#nothingenough speaks

Clearly it's not a "singular person", unless you're suggesting that you are that "singular person" hunting down people on Tumblr to defend yourself.

I appreciate what you're trying to say here. I do. But look: accusations of characters being OOC in fanfic/fanart are total bullshit fandom policing.

Every fanwork is, definitionally, OOC, because none of it is being produced by the original creator. Only the original writer(s) can determine what is "in character" or not. The best, most canon-compliant fanfic you've ever read? OOC. It's just that you perceive it as being less OOC than other fanworks.

I do understand feeling frustrated that there are people whose works are popular who haven't Done Their Research. But, like, this is just a thing that happens in fandom, especially in very large ones. I recall fandoms in the '90s where large contingents of fans hadn't actually watched/read the source material. And some of those people produced very popular fanworks. And that can be annoying if you're Doing Your Research and yet Aren't As Popular.

But why do Deltarune fans think that their fandom ought to be the exception of every large fandom of the past few decades? Wait until the end of this post to find out why!

I think there's a difference between, say, fans who don't interact with the source material because they think the source material is problematic, and fans who have not yet interacted with the source material due to having families or full-time jobs or lives outside of the Internet, but pick up the fandom because their friends are into it. And if some of those people's works become popular, maybe that says something about what people like to read/look at in fandom, and not anything about the creators.

As another person replying on the original post pointed out, there's also a LOT of material for Spamtenna specifically and Deltarune in general that does not appear anywhere in the video game. Are you a fake fan if you weren't there for the sweepstakes? Are you a fake fan if you haven't spent hours trawling through screencaps of various webpages? Is it acceptable to watch someone's YT video dissecting the above, or is that lazy fake-fan behavior? What about people who haven't memorized the names of each song on the soundtrack and broken down why it's important for the ship that certain leitmotifs are repeated in each other's songs?

Fandom policing is bullshit because it doesn't end. Once you fall for the game of "Oh, this person's interpretation of the characters is fake because they aren't engaging with the source material the right way", it's all you end up playing. And there's no way to win that game. You only temporarily win it by driving other people out of the fandom for being Not As Good As You... but there's always someone who's doing it better than you.

Also, shaming people for Doing Fandom Wrong drives them out of the fandom and makes them not want to interact with the source material ever again. I think hurting people in fandom is wrong. The fact that folks are quitting the fandom over this means people have been hurt. I think that is wrong.

But your mileage may vary.

(As for why DR fans are like this, here's my real rent-lowering gunshot: DR fans are extremely sensitive about anyone who doesn't think of Deltarune [and/or Undertale] as The Greatest Work Of Art Ever Made. There's a major insecurity in the fandom that goes all the way back to Undertale fans bricking over a poll that chose Super Mario Brothers as the greatest video game of all time. Undertale was #2 in that poll, an incredible result considering the game had come out that same year, but that wasn't good enough; the idea that anyone thought of Undertale as not being TGWOAEM was taken as an insult by a vocal part of the fandom. Which, wow.

I talked about this briefly as a rent-lowering gunshot, but I feel like expanding it after seeing yet another post begging for a heavily-edited version of "Re-Animator", because the OP didn't want to see things which are foundational and necessary to see in order to understand "Re-Animator".

Lest I be labeled a heartless bastard, let me point out that I suggest this particular approach out of experience.

For years and years, I tried to make myself like the subgenre of horror films called splatter. I watched various films that are considered to be splatter. I watched movies that were adjacent to splatter. I told people I was a gore-hound. I tried to find the most disturbing, awful, and disgusting films possible when most of the information about same was spread by word of mouth and by semi-secretive online forums. I put in an active effort.

And then I watched the first "Saw" film.

And not only did my partner-in-crime get up and run out of the room during the big scene with Lawrence and the titular saw, I sat frozen. I watched, but only because I couldn't move. I experienced sympathy pains in my leg and foot during that scene which immobilized me. I finished the movie, but only because I didn't have a whole lot of choice in that moment.

After that, I started accepting some things.

