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shirks-all-responsibilities · 2 months ago

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Getting into the spooky season and this looked like an intriguing read. The tragic plight of Frankenstein's monster has always pulled at every one of my tender little heartstrings, but I did not expect to have my lil melancholy existential heart sincerely squished so hard by what you've done with this fairytale-style AU written so earnestly, humbly, and simply?

Poor lonely, tortured, abandoned Tim here with that good heart and strong moral compass at his core, having to endure those achingly-sad vast passages of time, watching lifetimes pass (I LOVED that line "for more years than be counted, enough so that he passes into legend", what a satifsying turn of phrase), my heart? Tim slowly learning to discover peace after so long, all starting with a chance change in routine? The poignancy of Tim being unused to precise, intricate movement and spending so much effort in making meaningful things for the reader?? Tim always feeling like he has to be useful to be worth anything, until reader tells him they like him just as he is, that they like his very nature? That moving ending? 🥹🥹🥹

I was like the Vince McMahon reaction meme personified at how you kept upping the ante in making me EMOSH with Tim's every interaction with the woodland creatures, I mean???? Tim helping them with their nests and burrows? Oh and then Tim lifting fallen baby birds back into their nests?? Oh but then Tim gathering baby bunnies to safety??? Oh wait then Tim helping BIRTH A NEWBORN WITTLE PRECIOUS DEER to come into the world???? I cannot COOOOPE, my hearttt, halpppppp! 😆😌🥹🥹

The understated and simple, quiet style of writing in this makes the emotions stand out all the more for me, there's a honesty in this piece that I appreciate so much and don't see enough of, thank you so much for sharing it.

And what inspiration from that moodboard! Though then I saw @almostfoxglove's OTHER Tim moodboard here which in the context of your story hurts my heart even moarrrrrr! (just look at his gigantic, broad shoulders in that bottom pic, is that not your Tim!).

And THENNNN I had to go and read your comments about what happens next in the story and OH MY GAHHH MY HEARTTTTT. 😭❤️

What Was I Made For?

3.1K / Frankenstein AU Tim Rockford x fem!reader

Summary: Left on his own, Tim learns a new way to live.

Warnings: None! Age gap cause Tim’s like hundreds of years old 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 Semi-sentient woodland creatures that meddle, I guess 🤭

A/N: Inspired by @almostfoxglove’s beautiful AU moodboard below - if you haven't already, check out that post and the tags, along with all her other AU moodboards! Thank you so much for sharing them with us 🥹🥰

Title by Billie Eilish / Dividers by @saradika-graphics as always 🥰

For a very long time, Tim did not go outside during the daytime.

Father said not to.

And even though Father has been gone for many years, Tim still heeded his words. His being the only voice Tim had ever heard.

He still doesn’t know why Father left. He’s even less sure of why he never returned.

Merge Mansion remains dark, even during the day. Its halls empty, its candelabras unlit. If anyone was to pass through the ivy choked iron gates and listen at its door, and no one ever did, they would hear only the skittering of mice and the occasional heavy footstep, so slow and deliberate it could be mistaken for the heartbeat of a slowly dying house.

Only ever at night, Tim goes out to the woods behind the now dusty and crumbling mansion. Those same woods where Father would have him lift, throw, break - repeatedly. And Father would write furiously in his notebooks. Tim thinks maybe that’s what he was made for.

For more years than can be counted, enough so that he passes into legend, Tim continues to do what he knows. He uproots trees and plants and heaves them over knolls and into streams. He rolls boulders and smashes rocks. He haunts the forest alone until the dawn threatens to pierce through the thick overhang of the old growth trees; hiding within the moss-covered stone walls of the only home he’s ever known until night brings cover once again.

Until one night after so many nights, he just… doesn’t. Instead of his nightly exertion to prove something to the darkness, Tim just sits and bathes in the pureness of the moonlight. He breathes in the earthy musk of the forest’s damp soil and the sweet scent of pine mixed with bark sap. Instead of his own laboured breathing, Tim finally hears the babbling of the brooks, the hooting of the owls, and soft breeze whistling between the low berry bushes and the high tree tops. Tim doesn’t know if he was made to be at peace, but he finds that he can do it all the same.

