the type that would lick your neck a few times

hi :) ok so i’m actually Not a big horror movie person!! i love a lot of tv shows in the horror genre but for some reason i’m not as into the movies (even though i love movies). but i’ll recommend some of the ones i Have seen and loved! (and some from my partner who is a Big horror movie person). hers are scarier than mine 😂

from me:

1. the three mothers trilogy (suspiria (1977), inferno (1980), and mother of tears (2007))

2. tenebrae (1982) (can you tell i like dario argento?)

3. videodrome (1983)

4. crimson peak (2015)

5. a quiet place (2018)

6. wait until dark (1967)

7. as above, so below (2014)

8. the abominable dr. phibes (1971)

9. carnival of souls (1962)

10. black christmas (1974)

11. the lost boys (1987)

from my partner @infinite-orangepeel :

1. parasite (2019)

2. donnie darko (2001)

3. skinamarink (2022)

4. hell house llc (2015)

5. creep (2015)

6. barbarian (2022)

7. bodies, bodies, bodies (2022)

8. the strangers (2008)

9. sinister (2012)

10. blink twice (2024)

The Magicians - Season 1, Episode 02: The Source of Magic (2015)

Bonus:

however!! i'd make argument that, in order for this concept of the Being being the Pinnacle of Masculinity to follow through the novel, a transfeminine reading would apply easier; as we look at the events of the book, isn't then the Spectre Of Idealised Masculinity then Haunting victor until he reaches his deathbed? i feel that is a more transfeminine kind of horror, if that makes sense. victor spends years of his life haunted by Masculinity and its ruins his entire life.

you try in vain to create the most Perfect Man one can be but you fail because you fundamentally cannot achieve that and now it is a deformed broken masculinity that YOU cannot bring yourself to look at anymore and you run from it and it chases you and chases you and chases you until you technically die because of it. and then it kills itself also. Well ok.

My earlier ramble on how queer Frankenstein is reminded me of some discourse I saw a while ago.

I saw a post someone made about how they were disgusted that some people read Frankenstein as queer because of the dynamic between Viktor and the monster being "father and son"

Uhm...I fear to tell you this but Viktor literally wanted to make a "friend" with long dark (dreamy) hair and a hot body? Viktor was a freak. The monster is a representation of his repressed sexuality and the fact he couldn't have an openly romantic/sexual relationship with the other men in the novel (HENRY *COUGH COUGH*)

Also, looking at it from as a father son thing also doesn't make much sense. Viktor doesn't use pieces of himself in making the monster. And even if he did, I don't think that would stop him? He marries his adoptive sister? His FATHER married his "best friend"'s daughter who he pseudo adopted when her dad died? The way Viktor viewed the monster is also not like a father sees a child. It's how God sees their creation, a creation he is repulsed by and disgusted with himself for making. It shows that he couldn't control himself, an ideal that was really highly valued in the 19th century.

whoever you speak of seems to be conflating queerness as just homosexuality & homoromanticism while not considering the other characters of the novel. it's deeply foolish to be disgusted at the notion of reading a text as queer and immediately associating such readings with sex (which does seem to be a bout of internalised homophobia).

please note that i am not saying there is no homosexuality within frankenstein, and i am not completely against the notion of frankenstein & the creature being homosexual but i have not seen a convincing argument for it that is not just what you said now (Viktor literally wanted to make a "friend" with long dark (dreamy) hair and a hot body). before anything else, to put it out of the way, putting scare quotes on the term friend when discussing someone's relationship to someone else always seemed quite amatronormative to me but maybe i'm getting nitpicky here. i also find the word being used here just unnecessary as victor has never, even prior to the creation, wanted to make a "friend". now, onto real talk:

firstly, long dark dreamy hair and hot body — this is a rather common thing i've seen people make joke about, quoting

His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

specifically as proof. it need not be explained now that "Beautiful! Great God!" is an expression of disbelief and mocking the fact that he (victor) ever thought the being could be beautiful, followed by a vivid descriptor of the being's grotesquerie, though people read it too "literally" before and assumed that the being, in his current state, is still beautiful. however, it does prove that victor did initially want to, as you said, create an attractive man. but victor from the beginning prior to the creation process has always viewed the being from a paternal perspective

