fandomhigh | Horror 101, Monday

"One of the main cornerstones of horror as a genre has always been demons," Mitchell began, tapping his fingers against the couch. "Inside and out. What we are going to be focusing on over the next few weeks is the 'out' part - or the more visible kind, at least. Some of you may have worlds where these creatures are real, crawling around in the dark or lurking elegantly in the shadows. Some of you might only know them as stories. But monsters are a thing of every time and every place."

"Most sources will tell you the start of it was Mary Shelley's ~~meta for~~ Frankenstein. The creation of a monster. It's poetic, in a sense, but it might as well have been science fiction. Is it our fear of being monstrous, or our fear of the monster, when the story talks about how much he was misunderstood? How much of it is about fear of the other, and how much is fear of ourselves, of what we're capable of if one day, we wake up as something not quite human? The name of the book is the name of the doctor who came up with the monster to begin with. So who's the center of our story, really?"

He considered the class. "We'll be watching some of that for a film today, just to start you off light," he said, finally, "But afterwards, I'd like to know. What is monstrous to you? What's the scariest monster you can think of, and why does it frighten you? Do you feel like this guy," he tapped the monster on the front of the DVD case, "Or the blokes chasing him around with pitchforks? What's the anatomy of your monster?"

Beat.

"Oh, and it's in black and white. Just to get you Philistines adjusted to real film."

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Chloe bit her lip. "I'm trying to clear something up in my mind," she said hesitantly. There was no stutter because by now she was comfortable with Mitchell and wasn't afraid to talk to him. "Isn't the person that created him more monstrous than any of the others -- including the so-called monster?"

Mitchell gave it some visible thought. "That depends," he said, finally, "If you look at it as giving life to something, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But the act of dragging someone consciously into a nightmare might well be monstrous. Most of the time, it's a matter of context." A pause. "But I can't say the doctor was a pleasant bloke."

Chloe blanched slightly. "Yes... dragging someone back like that is a horrible thing to do to anyone. And the Doctor did it without thinking of the ramifications about what he was doing." She paused, trying to make the words echo her thoughts. "I don't think that the monster should be blamed for what he was forced to be... and it's not right to try to kill someone for being different."

You know, before her powers kicked in, Chloe had once really liked this story.

"It's not," Mitchell agreed, his voice subdued. "But people can do a great lot of bad shit if they can't know what they're doing."

Chloe's voice lowered to almost a whisper. "What if... what if you accidentally did something like Frankenstein did and brought someone to life like that... against their will. Does that make you as bad as the monster that the doctor was?"

Oh Chloe.

The others would probably hit the roof if they knew that she was talking to an "outsider" about this, but that was one of the only good things about being so far away from them. Maybe they wouldn't find out.

Oh, sure.

Ask that of the vampire.

Mitchell sucked in his lower lip for a second. "I think sometimes accidents happen," he said, finally. "And we live with them as best we can. It's the only thing we can do. It's when we do these things because we enjoy them that the real monsters come in."

After a pause, he added, "If you have anything you need to talk about, though, you should come to my office hours." Keep it out of the public.

Oh what an emphatic nod that was. She needed to talk to someone and really, Mitchell was the first adult she had trusted here.

"I think that would be a good idea," she said, looking down where she was making nervous circles on the desk with her hand.

Yes, it was a good thing that Derek and Tori weren't here.

Horror 101, Monday

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