just this once, everybody lives

I like to imagine that Victor Frankenstein and his Creature look absolutely nothing alike at the beginning of their narrative, but as the story progresses, they become more and more visually similar. As the blood pumps through the Creature's veins and his stiff muscles loosen up, he begins to look a little more.... alive, for want of a better word, than the twitching corpse Victor first saw him as. Secretly living with the De Laceys, he copies their facial expressions, practicing them again and again until they almost come naturally. Almost. He even has some of his creator's clothes. Meanwhile, as Victor's health deteriorates, his skin becomes sallow and transluscent, revealing the blood vessels underneath. His hair grows long and wild. His lips turn purplish black and shriveled with frostbite in the harsh Arctic. And maybe, in the dimness of Walton's cabin, when the candlelight hits them just right, Victor's dull, watery eyes appear almost yellow.

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

It's so funny to me that Mary Shelley, her husband, John Polidori, and Lord Byron had a competition to see who could write the best horror story and she wrote fucking Frankenstein. Imagine losing a competition that badly. Imagine just doing a silly little competition with your friend and she basically invents a new genre and creates one of the most famous characters in fiction. Imagine being proud of your little story and then she shares one that people will still read every day in 200 years. Imagine doing a writing competition with your wife and she becomes so recognizable that you'll always be known as Mary Shelley's husband