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amado1I wrote an 8,000 word Re-Animator fic the other day -- irritated by the way the fandom always woobifies Herbert's hilarious backstory, so I was compelled to write a 5+1 fic where I could explore all my headcanons and favorite what-ifs while also viciously keeping his backstory intact. The initial working title was "5 men in Herbert West's life who left and 1 who stayed," which wasn't entirely accurate. By the end I'd changed it to "4 times Herbert West washed somebody else's clothes for them and 1 time somebody washed Herbert's clothes."
The sections are:
1) Herbert's totally normal not abusive very nice dad is concerned that 10-year-old Herbert just bought amphetamines from the pharmacy. He puts the pills high up on the fridge where Herbert can't reach and insists they have some father-son bonding time watching Dr. Kildare. Herbert is so outraged about his work being interrupted that he may or may not start a chemical fire, murdering his dad.
2) Herbert is in foster care and at the age of 12 becomes exasperated/annoyed by an older boy who keeps borderline-molesting him. Herbert decides to steal some experimental anti-malaria drugs from the nearest Army base and uses it to turn the kid's sperm neon green.
3) A young Herbert moves to Switzerland to study under Dr. Gruber, where their relationship is definitely sliiiiiightly homoerotic. The old man teaches Herbert how to tie a tie properly; Herbert teaches the wealthy old fuck how to wash his own clothes; etc. It ends with Gruber waking up Herbert and coaxing him into injecting his own reagent for the first time, just to see what it does.
4) In psychiatric observation after Gruber's death, Herbert casually orchestrates some serious strikes that lead to the pharmacy being unmanned. He also meets the irritating Dr. Bovet, a soft-hearted therapist who diagnoses Herbert with a variety of 80s-era disorders and insists on keeping Herbert in observation for 6 months. Incensed, Herbert uses his illegal pharmacy runs to brew up some LSD and doses Dr. Bovet's tea every day for a week -- until Bovet is the one under observation, and Herbert is walking free.
5) A more-or-less canon retelling of Dr. Hill's hypnosis of Herbert and the laser-drill lobotomy. In this version, Herbert is troubled by the blank spot in his memory during hypnosis and wonders what exactly Hill did to him during that time. After fleeing the U.S. for Peru, Herbert experiences frequent headaches centered around his laser-drill scar. It's during this time that Dan becomes totally exasperated with Herbert's quirks and takes it upon himself to make sure Herbert eats real food.
This is where I should stop to say that there's a framing device. After each story, time snaps forward and we see that Dan and Herbert are eating together while Herbert tells the tale, usually very deadpan, while Dan is horrified. But we see that Dan is actually making headway on feeding Herbert! That brings us to:
6) A specimen gets loose in the lab and starts attacking Herbert. To his shock, Dan is able to instantly sedate it -- but the specimen doesn't just lose consciousness and flop to the ground. It slowly calms down and seems to regain some semblance of normalcy -- embarrassed by its bad behavior. Dan admits that the sedative is one of his own concoction but promises Herbert he HAS tested it on a subject before, a subject with reagent in its system: he's tested it on Herbert. For years now, Dan has been secretly drugging Herbert's food and taking note of the effects.
Herbert is deeply aroused.
-----------------------------------
OK, sorry to info-dump about a fanfic XD My roommate and I are being PLAGUED by Jeffrey Combs right now because Re-Animator was my roommate's absolute favorite movie in high school, a total obsession -- and then he forgot about it, only for me to get into DS9 and Weyoun earlier this year -- and then I made us all watch Re-Animator for movie night -- and now we're in the grips of this obsession together 💀 In fact I've kind of neglected my homework because when my roommate gets home, he immediately starts searching for a new Jeffrey Combs movie we can watch! XD
(Last night he settled on a bunch of Weyoun episodes).
So that's been my life this past week: Watch a Jeffrey Combs flick, read copious amounts of fanfic, write my own... I'm already daydreaming about when school lets out and I can write a novel-length fic post-DS9, about Odo activating Weyoun's 9th clone.
The sections are:
1) Herbert's totally normal not abusive very nice dad is concerned that 10-year-old Herbert just bought amphetamines from the pharmacy. He puts the pills high up on the fridge where Herbert can't reach and insists they have some father-son bonding time watching Dr. Kildare. Herbert is so outraged about his work being interrupted that he may or may not start a chemical fire, murdering his dad.
2) Herbert is in foster care and at the age of 12 becomes exasperated/annoyed by an older boy who keeps borderline-molesting him. Herbert decides to steal some experimental anti-malaria drugs from the nearest Army base and uses it to turn the kid's sperm neon green.
3) A young Herbert moves to Switzerland to study under Dr. Gruber, where their relationship is definitely sliiiiiightly homoerotic. The old man teaches Herbert how to tie a tie properly; Herbert teaches the wealthy old fuck how to wash his own clothes; etc. It ends with Gruber waking up Herbert and coaxing him into injecting his own reagent for the first time, just to see what it does.
4) In psychiatric observation after Gruber's death, Herbert casually orchestrates some serious strikes that lead to the pharmacy being unmanned. He also meets the irritating Dr. Bovet, a soft-hearted therapist who diagnoses Herbert with a variety of 80s-era disorders and insists on keeping Herbert in observation for 6 months. Incensed, Herbert uses his illegal pharmacy runs to brew up some LSD and doses Dr. Bovet's tea every day for a week -- until Bovet is the one under observation, and Herbert is walking free.
5) A more-or-less canon retelling of Dr. Hill's hypnosis of Herbert and the laser-drill lobotomy. In this version, Herbert is troubled by the blank spot in his memory during hypnosis and wonders what exactly Hill did to him during that time. After fleeing the U.S. for Peru, Herbert experiences frequent headaches centered around his laser-drill scar. It's during this time that Dan becomes totally exasperated with Herbert's quirks and takes it upon himself to make sure Herbert eats real food.
This is where I should stop to say that there's a framing device. After each story, time snaps forward and we see that Dan and Herbert are eating together while Herbert tells the tale, usually very deadpan, while Dan is horrified. But we see that Dan is actually making headway on feeding Herbert! That brings us to:
6) A specimen gets loose in the lab and starts attacking Herbert. To his shock, Dan is able to instantly sedate it -- but the specimen doesn't just lose consciousness and flop to the ground. It slowly calms down and seems to regain some semblance of normalcy -- embarrassed by its bad behavior. Dan admits that the sedative is one of his own concoction but promises Herbert he HAS tested it on a subject before, a subject with reagent in its system: he's tested it on Herbert. For years now, Dan has been secretly drugging Herbert's food and taking note of the effects.
Herbert is deeply aroused.
-----------------------------------
OK, sorry to info-dump about a fanfic XD My roommate and I are being PLAGUED by Jeffrey Combs right now because Re-Animator was my roommate's absolute favorite movie in high school, a total obsession -- and then he forgot about it, only for me to get into DS9 and Weyoun earlier this year -- and then I made us all watch Re-Animator for movie night -- and now we're in the grips of this obsession together 💀 In fact I've kind of neglected my homework because when my roommate gets home, he immediately starts searching for a new Jeffrey Combs movie we can watch! XD
(Last night he settled on a bunch of Weyoun episodes).
So that's been my life this past week: Watch a Jeffrey Combs flick, read copious amounts of fanfic, write my own... I'm already daydreaming about when school lets out and I can write a novel-length fic post-DS9, about Odo activating Weyoun's 9th clone.
no subject
Date: 2024-04-22 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-23 02:05 am (UTC)I will say though, that there's a crazy impressive amount of good art and good fic for this fandom. I feel really spoiled by it.