#because she and Oedipus have a good thing going

[poorlittleyaoyao]

You're doomed--may you never fathom who you are!

Oedipus Tyrannus, lines 1167-1173 (tr. Robert Fagles)

[gallierhouse]

One of my favorite things about IWTV is its critique of the patriarchal family structure through vampirism. The maker functions as both father and husband, and the maker-fledgling relationship is analogous to a parent-child relationship (the maker makes the fledging, then nurtures them and teaches them about vampirism). This is then complicated by the fact that makers are often engaged in romantic or sexual relationships with their fledglings (Lestat and Louis, Marius and Armand). So the fledgling is permanently tied to their father-husband (or if they’re lucky, just their father). So far both makers have been abusive. Lestat is violent, controlling, possessive, and also loving, dedicated, and responsible for the welfare of his two fledglings. As cruel as he is to Louis and Claudia, he fulfills his function as a father by 1) teaching them to hunt 2) protecting them from the outside world 3) enacting punishment when they defy him. I know he fails Claudia with regards to Bruce, but he doesn’t save her because he’s punishing her for leaving (he could hear Bruce’s thoughts, so he probably knew what was happening, and chose not to go). This is the classical mold of a father. Both protecter and punisher, who has dominion over his family and is justified in expecting obedience. He is a good father. Not by modern standards, but he’s a good father according to the patriarchal idea that fathers should discipline, teach, protect, and yes, control (see: daughters first belonging to their fathers then to their husbands, child abuse being implicitly sanctioned as corporal punishment, etc.). He fulfills being a father the way he fulfills being a patriarch. It’s very traditional. Similarly, Armand functions as the patriarch of the coven, which Claudia identifies as a family. He enacts his authority through violence, and demands coven members follow a strict set of rules. When coven members step out of line, he punishes them, drags them home, demands they follow coven rules, etc. (See: Lestat’s father dragging him home from the seminary, Lestat dragging Claudia home when she tries to run away, etc.) It’s not exactly 1:1 because the coven is also a cult (and I have things to say about how the coven exists to critique not only cults but the nature of theatre troupes, which are commonly abusive and hierarchical…) but Armand does function as the patriarch and acts accordingly as an enforcer. Santiago even reminds Claudia that “tender can turn to tinder,” reminding her that as while affection within the coven (or, you know, families) exists, it’s secondary to the fundamental nature of the coven, which is hierarchical, obedience demanding, and enforced by the patriarch, who, within the rules of a coven or a traditional family, is justified in enacting violence. On top of that, it’s interesting that Claudia and Louis’ crime isn’t just killing a vampire. It’s killing their maker. When Armand abuses Claudia, he reminds her about what she did to her maker, not what she did to Lestat. Claudia and Louis have committed patricide. Bad enough to commit murder, worse to commit patricide, and flout the natural order and hierarchy of the family completely. Patricide has historically been punished much more harshly than murder for this reason. It was the only crime for which a death sentence could be given in the Roman Republic, and we all know about the myths (Oedipus, Cronus overthrew his father and then got overthrew by his son, the cycles cycle, etc.) that state that patricide is the worst possible crime.

All this is to say is that a recurring idea in IWTV is that abuse within the patriarchal family structure isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Wives and children (Louis and Claudia) are meant to submit to fathers and husbands and father-husbands (Lestat and Armand). It’s not supposed to be an equal relationship. It’s hierarchical, and if you step out of line, you “deserve” to be punished (Louis refusing Lestat sex, Louis not allowing Lestat to cheat since wives, historically, are expected to tolerate infidelity from husbands via concubines, mistresses, maids, etc., Claudia defending herself and Louis from Lestat, Claudia daring to not want to wear a stupid blue dress, Louis not going home to Armand on time, etc.). I really like the way IWTV explores this, because not only does it cue us to see Lestat’s and Armand’s actions as abhorrent and abusive, cueing us to see it doesn’t spare Louis or Claudia from the abuse. The narrative respects Louis and Claudia, but Lestat and Armand don’t, and so even as the audience roots for Louis and Claudia, they have to recognize that they’re trapped in a cycle enabled by patriarchal structures of abuse, and the tyranny of the family.

[bao3bei4]

BLESSED BE THEY WHOSE LIVES DO NOT TASTE OF EVIL

BUT IF SOME GOD SHAKES YOUR HOUSE

RUIN ARRIVES

RUIN DOES NOT LEAVE

IT COMES TOLLING OVER THE GENERATIONS

IT COMES ROLLING THE BLACK NIGHT SALT UP FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR

AND ALL YOUR THRASHED COASTS GROAN

anne carson, antigonick

panting like a dog at the edge of your bed is a tian guan ci fu fanfiction written by ao3 user bloodletter. it follows he xuan, a side character in the original work, for sixty thousand odd words and over two hundred years. it is very good. it has some hefty cws, though, check them out. but on the whole it’s a funny and pleasant fic. 

you can read this without having read the fic yet. consider it an advertisement with mild spoilers.

let’s begin with a short story about graves: two brothers fight each other for the throne. one is buried a hero; one rots a rebel. their sister decides that the latter ought to be buried as well anyway, against the king’s edict. she is entombed alive as punishment. 

some other things happen too, but they’re not important. i tell you this story, the story of antigone, not because or maybe not simply because she is oedipus’ daughter and she therefore might be as psychically central as her father, but because panting is also a story about duty, remains, and being entombed alive. and it seems to ask the question, in its own way, what might happen to antigone if she hadn’t killed herself, but encased in her tomb, festered, rotted, into a shape beyond a girl, beyond a human? 

when we release antigone from her tomb, what do we see? 

we turn, actually, to zizek here briefly. he makes the salient point that being “not dead” and “undead” are two totally separate things. as he phrases it: 

the ‘undead’ are neither alive nor dead, they are precisely the monstrous ‘living dead.’ and the same goes for ‘inhuman’: ‘he is not human’ is not the same as ‘he is inhuman’... [the inhuman is] marked by a terrifying excess which, although it negates what we understand as ‘humanity,’ is inherent to being-human.

so rather than being inhuman, we might call a ghost extrahuman. they have a surplus of humanity, overfilling overflowing from them. the ghost is simply too alive to categorize. at the heart of being human, is something very very strange.

now i am going to give you a long quote. and it is not because i am lazy but because it is just that good. and i’m a little lazy. so here’s avery gordon: 

if haunting describes how that which appears to be not there is often a seething presence, acting on and often meddling with taken-for-granted realities, the ghost is just the sign, or the empirical evidence if you like, that tells you a haunting is taking place. the ghost is not simply a dead or a missing person, but a social figure, and investigating it can lead to that dense site where history and subjectivity make social life. the ghost or the apparition is one form by which something lost, or barely visible, or seemingly not there to our supposedly well-trained eyes, makes itself known or apparent to us, in its own way, of course. the way of the ghost is haunting, and haunting is a very particular way of knowing what has happened or is happening.

ghosts, then, have an epistemology all their own. they are a way of seeing what is not there, an absence. antigone is not alive. what might she say anyway? what might she want? 

we know, from freud, that ghosts are a projection of our ill will against the dead. we wanted them dead, on some level, and so they reproach us in their un-death. this is why so many ghosts have grievances; we have grievances against them in turn. 

it is perversely surprising, therefore, that he xuan might become a ghost. shi wudu has no grievance with he xuan; he sees only necessity. but panting brings he xuan to life by shi wudu’s hand. 

The man’s hand hovers in the air, and though cast in shadow, it sees uncertainty play out on his face. The companion calls from the doorway, “Oi, Shui-xiong, are we done here?” The first man gazes at the urn for a moment longer, and then turns away. Nods curtly. “We’re done.”

this is the name that animates he xuan; it is shi wudu’s ambivalent last visit, in my view, that catalyzes the whole thing. his fear that it is, in fact, not done, that sets in motion the events that bring about his demise. 

i’m going to tell you a ghost story. 水鬼 are a type of ghost. they live in rivers and streams and they are the remnants of people who died by drowning. be careful on the water: if they pull a living person in, they can finally be reincarnated. isn’t that beautiful? revenge brings you peace. i’m sure it’s that simple. 

these are the kinds of ghosts he xuan eats: “No one had to teach him how to do it. When the first time came, an instinctual part of him knew how to proceed.” but the more he eats and he eats the more he turns into a constellation of hunger. 

A hairline fracture within him widens, opening up that black chasm where the things he swallows are made room for. It spreads out to the border of him, turning him inside-out, until nothing remains except that lustful emptiness. Perhaps nothing more than that nothingness ever existed; in those feverish moments, his humanity feels like nothing so much as a wistful dream of better days that never were.

is it cannibalism for he xuan to eat a shuigui? a human? another god? or is it simply doing as was done unto him? 

lu xun writes in diary of a madman: 

the eater of human flesh is my elder brother! i am the younger brother of an eater of human flesh! i myself will be eaten by others, but none the less i am the younger brother of an eater of human flesh!

but so too did he write: 

wanting to eat men, at the same time afraid of being eaten themselves, they all look at each other with the deepest suspicion. . . . how comfortable life would be for them if they could rid themselves of such obsessions and go to work, walk, eat and sleep at ease. they have only this one step to take. yet fathers and sons, husbands and wives, brothers, friends, teachers and students, sworn enemies and even strangers, have all joined in this conspiracy, discouraging and preventing each other from taking this step.

lu xun is, of course, critiquing tradition—the “madman” sees cannibalism all around him, even in the classics he was taught. the cannibal has this in common with the ghost — they are the allegedly primitive ways of knowing that outlived the logics of capitalist modernity. the law, the state, the family, all of it bursting with this repressed violence. freud writes: “From the idea of ‘homelike,’ ‘belonging to the house,’ the further idea is developed of something withdrawn from the eyes of strangers, something concealed, secret.”

marx was no stranger to ghosts. he was of course intimate with the specter of communism, but even more than that, he writes: “the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” the bodies we have eaten return to us. and derrida contended with this problem, describing the ways in which, quoting hamlet, “the time is out of joint,” or rather, history is disordered. the past is made present, ghosts caught forever in-between by injustices and disruptions, necessitating a new way to describe something that is and is not actually present. fredric jameson describes hauntology as derrida’s “mocking” answer to the question of if “tangible certainty and solidity corresponds to ontology... how to describe what literally undermines it and shakes our belief?”

whatever. big shock. what IF law and order were violent. i think they made a show about that. i am trying to move here, from the individual undead to the collective undead. what if it is not merely us that are undead in the world of unliving, but the world which has in fact already ended? 

before he xuan dies, (in this fic) he xuan is raped. i want to read this eschatologically: 

He’s not sure he’s ever been less of a person than this; despite all of the indignity and toil that came before, he was at least always working towards something. Like a feral dog, his purpose has become bare survival. He needs to survive long enough to serve the end of his time, and then someone will pay. 

okay before i go any further i want to give into my semi-medicated anxiety disorder. in fear of misreadings: i am not saying that any of this applies to all survivors of rape. i am making a claim about how he xuan sees and conducts himself, as a malevolent undead avatar of revenge. 

anyway: panting is a story about living past the end of the world. it follows an undead protagonist living past the end of her normal life, her life, her world, and who indeed lives beyond the limits of the original story, veering even into epilogue. this sexual violence heralds the apocalypse, and razes what-has-been to the ground. let us consider he xuan’s initial new form as a ghost: “It can’t touch anything, but neither can it be touched. It is, and it is not.” 

rape and death are a de-gendering process for he xuan. what is left afterward is the idea that mourning can be constitutive of gender. 

he xuan clings to masculinity as obligation: “It wasn’t enough for my parents to die on my behalf? I should do away with their son, too?” but bloodletter also makes new possibilities explicit as well. 

He Xuan’s true body is a weathered vessel for the memory of people he is still trying to do right by, in his way. As much as it might presently seem otherwise. He must fashion new flesh for the shameful pleasures of the dark.

and those new feminine bodies? 

The body itself is an assemblage of women she has seen and been. The form that He Xuan took on with Hua Cheng is too ghastly for polite company, so as Ming Yi she concedes to look more like a goddess.

it is not so simple as masculinity = death and femininity = possibility, by the way. it’s more complicated than that. NOT to personally equate femininity with reproductive capacity, but it’s worth talking about how ming yi’s implicit equivocation of the two through her new undead capabilities has a gender kaleidoscopic effect. 

after all, the earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb; what is her burying grave, that is her womb. or whatever. it’s a truism at this point. is it feminine to be dead? anyway, he xuan echoes that shakespeare line: 

He Xuan has been inside mines before, in her role as the false Earth Master, and she always dislikes them, despite the comforting quality of their thick darkness. The bottom of the sea is just as black, but while underwater, He Xuan may move in endless directions. Here, she is pressed in on on all sides, and can’t help but think of the true Ming Yi, imprisoned in Ghost City.

womb and tomb, indeed. he xuan builds herself a womb/tomb to return to: 

He Xuan thinks of the manor, encompassing them on all sides. Still, solemn, cavernous. A place where the living have never trod, and any who might come to enter its depths are hers to claim.

central to the fic is the idea of circlusion, or the antonym of penetration. to encompass, to surround, to squeeze, to engulf, to circlude. my god the fisting scene. or consider this quote: 

For her own part, He Xuan dreams of Shi Qingxuan, devoured. If Shi Qingxuan were another dead thing, like herself, the temptation would be too great to resist, and then at least He Xuan could contain her: suspended in eternal digestion and assimilated into the slipstream of selves that He Xuan may drag her fingers through as she pleases, and which never disturb her otherwise.

anyway, this succession of wombs/tombs provides new form for he xuan’s gender and indeed catharsis: 

The thought that a man could look at her and want to shove something in her cunt makes her want to laugh: go ahead, go and try it; plumb those depths, where only death awaits you.

consider the cunt that gives death, not life, but is itself life. anyway. look, to sum all this up, the point i am trying to make is that grief is something that can be so trans to me. she is standing in the wreckage of her old life. and you don’t move on, you move around the shape of the loss, until you are warped and whole containing the seed/husk of yourself. 

remember poor antigone? what if instead of being buried, she was reborn? what if she ate and she ate her way free, until she was no longer human, but more than human, and the world ended around her, but she kept unliving until there was nothing left but GORGEOUS T4T SEX?????? and also there was a really good huaxuan fwb subplot that i didn’t even talk about because i got caught up in the fever of he xuan dramatics??? that’s what panting like a dog at the edge of your bed is about. in my opinion. you should read it. 

[sarafangirlart]

Did Kaos even explain why the three humans “destined to destroy Zeus/the Gods” are specifically Eurydice, Caeneus and Ariadne? Because if they really wanted a “we hate the gods” story shouldn’t the chosen three be. severely wronged or abandoned by the gods / the fates?

