
Son: just a massive hand
Victor, sweating profusely: you... don't say...
The magistrate noticed Victor's change in demeanor and is immediately like "yep this bitch did it"
Also the whole town saw "one man in a boat" and just assumed that a) the man in the boat was responsible for the murder, and b) it was Victor who was in the boat because he's a man who washed ashore on a boat

Could anyone see his face in the moonless night? No but who cares
Gotta love that good ole 16th century justice system, which tbqh hasn't much improved today
The townsfolk noticed that the body had to have been transported there and accused Victor of that as well which is hilarious considering that he was in the river in the first place to dispose of *a* body, just not... this body
CLERVAL WAS MURDERED?????????
Wow rip he's colonizing India in heaven* now

*: hell tbqh
That said like by this point I feel like Victor should know the Creature's MO? Like the instant I'd heard about a victim strangled by an inhumanly large hand I would be concerned for my loved ones but I'm also not unforgivably self-centered
Jesus and he got deathly ill for two months from the grief which... like almost inspired sympathy in me before I remembered that when his mom died he was like "welp can't mourn forever going off to college byeeeee"
Victor's like "idk how I didn't die tbh I must be built different" as though having to rest for a month after writing someone a letter is normal
"[The nurse hired to watch me in prison was] the wife of one of the turnkeys, and her countenance expressed all those bad qualities which often characterize that class." Victor you're an imprisoned college dropout so maybe tone down the classism a little
Robert must be sitting there like
Wow and despite being given the cushiest cell in the prison and his own personal nurse Victor's still weighing the value of continuing to live in such a ~cruel world~ because said one (1) individual nurse isn't as kind to him as he'd like
How is ALL OF THIS worth it to avoid building The Creature a wife dude
Oh my god did he really call himself the most miserable of mortals like he didn't build a man with half of a face who's forced to sleep outside in the elements every night, among other wack shit he's had to deal with
Oh dude the magistrate went through Victor's pockets and read all the papers and shit in there, which presumably includes the blueprint for The Creature and honestly idk how I'd react to that
Aw his dad came to visit! Preemptive rip to him when the Creature finds out
Victor commitment to cranking the drama meter up to 11 for the smallest inconvenience has robbed me of the capacity to empathize with him when something that actually merits it (ie: this situation) happens
Victor being acquitted for a murder he was absolutely responsible for is... familiar
Victor describes Clerval's eyes the way only someone who's spent an inordinate amount of time staring intently into them would
This came up because despite being FREED FROM PRISON Victor's ~miserable because he feels pairs of eyes watching him
Victor's decided that his only recourse is to go back home to Geneva to PROTECT HIS FAMILY!!!1!1! and once again I need him to remember that he built an 8" dude that's basically all muscle
Also why would you lead someone trying to kill your family right... to your family...
The chapter ends with Victor and his dad sailing back to mainland Europe

Creature honey please come back I can't take much more of Victor's pages of dramatics every time he feels anything approaching a consequence
CHAPTER 22
VICTOR STOP WHINING CHALLENGE
Augh I just! Is everything out of his mouth an excuse!! He's like "I can't tell my family about the creature, they'll think I'm mad!!" as though they clearly don't already think that

Like again at this point it's clear he cares more about covering his ass than anything else
"A thousand times I would have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives" all of this but you couldn't even open your mouth
Elizabeth'e written V*ctor a letter and I honestly can't see how she doesn't give herself pause every time she refers to her fiance as "cousin"
WHEW AND THIS WHOLE ASS LETTER IS BASICALLY HER BEING LIKE "HEY I DON'T WANNA MARRY MY FUCKING COUSIN" DKDKKDKDKD
Did she just break up with him because the letter kiiiiiinda sounded that way and Victor just immediately pivoted to "The Creature is definitely going to kill me, Victor, on this wedding night that is definitely still happening"
yes Victor the thing to do when a jacked 8' tall behemoth, who wishes nothing more to see you suffer, threatens to "be with you on your wedding night" is to... rush to the altar, makes sense
"I WOULD DO ANYTHING TO SAVE MY LOVED ONES' LIVES!!! INCLUDING DIRECTLY PUTTING THEIR LIVES IN DANGER"
-Victor Frankenstein, right now basically
Victor finally crawled his raggedy ass back to Geneva and is disappointed that stress over his illness and imprisonment downgraded his 10 of a cousin-fiance to a 6 and I just really, truly wish for him to never again know a moment of happiness
Not Victor being like "OH if ONLY I had some INKLING of what the monster was planning, if I had known I would never have gotten married 😩" as though the Creature wasn't clear as fucking day MULTIPLE TIMES about his murder itinerary
LIKE?????? https://twitter.com/fadeaccompli/status/1320519332376576001
"But, as if possessed of magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real intentions-" BITCH HE WAS *EXPLICITLY CLEAR*