I accepted that I do not like splatter films. I can stand a lot of violence onscreen, provided that I have the personal sense that the violence has a purpose other than depiction, and provided that it isn't relentless throughout the entire work. I do not enjoy stories where the portrayal of violence, of human pain, is the primary purpose of the story. (This distinguishes splatter from other, even very violent forms of horror; the object of the art is primarily in the portrayal.)

There is nothing morally wrong with splatter horror. There's nothing wrong with being a gore-hound. It's just not for me.

Accordingly, I do not watch splatter films. I uplift and support my friends who are into "Saw" or "Hostel" or "Haute Tension" or "Martyrs", but I have no plans on ever getting into this style of film again. I avoid films which are considered to be crossovers.

I don't feel like my life is missing anything. I don't feel like I'm less of a horror fan. I don't feel like I'm missing out on all the coffinshipping. I'm older, and one of the luxuries of getting older is that I have learned what I like, what I don't like, what I can tolerate, and what I can't. I have seen enough films at this stage in my life, and I don't want to waste my time watching stuff I won't enjoy based on its genre alone.

What I don't do is go onto Tumblr and say "Hey, I really wanna watch 'Saw'! Can anybody direct me to a cut of the movie that edits out all of the traps?"

First, it is kind of silly to take the very reason a thing exists, remove it, and then think you have still meaningfully interacted with the original media. If you cut the dream sequences from "Nightmare on Elm Street", you haven't seen "Nightmare on Elm Street". If you cut the stalking sequences from "Halloween", you have not seen "Halloween". If you cut the gruesome murders and mentions of child death from "Friday the 13th", you haven't seen "Friday the 13th". You may as well just not watch it.

Second, whether we like it or not, demanding a censored version of a horror work is placing judgement on people who enjoy that work uncensored. People who demand censored fanfic on the Archive are, in fact, judging people who read or write uncensored fanfic. "I could never watch such disgusting drivel" is placing judgment on people who do watch stuff you consider to be disgusting or drivel. I repeatedly stated in the above essay that I do not judge folks who like splatter films because failing to do so means I am implicitly placing judgment on folks who like splatter films.

To suggest there is something so wrong about the original work that you must only engage with it in a form that could be shown on an airplane, is to suggest that there's something equally wrong with people who engage with the work as originally presented.

Third, and this is where I am going to be judgemental myself, let's be totally honest here.

People who say they want to watch "Re-Animator" censored don't want to watch "Re-Animator".

They feel social pressure to watch "Re-Animator" because West was and is a popular blorbo on Tumblr and TikTok. They've seen heavily curated and edited "fan videos" which amount to the same set of six Danbert clips and five Herbert-only clips. They've seen fluffy fanart reblogged by their friends. And they feel like they're supposed to like "Re-Animator" because they liked those fan videos, and thought the fanart was cute, and anyway, their friends are all telling them they have to watch "Re-Animator"--

--only watch out for That Scene, it's gross! And That Scene. It's upsetting. And That Whole Subplot, it's super gross. And ignore how Herbert behaves in the story because it's Problematic. And ignore how the story portrays misogyny, because their friends all think portrayal is endorsement. And oh, definitely don't watch That Part. And don't ship anything but the Approved Ship in the Approved Manner, or else they'll be stalked and harassed by people who are infuriated that they didn't like the movie Correctly. Plus they'll be kicked off all their Discord servers, or suspended while being warned that YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THAT PART OF THE MOVIE ON HERE, DIDN'T YOU KNOW THAT?!

So these folks end up on Tumblr asking for a curated version of the film. One that's safe for TikTok and Tumblr and Discord Communities. One that won't get them in trouble and will allow them to claim that they've seen The Movie and know who The Character is. That way, they can join in with their friends in harassing anyone who doesn't write The Character the way they want him to be written--that is, the heavily censored and entirely-divorced-from-the-source-material version of The Character approved of by their friends.

I am here to liberate you.

You don't have to watch "Re-Animator".

You don't have to like it. You don't have to engage with the fandom. You can just not. You can admit to yourself and your friends that you just don't like this style of horror. It won't make you less transmasc. It won't make you allistic. It won't even make you not a horror fan--you might like other horror stories!