Like Oedipus? Lamia? Cassandra? Daphne? Arachne? Callisto? Hell I’d even watch a smackdown of Clytemnestra vs Artemis or Menelaus and Helen vs Aphrodite any time then watch a whole other boring show following the same bad story tropes.

They don’t really explain it no, but I was so eager for it to be over I likely missed it, this show seems surprising hesitant to show the more gruesome side of mythology, if they adapted the story that Caeneus was raped by Poseidon and they show how angry and miserable he is about it I would’ve totally been on board, tho someone mentioned that considering the current social environment is especially hostile towards trans ppl nowadays, having someone transition after assault could be bad “pr” so to speak, tho I don’t think we should bend a knee to transphobes/terfs and make representation that’s more palatable and presentable, human experience is messy and we shouldn’t shy away from that in an attempt to make bigots less hostile towards minorities bc they will always be hostile.

If they show Eurydice being angry about Aristaeus not facing any consequences for trying to assault her I’d understand that too mythology Eurydice has zero beef with Hera, but she could feel resentment towards Aristaeus and by extension Apollo (since he’d likely defend his son), gods rarely face consequences for assaulting mortals, Euripides’s Ion tackles that subject way better than all of these “Gods bad” modern retelling (tho I wish Creusa didn’t forgive Apollo bc that mf didn’t even have the balls to show his face).

Instead of Ariadne, who usually gets a happy ending and becomes a goddess herself, how about going with Apemosyne? Another Cretan princess. Her story is extremely depressing, she’s screwed over by a god and her own family, considering that half the show takes place in the underworld she’d fit right in. Considering she’ll be “coworkers” with Hermes it would especially suck for her. But considering that Dionysus is made to be one of the “good ones” even tho in mythology he brainwashed women into slaughtering their families, they’d probably portray Hermes as such too, since he’s usually simply the comic relief in adaptations anyway.

That’s another thing, they water down the gods who are supposed to be good guys and make the “bad guy” worse, in this version Hades never kidnapped Persephone that’s just propaganda in universe. The Fates and Furies are goddesses but in this show they’re against the gods bc of that meander water thing? Don’t they drink it too?

I think they realized that their hesitancy means that they won’t be showing us bad things the gods actually did and so they make up random bullshit like Hera owning tongueless priestesses and Zeus killing a kitten. Cassandra is in the show but she’s more of an exposition machine tho it’s hinted she’ll play a bigger role in season 2, but why couldn’t she be one of the three humans destined to destroy Zeus? Why aren’t any of the Trojans destined to destroy Zeus? Why do they have to be saved by Greeks? Sure Zeus in mythology had a soft spot for them but he still planned the destruction of their city (could be a decent metaphor for an abuser who says that they love their victim while still abusing them imo) but Kaos Zeus doesn’t have that goodwill towards the Trojans so why not have them rightfully take him down? In the final episode Andromache and Ariadne team up and agree to fight against Olympus, tho that reminds me of Acrisius in the Clash of the Titans remake being more of a dumb dumb than he is in the myths and started a war against Mount Olympus only to unsurprisingly fail.

I really dislike how the Trojans are portrayed in the show, clearly they are supposed to be allegory for modern middle eastern refugees in Europe yet all the main Trojan characters are played by white actors. They have such a racially diverse cast but they seem uninterested in actually representing the diversity of the Mediterranean and mythology as a whole.

[mhsdatgo]

do you like Aemond ?

Henlo anon <3

Depends which Aemond we're talking about 😭😭😭 Book!Aemond had me clutching my pearls like how can someone be so infuriatingly bad at the job he was nearly at his bro's throat for is so over me like I wanted to curbstomp him so bad. No you don't get it I was tweaking every time that bitch boy's name popped up.

Show!Aemond?? Much better. He's interesting and intriguing, there is so much to his character that despite being left unexplored can be filled in if you're creative enough. His dynamic with every character is worth analysing, he steals the spot in almost every scene he's in (if this was the showrunners' goal then I'd say they succeeded) he's one of the characters I'm the least disappointed in.

I DO feel like he's about to fall into the unnecessary shock value hole like many characters before him and it feels like a slap to the face to be honest 😭 I've got quite mixed feelings about shock value as a whole like there are some instances where I praise it but you'll never see me doing so with shock value in HOTD specifically. It is all linked to sexual traumas somehow and either don't make sense or look more like rage (and problematic fans) bait than shock value.

For example since we're talking about Aemond, we could talk about how he seems to have developed this morbid Oedipus complex (a child's unconscious attraction towards the mother) towards Alicent. Literally the only thing that's missing is the hostility towards the father who is cold in his grave by this point and he's not even worth bringing up. It (supposedly) manifests through Aemond's feeling of entitlement to Alicent's forgiveness, which he doesn't get and thus takes to calling her BY NAME and a fool. Apparently guilt is something Aemond feels only when he's sure Alicent is willing to forgive him, love him and cherish him no matter what he's done. This is a version of Aemond that is so out of touch with reality that he cannot for the life of him comprehend when he's gone too far. (or better, HE DOES, he's absolutely sure the answer to his "I messed up" will always be "I forgive you and I'll move on". When that doesn't happen and Alicent is indeed chilly because he indeed went too far, his guilt turns to bitterness.)

Do we even know what brought him to develop such a mentality?? Is it because, in his eyes, Alicent has always been the one to defend him from whoever? Because we as viewers know for a fact that is NOT TRUE. Like I'm sorry I'm saying this as an Alicent lover but I heard her say the following phrase with my own ears:

"You may cuff him about as you wish at home, but in the world, we must defend our own."

There are A LOT of implications here. The main one being that image is the most important thing to her and should something like Aegon becoming the ringleader of a pack that is SET on treating Aemond like shit come out, it would soil the family's image. Doesn't mean this cannot continue as long as it isn't known. One could argue that it's not like Alicent could know how much of a toll the bullying was taking on Aemond but the way the whole instance of him going to his mother was treated tells me it wasn't the first time, and that therefore, she pretty much knew.

Moreover, that's her child covered in dirt and ash crying about how he was humiliated before the whole Dragonpit, there are no subtleties, there is no way to be mistaken. But that's beyond the point.

What kind of sick fuck came up with this jealousy? Entitlement? How to call it? That Aemond feels towards Alicent and what good/efficient does it do to either of their characters. That's the question, and the answer is NONE THAT'S RIGHT. Doesn't make sense, and was added in because they just wanted more sick fuckery in the show. (because Dyana's rape and future arc isn't enough)

Moving on to the other greatest problem I have with Aemond's characterization: THE INFAMOUS BROTHEL SCENE. COMING UP ON YOUR SCREENS IN A FEW HOURS. ASKERS: NONE.

OOOOUFFFHHHHHHH I've got so many problems with this scene. First of all, what kind of coping mechanism is that? I'm fully convinced this scene is made for nothing else other than fanservice because the implications are nasty. He likes older women, that's fine, valid, relatable and all, but WHY make it the consequence of yet another sexual trauma?

If the streets are right the woman that is cradling him as he lies in her lap naked is the brothel madam that is seen in ep. 8 "The Green Council" (Michelle Bonnard)

Which may or may not be woman he was brought to by his brother at the age 13 to be sexually assaulted by. Look, having Aegon bring his 13 year old brother to engage in sex he's clearly not an enthusiastic party in was already a bad choice, it felt like another bad quality given to Aegon the showrunners didn't know what to do with. But their ADAMANCE on making some kind of subplot out of this because you added it, why the fuck would you forget it? Feels so forced and makes me feel the topic should've stayed that way, unexplored.

Now his relationship with Alys is going to feel like a trauma response too! And that's if they don't go with the "Alys bewitched Aemond and brought him to his death" storyline. (Honestly would be better at this point)

When Aemond and Madam first meet on screen (supposedly for the first time since that nightmare of a birthday) Aemond is clearly CLEARLY uneasy. So fucking uneasy. And it's in the script too:

[creds: @darksvster]

It's something neither her or him have forgotten, and clearly a weak point for Aemond (understandably so.) Yet apparently, in season 2, we'll see him in the arms of the same woman AGAIN! CUDDLED UP LIKE A BABY EVEN!!!

I'm projectile vomiting so hard the recoil throws me out the window and rolling on the road below. There are problems here. A LOT of problems. Who decided it would be good? WHO?

So basically yep. Aemond's characterization appeared solid up until this new season, it seems. There's much more to cover up and I'm ready to RANT about everything I will be seeing on screen but things are looking grim. I just hope I won't have to watch Aemond come back to the woman that traumatized him for more than five minutes at best.

Thanks for the ask anon <3

[dame-zoom-a-lot]

RIP Beemer

for @steddiesmuttyseptember week 2 Prompts: Soft and slow, Backseat, Bruise, Clothes on tags: Car Sex, Desecration of Steve's beloved Beemer, Lube, Sweat, Someone vomiting in the background, Monsterfucker Steve Harrington, Monster Eddie Munson, Top Steve Harrington, Blow Jobs, Small Time Musician Eddie Munson, Insecure Eddie Munson, General Human Nastiness, POV Eddie Munson

beta: @stervrucht wordcount: 4k rated E Ao3

“Ripping, tearing, clubbing the world apart—” Eddie steps back from the mic to hand the song back to the crowd.

“Until there’s only us!” The crowd screams back. Eddie shivers and wonders what it would be like if the crowd were bigger, louder, enough for this to be his full-time job. It’d be bliss, he decides, as long as Steve is along for the ride. Eddie finds Steve in the crowd, hopping along, looking biteably awkward in the metal getup Robin bullied him into. Steve rolls his eyes at the “given back wrong” line, so Eddie makes the crowd sing it again, just to fuck with him.

The crowd thinks they’re singing about the myth of Oedipus—one that ends with Oedipus deciding he’s done playing nice. One where he goes back to get Eurydice back by force . Only five people in the crowd know it’s actually about how Steve found Eddie, half-crazed by himself in the Upside-Down. How he waited because Eddie insisted on guarding the portals to hell, coaxed Eddie back into the rhythm of the world of the living after they closed the portals, and convinced him that he’d be able to walk free. That people have better things to worry about than why the formerly suspected murderer is covered in fur and scales now with fingers ending in deadly talons.

Turns out Steve was right. People really don’t look that hard—especially when Eddie’s on-stage with his talons hidden under layers of bandages and silicon so he doesn’t keep cutting his guitar strings. It helps that his fur is skin colored.

The whole band is a disgusting, sweaty mess when he hops off the stage and makes his way to Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, and Chrissy. Their friends crowd in close for tight hugs and slaps on the back anyway.

“You guys were awesome!” Robin screams, thumping Gareth on the back so hard he nearly topples into Goodie. Jeff gives her a high five.

“Thanks for coming all the way out here,” Jeff says, laughing as he narrowly misses Robin’s hand when she lowers it too quickly. “Hope the drive wasn’t too long?” Jeff asks Chrissy.

“Jeff, you know I’d move to Indy if I could,” Chrissy says, tossing her hair. “The drive was fine . I’m so glad I got to hear you guys play.”

Robin blubbers something in agreement and throws herself at Eddie, sniffling. “I’m so happy you can do this again,” she wails.

Chrissy looks on fondly.

“Jesus Buckley, how much did you have to drink?” Eddie teases as he holds her steady.

“Sorry, I made her some punch to pre-game.” Nancy doesn’t sound sorry at all . She’s standing upright. The only sign that she might be even a little bit drunk is the slight flush on her face. Behind him, Eddie can hear Jonathan gushing to Goodie about the bass riff. Is there a physical limit for joy? Eddie’s about to hit it.

Jonathan, unknowingly, saves Eddie from dying from OD-ing on happiness by forcing the group back closer to the stage. Apparently the next group is some alternative schlop he actually likes. And they’re definitely not bad . They’re honestly pretty good—prime head-bang material. Jonathan knows his shit. And Eddie knows it’s only polite to stick around and support his fellow artists.

But Steve is right here . He’s even trying and failing miserably at the whole headbanging thing. Eddie already has a competence kink thanks to Steve. It looks like the man is going to give him an in competence kink tonight. Maybe he just has a Steve kink and the varying degrees of competence is a red herring.

Steve notices him staring and grins sheepishly. Right . Eddie’s given this band and general politeness his best shot, but he’s only mortal (probably).

“I’m going for a smoke!” Eddie yells to his friends. He ignores Robin’s screeching about the dangers or whatever. He grabs Steve and leads the both of them away, out of the club, into the cool breeze outside.

Outside smells like vomit and too much body spray. Eddie manages to find the least vomit-y spot by a tower of booze-soaked cardboard boxes.

“She’s going to scream bloody murder about second-hand smoke every time I talk to her for at least a week,” Steve says with a fake pout.

“Well, you could tell her we didn’t smoke.”

“Oh, weren’t we smoking? Because that’s what I’m doing.”

“That’s a nat one on that deception check Harrington. You don’t even have a pack.”

“I could steal yours.”

Eddie dramatically empties out his pockets to show he has nothing for Steve to steal before pushing him against the wall of the venue. Their lips meet. Steve melts into the wall, both hands thrown over his head, nudging Eddie to pin him down properly.

Unfortunately, Eddie’s heightened sense of smell gets in the way. Some asshole is puking their guts out on the other side of the building. “Wait, wait, sorry. Time out. I can’t do this here,” Eddie says, pulling off of Steve.

“That’s alright,” Steve says sweetly. Eddie wants to scream. “Want to go back? Jonathan’s going to expect a review from you.”

“Ugh, I can’t listen to anything right now, let alone wax poetics or rant manifestos about it,” Eddie mutters. He remembers something. “You drove here.” He tells Steve.

“I… did drive here. Yes.”

“And there’s a back alley about… ten minutes away that can fit a car.”

“Why do you know this?”

“Sold a guy some coke when we came here to check out the setup.” Eddie ignores the worried frown on Steve’s face. The frown turns into an excited ‘o’ when Steve finally realizes what Eddie’s getting at. Steve nearly sprints towards his car, dragging Eddie along. Eddie jumps into the backseat. It takes Steve three tries to get the key in the ignition.

“You need me to drive this time Big Boy?” Eddie teases, spreading his legs open wide because Steve glares at him through the back mirror.

“Shut up. This is your fault.”

Miraculously, Steve manages to get the car started and into the quiet alley Eddie had found. Steve scrambles over the console to get to Eddie in the backseat as soon as the beemer stops moving.

“Ow!” Steve yelps as he bashes his ankle on something. He collapses into Eddie in a messy, awkward heap.

“Sweetheart, are you alright?” Eddie chokes out between laughter. “You know you could have just… gotten out of the car and come around to the back right?”

Steve pauses. “Asshole,” he mutters, burrowing into Eddie’s chest.

“That’s gonna leave a bruise at least . You want me to take a look?” Eddie asks, extricating his hand to gently rub Steve’s ass.