MULTIPLE TIMES
CREATURE SWEETIE DESTROY THIS MAN
Victor's describing Elizabeth's lack of enthusiasm for the impending wedding that's about to get her killed like "🤷🏼‍♂️" may this man never know happiness again
"Indeed, as the period approached, the threat appeared more as a delusion" he's killed three of your loved ones already dude
"These are the last moments of my life where I enjoyed the feelings of happiness" GOOD.
The chapter ends with Elizabeth very obviously not being into the idea of being married and Victor ignoring it (because it doesn't immediately involve him so why should he care) as they float down the river on a pre-wedding boat ride
(I'm taking another break today u_u)
CHAPTER 23
"I was anxious and watchful; while my right hand grasped a pistol which was hidden in my bosom" the Creature described at length how he survived in the wilderness after being shot but do you dude
Also jesus christ it takes a stratospheric level of self-absorption to power through marrying your obviously reluctant SISTER(/cousin) to spite a being that has promised you violence on your wedding night

So many opportunities to pause and reconsider, and yet
Elizabeth: dude you're freaking out what'e going on
Victor: We're in grave danger on this, the night of our wedding
Victor: So the safest thing to do here is to split up obviously because I don't want you, a woman, fainting from shock at the violence
Elizabeth: k
Me:
VICTOR WRE YOU FUCKING *SERIOUS*

YOU HEAR ELIZABETH SCREAM AND *WAIT FOR HER TO SCREAM AGAIN* BEFORE YOU ACT

YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HER I *HATE* YOU
Ugh and now he's going to cry about this extremely preventable death for pages Monster sweetie FINISH HIM HONEY
Not the creature literally pointing and laughing from the window lmao
Honestly at this point I'm not convinced that Victor actually wants to keep his family alive considering that he consistently acts in ways that put them in the most possible amount of danger
I say this because here his ass is, going back to Geneva to pRoTeCt hIs FaMiLy like he's not gonna just get down there and immediately faint
Also the brevity of his grieving for Elizabeth in comparison to how deeply he grieved Clerval is... conspicuous
Like especially with how he frames her death as a loss of his future happiness rather than of a companion or loved one, it's extremely clear that Victor saw Elizabeth more as a piece of property than a person
Oop and rip to pop Frankenstein who died of sadness after hearing that his "more than a daughter" (ew) was murdered
OH SO *NOW* HE WANTS TO TELL SOMEONE ABOUT THE CREATURE
Magistrate: I believe you
Victor: THEN I'LL JUST DO IT MYSEL- wait what
Magistrate: I'll send out my dudes or whatever but considering that this guy is a superhuman genius juggernaut i realistically don't think we can do much
Victor: THEN I'LL JUST DO IT MYSELF
Victor's whole deal seems to be asking for forgiveness rather than permission and that could not have been made more clear than this interaction with the magistrate good lord
The chapter ends with Victor's dramatic resolution to be The Hero that saves everyone from the monster (that he created) and honestly I really hope they do fight because the Creature deserves to get a few licks in
I'm finishing the book tomorrow!! Genuinely can't wait to find out how and why Victor's dumb ass wound up in the arctic in the first place
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Victor finally decided to leave Geneva and just said that he'd "traversed a vast portion of the earth" while wandering, but because this is him I'm going to assume he made it to central russia at best and is being dramatic
"I've traveled... so far... none have known the toilsome misery I have experienced on this dreary quest"

-Victor, at his front stoop to pick up the milk
Victor is literally flailing all over the graves of his dead family rn