Not every horror story is for you. They don't have to be. You might even feel that horror, as a genre, isn't for you. That's cool! It doesn't have to be! You can like other things! You don't have to like this thing!

Thinking about this post from @bonemeal12, which asks why they cut Gloria's chest open like that in her death scene in "Bride of Reanimator". I know the original post is a joke, BUUUUUT I love talking about minutia for these movies so here we go.

For starters, the technique used in this scene is a real one. It's called open-chest/internal cardiac massage, it's used when CPR fails, and then only in medical settings where stuff like blood transfusions can help to further save the person's life. It's an extreme choice, but a legitimate one. That's the medical aspect.

For the symbolic aspect, the story is drawing another explicit parallel between Meg and Gloria. Meg is reduced to a heart by this stage in the story; Gloria's heart being exposed is another visual signal that they're considered to be the same character, by Dan and by the scriptwriters.

But there's a third thing going on here, which is that in the script for BRIDE, this sequence is topped by a PTSD flashback.

Basically, the scene plays out as it does in the film, until the part where Dan collapses on the ground. Then, while they declare Gloria dead, a "trickle of blood" drips off the edge of the table onto Dan's head. The trickle becomes "a flood" which gives Dan "a veil of blood". He sits up, screaming "NO! NOT AGAIN!", and...

... there's no blood pouring off the table or on Dan.

Here's the relevant page from the script:

(Script is here.)

There were a couple of scenes in the original script where Dan was supposed to have gruesome flashbacks to the war. (If a scene in the final version of the film has Dan staring off into space looking disconnected from reality, it might have been one where Dan was supposed to be flashing back to Peru.) This began with the first war scene in the movie, where the script specifies that the soldier Dan and Herbert are trying to save in the beginning is only 15 years old, and plays out through the rest of the script. Dan has trauma over letting a teenager die. He is re-traumatized every time someone else dies. He is desperate to stop anyone else from dying.

This is why, in the scripted version, Dan doesn't protest that Gloria will never survive the open-chest massage; he's all in on this procedure. He wants Gloria to live and he's traumatized all over again when she dies. Hence the "NOT AGAIN!" line. It all serves to make Dan a more complex character.

But ☝️the "Dan has PTSD" subplot is really fucking grim. The actual problem with BRIDE is that stuff like this was in conflict with the goofier parts of the film, like the "dead head" bit. The editors tried to remove a lot of the really grimdark parts of the script, so this subplot was excised from the final version of BRIDE. And like most of the subplots that were excised, it was removed badly.

They kept the gore and the open-chest massage, they excised why those things mattered to the story, leaving us with a scene that's both dark and funny, like why the fuck would they do that and how does Dan not have every bloodborne disease from all the hemobukkake he takes in that movie

One of the most fascinating bits about Herbert West, to me, is his lack of interest in anything but defeating death and being right. He might even trade one of these things for the other, if he had to; but these are his only goals. This is why Dan cannot talk Herbert out of really stupid shit West pulls, and it's also why Hill is his antagonist, but more importantly, his foil.

To begin our discussion, we'll start off with this gifset.

In writing, it's generally recommended to structure dialogue with a purpose. Real people in real life can say whatever we want, but fictional people should not be wasting the audiences' time with extraneous nonsense, and there is usually a discernible pattern to lines like this.

When Character A tries to persuade Character B, A will frequently start with things that A finds to be persuasive, and if it does not work, move on to things A thinks that B will find persuasive. This is because A will begin with the thing that has already convinced A of a particular course. Then, A may begin to flail around for what might convince B. With me so far?

Herbert starts out his pitch by bluntly admitting that "I need you to help me" because "You're bright, and you have access to certain authorities". We don't even have to guess; these are the reasons Herbert finds their partnership persuasive. He then tries the lines in the linked gifset, and we can determine the following:

"We can defeat death!": The most important aspect of this to West. The thing he finds most persuasive. So obvious that he doesn't think it needs to be explained.

"We can achieve every doctor's dream.": Here, he's realizing Dan's not falling for Defeating Death. He tries to play on Dan's presumed goals as a doctor and healer. This, ironically, is very close to what Dan is shown to want throughout the films--to defeat death as a healer.