“You don’t need an excuse to get my pants off Eddie,” Steve says, as he paws at Eddie’s sweaty shirt.

Eddie snorts. Then he grabs Steve. Steve gasps when Eddie grips his left shoulder and right hip to twist him under Eddie, pinning him, driving him into the leather. Eddie’s still wearing the layers of bandages and silicon over his talons. He won’t be able to feel Steve’s skin under his hands, which is a bummer. The feeling of all of Steve’s little hairs rubbing up and into Eddie’s soft palm is to die for (literally). But the protective layer means that there’s no chance Eddie might accidentally cut into his boyfriend. He can be rough in a bruising sort of way tonight. Steve whimpers, his cheeks pink. Eddie runs a bandaged finger over them. Steve leans into it.

Eddie straddles Steve. He’s about an inch or two away from banging his head on the car roof. Steve’s head is too close to the door for Eddie’s liking. Steve’s already had three concussions hasn’t he? And he really shouldn’t get anymore…

But Steve doesn’t seem to share Eddie’s safety concerns. He impatiently tugs Eddie’s zipper down and grips the waistband of his jeans. “Why are your jeans so tight ?” Steve mutters, “don’t just stare ! Help me get this off !”

“Aww, I’m sorry my liege. Heavy is the legs that wears the trousers.” Eddie quips. He doesn’t even know what he means but Steve seems to like it when Eddie babbles nonsense. He backs away a little to grind hard against Steve’s crotch. Steve moans and arches his back, nearly beaning himself on the door. Eddie hurries to take his jeans off.

Fuck morning Eddie. Steve is right . Why are his jeans so tight? Why did he think that the two of them would keep it in their pants the whole night? Have you met Steve?!

Steve, the cute, annoying bastard, leans back with an arm over his head. He smirks, eyes going up and down, all overEddie as Eddie struggles to free himself from his tight jeans. But the fabric is clamping onto his sweat-soaked fur and refusing to let go. Eddie stands a bit to wiggle his jeans down his thighs. The fabric finally gives. “Ha—ow!” His crow of victory turns into a yelp as he bangs his head on the roof. Steve puts a hand over his mouth and shudders, face turning bright red as he struggles not to laugh.

“Let it out babe. Don’t want you to suffocate, at least not that way.” Eddie leans down to finally kiss Steve. Steve surges into it. They make out messily. Steve keeps kind of huffing into the kiss, giggling into his mouth. This moment feels like it should be a song, or songs. The euphoria of how close they’re forced to be in the tiny backseat. Joy so deep and uncontainable that it keeps leaking out of their mouth into the other, like some fucked up CPR.

Eddie snakes an arm down under Steve to pull him up, then carefully guides Steve to sit on his bare thighs. Steve’s hands sneak in under Eddie’s shirt to roam all over his torso. He’s probably stretching the fuck out of the fabric. Which is, objectively, the correct thing to do. Steve should ruin all his clothes. Eddie makes a valiant effort to return the favor on Steve’s one black t-shirt Robin bullied him into. But it’s made of some super-resilient rich people material. Damn. It’s probably dry-clean only too.

Steve pulls off of Eddie’s mouth and takes a deep breath. He grips Eddie’s face and grinds down hard on Eddie’s bare cock. Steve is still fully clothed. The friction is so deliciously painful that Eddie moans loud enough for the sound to echo around the car. “I want to suck you off,” Steve declares, grinding down into Eddie’s cock, more gently this time.

“ Please ,” Eddie pleads.

Steve shimmies down into the footwell, contorting himself to fit. Eddie used to think that car sex is hugely overrated. Sure, he could see the appeal of the fantasy . Being so hot for each other that you can’t even take the time to find a nice proper bed where you can comfortably take each other apart in nice soft sheets? Sure. Objectively hot.

But Eddie gets it now. The vision of Steve squished into the footwell with so little space that he physically can’t do much more than move his arm and head to suck Eddie off? Priceless . They’ve got to do this again. Maybe as some rogue sex-avenger type that breaks into assholes’ cars. Parked across three spots? Didn’t use your turn signal? Honked at one of their kids for taking the time to look before making a left turn? Hope you like wiping lube and cum off your car seats jackass!

Steve knocks Eddie’s legs apart and tugs him closer by the hip to take his cock in his mouth. Eddie has to clench his thighs hard to prevent himself from cumming at just the manhandling. Steve starts bobbing his head up and down for real, gripping Eddie’s thighs hard enough to leave bruises, and Eddie stops fantasizing about car sex crimes, stops thinking about making sure Steve doesn’t get another concussion (sorry Steve). There’s only the perfect tightness of Steve’s throat as Steve takes him all the way down, the swish of a gentle tongue as it sloppily licks that perfect spot under the head, and the gentle thrum of Steve moaning directly onto the vibration-sensitive scales that grow along the side of Eddie’s dick. Eddie bites into his hand to muffle his sounds. Wouldn’t want to trigger Steve’s migraines or attract curious bible-thumpers.

Too soon, he feels his balls tighten as he’s about to cum. Eddie tries to wiggle out. Steve clutches Eddie’s hips down hard, keeping him pinned. “Sweetheart,” Eddie gasps. “I’m close. Need to pull out or—”

Steve shakes his head and sucks harder , more desperately.

“But, ah,” Eddie can’t stop himself from thrusting up, deeper into Steve’s throat. Steve squeaks and huffs but takes it like a champ, “you said...it’s… squishy…”

Steve shoves some fingers into Eddie’s mouth while still sucking his soul out of his dick. Eddie cums at the weight of Steve’s finger on his tongue, a little salty from a mix of their sweat. Steve milks him just to be a dick until Eddie is whining and writhing in the tiny bit of room he has. Steve finally sets him free with one last extra strong parting suck.

“Dude.” Steve clears his throat. “I said the squishy stuff in your cum was good ! I like the texture!”

Eddie half giggles, half gasps, and attempts to clean off his ass sweat off Steve’s precious beemer.

“Too many words,” Eddie says, grabbing Steve under the armpits to pull him out of the footwell. It takes some maneuvering, but Eddie manages to position them so he’s laying down with Steve draped over him like the world’s hottest security blanket. Steve lazily grinds his clothed crotch on Eddie’s lower belly.

“Your turn?” Eddie asks while lightly tapping out a beat on Steve’s ass.

“Eds. It’s not a transaction.”

“But my love, my heart, vanimelda . You know I shall perish if I don’t see your cum face at least once a day.”

“I do not know that,” Steve says laughing. He flicks Eddie on the nose. “And you survived yesterday.”

“It’s a new ailment! Caught it just today, I’m afraid.”

Steve giggles and strokes Eddie’s face. “Well… if it’s a matter of life or death.”

“It is !”

“In that case, can I fuck you?” Steve asks shyly.

Eddie’s cock makes a valiant attempt to beat its refractory period. Eddie’s always topped with Steve. This night is a flurry of firsts—first show with more than a dozen or so people, first time Steve manhandled him, first time in a car—and the novelty is really doing it for him. But, the boring, responsible part of him remembers how much Steve loves this car, and how messy penetration can get. Can you even get lube out of leather?

“Babe, I’d love that, but maybe not in the car? It’s going to get messy.” Eddie says regretfully.

Steve rolls his eyes. He reaches into the seat pocket and pulls out a bottle of lube. Eddie stares, wide-eyed, as Steve pours a generous heap of lube on his hand and reaches down his pants. Steve pulls the hand out, dripping with lube and pre-cum, and wipes it on the seat.

“ Fuck the car,” Steve whispers into Eddie’s ear. Steve reaches under Eddie’s shirt to wipe off some more of the… mixture on his lone nipple. This is going to suck later, but it feels so good now, slimy and wet, with the nice friction from his shirt. Eddie moans and bucks his hips as Steve continues to play with his last nipple, nuzzling at his neck. He’ll never understand why Steve doesn’t mind all the fur. But then, Steve is the freakiest freak Eddie’s ever met.

Steve’s mouth goes back to Eddie’s ears. “You have no idea what it was like to watch you on stage. You know how many girls were talking about wanting to be your Eurydice? How good she must get fucked?”

“And you don’t want to disappoint my fans Stevie? Baby? Is that why you want to top tonight? Make sure Eurydice gets fucked real good?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve babbles. “Wanna open her up, real nice and slow with tongue, then add a finger and another until she’s begging for my cock inside. Then I want to bite your thigh and make you beg some more.”

“That all sounds lovely , but you sure you want to lick around the fuzz down there?” Eddie asks, giggling, “and when does the actual dicking me happen?”

“Eventually,” Steve says with a grin. Then he processes what Eddie said and frowns a little. “Wait, you still think I don’t want my tongue on any part of you?"

“I mean…” Eddie trails off. He doesn’t want to lie to Steve. But he will die if they stop having sex to have a serious talk about Eddie’s many, many insecurities instead. Honestly, even if that conversation didn’t happen instead of sex, he’d probably have to leave the country if he’s forced to talk about his potentially hairy asshole with his wet dream of a boyfriend.

Steve grips Eddie’s wrist hard and brings it to his mouth before Eddie can spiral further. Maintaining eye contact, Steve brings his mouth to Eddie’s wrist and licks a long strip up and down. Then he makes a circle, and a heart, keeping his mouth open, tongue out, spit dripping into the fur of his wrist. Eddie is going to die from brain loss actually—he can feel it leaking out of his ears all over Steve’s apparently not-so-precious beemer.

“I don’t lick you that often because you don’t seem to get much out of it,” Steve says with a shrug. He smacks his lip and purses his jaws, probably to get all the fuzz out of his mouth and down his throat. “Is that clear?” He says, with a playfully mean glint in his eyes.

Eddie nods. Steve isn’t wrong. It’s not really possible for Eddie to feel Steve’s tongue on his skin where he has the skin-colored fuzz covering it. But the sight and sound of Steve licking him…

Steve looks down and bats Eddie’s bobbing cock with a smirk. “Looks like you understand.”

Steve gets off of Eddie’s torso and shimmies down to the other side of the car, dragging Eddie’s jeans down with him and bunching it around his ankles. The jeans work as kind of a reverse spreader bar. Eddie can close his legs but he can’t open them any wider than what the pants would allow.

“You think I can make you cum hard enough for you to rip your jeans apart?” Steve asks with a smirk. Then he pushes Eddie’s leg up so his feet hit the roof of the car to leave his ass exposed.

The sudden, warm shock of Steve’s tongue on his rim is so intense that if Steve didn’t have a vice grip on Eddie’s hip, he would have toppled right off the seat. Eddie braces against the ceiling instead, whining. Steve giggles as he continues to tongue around Eddie’s rim, making little patterns, poking his tongue in and out of Eddie’s hole. Eddie’s pretty sure that one of those patterns was Steve’s name. More lube enters his hole. Eddie jolts at the sudden coldness that turns into soft pleasure as a finger joins Steve’s tongue. The lube drips down Eddie’s ass onto the seat and down to his back. Eddie feels the familiar tightening of his balls.

Then Steve pulls his tongue and fingers away, chin dripping in lube. The sudden loss of sensation and warmth hits like a bucket of ice water.

“What? Why?!” Eddie squawks, glaring at Steve through his legs.

“Felt like it. That’s why.” Steve says. Then there’s a hard bite on the back of his thighs. Eddie moans. Eddie hopes it’ll leave a bruise. Maybe he should try shaving that area, in a little heart shape to highlight the mark.

Eddie groans as Steve gets his mouth back on his rim. It’s even sloppier this time. More lube runs down his ass, onto the seat, down the smooth leather onto the back of his shirt, his hair, everywhere . This is going to be impossible to hide. Eddie nearly cums at the thought of getting caught and Steve pulls off again.

“Steve…”

“Yeah my light?”

“Please, please, will you fuck me? Please?” Eddie whispers.

“Oh, I don’t know. Do you still think I don’t want my mouth on you?”

“No, I believe you now,” Eddie babbles, desperate, “you think I’m the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. You found me as this… whatever I am, and the first thought in your pretty head was wishing I could get my talons on your gorgeous pecs. You’d live in me if you could. Cut me up. Chew me into pieces. Put me back together to do it all again. So do that Steve. Now. Please!” Eddie stomps, throwing a little mini tantrum. Except he stomps harder than he’d intended. The car creaks.

Steve laughs hysterically right onto Eddie’s asshole. “Jesus Munson. I get the message.”

“Sorry,” Eddie says, mortified. He’s ready to deliver a whole apology speech to Steve’s beemer. But Steve cuts him off by finally, finally getting his dick in Eddie.

Fuck. He’d missed this.

Not that he hates topping. Topping Steve is perfect. Honestly, Eddie’s pretty sure they could solve the energy crisis if they could figure out how to harness the power of Steve’s tight asshole. Anything that brings that much joy has to have some sort of superpowers. But also, Steve’s dick in him, the fullness of it, rubbing against his prostate on every thrust… that’s also got to have superpowers. Eddie hadn’t bottomed since he turned into whatever he is now, mostly because he was too anxious about hygiene. He scrubs religiously, but it’s fur .

And Steve doesn’t care. Steve thinks he’s perfect. Steve saw him split his head open to swallow dozens of Demobats and wanted to ride him because of that.

Steve has him bent nearly in half. His feet are pushed against the window right above his head. Eddie has to clutch his arms out to the side and brace with his all his strength so they don’t both fall off the seat. Steve is fucking into him hard, still mostly clothed. Eddie can feel the bite of Steve’s zippers around his rim every time Steve slams back inside. The car is fogging up. Steve stiffens. He pauses and closes his eyes, nostrils flaring. He takes a deep breath.

Then he snakes his left arm around Eddie’s legs to grip his dick. Steve goes back to slamming into Eddie, maintaining that perfect edge of nearly too hard, hands working furiously over Eddie’s cock. Eddie cums so hard it nearly shoots up into his mouth. Steve orgasms with a full-body shudder almost at the same time. Eddie can feel the jizz dripping out of his hole. Steve gently guides Eddie’s legs back down.

“Was that good?” Steve asks, panting, gently massaging Eddie’s calves.

“Oh you know, just, mind-blowing, life-changing, so good I think it should create some sort of a life debt, so, the usual,” Eddie replies.

Steve blushes and looks away, still rubbing the blood back into Eddie’s feet.

“For you?” Eddie asks, hoping that Steve won’t notice the hint of anxiety.

“I think…” Steve pauses. “Shit, sorry. I’m not as good as you are with words.”

Eddie would beg to differ, but he’s all begged out for the night.

“I think… we should go on a road trip. That’s how good it was.” Steve finally says.

“Will this poor girl survive that trip?”

“I don’t even know if she’s going to survive this ,” Steve says ruefully. He pats the car seat. “Sorry old girl.”