Like that's not an exaggeration, he flopped on the ground next to them and kissed the earth promising to murder the creature fOr tHeM
Omg I reread that to laugh at it some more and he's literally making a pact with the forces of death to slay The Creature for *checks notes* following through on an explicitly stated threat
"Let this cursed and hellish monster drink deep in agony-" did you listen to a SINGLE thing he said Victor
sldijfkgkg not Mr. Monster hearing him doing all this and cackling at him from the mountains, same sis
Mary Shelley is really good at coming at you with random suckerpunches of Gay Shit™, this instance being The Creature whispering in Victor's ear that he's ~satisfied~ with this outcome
Not to be a h*mestuck on main but it's giving me ♠️
"Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia-" dldkhfjfkfjgj at me being right
Victor's describing how some unseen force that he describes as an "angel" keeps reviving him when he's on his last legs and honestly if this is the work of his dead family keeping him alive so he could suffer more I wouldn't judge
This book just turned into The Simple Life and I fucking love it lmao GET A JOB BITCH
The consequences he's feeling, I just
The Creature is FEEDING THIS BITCH??? TO LEAD HIM TO THE ARCTIC WHERE HE'LL FREEZE AND THE CREATURE WILL BE FINE?????????
ALL OF THIS just to see V*ctor suffer more. SOLELY to see this man shivering in the cold and be like "lmao I did that." I *STAN*
On a related note: if you were ever curious about reading I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream skip it and read this instead, it's better written and has no sexual violence (so...far)
This is sf evil lmfao. The Creature is literally running this man ragged for fun
Victor's talking about how he'll rejoin his dead loved ones after this is all over lol you aint going to heaven honey
Like even in the best of circumstances his whole deal was spitting in the face of God to make the Creature in the first place and I can't imagine that He would gaze too kindly upon that
Anyway
Victor is STILL talking about fighting the Creature like he stands a chance at all and it really cements how actually factually delusional he is
Omg not the monster getting a bunch of guns wtf

I learned this because he BROKE INTO SOMEONE'S HOUSE and the person is telling Victor about it like "he had so many guns??? Why???"
Anyway he stole all their food for the winter
"After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered round and instigated me to toil and revenge-" yeah they hate you dude
Now that he's in the arctic I feel like his discomfort has finally caught up with his gravitas. Like I fully believe that he's as miserable as he says he is and I love it
Oh my gosh and he wound up on the ice floe after chasing the Creature and being flung out to sea because the arctic is terrifying
*soft gasp* are the backstories finally over oh damn
Victor: Bro I came on board because you're going the same way as the Cr*ature but bro
Victor: It would be wild for me to ask you to kill him if I don't succeed but like
Victor: Swear to me that you'll kill him if I don't succeed bro
Robert, for sure this time:
back, I was eating dinner lol
Fjfkkgkg Robert opens his next letter like "aint that some wild shit sis" and I'm again reminded that we're still reading his letters to his sister
It amazes me that Victor looked over this entire account that Robert penned while he spoke, MADE EDITS, and still managed to make himself sound as thoroughly unsympathetic as possible
I said earlier that privileged white dudes love glomming on to the worst possible depictions of themselves re: Victor Frankenstein and as if to underscore this point as clearly as possible here Robert is, swooning over a man who has ruined every life he's ever touched or created
Robert's crying at his sister about how Victor's his last shot at love as though he couldn't just leave the fucking arctic, where he shouldn't be any the fuck way
"The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain." A) false, and B) Victor how would you know you literally had one (1) friend
Robert: HEY SIS
Robert: THAT STORY WAS SUPER LONG BUT IT IS STILL *VERY* DEADLY OUT HERE
Robert: IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING
The Crew: Hey we're mutinying
Robert: but WHY
Crew: Dude we've been stuck in this ice for weeks
Crew: we don't even want control of the vessel man just promise us you'll head south if we get free so we don't die here like our crewmates
Robert: Ye-
Victor: NO
Victor's such a slimy asshole. Spent all this time ranting about how Robert should abandon his lofty goals only to turn around and loudly support them once doing so would work in his favor
Oh good Robert's decided to return to England in shame rather than continue on his voyage into Ice Hell, everyone wins
Did Victor really just talk himself to death trying to get someone else to accept the responsibility of handling his shit
Like he's dead now that isn't an exaggeration

He died because he was already ~exhausted and exhausted himself further by delivering a whole ass closing monologue
Um is The Creature on the boat now ummmmm nooooo???????? I'm terrified???????!
He's sobbing over Victor's body oh this scene has such an unsettling energy
OH MY GOD IS THE MONSTER MAKING *HIMSELF* THE VICTIM OF EVERY MURDER HER COMMITTED ISTG
"Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen" is a fucking absurd sentence to come from the mouth of a murderer but when applied to tech bros' relationship to the platforms they create it makes an upsetting amount of sense
That said "I'm already a murderer so I can't stop now lol 🤷‍♂️" is... certainly *a* defense for being an unrepentant serial killer I guess
The way this is true of every male point of view character in the book
Damn at the Creature saying that he will forever feel worse than Victor possibly could because he was built with a capacity for remorse
Oh my god that was... heartbreaking. The Creature leaps off of the boat after a stirring speech about his emotional turmoil and speeds away to build his own funeral pire

Good on Robert for... not killing him... I guess...
That's the end of an amazing book, like genuinely just incredible (minus the anti-Asian racism which was absolutely not incredible)

Creature sweetie YOU DESERVED BETTER
I might rewatch Young Frankenstein this weekend because that book is heavy as hell jfc

Anyway on that cheery note thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your evenings~
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