A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.

which is why it eludes me the reason why you feel that a father-son dynamic is nonsensical. the being also refers to victor as his father within chapter 16 of 1831:

I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life?

it looks to me that you are looking for the literal ways the father+mother-son dynamic could work outside of victor simply giving life to the creature. this is not the way to go about things; frankenstein is a work full of metaphor which i am sure you understand as you call the being the representation of frankenstein’s repressed sexuality (which i will get on to later). for instance, the birth metaphor as graciously written for me by my friend @frankingsteinery, whose posts i will be linking in other places: 

the victor-and-creature being father and son, to me relies principally on interpreting the creation process as the birth metaphor, which is most apparent by the way the creation process feminizes victor coupled with the fact that while victor grows more and more ill during the creation process he, despite being aware of his sickness, describes being unable to stop himself, much like how pregnancy is a continuous process. additionally victor repeatedly insists that his drive to create was not entirely his own, but something almost imposed upon him by external, quote “supernatural” forces. this manner of speaking as though some force beyond his own will drove him to continue in spite of the effects on his body is outlined thusly: “the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end.”  moreover, his "languor and extreme weakness" parallels the physical toll of pregnancy and labor, what he literally describes as quote "time spent in painful labour" what makes this metaphor so damning is that victor is not simply sick—he is made alien to himself, compelled to deliver a being he no longer fully desires to bring into the world. like pregnancy, the process changes his body, consumes his health, and produces a living offspring with claims upon him, regardless of his will.  victor also refers to the creature as a “being” and “creature” during the creation process, which directly parallels the way victor refers to himself when he was a child (“their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them” “…what they owed towards the being to which they had given life”) and later, during their confrontation in the alps, victor reverts to this language when realizing he has a duty toward the creature to make him happy (“i felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were”)

also, you say “The way Viktor viewed the monster is also not like a father sees a child. It's how God sees their creation, a creation he is repulsed by and disgusted with himself for making.” frankenstein is a novel written in a time where christianity dominated europe, the epic poem paradise lost makes a significant appearance in the story—god is the father and the father is god. there is no distinction that can really be made from god and father in frankenstein; victor takes on both roles. i don’t understand what you mean that the way frankenstein sees the being “shows he couldn’t control himself” nor do i understand why you choose to mention that self-control is “an ideal that was really highly valued in the 19th century.” as a sort of ‘historical context’.

as for your mentions of elizabeth lavenza and the marriage of alphonse and caroline (which i do like your phrasing of pseudo-adopted to describe their relationship)— my friend has, more eloquently than i ever could, analysed and explained the incest in frankenstein. these are the posts i encourage you to read first before getting back to this post: elizabeth & victor, caroline & alphonse, victor & the being.

on the idea of the creature being a representation of repressed sexuality… i am not opposed to this and do not have any comments. i believe a friend of mine has written an essay around this, which i may later ask her for though i can try to repeat her earlier thoughts as said to me if wished. though it is not something i think of very much myself; i believe the text to have strong homosexual subtext—this does not mean i view clerval’s caretaking as such but yes henry and robert walton are involved—but i am more focused on the gender side of queer analysis myself!

I find a lot of your points super interesting, and thank you for taking the time to look at my post! I was writing pretty randomly while at work, and I'm very early in my first reread of the novel in quite some time. I didn't mean to come off as calling the approach of them as a sort of "father and son" concept nonsensical, but I was referring to a super specific post where someone was genuinely angry about looking at the novel through a queer lens. Though your argument does bring more light to that viewpoint of the novel for me! ESPECIALLY, your last pit about the cycle of incest, which is something super interesting that I didn't really piece together yet. Though that will absolutely impact my current reading of the text.

I also agree I should've explained my use of queer in this context, and thank you for pointing out that I'm using a term that's more of an umbrella while specifically discussing homosexuality. I've been using the term queer somewhat interchangeably with LGBTQ+ because they're so broad. During this period homosexuality was a thing, of course, but the term didn't exist; so I frequently use terms that are now pretty out of use because contemporary labels make things neat.