He teaches himself to read. At first using words Father would say and the signs he would point to in the room Tim lived in: Lock. Unlock. Hot. Cold. On. Off. Danger. Stop.

Then from books about nature that he finds in the library, remembering words that Father would use to describe their surroundings when in the woods that Tim now knows so well.

Tree. Rock. Hill. Hole.

It takes a very, very long time. But Tim has nothing but time.

He’s not even sure if he’s doing it right - he has no one to ask. Not that he could even if there was. He says the words in his head the way he thinks they sound, but with no voice, never out loud. He wasn’t made for that.

It’s no matter. Even if he isn’t sure he’s sounding them out properly, Tim thinks he’s assigned the words to the pictures in the books of animals and landscapes correctly. There are other books, as well. Ones with illustrations that are foreign to him and where the words denote meaning that he doesn’t think he will ever understand, but he learns them anyways: Music. Dance. Laugh. Feast. Love.

In his woods, Tim no longer destroys: he clears, builds, tends. Tim carves out paths that feel softer on the bottoms of his lumbering feet. He removes dead branches from healthy trunks and uses them to sweep the forest floor. He rolls away dead trees, some fell by age or disease, others by his own hand in the olden days when he thought that was what he was made for.

He still only does these things under the cover of night. Father had said to be afraid of the village at the bottom of the looming hill upon which Merge Mansion perched. He warned Tim that if he was discovered, the villagers would come and hurt them both. Tim wishes that he had known the words or had the voice to tell Father that he would have protected him. That perhaps it was the villagers who should have been afraid of him. Father’s notebooks say that he was built to be fierce.

The bunnies in the woods do not seem to think so. Nor the foxes, or the badgers, or the mice. The deer do not find Tim to be fearsome, and the birds readily to flock to him.

He supposes it’s because he starts to help them build their nests; his long legs easily carry him to the farthest corners of the woods where the best nesting materials can be gathered. He volunteers his big, pawlike hands to dig their burrows and holes. His strength he uses to drag logs and branches to where whole furry families reside, breaking the thick wood into smaller pieces to help them expand and fortify their homes for their growing broods and the incoming weather. He’s tall enough to lift baby birds back into their nests when they fall out before they’re ready to fly. He forages and shares all his bounty, himself having no need for sustenance.

Tim would not mind if this is what he was made for.

The years continue to pass. The village at the bottom of the hill gets less busy, smaller, and is eventually gone. Tim only knows because he witnesses the number of tiny square windows illuminated by bright candles during the night, dwindle until there is only darkness.

From the now dilapidated walls of Merge Mansion, Tim watches as what remains of the village rots and is reclaimed by the Earth. It looks less frightening to him the way it stands now, wild and lush - much more like his beloved forest where he’s only ever known friendly creatures.

It’s the bunnies who convince him to come out in the daytime.

It had been an especially abundant year for the rabbits, with baby bunnies almost overrunning the forest floor. The mamas plead with Tim using their big brown eyes to help round up their little ones and keep them safe, making sure none of them strayed too far from the safety of the woods.

Little bunnies are hard to see in the dark.

The first time Tim steps outside during the day, he’s so blinded by the sky’s brightness that he thinks perhaps his eyes were not made for sunlight. His forest is so green in the daytime. A richness of browns with the occasional pop of red, blue, even lavender. In the winters, the snow is so white during the day it appears almost clear. Once the snow has melted, the streams splash with fish that jump during the day – something that never happens at night. The sun’s beams warm Tim’s rough skin in a way the moon’s cold, comfortable ambiance never has. The sounds of the forest are so much louder, cheerier in the day than they are at night – it strikes Tim as odd given it’s the same forest but he supposes he feels more alive during the day as well.

The deer are the ones that lead him out of the forest and to the front of the house. The overgrown grass on the Merge Mansion hill begs to be grazed on, and with the village gone, Tim and the deer while away many days unseen and unbothered amongst the soft green blades – looking out to a splendid view of rolling plains and sprawling forests stretching all the way to the horizon. He never strays far from the house - still heeding Father’s words of caution even though the dangers he warned against look to be long gone.

Tim doesn’t even know that another village has sprung up somewhere on the other side of a low mountain that he considers to be more than a fair distance away until you. The first time he sees you, you’re but a little girl and you come with your own father to the cemetery that rests at the bottom of his hill, where it once bordered the old village. The same cemetery from which Father gathered the parts that make up Tim as he is, if Father’s notebooks are to be believed. The deer scamper away before you or your father see them, but Tim stays and hides, watches.

