#victor's swanning about terrified of the Monster He's Created

[thestuffedalligator]

The capital-P Point of Frankenstein is that the creature is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. He's an Adam who was foresworn by his creator with no understanding of the world, and has to slowly, bitterly, painstakingly develop that understanding.

It's a literary choice made as part of the grander allegory that does not need to be interpreted literally by a modern lens. Mary Shelley was writing a fiction and it's not important that it's not how bringing a brain back to life would actually. Y'know. Work.

That being said, there's untapped comedy and horror in a retelling of Frankenstein where the creature does have his previous life's memories.

[thedreammweaver]

That Would Suffice to Make a Formidable Monster Chapter 5 (Burton-Schumacherverse Sci-Fi Horror au, riddlebird, sea monster/alien!Oswald)

Chapter 4 Chapter 6

Warnings: thalassophobia tw, blood tw, animal death, panic attack

As the shark collided with the ship it shook the whole thing, sending some of the crew to the floor.

A glass had fallen and shattered, Ed’s hand landing on top of it, creating a gash. “Shit!” He hissed, looking down at the now bleeding gash in his hand. It of course didn’t take him long to remember that they were currently being attacked. All that could be seen from the front window of the ship now was the inside of a shark. Bruce went over to a control panel and pulled a lever which sent an electric current through the outside of the ship, it was pretty much the only defense the thing was armed with. The shark let go and swam off a bit but was soon coming back towards them. Bruce was just starting to fumble on what to do when something too dark to see grabbed the shark and slammed it into the rocks of the sea floor. The crew was mesmerized as they watched the shark get slammed into the rocks repeatedly until it wasn’t moving anymore. “Fuck, that’s a lot of blood..” Harvey said absently.

“We better move before more sharks come.” Bruce mumbled. They were all a bit shocked at the brute force whatever had saved them just showed. Another message had come up on the computer.

‘Sharp whale is gone. You can come to my cave to help now?’

“I want to see this thing before anyone goes out there with it.” Harvey said firmly.

Victor dusted himself off as he got up and went over to the computer.

‘We need to see you first.’

There was a delay.

‘You will fear me.’

Ed pondered for a moment before nudging Victor away from the keyboard and typing himself “You just saved us twice that proves you aren’t scary. We won’t be scared.” He said sincerely as he typed.

There was another delay, a bit longer this time, Ed was afraid Oswald had left.

‘Okay. Lights off.’

Bruce went over to turn the front lights off which earned some glaring from Harvey.

A few minutes passed before Ed spotted something weird in the distance. It was a small blue light and then another and another, soon there was a small cluster of blue lights.

“Is that it?” Harvey mumbled, sounding as if he felt ripped off.

Suddenly there was a burst of lights and they all gasped. Oswald obviously possessed bioluminescent capabilities as now the blue lights, like dotted lines uniformly painted, were covering him and apparently there was a lot to cover. Ed realized the delay had been Oswald moving himself a distance in front of them so they could actually see all of him. He was obviously humanoid, they could make out arms and....hands? And a face as well as a torso, quite a filled out one at that. Then the human like traits came to a halt, leading into webbing that connected to long black tentacles that were splayed out behind Oswald.

“H-How tall do you think that is? Minus the..tentacles..” Harvey asked.

“I would say roughly around 2,600 feet.” Ed observed getting closer to the front window to look. Oswald was sort of laying on his stomach, trying to make himself look smaller as to not be so imposing but Ed was good at estimates like this “The tentacles look to be double that.” Ed concluded. At that Pamela, who had barely been holding it together, broke down into sobs and was hyperventilating. “Selina, go take Pam for a breather.” Bruce said. Selina was soon leading Pamela out of the room so she could calm down and collect herself. After a few more moments the colour of Oswald’s lights started changing. Orange traveling down into green, over and over, a sort of pulse could be heard and felt through the water as the lights changed.