Eddie shifts a little, starting to feel the discomfort of the various liquids on his body start to dry on his fur, making them clump in weird ways. Steve gently pulls Eddie into his arms. Both of them ignore the feeling of Eddie’s wetness seeping onto Steve’s laps. Steve draws little patterns along his back: hearts, their initials, something that might be a guitar, while humming one of their sex songs into Eddie’s neck. Eddie snuggles deeper into Steve with a contented sigh. He can’t imagine a more perfect end to this night.

[jester-creates]

thinking about that Mechanisms persona 5 au again. The one where it's the mechs cast in p5. So I might as well put who I think should go where.

This is also a college au. I guess. It just fits better

The phantom thieves- the Mechanisms. This is obvious why. They choose the Mechanisms as their phantom thieves group name first, but after a certain someone kept basically saying to everyone that they were the Mechanisms in public, they made the band as a cover and now they have to manufacture beef between themselves as the band and themselves as phantom thieves and that the phantom thieves definitely stole their name.

wildcard- Jonny D'ville. He's the narrator of the Mechanisms and one of the first members of the Mechanisms. He's up there for most roles over all the albums, so wildcard. I'm half tempted to make his persona Prince Charming because one, it would tick him off to no end and two, it the role he as himself played in ouatis.

0 fool - I think Yog Sothoth or one of the elder gods would make the best fit for Yaldy. No idea who Igor would be though

1 magician - the Toy Soldier. It is the least organic of the Mechanisms which is in line with Morgana's origins. I'd say it was given instructions to find the wildcard and eventually found itself in the first Palace pretending to be a Shadow or something. Haven't decided on a persona for it yet though

2 high priestess - Ashes O'Reilly. They have mob connections (though a lot different from how Makoto's went). Ashes would slso manage to become the student president at their college. Their persona would probably be Hades

3 emperor - Raphaella la Cognizi. She and Yusuke are both eccentric weirdos (/pos) in their fields. She has probably neglected herself and her finances in her focus on science as well. Haven't decided on a persona for her yet

4 empress - Nastya Rasputina. A princess and an Heir to a food company are basically the same thing right? (I almost had her be the futaba of the group due to Out, but I figured that being the Haru of the group fit her better. Plus she deserves to be the most terrifying member of the group. And also a big weapon.) Haven't decided on a persona for her yet.

5 Hierophant- Dr. Carmilla (unless I find someone better). She is somewhat of a parental figure? I'm not too sure on this one.

6 the lovers - Gunpowder Tim. His whole thing with bertie parallels Ann's thing with Shiho pretty well.

7 chariot - Baron Marius von Raum. He seems like he would be the most like Ryuji. He does do the talking about the phantom thieves out loud thing which results in them having to make the band as a cover.

8 strength- the Aurora. As the most inhuman of the crew, she gets to be Jonny's attendant in the Velvet Room. They do figure out that something is up with the VR and rescue her much earlier than lavenza gets rescued in p5. (Aurora and Nastya are together in this au still)

9 hermit - Ivy Alexandra. She would definitely be a Navi type.

10 fortune - undecided maybe loki?

11 justice - drumbot Brian. He gets to be akechi due to the whole 2 modes thing, so two personas. To keep in line with his mostly robot thing I am going to make him a anti shadow weapon (think aigis from persona 3)

12 Hanged man- the pendragon trio (or at least arthur). the thing with mordred could be a good parallel between iwai and his kid

13 death- Oedipus. tae and oedipus are both doctors who do kinda have a similar storyline. plus the image of oedipus in tae's outfit kills me

14 temperance - undecided. maybe cinders?

15 devil - Ulysses. Ohya and them have a very similar starting point when we meet them. And Ulysses is a gumshoe (a detective) so that would take the place of ohya's investigative journalism.

16 Tower - undecided. Maybe Heracles?

17 star - undecided. Maybe rose red? Maybe Guinevere?

18 moon - undecided. Maybe pilchard? (Though he'd do better as a Palace ruler or the Shadow that leads them to the second palace)

19 sun - snow white. She and Yoshida both are politicians campaigning for peace and better stuff.

20 judgement- Lyfrassir Edda. They and Sae are both long-suffering people in kaw enforcement who have to deal with the Mechanisms/phantom thieves and all their shenanigans.

[daydreamycrustacean]

you cant just threaten me with narrative parallels to big boss and not deliver. i need this

AHEHEHEE....( •̀ ω •́ )✧ Ive spent all noon going insane over char and ive listened 3 times to beyond the time, so you chose the perfect time for this.... Okay. so basically,

meme comic aside, here's a more structured and elaborated version of these points, taken from something that I wrote in my notes app at 2 am, plus some other points. Sorry if this doesn't make sense. Im not good at putting my thoughts into words.

----------------------

-they are both soldiers who end up being idolized and turned into a symbol. this idolization makes people want them to be in a position of leadership.

-being better known for their nom de guerre, "the red comet/char aznable" (which also counts as this, since it's a fake name tied to his identity in the one-year war) and "big boss", adds to this idealization, and with it also comes depersonalization, as their identity becomes just an image of a war hero that exists in peoples heads. a legend, rather than a real person.

-the artificiality of this legend is brought home in the way that it is taken, replicated, and put into other people, showing that anyone can be "the red comet" or "big boss". that's right baby. clones! Be it The Patriots making supersoldier clones of big boss for war purposes or Sunrise making Char after Char for anime purposes. But Char does also have actual in-universe clones???

-And also phantoms... the much clearer example of the artificiality of these legends/identities. I don't know anything abt Gundam Unicorn and so the only things I know abt Full Frontal are from the wiki. but he's just Venom Snake. Hey, what if we took this random guy and altered his appearance and mind to be the red comet/big boss?

-Okay its time to talk about The Boss and Zeon Deikun. Their deaths turn them both into symbols that represent the ideals that they preached. Ideals that everyone else takes and misinterprets for their own purposes. Their deaths also kickstart Big Boss and Char´s...everything. In a way, both Big Boss and Char dedicate their lives fighting for the ideals that their mother/father represented. Are they any good at this? Or are they yet another person taking these ideals and twisting them beyond recognition? Let´s say that´s up for debate.

-"So both Char and Big Boss ended up being idolized just like The Boss and Zeon Deikun? Even though it's something that they did not want and tried to avoid?" YES! Unavoidable fate. Repeating mistakes of the past...Sins of the Father... one of the key themes of Metal Gear. THE theme of metal gear. Big Boss more consciously tried to avoid the fate of The Boss by leaving the US military and hated being seen as a hero/called Big Boss because of The Boss. Char never outright states that the reason he does not want leadership is because he does not want to suffer his father´s fate...but his choice of accepting leadership is tied into his father´s fate nonetheless, with "Maybe human sacrifices run in your family" and Char casting himself as that human sacrifice in Char´s Counterattack. Is the reason as to why thinking about Char makes me so insane because his narrative of not being able to escape his father´s shadow taps into one of Metal Gears main themes? who knows...

-I said that Char´s "The Boss" figure is Zeon Deikun...but I think Lalah is the emotional aspect of this. She is the more clear Mother Figure whose death scars and haunts Char the way The Boss haunts Big Boss. Yes, Char also lost his real mom when young but shes not as important as Lalah.

-They just miss their mom bro :(

-cue millions of jokes about Oedipus complexes (more prevalent in the gundam fandom. for some reason.)...not gonna comment on this but they are there. and I can't ignore it if I'm talking abt comparisons between them.

-Okay, mothers/fathers talk aside. Their relationship to war and conflict. Not much else to say that I didn't say in the image. Its all they know and and all they think themselves capable of. Though thinking about their similarities on this did remind me of something that Beltorchika said in Zeta about Char, about how she thinks he's someone who is incapable of living without war and how definitely similar things are directly said about big boss in metal gear. there's more to this and about whether this is true and why...but my eyes are starting to hurt. I need to finish this.

-Lets go back to leadership. despite the fact that they both do not initially want this position of power, they do eventually give into it to help soldiers/Spacenoids respectively. Big Boss wants soldiers to not be used by governments like he was used (but he does end up using them nonetheless. oops) and Char wants Spacenoid independence from the Federation, although Char´s motivations in cca are more complex than just this, I do believe part of him does genuinely see helping spacenoids as his "duty" and something he needs to sacrifice himself for.Okay that was my last big point. finally this is done. more stuff:

-the_man_who_sold_the_world.mp3

-I don't know. all war criminals know these days is be bisexual and lie. <- all there is to say abt their heavy homoerotic subtext. which yes they also both individually have. although big boss´ is stronger bc he's in metal gear. I also can't ignore it. It's still a character aspect.

-forgot abt Quess...use of child soldiers ig. awesome.

[fizzigigsimmer]

I also don't think Gator will die. He got his punishment this episode and it was brutal, but also pretty symbolic. It's a nice punishment, thematically speaking, you can tell a thought was put into it and the performances of both Joe and Jon just added to the absolute devastation that was the scene of Munch of bringing Gator to Roy.

If they wanted to kill I think this episode would've been a good time, but they still kept him in a story for a reason and in the promo for the next episode we see him wandering the tunnels. So, he's still alive for some purpose for sure.

The obvious purpose is either between Roy or Dot. My big hope is that he will have another scene with Dot and there's also a possibility he will "blindly" kill his father (like Oedipus) or spill information that would lead to his death, but the reason he's still in the story is definitely because one of those two characters or both.

I wanted to ask you if he truly does not end up being killed at all, what kind of ending do you imagine for him? I feel like Dot finding him and deciding to take him home with her is a bit far fetched, mostly because I'm still convinced writers want his story to end in tragedy.

He’s definitely alive for some purpose, and my fingers are crossed that he’ll survive till the end. If I could imagine any ending for him honestly it would be for him to do what Dot was hoping Linda and Karen would do. He would get Roy to do the one thing he always said he’d never do, and that would hurt the most to have to live with, surrendering. So Roy would surrender to his “weakling” son and the “inferior” woman he couldn’t break, and then they’d testify against him about all of his past crimes. That’s my perfect world scenario. I think it’s far more likely that Roy is going to die and if Gator doesn’t die with him he’s going to end up going to prison, likely getting time reduced for bearing witness to the FBI about all the illegal things his father and his network did. But I’d like to think that regardless Dot will be there for him helping him in the aftermath.

I don’t think that’s far fetched because we’ve seen consistently how she cares for him. She won’t let that get in the way of her survival and doing what she needs to do to protect herself and her family obviously (nor should she) but Dot sees Gator in his entirety. Both the dangerous and destructive man he became in the years away, and the abused child he was when she left. Her actions have also protected him in the past, which she pointed out to him herself. She’s had numerous opportunities to really hurt him and rat on him to multiple authorities. I don’t think there’s a single person not already on the ranch who could even say Gator had a part in her abduction unless Dot were to reveal that. Yes a big part of that is she didn’t think it would do her any good and she was trying to stay out of Roy’s clutches, but I believe there’s truth to what she told Gator in the barn/shed. If she can help it, she will try not to hurt him.

Dot is a nurturer at heart and we’ve seen that in action so many times. Even believing what she believed about Linda, she was still able to see both the good and bad in her. In her dream we saw that one of her biggest desires along with taking down Roy was to heal the hurt between them. She even offered this to Karen, although she probably knew Karen wasn’t likely to take it. So I believe that if Gator survives that Dot isn’t going to just forget about him.

[flung-out-of-asgard]

Ok but why did you like madam web? I have no opnion on the movie and I'm not planning to see it but I do want to see why the few people that enjoyed it did

There’s many reasons. For starters it is extremely campy, and I love that. I kinda miss superhero movies that go the extra mile to be different, that they even become a little bit cheesy. I guess that’s why I also liked Multiverse of Madness, it was refreshing to have a different story AND visual storytelling, which takes me to my second point.

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about how superhero movies became kind of static, no camera movements, no different shots or angles to push the story forward. I am a professional story board artist, so I appreciate a lot when a movie isnt just telling you what’s going on just through dialogue, but composition and camera work. Yes, it’s a little sloppy in madame web, but I’m so glad it just isnt green screen 24/7 and its the editing and the cinematography what «shows you» Cassie’s abilities. That’s super creative!

Then I loved Cassie as a character, I related a lot to her. The snarky comments, the acid humor, the not knowing how to «properly» interact with other people. That felt so real! She felt like a real person, like someone I can be. I also enjoyed her connection to the girls, them all had great chemistry even if the script made their scenes trip a little, but the way them all shared things in common and became a family, I liked that, I’m a sucker for the found family trope. And also Cassie’s relationship with her mom, I understood that, and that hit me deeply.

Then as for the superhero part. I love that Cassie’s power isnt questioned or dismissed because she’s a woman. I’m VERY tired of movies having these hollow speeches of: ‘Oh, but I am a woman and that makes me strong’ or ‘we’ll take you down with female power’, or having male characters underestimating them for being women and then ‘learning their lesson’. This story never goes there and I appreciate it a lot.

I have many other reasons, but I’ll end just by saying that I’m a huge greek mythology nerd. And I enjoyed a lot Cassie’s story connecting with Cassandra, the seer whose visions weren’t believed. And also Oedipus as Ezekiel trying to avoid his fate.

Is it the best movie? Definitely not, but it’s not as bad as people have said. I believe that every movie has something good to highlight and enjoy and I enjoyed this one a lot! Also. Britney Spears and The Cranberries in the same soundtrack, that sounds fucking awesome.

[ch3ri-ch3ri-lady]

Vampire chronicles ask for u (if you’re still interested ofc!) what do you think about Claudia as a character?

Ofcccc! Tysm for asking and I have a LOT of thoughts on Claudia (how can you not??). Brace yourself for a whole dissertation.

First and foremost, I’m the BIGGEST Claudia defender. I genuinely think she was completely justified in killing Lestat and being a dick to Louis about it. She genuinely has one of the most tragic stories in all of tvc and despite only being a main character for one book, she really stuck with me. Being eternally trapped in the body of a child, never being able to live on your own, take on a lover, basically have any autonomy or respect in society-all because of your drama queen fathers’ shitty baby trapping and toxic married couple bullshit? I would be a VILLAIN.

I hate when people say they dislike Claudia because she “abused” Louis or was “just as bad as Lestat”. Firstly, she was LITERALLY the child lmao. I think we as readers have a very biased portrayal of Claudia and her actions because it’s told from the eyes of Louis and Lestat. If it was from Claudia’s POV, I think absolutely no one would be complaining about her revenge quest against her shitty dads. I know it’s a topical debate on if Louis was a bad father or not, and while I think he definitely tried and was maybe more of the stereotypical nuclear-family-reads-bedtime-stories-to-his-daughter “good dad” in the early years, his hypocritical self loathing and perpetual martyrdom definitely inhibited his ability to provide Claudia with the support system she needed. Weeping dramatically about how bad of a father you’ve been doesn’t make you a better father lmao. To be honest, when it came to Claudia’s personality, I wasn’t a huge fan. I didn’t find her as entertaining to read about as say Lestat or Armand, and she was never emotionally or vibe wise one of my favourite characters. However, I think she is one of the most interestingly written characters and I will always ride or die defend her regardless.