He hears your father tell you that these graves belong to your ancestors who once lived in the old village that’s now gone and that even though you live on the other side of the mountain, you should still pay your respects. Tim listens to your cheery chatter and the hum of your father’s merry tunes as the two of you clean the gravestones, pull the weeds, plant fresh gardens.

You and your father come every week and Tim begins to look forward to it. He watches you grow into a beautiful woman and your father into an old man. He listens to the musical lilt of your voice and the gentle teasing of your father as the two of you care for and nurture the plot of land at the base of the Merge Mansion Hill so that it grows vibrant and fragrant with flowers that he’s only ever seen in Father’s books. He hears your father tell you stories he heard as a child about the house that Tim lives in – the legend of a mad scientist and a terrible monster. Tim doesn’t know why, but he feels relief when you laugh at these stories and call them ridiculous.

When your father stops coming with you, Tim watches over you in his stead. You continue to do your duty in the cemetery joyfully and your sweetness is like an invitation. The bunnies and the foxes and the mice and the deer all come down to join you. You laugh and share your food with them and they enjoy your company as much as you do theirs. Music. Dance. Laugh. Feast. He thinks he finally understands. When his furry friends turn their soulful eyes up to the house, Tim knows they’re looking to him to come down but he shakes his head no. He’s not made for this.

He doesn’t know that you see him anyways.

You’ve known he was there since the days you would come to this cemetery with your father as a little girl. Most times as just a shadow on the Merge Mansion grounds, but once or twice you had seen Tim’s handsome, haunted face in one of the cracked windows.

You don’t know who he is or what he is, but some how you know that you have to pretend that you’re unaware of his presence. As if for some laughable reason, he finds you to be frightening.

So, you try to make yourself to be as nonintimidating as possible. You wear soft flowing fabrics that lie prettily over your equally soft skin in pleasing colours that compliment the hue of your hair and the brightness of your eyes. You keep your voice gentle and the sound of your notes harmonious when you sing or hum your favourite songs of love and fantasy. When your father tells you the old stories of the Merge Mansion Monster, you make sure to loudly decry this characterization. Your unseen friend is not a monster, and you want to make sure that he knows you know that.

Your woodland friends who proclaim to know him best seem to say, give him time. So you do, waiting patiently for a sign. For what? You don’t know. Just a sign for more.

It comes one summer day, many, many years after your weekly trips to the cemetery became solo trips. For two weeks, you’ve been in a state of mild panic, unable to find the delicate gold chain necklace that your father gave you - his last gift to you before he passed. A part of you fears that it may have come unclasped and dropped onto the path some time during your weekly trip to the Merge Mansion cemetery; your heart clenches – if that was the case, your treasured necklace is surely lost.

Your surprise when you find your necklace waiting for you on top of a gravestone next to a small tied bundle of lavender is palpable. Your eyes threaten to overflow with tears as you look up the hill to the house and mouth, thank you.

You don’t know that you had actually lost your necklace next to this very gravestone and that one of your bluebird friends had carried it up to Tim in its beak. Tim spends two weeks practicing making the small bouquet of lavender – his large and clumsy hands unused to the precise and delicate movements required. He refers to the instructions in the book he found so many times he can see the diagrams in his sleep. But he keeps trying until he gets it right – wanting to offer you something more than just your returned necklace as a token of his appreciation for all the work you do. Holding the delicate chain in his oversized hand, he can’t stop looking at it glittering in the moonlight and admiring its intricate craftsmanship. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Well, second.

The next week, Tim discovers a large and fragrant bouquet of the cemetery’s best and biggest blooms laid outside of his iron gates.

Three weeks later, on the same gravestone, you find those flowers dried and pressed, then laced together in a pretty flower crown.

You weave your own from new fresh flowers and leave it in place of the dried one you take home. The following week, the crown you made is gone, and in its place, a large pile of fresh wild berries that must come from the forest behind the mansion.

The squirrels had objected, but Tim promised that the reduction of berries from their weekly hoard would be for a good cause. You helped prove him right the following week when he returned from the hill with a jar of wild berry jam which he happily shared.