"You'll be famous and live lifetimes.": Note that Herbert goes from we to you. This isn't his goal at all. He does not care about being famous. He doesn't even care about personally living forever. He DOES presume Dan cares about these things.

As it happens, though, Dan doesn't, not really--which is why, in their next big Herbert Convinces Dan scene, Herbert doesn't bother bringing up anything about fame, fortune, or immortality. It's a common Devil's Bargain trope, but Herbert doesn't offer it because it didn't work on either of them.

Instead, when he tries to talk Dan into reanimating Halsey, he does this:

"This is the freshest body that we could come across short of killing one ourselves, and every moment that we spend talking about it costs us results!" - What Herbert finds to be persuasive: ease of experimentation, gaining results.

"Daaan... we can bring him back to life!" What Herbert thinks Dan will find persuasive: erasing his mistakes, not getting in trouble. We know that this is Herbert flailing because of how he whines out Dan's name--he's realizing his logical approach isn't working. So he gambles on an emotional appeal.

By way of comparison, consider the structure of the hypnotism scene with Herbert and Hill. As I've argued before, Hill's mesmerism is not mystical in nature, but a form of intensive persuasion relying on The Human Will being overridden.

Hill only succeeds by appealing to what he thinks other people truly want/need/desire and by flipping their personality traits against them. His hypnotizing Halsey works once he zeros in on what's most important of all to Halsey, to protect his daughter from harm. He fails at hypnotizing Megan because he doesn't understand or accept that what Megan wants more than anything is to protect her father and her boyfriend from harm. And personally, I think he never mesmerized West successfully, but it's instructive to see what Hill thinks Herbert wants and why that ends up failing.

"You will be my assistant... I will reveal to an astonished world my new serum." Here is, of course, what Hill wants, the thing he finds to be persuasive. Notice how Herbert consistently uses we when talking to Dan, our work, our reagent, etc., but Hill asserts ownership over the entire process, and over Herbert West--my assistant, my serum, I will reveal.

"They will retire the Nobel Prize in my name." Hill, still not giving Herbert anything at all, emphasizes his own desire for fame.

"And you, as my assistant, will be famous!" Finally, Hill remembers he's supposed to be planting suggestions for and manipulating Herbert, and throws in what he thinks Herbert wants. This is Hill's whole MO. He doesn't understand becoming a doctor or scientist for any reason other than being famous, just as West doesn't understand doing it for any reason other than being correct... and as Cain doesn't understand doing it for any reason other than healing pain and stopping death.

Again, when you're getting down to where the cheese binds and What Make Plot Go, this is good, instructive, workmanlike writing. It's boring and questionable when Character A knows exactly what B wants and offers it to them flawlessly. It's verisimilitudinous, and more interesting, to see A drop the ball--for A to accidentally reveal to B and/or the audience what A really wants and values. Even more interesting for A, if they're a consistent manipulator, to learn over time and get better at jerking B around.

Which, about that.

Herbert, throughout the rest of the first and second films, relies heavily on emotional appeals to get Dan on his side. He will admonish Dan to "be a scientist" periodically, but he mostly goes for the same baseline beats established in the above two Devil's Bargain scenes. He learned (unlike Hill) that Dan doesn't care about fame, or living forever. He doesn't care about stopping death if that doesn't also mean the proper, full restoration of life. He doesn't care about being proven right. And even though he does kind of want this, it's not about Dan's desire to be a skilled healer.

What Herbert discovers and exploits in all their interactions is that Dan is morbidly terrified of making a mistake he can't fix. He can't let go of his first patient because he internalized her death as a mistake, a flaw in himself--if he does the CPR long enough, if he lets the drugs circulate, then she'll be fixed and it'll all be okay. Dan agrees to reanimate Rufus, I think, not just because he doesn't quite believe Rufus was reanimated before, but because if Rufus was reanimated, then Dan killed him and that's a mistake Dan can't fix. He agrees to reanimate the corpse in the morgue because that lets him fix his mistake of trying to sell Halsey on the reagent, and screwing up his scholarship/Herbert's enrollment at school. He then agrees to bring back Halsey because that fixes his mistake of "letting" Halsey be murdered.