As for AMC’s Claudia, I ADORED Bailey Bass’s portrayal of her and can’t wait to see Delainey Hayles in s2! While I think the aged up Claudia was definitely well executed and interesting (and I get why they did it), I still think it’s a bit of a shame that’s she’s not explicitly a “child” anymore. AMC Claudia can effectively live on her own and with some makeup pass for 18. Even this slight more access to adulthood places show Claudia leagues ahead of book Claudia. One thing I wasn’t a fan of was her sexual assault-I’m glad that they did the bare minimum of not showing it onscreen, but it felt very unnecessary to me. Like they could’ve just made Bruce attack her or something. Also Lestat (sexual assault victim) using Claudia’s against her as a fear tactic?? I get Lestat was very villainized in s1 from a mix of Louis and Claudia’s unreliable narration and Armand’s mind control mumbo jumbo, but I found that rather distasteful. Speaking of Claudia and Lestat, she’s literally his mini me! I really hope AMC shows more of this, and more moments of Lestat doting on Claudia. He was always the father who spoiled her with excessively bloody killing sprees or luxury brand clothes, I feel like we hardly saw that in the show. Like Claudia is his BABY! The parallels between Lestat/the Marquis and Claudia/Lestat…absolutely soul-crushingly diabolical I love it.

I’m curious as to how they’re going to change/approach Claudia and Madeleine’s relationship in the show. One of my favourite changes the show made was getting rid of the Claudia/Louis incest stuff because…DEFINITELY one of my least favourite things about the iwtv book and made me extremely uncomfortable. People always joke about Gabrielle/Lestat but Claudia/Louis is like a fandom taboo lmao (rightfully so). Probably because joking about Lestat’s mommy issues oedipus complex is funnier and more acceptable then acknowledging the fact that book Louis was like a straight pedophile about his 5 year old daughter. Wtf Anne.

This was SO much I’m so sorry lmao

[lonesilverw0lf]

Team BLGA

Quick disclaimer, this is so late because Tumblr wouldn’t let me reblog this post! I had it all written down and hit reblog, it showed that it took, but it somehow didn’t. It took me way to long to figure that out. And then when I tried again, this time from my own reblog, it wouldn’t take. Neither @dragonotaku-justineverything or @madmanwonder posts worked. No matter what I’ve tried, I can’t add to the post. So I’ll add on anyway. Rant over. Now just pretend that this is underneath the afore-linked post.

 Haha, this is great! We’ve seen how they dynamics can get with just Bleiss, now all of BLGA? I feel bad for Glynda. Aspirin can only go so far with headaches. Ask me how I know. Bleiss hates Weiss already so all the rest of the swaps would only amplify that. And it would totally be an Ozpin move to have RWBY and BLGA next door neighbors while JNPR is still across the hall. What do we want? Conflict! Where do we want it? EVERYWHERE! I can see some others asking Jaune how he deals with practically living with all these girls and he’s all, “well, it’s not too different from home. Living with seven sisters gives you plenty of practice. And don’t get me started on my cousins.” Perhaps that’s why he’s so dense with their affections; he’s in “survive family chaos” mode so he’s ignoring it. The things you don’t realize as you’re growing up. That and his lack of self-esteem would make him mistranslate their advances as we’ve seen with Pyr.

These are just a few side things I had for them.

Bluby

Now I know that if Bluby and Yue exist then Ruby and Yang wouldn’t and vice versa, but for this I’m just going to ignore that fact for the time being. Bluby being reserved and not speaking unless spoken to outside of her few friends and family is great. Her confidence in front of others can be a front, a shield she developed to hide her insecurities. Part of her arc is learning to trust others and letting yourself be vulnerable. She learned how to be sneaky with how Yue is. She’s elected as leader to force her to make decisions for the benefit of others? Not sure what her Semblance would be. Being reserved and growing up fast could lend itself to a similar speed type, or a partial invisibility. Maybe a misdirection type since Jack Sparrow is so good at that. Shinji Hirako from Bleach had a nice ‘Inverted Sight’ Shikai. She can make friends with Jaune at first because she marks him as easy to use for her own benefit, like Jack does with Will, until she learns to be an actual friend.

Bleiss

With how much stuff there is of Bleiss, I don’t have much to add here but did have a thought while thinking of the others’ Semblances: Glyphs are a rare genealogy Semblance and if she’s Jaques’ bastard, should she not have Glyphs since he’s not a Schnee? If she’s Weiss abandoned twin then sure, but it was a thought. I can totally see Jaques abandoning her as soon as she’s born showing his dark hair, an Oedipus situation where the father demands the newborn be killed but is abandoned instead. While it wouldn’t change much in her personality or lifestyle if she was a bastard vs abandoned, unless there was some weird twist of fate where she does gain Glyphs it would change her fighting style. And her team, I’ve always seen her leading the Malachites, Neo, and Neon. Putting her on BLGA would make an issue there, but putting Neon or Neo in charge could balance that out. Neon can still be old friends with Bleiss to keep that connection with the teams. NNMM, Nutmeg? Names are not my strong suit.

Yue

Yang is a boxer and a brawler with a temper out for a good fight, but Yue is more calculated and in control. Kickboxing is already covered by Mercury who is just as calculating and cool but doesn’t fight for anyone really, but what about Muy Thai? Strike a nice balance between the two. For her, I’d give a Semblance that’s centered more on reflecting or redirecting damage than absorbing it. I doubt that Yue would want a motorcycle because they are more dangerous than cars. Having a bit of a control freak personality and learning to tone it down is a start for her arc. Perhaps she’s a little overprotective as well, bit of a helicopter parent without realizing how damaging it could be? Keeping a strong front that needs no help even when she really does is great. She could also put a lot of stock in strength like Raven, because to her if you’re not strong you can’t protect those you love. Which leads to Yue, like Raven who she despises, to overlook some of the other kinds of strength to add more internal conflict. Ignoring your feelings isn’t healthy Yue. I can see it being a game to Yang among others to see how to get Yue to laugh. No Yang, just because you love puns so much doesn’t mean that it’s the height of comedy. All pranks do is annoy her if done to others and piss her off if done to her or her friends. Perhaps something simple gets her like, “What does the cabbage man use to repair his cabbage wagon? A cabbage patch!” I’ve used that joke in real life and it never fails to get most people rolling. She is very weak to cute critters.

Aiko

Maybe have their mothers being twins, making them cousins who could pass as sisters. Heck to add more to it, how about their dads are brothers from another family. She could be the one to out Blake as a Faunus for more conflict. She gives Aunty Kali updates and tries to get Blake to call herself. Despite her more carefree personality and daydreaming habit, she’s easily one of the smartest students. Much to the surprise of everyone. A bit naïve, not stupid. I love the idea that she reads comics to Blake’s books, but what if she leans more towards shojo manga. She can be still cool with normal comics, but most comics I see are geared towards guys and manga can easily fill her romantic fantasies. She and Jaune could have dance offs after she learns he can dance. Since she’s more extroverted and confident than Blake, a ninja theme just doesn’t fit with her unless we’re talking Naruto or something. How didn’t he die being a walking traffic cone? Yeah, yeah, plot armor, I get it. My first thought is make her a Samurai, but we have Adam for that. Unless we make Aiko a foil to Adam as well, with his code centered around rage and bloodlust while hers is love and protecting. “Hate only begets more hate. To stop the cycle of violence we must embrace love!” “…You stole that from Naruto.” “But it’s not wrong!” If not a samurai, then how about akin to a Sohei or Ikko-Ikki? They’re a monk type, and Sohei use a naginata to differentiate her enough. I know there’s fighting styles that blend with dancing but I’m trying to keep to the Japanese theme with her. Then again she’s got that Middle Eastern Belly dancer thing and I could be way off base here. She could mix and match a few things. I’m coming up blank for her Semblance. Part of me wants to give her sakura petals but Ruby already has the petals motif. Unless that’s her perfume or a design pattern on some of her clothes. Best guess at current is that she hasn’t discovered it yet. She’s a lover not a fighter, so it’d make sense she spends less time on introspection and aura training. I don’t think Roman had his and he was fighting all the time. “But what is she doing in a school to kill Grimm?” Killing Grimm is just pest control to her. Great spot for her to go all out. And since she doesn’t have lone protagonist syndrome, she can remind Blake of some things that Blake tries to ignore or gloss over. For example fighting for Faunus Rights is good, but remember Blake that there have been many times throughout history where Faunus were Faunus’ biggest enemy. Like have a time where there was serious predator/prey discrimination or even subspecies discrimination within their own kind, a good part of certain slavery rings were supplied by Faunus warlords, what some of those same Faunus did to their own human and Faunus slaves, some of the barbaric traditions they used to have, and other things. I can see the White Fang, or certain parts, ignoring those uncomfortable facts to better push their agenda.

Ying

Depending on if, a big if, Ying is added and how Bleiss is teamed up, Team BBNT would also be in a bit of a spot. Unless madmanwonder has a replacement for Bleiss? The other two are fun. It’s easy to cut her out to reduce the chaos and even some things out, but had some thoughts so I might as well put them out there. Jaune is the only one Ying trusts with her hair. Where Yang has a fiery aesthetic to her Semblance, what if Ying has a lightning one? Just to show how much more dangerous and volatile it is. She can be lowkey jealous of Yang/Yue because they were the one who got to live with a unconditionally loving and supportive parental figure, roof over her head, three square meals a day, easy access to clean and hot water, not on the run from authorities for a life she didn’t chose, proper education, had professional doctors, could make friends who wouldn’t literally stab you in the back over a slice of bread, and what not. Sure Ying might be a better fighter but she’s really lacking in civil life where fists don’t work. B(B?)NT and NNMM as JNPR neighbors while RWBY and BLGA are across the hall? Poor hallway.

[jades-typurriter]

Tell us more about Fiora and Heather!!

ALRIGHT SO

even though fiora is kind of the main character of "Shear Bliss" (NSFW Warning!) we kind of have to start with heather because they are, contrary to appearances, the older of the two of them by FAR

heather's original refs, designed and drawn by @sacrednanners on twitter!

theyre actually significantly older than fiora. like, by several millennia.

they were actually born on one of the smaller islands in the mediterrannean about 3200 years ago, a period during which, according to greek mythology, the gods were still directly fucking with people all the time. according to Oedipus Rex, the gods stopped doing that after looking at the colossal mess they made in the events of that play (+ the trojan war), so if i wanted to be able to point at the existence of magic in greek mythology instead of coming up with my own magic system, i had to pick a date from before then (more specifically, its the estimate i saw for the setting of The Odyssey, and Circe was a direct inspiration for their character, so thats what i went with :) )

after picking up their tricks, they started traveling from island to island and city-state to city-state, using their magic to trick people into believing they were a minor deity or nature spirit of some kind. as it turns out, that sort of thing is a good way to land "guest of honor" status at those old greek festivals (and also lots of offerings of food!) they picked up their taste for being pampered and adored there, and once they had run out of places to keep up the con had their fill of greek life, they also toured lower egypt, doing much the same, and then so on and so forth in other places

they've maintained their youth for so long using their magic (which is, in turn, maintained with all the worship they used to collect with the "lesser divinity" scam). nowadays, they get all the attention they need through less direct means than showing up to a rager in person: a VERY strong digital presence. in addition to modeling work, they run a highly successful instagram and are a popular livestreamer, bringing in a comfortable amount of money from donations, sponsorships, etc. (that said, they still fuckin love a good rager).

fiora's original reference, also by @sacrednanners, and the first panel of the sequence from Shear Bliss, by my bestie @mae-lizzowski

fiora, on the other hand, is totally mortal and also (apart from working in and around hollywood) totally normal. she was born in a rural community, moved out to work as a tailor, and through a combination of factors (working hard in a decade where that made a difference, having a steady supply of any colored thread she could need immediately on-hand to rapidly iterate on a client's request, and some lucky connections) was able to build up enough savings and reputation to set up her own boutique.

she met heather through her work, when they were working their way up to their current popularity (which, to be fair, wasn't much of a long process; in fact, it was suspiciously quick) and heather wanted to go straight to the big names to get some nice clothes for themself. for as obnoxious as they can be as a customer, they're good at telling where exactly The Line is, and they don't cross it with fiora. with that absolute minimum of respect met, enough reoccurring business between the two of them led them to develop a rapport---while the streaming gig is relatively new, heather's been one of fiora's most reliable customers for going on 30 years! even if she can't stand them sometimes, thats plenty long to get used to somebody.

her wool, pivotal to her work though it is, is also fairly normal. no magic involved, just a quirk of her genes. both of her parents had white wool, and even her son doesn't share the mutation!

(her son florence is his own character btw, as opposed to like an off-screen piece of characterization for fiora. imagine being raised by both a hardass like fiora and a diva like heather. imagine this kid just turning 20 and not only breaking into the fashion business as well, but rubbing elbows with celebrities and going to parties and shit. hes such a menace and i love him)

anyway ty for letting me ramble about the two of them ily bestie

[ataraxiaspainting]

the joy i feel when i check the chrollo tag and see your username >>>

(seriously!! you capture chro’s yandere chivalry so well)

gasp!! he's back in grease jail for a little bit but i promise...... HE'LL RETURN!

to be honest i'm very new with this kind of stuff. i'm still learning bits and gizmos when it comes to writing (and even outside of that), but that's life, i guess. there is just so many possibilities when it comes to writing, especially in the thriller/horror genre (though i wouldn't really call the stuff i write really scary per say.......). the human psyche still has plenty of traits that our pre evolved selves did, be it literal with science (for example, being scared of closed spaces, aka claustrophobia, which can be hereditary) or in a more figurative sense (with self-discovery, facing your fears, all that jazz). writing things that make readers uncomfortable, at least in my opinion, is at least somewhat based in psychology studies. for example, the oedipus rex complex with norman bates from alfred hitchcock's psycho. even though sigmund freud is still public enemy #1 in my eyes........ the man did indeed spring up my love for psychology in the first place because his research goes into nature vs nuture (which i find one of the most interesting topics to read about), as much as i want it not to be true. but alas. we win some, we lose some.

i feel like mr greasehead over here is also just interesting on a psychological level. he has no sense of self whatsoever, so he always molds himself to fit whatever situation he is in. until he can't take it anymore... which is a concept horrifying in of itself. but mainly he keeps his composure, which makes for an interesting combination with a darling that A: wears their heart on their sleeve, or B: also tries to keep their composure and acts in a way similar to him most of the time. for the latter it turns into a cat and mouse game of sorts. the question is who the mouse is and who the cat is when it comes to mind games. unfortunately for a manipulative darling, chrollo is always the latter. for plot reasons.

hier encore darling is always on her toes for a reason, after all.