“What the hell does that mean?” Harvey murmured. Victor looked over to the computer which was filling with question marks as Oswald’s light show continued. Bruce soon realized the colour of the lights matched the colour of Ed’s hair and shirt “I think it’s mimicking you.” He said.

“No,” Victor pointed to the question mark covered screen “It’s asking about you.” he said as he sat down and started typing.

‘That’s Edward, the entity you saved from the squid.’

‘Want Edward to help.’

Victor paused for a moment.

‘Is it alright if another entity good at getting rid of hurt comes out with Edward?’

‘All is good as long as Edward comes to me. You will follow to the cave now.’

With that they watched as Oswald, still lit up, moved to swim ahead. Bruce quickly got to his chair and console to steer. Ed was still a bit shaken, why was Oswald so curious about him?

  The inside of the cave was enormous, swallowing Ed and Victor as they entered it. It was filled with bioluminescent life forms clinging to the rocks and illuminating a lot of the cave. It of course didn’t take them long to find Oswald, he was hard to miss. He was even more intimidating up close. He seemed more vulnerable as he presented a part of one of his tentacles to Victor. There was a big tear in it, Victor was hoping he had brought enough to stitch it up “This is going to take a while.” Victor sighed. Rumbling and clicking was emanating from Oswald which of course they couldn’t understand without the translator in the ship. Oswald had turned his attention to Ed and moved to wrap one of his tentacles around him picking him up. Victor was momentarily pulled away from caring for the wound “Are you okay??”

“Yeah, I-I think- I think it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Ed felt...calm, he had no idea why. He should be terrified especially as Oswald shifted a bit and started moving Ed to the top of the cave. Ed found himself being placed into an air pocket that was basically a smaller cave in of itself. Oswald had let go of him and was now just staring at him, his head only partly out of the water. As Ed looked around with the light of his helmet he realized there were...things all around him, human’s things. There were books piled in a corner, damaged of course but some still legible. There were jewels and random baubles strewn about, Ed found a chuckle escape him as he saw a rubber duck on it’s side in a rusty birdcage. One of Oswald’s tentacles reached into the small cave and picked up an ornate music box with a swan on it, handing it to Ed before twisting the crank of it. Ed recognized the piece that started playing as one from Swan Lake. He didn’t know why but tears were streaming down his face. He wanted to distract himself from feelings he didn’t recognize welling up inside him “Where did you get this stuff?” Ed asked, not totally sure Oswald would understand him. Using his arm this time Oswald pointed to a model of a sunken ship in a bottle. “Ah..I guess that makes sense.. I suppose there’s other openings into this cave too? Probably too small for you to get through but big enough for stuff like that duck to float in?” Ed asked, pointing to the duck. Oswald nodded. Ed felt...weird, an overwhelming feeling that he shouldn’t ever leave came over him, he needed to get out of this cave soon. His mind seemed to be somewhere else as he set down the music box and took off one of the gloves to his diving suit before going over to where Oswald was resting one of his hands. Ed knelt down and put his hand on Oswald’s. Their hands were remarkably similar considering Oswald was an alien, the only real difference was that it looked like the three fingers that would be opposite of the thumb on the human hand were fused together on Oswald’s. Ed had heard of humans with deformities that caused such things so it wasn’t even that odd, it certainly wasn’t off putting to him. Oswald’s hand was warm and plushy. Ed found himself leaning down to essentially cuddle the appendage, he didn’t know what had come over him he just knew he needed to be close to Oswald. He was only taken out of his trance when eventually Oswald pulled away. Ed felt his heart sink, why did the absence of Oswald’s touch make him so sad? He didn’t have to be sad for too long as one of Oswald’s tentacles came up and wrapped around Ed’s exposed hand. The pressure of Oswald squeezing a bit reminded Ed of the gash in his hand he’d received earlier. As Oswald pulled away once again he left Ed’s hand covered in that black green substance “Weird handshake..” Ed murmured as he wiped his hand off on his suit and put his glove back on.