This is why the ending of the first film feels inevitable. Of course Dan views Meg's death as his own personal failure; he views every single death that occurs in his vicinity as his fault. Of course he's got to fix it. The only way he possibly can fix it. The one way Herbert promised him it could be fixed.

And, for that matter, what little does work about the plot of BRIDE works because of this one fatal heroic flaw on Dan Cain's part. He spends a lot of BRIDE trying to frame every awful thing that happens as Herbert's fault because if it's Dan's, then he's overwhelmed with guilt and shame and the crushing responsibility to fix it. This is why his shabby treatment of Gloria, as well as her death, leads to his BSoD. He doesn't have to be told by Herbert by then that this is his fault but we can fix it, Dan, you and me, by using the reagent--he dissociates and has that conversation with himself.

Herbert tells him, almost gently, "Go. Home.", and Dan's deep in his own skull, hearing all the other times Herbert said to him you'll be able to fix every fatal mistake you've ever made, and you won't get in trouble. No one will know about how you let [your patients/Dean Halsey/Megan/all of those soldiers/Angel/Gloria/the bits of the Bride] die.

We'll fix it, you and I.

And it works. Until the last time, when Herbert says the Bride is "dead tissue", don't worry Dan, we'll fix her later, except now Dan's priorities have changed and he doesn't care about covering up his own messes anymore.

He cares more about preserving life than he does about saving his own skin.

Fandom loves to pretend that they love women, but they actually don't. Putting women characters on pedestals is another form of objectification and denies them the agency which is freely offered to men. Fandom also cannot handle the idea that critiquing how a woman is written is NOT the same as critiquing a woman. It's not misogynistic to critique misogyny.

Specifically, the Re-Animator fandom ignores how much casual transphobia and homophobia they spew in Herbert West and Dan Cain's directions, so long as the homo-/transphobia is in the name of "protecting" one of the women characters in the series.

I relayed this to @andalusiapunk and they were like "Oh! That explains it! He's theater-acting!"

I am not an expert by any means, but I did misspend my teenage years in a magnet school as a theater student. I understood immediately what they meant by theater-acting and I'm mad I didn't come up with it.

A lot of this has to do with Herbert's overall physicality. We all love talking about how he's hyper-dramatic, right? How he moves in a particular way that is extremely precise and sharp and, to be on point, theatrical. How he spins the tape recorder in his hand; how he offers Meg's heart in BRIDE; how he fumbles or manipulates syringes in various scenes.

None of that's in the script and it's not necessarily justified by what's happening... unless you're trying to make sure the audience in the backass end of the theater can see you're holding something small, like a tape recorder or a syringe or a human heart. As I observed elsewhere, you can trick the audience into 'seeing' or 'hearing' things that aren't present onstage or screen if your body language insists on its reality.

And, not to get into super-nerdy film history, but: originally theater-acting and movie-acting were one and the same. Early films are blocked like plays, they have extended sequences without constant cutting between shots (like an audience watching a play), and the extremely clear, over-enunciation of a play-actor trying to make sure those poor bastards in the back can hear what they're saying. And like a play, all acting was heavily rehearsed and expected to hit the same points and produce the same results every time.

What changed this was Marlon Brando introducing the idea of improvisation into movie-acting, a choice which also led to a greater flexibility in movie-acting... including delivery of lines. A more "natural", verisimilitudinous delivery became acceptable for films. This doesn't make either style bad, to be clear: each serves its purpose.

Bruce Abbott (to name the most obvious example) is doing movie-acting. He's got some Protagonist Accent going for him, but he has a clear variety of tone and a great deal of subtlety with his facial expressions and delivery. The same goes for the rest of the cast, although David Gale kind of straddles the line between these two styles.

Herbert's delivery is pure theater-acting. When he and Dan invade the morgue, Dan is whispering--but Herbert is stage whispering, which is why he hisses so much. I've made jokes on here before about how Herbert was born on Skid Row in Little Shop of Horrors-verse, and he thinks he's supposed to be in a musical... and, you know, LSOH is a film based on a play, only in that movie, EVERYBODY is theater-acting.