You feel an invisible pressure on your neck. It’s just a knot in my throat, you think to yourself, closing your eyes. The sight of his stillness gifts you a veil of comfort so thin that if anyone were to touch it it would tear. I’m not going to die. But you can’t breathe.

Your heart tells you otherwise. You can feel, no, hear blood pulse to the very tips of your fingers. Your feet tell you otherwise. They are cold. They hurt. They are adhered to the ground. Your arms and legs tell you otherwise. There is nothing but pins and needles all over. This is your chance, the little voice in your head says with blind reassurance. Who knows when you will ever get this chance again? Do it now, and be quick about it. But you can’t breathe. You can’t breathe, and you have to try your hardest to stop the hand holding your espresso from shaking and falling on you. 

babygirl is not okay. nuh uh. she'll return eventually though. much is planned for her, whether they are good or bad things. only time will tell if she gets a happy ending. very mean of me, i know.

back to what you said though, chrollo is many, many things. being genuinely chivalrous is not one of them. respect? he doesn't know her. he can be disrespectful when he wants to be when he's picking at darling's brain or when he snaps. he can pretend though. he can indeed pretend. even if darling calls him out on his bullshit, he'll never actually admit to it. smug asshole. unless he can push the blame to darling, whether that is subtly or not at all subtly. he knows that the human mind while isolated can be desperate and believe anything if broken down enough. that's where the real scare is, i believe. anyone can be broken down if the breaker is trying hard enough. be it yan chrollo with his darling, or poor darling unintentionally pushing him past his limit.

for now, all i have planned for him (aside from the yan chrollo requests that i'm working on) in a sort of analysis for him (it's very long sob sob). it will be broken down into the parts shown below:

introduction

darling character analysis

yandere MBTI (courtesy of god ddarker-dream's yandere MBTI)

unique qualities

strengths

weaknesses

daily life

punishments

quotes

conclusion

hopefully it will be done by mid to late january. but he has to wait for now. hence why he's back in jail. don't worry, he has feitan to keep him company. they'll rot away together. <333

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2023-12-04

ah fuck the mondaypost

Listening: I have been going back through some of @kelp-of-discontent's recs that I've saved and not gone back to. Great taste! Here's Pool Kids's Pool Kids

I always love the unmoored feeling good math rock gives you and this really lands that.

Watching: Double Features, 1) Bara no Soretsu/Funeral Parade of Roses because @thosearentcrimes has been trying to get us to watch that forever and we finally just sat down and watched it on yes the extremely funny ultrawide monitor that was being used as my TV.

Bara no Soretsu is very good in that arthouse way where it's very unpolished and has some very out there ideas about what makes a good movie but executes on it earnestly and with a goal. It's a combination of a movie about transgender women in the underground gay men's scene in 60's japan loosely based on the myth of Oedipus and also a documentary following the actors as they make this movie, in a way that makes it kind of hard to tell when something is meant to be the movie and when it's meant to be the documentary.

It's very uh. Challenging? It's honestly less tragic than I was expecting and it's mostly just a fascinating look into this very specific time and place. The interviews are priceless, a trans woman very straight facedly looking into the camera when asked "are you having a good time" and going "no, but I'm going to keep doing it". 10/10

Also Tomb Raider but the 2001 Angelina Jolie one. An impromptu pick for Bad Movie Night because we had an empty house and didn't want to burn a good bad movie. Tomb Raider is most interesting in how it approaches shooting action which is to say that it's mostly not good at it but has brief moments of inspiration. A very generic action adventure story otherwise, featuring young Daniel Craig as a prettyboy graverobber counterpart to Lara Croft. They made Angelina Jolie do an English accent and she just could not do it.

Reading: The other short stories that came along with Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. Tower of Babylon is a fun atmospheric story of the Ancient Sumerians building a tower to breach the vault of heaven. Division by Zero is a very compelling depiction of a mathematician going insane because she has proven arithmetic to be inconsistent, which is notably not accompanied by any material changes in the world around her, which I liked.

Making: Mostly preparatory. I have a few project I've been sketching out, including hacking my own controller onto a WS2812 LED string and automating my radiators. The stepper motors and the string arrived today. Looking into exprTK, an expression evaluation library that should be suitable for my needs, and the ESP32 RMT subsystem which is a cute little mini-DSP and modulator built into the ESP32 ostensibly for IR Remote Control but frequently used now to quickly and efficiently implement all manner of protocols.

Playing: More Dark Souls, although less this week because I've been doing other things. still working around Darkroot Basin but I really haven't been there long. The ents are a real pain in the ass when paired with the knights, not because they're very hard but because you just have to wait for them to jump you.

Tools and Equipment: a new AMD GPU tuning utility for Linux was released a little while ago, LACT, which has a much simpler interface than some of the older tuning utilities. I like it, especially since I was doing some fan noise tuning after I installed the new network card and being able to just hit the fan speed with a slider was convenient.

[sihaya74]

NEW The Lessons of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal S1:E4 -- FAMILY DON'T END WITH BREAKFAST

Lessons of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

S1:E4 – FAMILY DON’T END WITH BREAKFAST

And so dear friends and #FannibalFamily, we have arrived at S1:E4 of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, the episode titled “Oeuf.” And I just have to say it, and I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I have always thought that oeuf is a weird-looking word. There. I said it.

            It’s not necessarily the combo of the three vowels all in a row. We have lots of those in English. I think it’s the ‘o’ followed by the ‘e.’ Whenever I see an “oe” combo at the beginning of a word, my mind immediately goes to the Greek tragic hero, King Oedipus, father slayer, mother lover, and poor, eyeless guy that he was. And then I think of Freud’s “Oedipus complex,” his now mostly debunked theory that all children, namely male ones, go through a stage in childhood in which they sexually desire their mother and develop an antagonistic attitude toward their father. Freud theorized that if parents were loving and not abusive, children would eventually exit this phase. Karl Jung coined the term “Electra complex” in which the theory applied to female children experiencing the same feelings about their fathers.

            It is funny of course that my brain has led me here because the events of “Oeuf” do indeed have to do with family – with mothers and fathers. Boys that have one mother too many, grown men that had mostly none, and a confused teenage girl who now has lost a mother and must contend with the memory of one dead father and the expectations of two live ones.

            They do so much to us – mothers and fathers. Good and bad. The sheer pressure of the idea often makes me glad I never had children. I can be content that the only person I have the power to mess up is myself. Hallelujah.

            An oeuf is an egg. The first three episodes of Hannibal were: “Apéritif,” “Amuse-Bouche,” and “Potage.” So, at this point, we have had an appetizer and a cocktail and a bit of hearty soup. And now out of nowhere – EGGS! In doing research, webpages about French cuisine informed me that the oeuf course is not typically included in a dinner menu. EXCEPT for this episode of Fuller’s show, in which Hannibal prepares breakfast for dinner, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest traditions ever created. I eat breakfast for dinner quite often. It gives one a little bit of comfort at the end of the day, especially if the day was sad or rough or long. Yeah, your boss yelled at you and you slipped and fell in the parking lot and scraped your knees and there’s nothing good on TV tonight, but DAMMIT, you can have pancakes.

            Hell... Now I want pancakes…

            Anyway, it was sage Ron Swanson who said, “There has never been a sadness that can’t be cured by breakfast food” (Freedman). And even in an episode of a show about a cannibal psychiatrist and his obsession with a twitchy, beautiful FBI agent, breakfast comes through in the clutch yet again. More about that later…

            The title of this episode is also very apropos because eggs are symbolic in and of themselves. In each episode of Hannibal, a symbol emerges. In S1:E1, it was the MONGOOSE. In S1: E2, the MUSHROOM. In S1:E3, BOATS. Eggs are symbolic of fertility, abundance, birth, and rebirth. In this episode, we see the birthing of an important thing – a FAMILY. Fertilization occurred in the Hobbs’ kitchen in “Apéritif.” The insemination was messy and violent, but the result was the same. By Episode Four, it is time for nest-building. And we know exactly which bastard would be best at that, beautiful bird that he is.

            “Oeuf” was written solo by Jennifer Schuur (Big Love, The Catch). Undoubtedly, she is the namesake of poor Marissa Schuur, who wound up impaled on a rack of stag’s antlers in “Potage.” Personally, I think having a character named after you in an episode of one of Fuller’s shows an amazing and beautiful tribute. If it happened to me, I would probably stop people on the street to tell them about it. The episode was directed by Peter Medak (who has directed so many things I can’t even list them, but I just want to say that he directed Zorro: The Gay Blade which means that he is a true gift to the world forever.)

            Schuur wrote an absolutely masterful episode here. The overarching theme of FAMILY is cultivated through all five acts of the script. She shows us three separate families all developing and growing at the same time. They are:

Eva’s family of Lost Boys

The BAU family with Jack as the domineering father

The Murder Family – Abigail and her two beautiful, confusing dads

In every act of this story there is a part of our lesson – a bud, a leaf, a root – that ultimately bursts into full flower at the end of the episode. Sorry, I cannot extend the egg motif to this. Birds build nests in trees – Eva, Jack, and Hannibal all build different kinds of nests. One of them is sundered by the end.

The theme of family is introduced right away with Will sitting at the Turner family table, amidst the remains of a rotting family meal and the rotting remains of the family itself. Again, we see the pendulum swing – we see the decriminalization of the scene as Will views it in his mind. I believe this is one of the best set pieces of Fuller’s adaptation of Harris’ work. The pendulum swing, which signals to the viewer that the murder scene we are observing is about to be literally rewound and undone, is very effective. The image of the pendulum is taken directly from Harris’ Red Dragon. In the beginning of the novel, when Will is alone at the Leeds’ crime scene, Harris says, “In his mind, a silver pendulum swung in darkness. He waited until the pendulum was still” (11). In Fuller’s version, once the pendulum is still, the scene has been deconstructed and Will enters as the killer, metaphorically walking in the suspect’s steps and murdering with the suspect’s hands. It is one of my favorite parts of the series. Will ends every decriminalization with the phrase, “This is my design,” and I must say, it always gives me goosebumps.

            The Turner family has been killed by someone they knew, someone known and also short. The image of blood splattered all over the family portraits on the wall speaks to the theme of the episode and to the larger, real world concept of family. So much blood shed in families, by families, and for families in this world. Even if no one else has ever seen you bleed, your family has. It really can’t get more intimate than that.

            A bit of a thirsty sidenote here: during the murder recreation, Will points at the Turner daughter and commands her to “eat her growing foods” or forfeit dessert (Schuur 2). This is unbearably hot and a perfect example of Daddy Will in action. There is a continuing light-hearted disagreement amongst Fannibals whether Will is “Daddy” or “Baby,” to which I answer “YES.” To Will Graham stans like me, he is all things. He’s every woman; it’s all in him.

            After Will has recreated the murders, Jack enters the scene and the following bit of dialogue occurs:

            JACK CRAWFORD: What do you see, Will?

            WILL GRAHAM: Family values.

            JACK CRAWFORD: Whose family values?

The viewer can detect the note of cynicism here in both Will and Jack’s assessment of the scene. I often imagine that if Will had answered Jack’s question, he would have said something like “America’s.” In Fuller’s show, the true killing floor of the American family is laid bare just as David Lynch does in Twin Peaks. The horror isn’t at the movies, folks. It lives next door – it works at your local car dealership – it sits next to you in the pew at church.

            In the next scene, we cut to Will’s comfy Wolf Trap home, where Hannibal Lecter ascends the porch, enters through the front door, and begins feeding links of suspicious sausage to Will’s dogs. The script doesn’t indicate that the sausage is made of human flesh, but considering that later in this episode Hannibal feeds Jack boudin made from “rabbit,” (a very clumsy one in a plaid jacket we see being chased through the woods), I think it’s safe to guess that Hannibal made a lot of “rabbit” sausage.

            Hannibal then begins exploring Will’s home. This scene always feels to me like an animal marking its territory. I am a cat owner and I can tell you that my cats have rubbed themselves all over everything I own. One of my cats even waits on the bathroom rug, so as soon as I get out of the shower, she can be the first to rub against me and deposit her scent. What can I say? The felines love me. Hannibal pokes through Will’s books, and literally roots through his underwear drawer. When Hannibal encounters the stacks of size small white t-shirts folded neatly in this drawer, I wish he had pulled one out and gave it a good sniff. Considering Hannibal’s legendary sense of smell, this would have made tons of sense. If he had, it would have been akin to the scene in Harris’ Hannibal when Dr. Lecter literally tastes Clarice. He breaks into Clarice’s Mustang, sits there breathing in her scent and then, “he leaned forward, found the leather steering wheel by scent, and put around it his curled tongue, cupping with his tongue the finger indentations on the underside of the wheel…Then he leaned back in the seat, his tongue back where it lived, and his closed mouth moved as though he savored wine” (Harris Hannibal 285). “Did you just smell me?” indeed.

            Hannibal finishes his tour of Will’s home by admiring Will’s fly-fishing lures at his worktable set up for the process. The script indicates here that Hannibal sits down at this table and ties off a salmon tie Will has been working on, with his surgeon’s precision. Then, for a seemingly whimsical purpose (Get ready, y’all – this cannibal loves WHIMSY), he pushes the barb of the lure into his thumb, draws blood, and then puts the now injured finger into his mouth. The sound of Hannibal sucking the blood off is described as a “sound not unlike a quick kiss” (Schuur 4). If this scene isn’t showcasing the start of a tempestuous romance, then I don’t know what the fuck it’s doing otherwise. Yes, this is Hannibal-style reconnaissance, but it’s possessive and lingering and it’s about love, GODDAMMIT.

            Next, in the beginning of Act One, we see Abigail and Alana at Abigail’s hospital. They are walking the grounds, discussing Abigail’s therapy. Abigail explains that she feels lost, that she is without a home. As opposed to helping her, she feels like the support groups she is in are wringing her out. Abigail concludes that most of the other patients in these groups are merely being performative and false and that this style of therapy is of no help to her. Alana listens and commiserates, but she encourages Abigail to continue trying to open up in group. Abigail’s dissatisfaction with her therapy will come up later on in the episode. Alana, bless her heart, tries her best to connect with Abigail, to serve as a confidante and a reliable adult in the young girl’s life. But considering the horrific secrets Abigail continues to harbor, the only person who can really help Abigail is Hannibal; incidentally, that is exactly the way Hannibal wants it.