I also want to quickly address your point with: i don’t understand what you mean that the way frankenstein sees the being “shows he couldn’t control himself” nor do i understand why you choose to mention that self-control is “an ideal that was really highly valued in the 19th century.” as a sort of ‘historical context’.

If I had the time while writing the initial post I would have included a quote, but this was more of a small thing. But I'll bring in a quote I was thinking about now, and then explain what I mean:

With this deep consciousness of what they (Caroline and Alphonse) owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me.

Right before this quote they also mention that they were obligated to fulfill these "duties" as Viktor's parents. As parents it is their job to teach Viktor the existing societal expectations. And though Frankenstein was published a couple decades before the true start of the Victorian period it's written close enough for me to think it's appropriate to mention that Victorians very highly valued ideas of self-control, not engaging in vices or pleasures. The mention of self-control in the quoted section also makes me think the connection is more than appropriate. Though I didn't word things like I would in a paper (my blog is mostly me being silly and occasionally rambling in a light hearted way about what I'm up to), I was bringing in a relevant historical context that Viktor's desires to engage in taboo practices by obsessing over making life reflects a lack of self-control. So, I do think the historical context is interesting to mention.

To me, it doesn't seem out too out of left field to think that Viktor may have wanted companionship. This is mostly based on how frequently male friendships are brought up, and the way female characters are addressed.

Robert acts as a parallel to Viktor, and while he's writing to his sister he does express his desire for knowledge and his desire for companionship:

You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plants. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! (Letter II)

So, I think it may make sense to consider that there's a potential for Viktor to feel a similar way.

That combines in the way characters talk about women, mostly Elizabeth. The way they talk about women is the same way someone talks about a pet. Viktor cares about Elizabeth, yes, but I absolutely don't think he finds her on the same level as him. Which, yes, is common for the time period, but still something to point out considering Mary Shelley's roots and her mother's early feminist work. The big quote that I find really important to this (so far in my reading) is:

On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, 'I have a pretty present for my Viktor - tomorrow he shall have it.'

Elizabeth is used as a gift for Viktor, debased to being an "it."

While considering just these aspects within the first ~60 pages of the novel it feels right to think that if Viktor is incapable of seeing women as equals, and shares a yearning with Robert for companionship, that the creation of the monster is fulfilling everything he could want.

I still do think the quote you bring in about the monster not being beautiful can support both arguments. The fact that the monster ends up not being beautiful, and is grotesque and revolting, is weird because it brings the assumption that Viktor wanted to monster to be beautiful. And the fact that it isn't is just as disturbing to him as the appearance of the monster.

I also do want to point out that my current approach is looking at Frankenstein as a text that somewhat condemns not following strict social rules.

Though, now that I think about your comments more, those things don't have to exist in two separate spheres because of all the incest, pseudo and not, in the novel.

first and foremost, it’s important to note the full context of the “pretty present” quote. like i’ve said before, victor frames his reaction to caroline’s words as “childish,” and that choice of word is indicative of a retrospective awareness: he knows that he interpreted this immaturely, and he isn’t presenting this possessiveness as righteous or natural—it’s an origin for how his expectations of intimacy are distorted.  (charlie already linked my posts on incest within frankenstein that expand upon that).

also, the phrase “my more than sister…[my] companion,” to me, is really telling here: yes, victor describes her with conventionally feminized admiration (“beautiful and adored”), but he also elevates her to the role of intellectual and emotional counterpart. the fact that he frames her as a companion to all of his “occupations and pleasures” suggests something like parity (in victor’s eyes). she’s not just in the domestic sphere, she’s bound to him in a way that mirrors male friendship bonds of the era, like his relationship with clerval. and furthering this, though i unfortunately don’t currently have the quote on hand, victor also goes to elizabeth in regard to his childhood interest in alchemy as opposed to telling clerval.

victor also repeatedly depicts elizabeth’s agency, which i elaborate on here. overall, to me, he does not seem to dehumanize her as much as the quote you provided may appear to imply at first glance!