sercezgazety
the princess of denial
ao3 user theprincessofdenial | she/her, polish | currently on a re-animator rampage | mostly star trek and the owl house, also digging up corpses and raising the dead in general | just entered her goth kid phase at the tender age of 31
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If you wanna know how I spend my free time, this is it:
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Cyril Edward Power
The Age of Speed, Linocuts, 1920s-30s
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guys aren't comically getting their red heart covered boxers exposed after they get their pants pulled down anymore. Due to wokeness
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this has been living rent free in my brain for 3 weeks
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Telling a Story Through Touch - Part 1
I want to talk about the way Dan and Herbert use touch in Re-Animator and Bride - how they're different, and how they change.
Touch is complicated for Herbert. He comes off as stiff and withdrawn at first; from the way he holds himself, dresses himself, and acts around most people, it seems as if he dislikes being touched, or expects other people to use touch to hurt him.
But when he gets comfortable with Dan, it's clear that he CRAVES touch. In Re-Animator, he constantly puts himself close to Dan, pressing against him, reaching for him, resting a hand on him, etc.
He touches Dan as a source of comfort. When he's scared or overly excited, he reaches for Dan.
He also used touch to GIVE comfort. When Dan is hurt or in distress, Herbert is quick to lay on hands.
I think for Herbert, his willingness to touch and be touched by someone is a sign of true trust and love. Physical affection is vulnerability, and Herbert doesn't allow himself to be vulnerable in front of just anyone. Herbert strikes me as someone who hasn't experienced a lot of physical affection in his life. It's more likely that he is used to being hurt rather than comforted.
So, every time Herbert touches Dan, it's an expression of love.
Dan touches Herbert for two reasons. The first is to protect him - Dan is a Helper. He likes to take care of people, and when Herbert comes into his life, Dan immediately takes him on as someone to care for (and maybe enable, but let's be generous).
The only other time we really see Dan touch Herbert is when he's mad or annoyed at him.
Herbert is annoying! And it's his presence in Dan's life that sends it careening off track. So it makes sense that Dan harbors resentment for him, even while he is still obsessed with him and his work. Especially after Meg dies.
And Herbert feels it. In Bride, it's clear that Herbert is very aware of how angry Dan is, and it changes how willing he is to touch Dan.
(I have to cut this because of the 30 gif limit. I'll continue with Bride in Part 2.)
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Telling a Story Through Touch - Part 2
In Bride of Re-Animator, Dan is mad at Herbert. Every interaction between them has an undercurrent of tension. They are clearly close to each other as friends who have bonded through trauma - Herbert is more relaxed with Dan than we've ever seen, and Dan lets himself be weirder with Herbert than anyone else would suspect. But Dan isn't happy with Herbert, and Herbert knows it.
He is much less touchy with Dan now. All the casual touching is gone. Even in moments when he WOULD have reached out to Dan, when he clearly WANTS to, he is hesitant to do it.
He even goes so far as to AVOID touching Dan when he easily could. When he hands Dan the heart, he slides his hands out with as little contact as possible. And when he takes it back, he is careful to try not to touch Dan's hands too much.
The only times he lets himself fully touch Dan are when he's desperate to get his attention.
He sees that Dan is still able to be happy with OTHER people, and it tears him up. He doesn't understand what it is that other people seem to have that Dan loves, or why he lacks it.
The whole plot of Bride hinges on Herbert's attempt to make Dan happy with him again. When he finds Meg's heart in the morgue, he cradles it in his hands for a moment - it isn't Meg he's subconsciously caressing.
Until he can FIX their relationship, he can't be as comfortable as he used to be in just resting a hand on Dan's arm or pressing against him.
When he messes up, he EXPECTS Dan to hurt him, because that's what people DO when they're mad at him.
The turning point comes when they're finally about to complete their Work.
When Dan grabs his arm, Herbert automatically assumes the worst.
But, instead:
Dan goes all in. He's on board. He's not mad anymore, and he's a part of this.
And the surprise and relief and LOVE Herbert feels in that moment is so clear...
It's only after this, after Dan has finally shown a willingness to commit to the partnership, that Herbert (hesitantly) does this:
It's the first time he's reached out to affectionately touch Dan since Meg died. And Dan doesn't pull away or lash out at him.
And when Dan presents the results of their work to Herbert,
Herbert grabs his hand in triumph.
It's not perfect, and there are still issues. They aren't back to where they were, and probably never will be. But it's a start.
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Actually I'm not done.
Telling a Story Through Touch Part 3 - Conclusion
Something kept bothering me.
This
is after the turning point. But when Herbert goes to touch Dan, something stops him. I told myself it was just residual hesitation. They're not fully there yet. Herbert's not entirely comfortable with his former level of physical affection.
But it kept nagging at me. Because after the "Let me", after the shoulder touch, after the hand grab... Herbert SHOULD be able to touch Dan here. But he can't. Why?