            We then see Alana arriving at Dr. Lecter’s office. Over her beer and Hannibal’s wine, they discuss Abigail’s progress at the hospital. Hannibal believes that the only way Abigail will make progress is if she is removed from the hospital and re-integrated into the real world. Alana vehemently disagrees. She cautions Hannibal about trying to become Abigail’s surrogate family because to Abigail it “would only be a crutch” (Schuur 9). Hannibal relents and agrees to Alana’s therapy plan, but we see later on that this promise Hannibal makes is an empty one.

            Now, back at the Turner crime scene, the entire BAU family is in attendance – Jack, Will, Jimmy Price, Brian Zeller, and Beverly Katz. Team Sassy Science (as Fannibals refer to Price, Zeller, and Katz) are processing and preserving evidence. Jack explains to all of them that the Turner family had another son, Jesse, who went missing the year before; authorities could not determine whether Jesse was a runaway or was kidnapped.

            We see a theme of appearance versus reality unfolding in this scene. The images families portray to the world and the actual horrors underneath. Will echoes this sentiment while examining the Turner family photos. He says, “False faces in family portraits. Layers and layers of lies betrayed by a sad glint in a child’s eyes” (Schuur 10). A big sad onion, the Turner family.

            In the next scene, Schuur very pointedly pulls the theme of family forward again. The team has returned to the BAU lab at Quantico. As they work, they discuss their own families. Price, Zeller, and Katz all had siblings. Will was an only child. The description of the staging for this scene in the script says, “Jack faces Zeller, Price, Katz, and Graham. He’s like a demanding father, presiding over his children as they present what they’ve just learned at school. Will stands slightly apart, not quite fitting into this surrogate family” (Schuur 12).

            Just as Will didn’t fit into his own family, now he does not fit into his work family. In this way, Will’s plight mirrors that of Chris O’Halloran, one of the Lost Boys we meet later, who is also having trouble integrating into his new family. Mind you, Chris’ new family is a lot more murdery than Will’s, but I believe this is an important parallel. As an empath, Will does not only relate to and inhabit the feelings of the killers; he feels into the lives of the victims as well. The Lost Boys are both – killers and victims.

            Although she is a controversial figure, there are some tidbits of wisdom to be found in the work of the late self-help guru, Louise Hay. In her book You Can Heal Your Life, Hay writes, “We are all victims of victims” (99). She uses this phrasing to describe what happens in families. Parents victimize their children in the same way that they were victimized by their own parents. If these children do not make diligent attempts to avoid recreating these patterns, they will victimize their own children in the same ways. In this manner, generational trauma is created. All of the Lost Boys in this episode are victims of their surrogate mother, Eva, and her desire for love and belonging. But these boys were victimized by their own families before Eva ever showed up – that’s how Eva could get to them. Their inherited pain opened the door.

            Also, Will not fitting in with his BAU family is juxtaposed with the family that Hannibal is preparing for Will. Throughout the episode, Hannibal is laying the groundwork to fuse his family members together. The Doctor’s plans do not turn out exactly as he wants them to, but he makes impressive progress.

            At the end of the scene at the BAU, Will concludes that Jesse was involved in his own mother’s death based on the positioning of her body at the dining room table. A posture of forgiveness and acceptance is what tips Will off.

            In Act Two, there is more intense discussion of family, this time between Hannibal and Will. Will sits in the familiar leather chair in Hannibal’s very well-appointed office and Hannibal begins their session with the classic, and cliched psychiatrist’s open: “Tell me about your mother” (Schuur 15). Even though Will castigates Hannibal for the “lazy” questioning, we still find out a great deal about both Will and Hannibal’s family histories in this scene. Will never knew his mother and grew up poor, following his fisherman father around from port to port. Hannibal’s parents died when he was young; he was an orphan until his Uncle Robertas adopted him at sixteen. I should note at this point, being the insane fan that I am, Bryan intended for the person to play Hannibal’s uncle in later episodes to be David Bowie, which would have been absolutely perfect beyond reckoning. The only man on earth who has cheekbones to rival Bowie’s is Mads Mikkelsen, so selling them as actual blood family would not have been difficult in the least. We lost a lot of things when the Starman left us; this amazing opportunity was one of them. It will always be my headcanon, and that’s the best that can be done. (BTW - #BowieForever).

            Hannibal stresses that he and Will both have a lot of things in common with Abigail; their complicated relationships with family is yet another. In this exchange between the two men, an important piece of dialogue occurs that I must quote in its entirety.

            WILL GRAHAM: There’s something so foreign about family. Like an ill-fitting suit. Never connected to the concept.

            HANNIBAL: You created a family for yourself.

            WILL GRAHAM: I created a pack of strays. Thanks for feeding them while I was away…

            HANNIBAL: I was referring to Abigail Hobbs (Schuur 16).

Once again, in looking at the scripts in more detail, I am amazed at the sheer manipulation Hannibal attempts, just right out of the gate, just four episodes into Season One. Hannibal says that it is Will who has created a family with Abigail. I assume he means by killing her father. But, in fact, it is HANNIBAL who has created the family because he is the one who saved Abigail’s life. In that moment in the Hobbs’ kitchen, after Garrett Jacob Hobbs slashes his daughter’s throat, after Will shoots him ten times, after Will rushes to Abigail’s side, who is bleeding out on the floor, just a matter of minutes from death – in that moment, if Hannibal had not intervened, Abigail would have died. Will was way too upset – he was shaking life a leaf from head to toe. He looked as if he was having a panic attack, like he would pass out – his expression is terrifying as his entire body vibrates with his ragged breaths, blood splattered all over his face and his glasses. If you need just one scene from any film or TV show he has ever acted in to understand why Hugh Dancy is such a fucking amazing actor, this scene is the one.

            When Will places his hand over Abigail’s wound to stop the bleeding, he can’t apply enough pressure. He is too upset – too much blood leaks between his fingers. Behind him, Hannibal stands. Looking at his face, (more of Mads’ genius microexpressions), the viewer sees him make a conscious decision to get involved. As if his mind said aloud, “All right, I shall intervene here. I think I know how I can use this.” Use this? For what, you ask? To get Will. To get Will to spend more time with him, care for him, talk to him – perhaps, already, in feverish fantasies, he has imagined Will killing with him. Even though events often make us question whether or not Hannibal truly loves Will, he does. It’s all about Will. From “Do you have a problem with taste?” to “See? This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us,” it’s all about Will. I can’t say I blame Hannibal. If Will Graham stumbled into my life, I think it would immediately become all about him too.

            In this conversation, Hannibal is continuing his laying of groundwork. It started in the Hobbs’ kitchen – then, he stayed by Abigail’s side in the hospital. So did Will. Even when she was in her coma, the two men protected her.

            The return to Abigail’s family home in “Potage” is like a ceremonial goodbye to her old family. Her old family who was at least partially killed by her new family. This is the same as Eva is doing. Eva says to her Lost Boys later in the script, “you can only have one family” (Schuur 28A). Apparently, Hannibal believes this as well. It is astonishing how quickly he moved to build himself this new family once he made the decision. It once again proves just how intensely Hannibal was KO’d by Will at their first meeting. It also proves that the loneliness Hannibal has been experiencing since his sister Mischa’s death is becoming unbearable. In Harris’ canon, Hannibal tries to turn back time. In Fuller’s version, Hannibal creates a family from blood and violence.  

            In the next scene, we see Jack and Hannibal having a lovely dinner together in Hannibal’s royal blue dining room. Out of all the set designs in the show, I love Hannibal’s dining room the most. It reminds me of the first lines of Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” – “Blue, blue, electric blue – that’s the color of my room, where I will live – blue, blue” (“Sound and Vision – David Bowie”). Hannibal tells Jack that they are eating a boudin noir made from “rabbit,” the aforementioned plaid-jacketed one. I always find it hilarious how amused Hannibal is by feeding people meat to people without their knowledge. It’s almost penetrative. It’s so male. Hannibal will get inside you one way or the other. The two men discuss Will. Jack is concerned that the Lost Boys case is hitting Will too close to home. Hannibal suggests that Will’s life in the past is not properly anchoring him. “He needs a anchor, Jack,” Hannibal says (Schuur 19). But that anchor is not Jack. Hannibal is already Will’s paddle, he might as well be his anchor too. Hannibal is just like Will. He’s every woman. It’s all in him.

            Back at the BAU, Team Sassy Science examines more evidence from the Turner crime scene – soda cans, shoes, video game controllers. From this evidence, the team determines that there were three other boys with Jesse at the crime scene. Zeller is the one who dubs them, “The Lost Boys.” This is, of course, an apt moniker because both the Peter Pan tribe and the pack of film vampire teens are examples of created or found family. They are misfit children, all of them. Price pulls Connor Frist’s fingerprints, which will lead them to their next crime scene.

            Next, we see Jack storming into Will’s Quantico classroom and very unceremoniously dismissing his students. He tells Will about Connor Frist, who went missing ten months ago, and that Will must get ready to board a plane with the team to the Frist’s home in Huntsville (I assume Alabama.)

            Cut to the BAU team and other officers entering the Frist family home, which is all decked out for Christmas, even though it has not been the holiday season for some time. The mother, father, and two smaller Frists are all dead. A dog trots into the scene carrying a decapitated arm. You gotta give it to Fuller and all the writers on this series. The humor is darkness at its finest.

            Act Three begins back at the BAU with Team Sassy Science examining the bodies of the Frist family. They discover that one of the bodies is the Lost Boy Connor Frist himself, who was apparently shot and then his body burned in the family fireplace. Together the team theorize that Connor tried to kill his mother, but she did not die with the first shot to her head, and possibly began having a seizure, which caused Connor to panic. Because of this panic, someone taller with a larger caliber weapon dispatched both Connor’s mother and Connor himself. Down feathers found with Connor’s remains indicate that someone put a pillow under the boy’s head before he was shot. The juxtaposition of the savagery and compassion of the Frist scene befuddles Jack, but Will manages to catch the loose thread of the fabric saying of Connor’s death, “Whoever shot him… disowned him” (Schuur 26).

            Next, we see Will in Hannibal’s office again. I found myself beginning to question at this point if every time we see Will in Hannibal’s office if he is attending his therapy session or if he and Hannibal are close enough now that he just goes to Hannibal’s office whenever he needs to talk. I know his appointment time with Hannibal is 7:30 p.m., but I am unaware if it is every week or every other day or every day. (If anyone reading this knows, please comment.) Will is angry when he enters Hannibal’s office – not at Hannibal, but at himself and at the Lost Boys. He tosses down a very plain, but neatly wrapped package that he says he intended to be a gift for Abigail: “Magnifying glass. Fly tying gear,” but that he “thought better of it” (Schuur 27). After buying the gift, Will realizes that Abigail’s father taught her how to hunt and that the idea of Will teaching her to fish bears too strong a resemblance to the trappings of fatherhood. Hannibal asks Will if he is “feeling paternal;” he confirms that he is and asks Hannibal if he feels the same, which Hannibal also confirms, but also passes along Alana’s warning about the dangers of assuming new familial roles for Abigail. Will then explains that he is actually angry about the boys in the case he is currently working. A great deal is made of Will’s almost perfect empathy. Several plotlines in the series really bring it to the fore and rely on it for dramatic movement. But Will’s empathy is also showcased in small moments like this one with Hannibal. Will says, “I’m angry about these boys. I’m angry cause I know when I find them, I can’t help them. I can’t give them back what they gave away” (Schuur 27). Will is angry because the boys cut themselves off from the one thing Will never really had – family. Jack Crawford is correct – the case is hitting Will too close to home. But most importantly, Will is upset that he will not be able to help the boys once he tracks them down – to Will, actually finding them is secondary. Being able to fix something once he does is paramount. It is a horribly naïve view for someone who spends as much time with murder as Will does, but it is the essence of who Will is. Will cares. But he also cares too much. People who care too much run the sincere risk of burning themselves out – and when they do, God help those around them. Their new life philosophy doesn’t always shift into “don’t give a fuck,” it shifts into “I’m gonna make people pay.” Not always, but as a person who cares too much, sometimes I really crave a villainous turn for myself… I’ll never do it. I’m too soft-hearted.

            In this context of Will’s anger at the boys who sacrificed their own loving families, Hannibal enters with the verbal equivalent of quick-dry cement and a rake. AKA, groundwork manipulation. He remarks to Will, “Abigail is lost, too. Perhaps it is our responsibility, yours and mine, to help her find her way” (Schuur 28). See? You and me, Will. You and me. You can’t fix what’s wrong with these boys, but together we can fix Abigail. Won’t it feel nice to create something rather than destroy it? Won’t it feel nice to belong somewhere, to belong to someone? Hannibal is a genius. Completely unethical, but when Hannibal wants something or someone, he doesn’t let anything get in his way, even if he has to eat them.

            Now, we see for the first time in the episode our Lost Boys family – but we see them with their surrogate mother, Eva, played insanely well by Molly Shannon, who absolutely kills in dramatic roles. Personally, I love comedic actors in dramatic roles; I feel they are able to shift back and forth seamlessly because in all forms of comedy is the element of darkness – the dissatisfaction or anger or fear or sadness that drove the creator to write it. But, I digress…

            Eva is sitting in a diner with her three “boys,” C.J. Lincoln, Jesse Turner, and Chris O’Halloran. Over burgers and fries, the “family” is discussing what happened to Connor. Eva makes Connor’s murder sound like a mercy killing, that he was granted the love he could not kindle for his new family. Chris asks about Eva’s “real” family – she vaguely mentions a brother and it seems he was not particularly kind to Eva. Eva (and her name is Eva, I imagine, to be like that of Eve, the first mother ever in Christian mythology) – Eva says, “The family you’re born into isn’t really family. Those are just people you didn’t choose. You have to make family” (Schuur 28).

            In expressing this, Eva is expressing the feelings of very real people, many of whom are in Hannibal’s audience, who have been disowned by their families. Or, people who have had to walk away from their own families in order to preserve their own safety and sanity. Families are rent apart for all reasons under the sun, but the ones I hear of most often are because of neglect, abuse, and marginalization. Children are disowned by their parents for all sorts of reasons – the child is queer or the child doesn’t want to be a doctor or the child isn’t religious or the child has an addiction or the child suffers from mental illness or for whatever shitty reason the disowning parent needs to make themselves feel justified. But also, children cut their parents off all the time too – for similar or equally shitty reasons. These people then go on to create new families wherever they can find them – at work, in the military, at school, online, at the gym, or in their own minds.

            If a family member is hurting you and won’t stop and you are able to get away, you owe it to yourself to do so. I would never, ever say that someone should stay in a situation where they are unsafe or unhappy or in danger. Many people need their new families like air because their real families will never be mended – the gap will never be bridged and in many cases shouldn’t be. But to loop back to Louise Hay, I must offer her wisdom again, “We are all victims of victims.” Families, all of them, of every ilk, are messy. No one emerges unscathed. No one.  