This continues for months. Each week a small, thoughtful trinket exchanged - neither you or Tim having much to offer except your consideration and time. The giddy anticipation and resulting awe a gift in itself.

The day you bring a blanket that took you six weeks to knit, you’re imbued with a bravery (the source of which is unknown even to you) that brings you all the way to Tim’s doorstep. The heavy door opens when you push against it, but no one answers when you call out.

While Tim is in the woods assisting with the birth of a newborn deer, you’re wandering the dark, musty halls of Merge Mansion. You find where you think Tim must sleep: in a room that looks like a lab - electrical wire equipment, gurneys, restraints and medical utensils long since pushed against the walls of the room and abandoned.

You read the notebooks left behind by the scientist and seethe on Tim’s behalf. To call him a Creature! To experiment on him and put him through trials of endurance and strength as if he was merely an instrument for violence! You’re grateful that Tim’s creator must be long dead by now, else he might not be able to escape the vitriol you feel rising in your chest at the mistreatment Tim endured at his hand.

You leave the blanket and the mansion in a hurry.

When Tim comes back into the house, he knows immediately that you were there. He smells you. The sweet floral perfume from your garden and the sticky scent of fruit from your jams hangs in the air. Nothing in this house or the forest smells quite so lovely. You were here.

With growing distress, he finds your thoughtful gift in the room where he sleeps and knows that you’ve read Father’s notebooks. You know the truth of what he is now. He’ll never see you again.

But you come back.

You leave him a letter and for three weeks, he reads it every day.

It’s a letter that tells him about yourself and your family, and how you came to be his weekly visitor. You tell him how you’ve always known he’s been there but you were afraid to scare him away so you never let on that you saw him. You tell him that now that you’ve calmed down a bit, you’re not quite so angry at Father but you do think that he didn’t understand Tim’s true nature, or perhaps, you concede, he simply wasn’t gifted enough time to understand.

You tell him what you think of his nature. In your experience, men who are strong are rarely gentle and those who harness power are hardly ever giving. But Tim is. His hands, arms and muscles may be sewn together from much lesser men, but he, Tim, wields his strength to protect and look after others. His heart may not be able to pull down trees or break rock, but it’s tender and pure – and where his true power lies.

You write that even though you’ve never met him face to face, you only ever feel safe and cared for knowing he’s around. And you hope that even if he never forgives you for trespassing in his home and going through his personal belongings without his permission, he will take your words to heart.

Every week you come back to the doors of Merge Mansion bearing a small gift and a big apology, but Tim is nowhere to be found. You’re starting to fear that you’ve crossed an unforgiveable boundary and ruined your indescribable but cherished connection, when the most wonderous sight awaits you as you near the top of the hill nearly a month after you left your letter.

Tim.

Impossibly large and broad, a hulk of a man is sitting on the front steps waiting for you. His face is hard, lined from time and worry, but his eyes are soft and vulnerable. You see some trace of old scars along his forehead and neck, and down the worn skin that stretches over the corded muscles of his forearms. His clothes are outdated and entirely the wrong size, but somehow it works on him. He looks formidable. Wild, yet tame. Handsome.

You run to him, beaming. Tim stands when you come to a stop in front of him, towering over you as he holds out a bouquet of wildflowers picked from the forest lands behind his home that he tends to so carefully.

When you reach out to accept, your small fingers brush his larger calloused ones, and the jolt of electricity that passes between the two of you feels like pure joy. And although Tim can only offer a quiet grunt, unable to say the words that he wishes he could sing with his whole chest, you understand him perfectly. Your incandescent smile and hopeful expression reassure him that you too, recognize the simple, unspoken truth: Tim was made for you.

🎶Obligatory Billie Eilish, What Was I Made For lyrics🎶:

'Cause I, 'cause I I don't know how to feel But I wanna try I don't know how to feel But someday I might Someday I might

Think I forgot how to be happy Something I'm not, but something I can be Something I wait for Something I'm made for Something I'm made for

#AU Tim Rockford x f!reader #THIS is the level #of woodland creature content #i need in my life #angst with a happy ending #frankenstein's monster Tim Rockford #strong men who are gentle MY BELOVED #the merge mansion ad folks #will never understand #what they unleashed #ficrec

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