It's because of this:
When Francesca comes into the house and confronts Dan, she breaks the spell.
I'm going to go off on a Dan tangent for a bit, so bear with me.
Dan is such a complicated person. I see him as growing up in a happy nuclear family, popular in school, always following the rules and being a Good Boy. He dates the right girls. He wants to become a doctor.
He's NORMAL.
But inside, there's this part of him that he has always suppressed. He's kind and caring, yes, but to the point of obsession. He's a nice guy, but he has a rage that slips out when he's stressed. He wants to help people, but he'll go far past the point of what is sensible in order to do it.
The first time he meets Herbert, he sees him tear into a highly respected doctor who should have power over Herbert by controlling his grades. But Herbert doesn't care about Hill's status or his authority. He is utterly fearless, brash, and rude. Dan has never been any of those things. He's shocked, but I think he's also impressed. He envies Herbert's total self-confidence.
And then Herbert moves in with Dan, and ultimately presents him with the most astounding display of genius and arrogance that he's ever seen. Herbert West is so daring, so sure of his abilities, that he's going to defeat Death itself.
And Dan is hooked. This work scratches an itch he didn't even realize he had.
But he still thinks of himself as a Normal Guy. And throughout both movies, he clings to this idea that he hasn't changed. Herbert is the weird one, even though Dan is right beside him every step of the way.
In Bride, I see Dan as completely compartmentalizing two versions of himself: Normal Dan, who exists outside of the house, and Weird Dan, who only comes out at home in the basement with Herbert. When he's at the hospital or grocery shopping or doing anything else outside in the world, he doesn't think of himself as the passionate scientist fighting against Death by whatever means necessary. He is so far removed from that side of himself that he doesn't even realize that inviting Francesca to dinner at his house means that she would come to his HOUSE, where he LIVES WITH HERBERT and does HORRIFYING UNETHICAL EXPERIMENTS. It doesn't occur to him. Normal guys invite girls over. And Dan is a Normal Guy.
(Dan: Oh. Oops.)
Even at home, he will bring that idea of himself inside - enough to feel repulsed by what he's doing and tell Herbert he's going to leave. But as soon as Herbert reminds him of the magnitude of the work, he's back. It's like a switch is flipped, and the obsessive, driven, weirdo Dan comes back out.
Normal Dan: I am charming and kind.
Weird Dan: Hell yes let's build a new Meg out of stolen body parts.
But Dan has been fighting that side. He keeps trying to hold onto his clean image of himself, and stop himself from falling headlong into the role that Herbert wants him to fill. It's Weird Dan that Herbert needs (that he loves). Normal Dan is useless to him, and kind of hates him. Weird Dan is the Dan that Herbert saw and drew out. The one who can be a real partner to him. His Dan.
When Dan grabs his arm and says "Let me," Herbert knows that that Dan is back in charge. And that's when he's comfortable enough to touch him again.
But then Francesca comes. And she forces him to confront the realities he has been pushing away.
Francesca fighting the Bride is really like a fight between Dan's two sides; Francesca represents a normal life, and the Bride (of course) represents a life with Herbert.
And Francesca is winning. Normal Dan is resurfacing, and he doesn't like what he helped create.
And that's what stops Herbert when he reaches out. That's not his Dan anymore.
When Dan fully rejects the Bride, Herbert tries to salvage it.
Forget it. She's nothing. It means nothing. We'll start again. We'll do it better. It'll be better. (I'll be better.)
But it's over. At the end of Re-Animator when Herbert is in trouble, Dan reaches for him. Even with Meg there, Dan reaches out to Herbert.
But at the end of Bride, he barely even looks at Herbert. He's made a choice. And when he reaches down into the earth, he's reaching for Francesca. He pulls her out, and he lets Herbert get buried. Along with all their work - their life - together.
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My favourite Re-Animator//Jeffrey combs movie reviews from letterboxd-
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“Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.” -- Discworld (Snuff)
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Anecdotes from the filming of TOS last episode
This is taken from the account by Joan Winston (an ABC television employee and Star Trek fan), about her two-week visit to the studios, when they were filming Turnabout Intruder. The account was published in the book Star Trek Lives! (Lichtenberg, Jacqueline 1975).
A selection of some funny anecdotes:
The origin of the set decorations
I wonder if this was the origin of the suspicious stalagmite in What are Little Girls Made Of?
Nimoy avenges his bike
The story of the bike itself can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbHP5FbJNAw
Dr. McCoy’s diagnosis
De boss, he’s De boss.
The chewing gum
“Spock, it’s always been you”
Spock’s silky hair
CCL stands for chopped chicken liver, by the way.
The “thing”
At this point, Shatner was severely ill with the flu, and they barely managed to film the intro scenes of the episode (the last material to be filmed, actually) before he collapsed on a couch.
After this, they started dismantling the sets for the bridge, the transporter room, etc.
Pretty poignant.
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