            In the next scene, we see Will alone in his classroom at Quantico, sitting at his desk, studying photos of Jesse Turner and Connor Frist. The beautiful and badass Beverly Katz comes in. Will tells her he believes all of the Lost Boys have ADHD because they are small for their age and this could indicate they have been taking meds that have stunted their growth. Bev informs Will that Price has identified the gun that killed Mrs. Frist; it was used to kill C.J. Lincoln’s mother a year ago.

            Now, we see all of Team Sassy Science, Jack, and Will looking at a picture of C.J. along with his juvenile criminal record on a screen. They bandy about theories about C.J. Will does not believe he is the ringleader. He believes the leader to be a still older boy.

            Meanwhile, Eva’s family of Lost Boys are at a convenience store. As young Chris stands next to Eva at the cash register, C.J. glares at Chris from behind a shelf of soda bottles. C.J.’s eyes are as flat and cold as a sheet of ice. The boy is dead inside. Chris is terrified. He involuntarily urinates all over himself. When Eva discovers Chris’ now wet state, she cleans up the puddles using napkins from the counter and tries to console Chris, though she is completely unaware of the cause of Chris’ distress. I guess being a murdering criminal really doesn’t prepare a person for sudden motherhood of mentally disturbed children. Gosh, who woulda thunk it?

            We shift now back to Abigail Hobbs’ very posh psychiatric hospital. (I find myself wondering who is paying for Abigail’s stay in the upscale sanitarium. The FBI? Based on the state of health insurance in America, I doubt her parents’ insurance is covering it. That and both her parents are dead. I wonder if Hannibal is paying for it. I wonder if legally Jack could have allowed Hannibal to bankroll Abigail’s recovery. Hannibal has the money, trust me. I will discuss my theories about the source of Hannibal’s funds in a later post, but let’s just say it’s a combo of family money and dead people money.)

            Hannibal invites Abigail to leave the hospital for the evening and come to his house so he can make her a proper dinner. Abigail questions whether the hospital administration will allow her to leave after her egregious wall-climbing episode in “Potage.” Hannibal’s response to her is very significantly phrased: “You could say I’m one of your guardians” (Schuur 31). The foundation of Hannibal’s House is almost complete – the pillars have been sunk. Just need to wait for the concrete to dry.

            Hannibal tells her he will have her back by bedtime. As Abigail gets ready to leave with Hannibal, she comments about how much she dislikes being in group therapy. She cannot be open in group because she cannot tell them about her murder of Nick Boyle. Hannibal says, “You must only lie about one thing. And when you’re with me, you don’t have to lie about anything” (Schuur 31A). The purpose of this comment is twofold. First, it is more of Hannibal preparing the way for his Murder Family – all families have secrets, silly ones and painful ones and all kinds of hidden information. Hannibal is now the only person in the world Abigail can tell the truth to – Hannibal has effectively isolated her from everyone, even people like Alana who are actively trying to help Abigail in good faith. This in Hannibal is classic narcissist behavior and we see him do it with almost everyone he really cares for – Abigail, Bedelia, and especially Will. The second purpose of this comment is that Hannibal is absolutely convinced that Abigail helped her father kill his victims and he wants Abigail to come clean with him, Hannibal keeps secrets like he keeps business cards, but if he has identified you as someone that belongs to him, you are not allowed a single secret of your own. He will poke around in your underwear drawer or your subconscious or both until he gets the truth. I suppose one could look at their subconscious as the underwear drawer of their mind. If so, both of mine could use a good cleaning. Anyway…

            Act Four begins in Hannibal’s kitchen, the setting of many important scenes in the series. It makes me think about the tried-and-true principle that when a person throws a party, no matter how large or luxurious the rest of the house is, the bulk of the partygoers wind up in the kitchen. A good deal of the things that happen in Hannibal’s kitchen could not be termed as “parties,” but there definitely is a lot of action and drama in this room. Hannibal is making breakfast for dinner, a recipe, in fact called, High Life Eggs. Should you like to recreate this recipe, you must immediately acquire yourself a copy of Janice Poon’s Feeding Hannibal. Janice was the food stylist for the series. She is an amazing chef, stylist, and person to boot. She loves her Fannibal Family and the book is resplendent with full color photos and a foreword by Mads himself. No Fannibal library is complete without a copy. High Life Eggs is eggs and sausage. It looks delicious.

            As Hannibal cooks, Abigail stands in the kitchen and the two discuss her future. She discovers that on a side counter Hannibal is steeping mushrooms in a teapot. He encourages Abigail to drink the tea, laced with the fungi’s psilocybin, to help her process the traumatic memories of her father. Abigail agrees.

            Now back at the BAU, Team Sassy Science and Jack and Will are looking at a case board filled with photos of the Lost Boys and the timeline of their abductions and the subsequent family murders. The boys are traveling southbound, but since none of them are of driving age, the team is confused as to how they are moving that way. This is the moment that the idea of an adult who is traveling with the group enters Will’s mind. He determines that the boys have been capture-bonded to this adult who now serves as their new master. Based on Will’s hunch, Jack expands his search.

            We return to Hannibal’s kitchen where Abigail Hobbs is now totally on a full-blown shroom trip. In her inebriated state, she drops a teacup on the kitchen floor and watches it shatter. This is the introduction to one of Hannibal’s most predominant and important motifs. The provenance of this motif in Harris’ work will be discussed in a later post, but it would be remiss of me not to mention the first occurrence of the teacup, a symbol of fraught and delicate meaning in the series. Hannibal explains that Alana would not approve of him giving psilocybin to Abigail, but that it will be one of “many secrets” the two of them will share (Schuur 36). It occurs to me at this point that Hannibal “capture-bonds” people to him just as Eva does – well, with definitely more nuance and finesse, but the philosophy is the same. Because Hannibal knows about Abigail’s murder of Nick Boyle and has helped her cover it up, he always has this secret to use against her, and should she get out of line, it is the threat of the revelation of that secret that keeps her bound to Hannibal. Much, much later, Alana calls it blackmail and she is absolutely correct. Abigail also stays connected to Hannibal because let’s face it – he’s damned charming and seems to give her exactly what she needs. If you need an attentive daddy and aren’t very picky about his criminal record, one could do a lot worse that Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

            Abigail begins experiencing the nauseous phase of a hallucinogenic trip. Hannibal coaches her through it, and tells her to lean into her feelings. She muses dreamily that Hannibal is making breakfast for dinner. Then, a very crucial dialogue exchange occurs.

            ABIGAIL HOBBS: Eggs and sausage was the last meal I was having with my parents.

            HANNIBAL: I know. It’s also the first meal you’re having with me.

Again, Hannibal proves himself to be an astonishingly devious motherfucker. The meal selection is purposeful. The mushroom tea is purposeful. In Abigail’s state of enhanced consciousness, her senses will be teased with the nostalgia of the smells and tastes of her family kitchen – but now, instead of her father preparing that same meal, she will see Hannibal. The smells, the tastes, the memories will all blur together and Hannibal will become her new father. Although Hannibal’s weapon of choice is a good knife, throughout the series, he also wields a more subtle one – drugs. He drugs so many people in the series it is difficult to list them all. As a doctor, he is aware of all the medications, both natural and synthetic that can be used to warp the human mind. And he makes use of them all. If you don’t love him, he’ll dose you with scopolamine and flashy lights until you do. Like I said, Hannibal gets what he wants – no matter what.

            The significance of the breakfast meal reaches a higher note when the viewer realizes at the end of the episode that the other person Hannibal intended to be sitting at the dining room table with he and Abigail was Will Graham. If Will hadn’t been otherwise engaged, Hannibal’s plan to cement the foundations of his family that night over sausage and eggs might have been successful.

            Hannibal and Will both have, in their own ways, tried to place themselves in Abigail’s life as new family members, new fathers. The difference is in intention and execution. Will stumbles into this new fatherhood and seems to have only the best hopes for Abigail, although his own motives seem confusing to him. Hannibal executes his plan with precision and solid intent. Since “Apéritif,” he has incrementally been making both Will and Abigail more accustomed to the idea of the three of them as a family. He insinuates the idea into their subconscious minds and he also states it just flat out to their faces. Hannibal comes at you from all sides. When he wants something, Hannibal will get it by hook, by crook, or if you are unlucky, by something sharper.

            Back at the BAU, Alana has come in to help Jack’s team try to identify the Peter Pan of the group of Lost Boys. She and Will and Bev all look at files and photos of kids who have gone missing and fit the basic profile Will has worked up. Through discussion and teamwork, they pull out the file of Chris O’Halloran as a possible Lost Boy. When Alana says that the boys are like, “brothers looking for a mother,” everything clicks in Will’s mind (Schuur 39).

            Will goes to talk to Jack. He tells Jack that the leader of the boys is a woman who is “looking to form a family” (Schuur 39). Jack says, “Family can have a contagion effect on the alienated. You adopt the same behaviors” (Schuur 39).

            This, of course, is exactly what is happening to Will and Abigail as Hannibal’s contagion works its way into their system. Will, as an empath, is already known for adopting the behaviors of those around him, even down to their ways of speaking and physical gestures. But, like Hannibal, Will is becoming more protective of Abigail. Like Hannibal, Abigail is lying more often, and is learning how to lie better. And they both are becoming more reliant on Hannibal. The virus is already in their system. I would imagine that under a super-powered microscope, the Hannibal virus wears a little three-piece suit and you can hear strains of a tiny piano playing The Goldberg Variations. It’s absolutely true and you can’t convince me otherwise.

            The BAU team then comes up with video camera footage of Chris O’Halloran in a convenience store with Eva. Chris’ family lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and so the team gears up to descend on that home.

            Act Four ends with Chris on the front doorstep of his family home, ringing the doorbell. His mother opens the door and is overwhelmed with joy to see her missing son returned to her. Until C.J. steps onto the porch holding a gun.

            Act Five begins with an FBI SWAT team and all of Team Sassy Science and Jack and Will storming into the back yard of the O’Halloran home. The boys are holding Chris’ family hostage at gunpoint around a barbeque grill. SWAT shoots and kills C.J. Chris runs. As Jack and the rest of the team tend to Jesse Turner and the O’Halloran family, the patriarch of which has been wounded, Will catches up with Chris by the pool. Chris has a gun. Will begins coaxing Chris to put the gun down. The boy is conflicted, confused. Eva suddenly steps out from behind the pool house and settles in behind Chris. She drapes her arm in a motherly embrace around Chris’ neck, revealing her firearm. She commands Chris to kill Will. Will begins baiting Eva. He questions the horrible things she has done to the boys, her “family” she supposedly loves – she kidnapped them; she forces them to kill people. At this point, Eva says something that is very key to our lesson.

            EVA: I’m honoring them like their other mothers wouldn’t. They’re not invisible anymore. I can see them. I see who they are and love them (Schuur 40A).

            Seeing and being seen is one of the most dominant and recurring themes in Hannibal. Acceptance and understanding are as well. More about that in my conclusion.

            Eva continues to push Chris to shoot Will. Chris freezes. When Eva raises her own weapon to fire at Will, from behind him, there is a shot. The camera cuts to show that the shot has come from Beverly Katz. Eva is hit in the shoulder. As she falls, Chris is released. Bev takes the kid away and Eva is arrested.

            We now see Chris sitting in the back seat of Jack Crawford’s car. Jack gets in the driver’s seat and turns over his shoulder to talk to Chris. Jack is preparing Chris for the long hours of questioning and court proceedings that are in his future. Chris asks about jail and then says of Eva, “She told me they weren’t my family. That we had to make our own family” (Schuur 43A). Chris asks to speak to his real mom, but Jack tells him that can’t happen until later, probably after a good deal of interrogation. Jack takes Chris away.

            Now, at Hannibal’s house, we see that Alana has arrived and is laying into Hannibal about checking Abigail out of the hospital without her permission. In a line that is absolutely hilarious to the #FannibalFamily, Alana says, “Rude, Hannibal. Shockingly rude” (Schuur 43A). It has all sorts of implications, but I find myself most often wondering if Hannibal could lop off a small bit of himself for Alana to eat or even more to the point, if he could find a small piece of his body that he could eat himself. The rude get eaten. Hannibal is definitely more than a snack. He's a five-course meal.

            Hannibal apologizes. He tells Alana that she was right, that Abigail was not yet ready to leave the hospital. She suffered some distress and so Hannibal has given her “half a valium” (Schuur 44). The two go into the dining room, where Abigail sits, her eyes watery with stoned emotion. Alana sits in the place at the table that was meant for Will. Abigail smiles brightly and stares at Hannibal and Alana. The image of her two guardians shift into a beautiful image of her parents. When Hannibal asks her what she sees, Abigail says, “I see family” (Schuur 45). The episode ends.

And now dear readers, the LESSON.

To which you say, “Oh my God, about fucking time!”

I promised you a lesson. I never promised brevity.

            Outside of Hannibal, in the non-fiction world, some people are lucky enough to have “real”  family members who are kind and reliable people. Still, many people have to leave their “real” families behind and find and make their own. I have delineated the reasons people must walk away from family before – abuse, neglect, or any shade of agony along the spectrum of wielded pain.

            Many people are crucified by their families for being the one thing those family members cannot tolerate – DIFFERENT.

            When I was a little girl, I loved Mr. Rogers. I still do. I love him with all my heart. One of the reasons I loved good ol’ Fred was because every single day, he told me, “You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are” (Fred Rogers, every day).

            And so the lesson…

            “REAL” FAMILY LOVES US FOR EXACTLY WHO WE ARE.

            They love our strengths and our weaknesses. They love our admirable traits and our not so admirable ones. They love our morning breath, and our crappy dancing, and our little idiosyncrasies. They love the big things about us too. They don’t shame us for being who we are and they don’t try to change us to fit some ridiculous standard that they deem to be more “acceptable.”

            They love our scars as much as our smiles.

            If your own family doesn’t love you like this – get you a new one. Even if you have to make it.

            Just don’t kill anybody.

            Try social media. I hear tell there’s lots of folks there.

            By the way, I must send MUCH, MUCH LOVE to my #FannibalFamily.

            Eva was wrong. You can have more than one family. I have two.

            Here endeth the lesson…

References:

Freedman, Adrianna. “54 Ron Swanson Quotes from ‘Parks and Recreation’ Guaranteed to Make You Laugh.” Men’s Health, www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a34774462/ron-swanson-quotes. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

Harris, Thomas. Hannibal. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.

Harris, Thomas. Red Dragon. New York, Berkley, 2000.

Hay, Louise. You Can Heal Your Life. New York, Hay House, Inc., 2004.

Rogers, Fred. The thing he said on every single episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Schuur, Jennifer. Writer. “Oeuf.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 4, Chiswick Productions, 2012.

“Sound and Vision – David Bowie.” Lyrics.com, www.lyrics.com/lyric/32096867/David+Bowie/Sound+and+Vision      . Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.