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margotoo0 · 5 months

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◇ Huge Sukuna headcanon AU ◇ (cuz I'm crazy)

English is not my native language. It was originally written in Russian, so it is very difficult to translate it correctly, since there are a lot of slangs. And I’m also talking damn nonsense, that’s why.

DO NOT TAKE EVERYTHING WRITTEN SERIOUSLY!!! THIS ALL WAS WRITTEN WHEN THE AUTHOR WAS UNDER METH!!!♡♡♡♡♡

I hope you stay alive and read this to the end.

AU! Our time

Well, what... About the base?

◇About 40-45 years old, mentally - all 70.. (he just tired) No wife, no family, everything is according to the canon.

◇It’s worth paying a little attention to his appearance (Kukukhuhuh):

1) I’ve seen a lot of art on AU Sukuna (I’ve seen a lot, a lot...), I really liked the theme with the patch on the right eye, so let’s take note. Most likely, either he has some problems since birth (Ehehe.. Let’s leave the topic of an unwanted child due to a congenital pathology?))), or he successfully lost it in one of the stabbings (that’s how he met Uraume..)

2) Huge bruises under the eyes. With age, wrinkles also appeared there. The eyes are sleepy, sometimes capillaries burst.

3) His skin is rough and rough. A common problem is peeling; in winter it’s completely out of whack.

4) AQUILINE NOSE (big noses, I like big noses..)

5) He is tall. Very. 190+ exactly. But this is not just a cruise ship, it’s a whole tank. The same guy who is the envy of all natural jocks. Something between a mesomorph, and maybe even an endomorph. The fact itself: there is a lot of muscle, but not dry. In all the right places, as they say...Ahhhhh. I won’t write you the muscle mass ratio and fat percentage, sorry. Where did it come from? Well, look at his true uniform. (Moreover, there were jokes on the Internet that he was on a mass gain after the illustration for the exhibition came out. Eh...They just didn’t deserve him, they were jealous) A strong, good man, I give it a like, without a ticket to my bed. You can consider yourself to have won the genetic lottery. Little nasty bug.

6) It’s obvious that in some places there are scars (a scar on the stomach, where his mouth is, according to the canon), burns... There’s all sorts of things there, in fact.

7) Tattoo? YES!

8) I also saw a couple of heads on Sukuna the boxer, he was included in the heavyweight category. I COMPLETELY AGREE, THIS IS A FACT.

9) In general, he is a typical cat-person. Like..he is so tiger 🐅

10) He also squints often. His gaze is empty, but in his head there is a whole construction site.

====

Okay, I didn’t come up with anything else about appearance, you can figure it out for yourself. Let's go big already.

◇Philosophy of life? Sukuna adheres to that same “hedonism”, EGOISM, that everyone somehow misses when they talk about Sukuna’s philosophy. He doesn’t believe in your metaphysics; sometimes nihilistic tendencies slip through.

◇Remember his hobby? FOOD. And this thing has been preserved. He doesn’t deny himself anything, an ever-meat diet. Proper nutrition? Diets? Wtf, what? He don't know what. But he’s also an eater, he won’t eat everything, he’s very selective. High quality, three Michelin stars. (In general, the topic here is this... In the Heian era, he ate people, right? So, he mainly gave preference to the meat of women and children, since their meat is more tender due to a higher percentage of fat than that of men. Juicy, to be honest)

◇Eh...Would he be Hannibal Lector? Would you eat human flesh? Answer this question yourself. But it's interesting.

◇He has a very specific taste in food

◇What does he do in life? OHHOHO, SO. This is where the juice begins.

Please just keep in mind that this is all a fat joke.

◇We all know very well that Sukuna loves battles, fights, fighting, wars... He loves physical contact very much. Because of this, there is a head that Sukuna could have been involved in wrestling, in particular, boxing or jujitsu, but I have an opinion that Sukuna simply would not have lasted long, or would not have started a career at all. Well, how...

1) If we assume that he was actually involved in wrestling at one time, then his “career” ended after the first major championship at the age of about 20-25 years. In short, everything is simple: during the first round he almost killed his opponent (HAHAHAA), it came to resuscitation. Of course, Sukuna is a tough fighter, but no one expected such meanness. How was he even allowed in? Well, we thought about making money, but Sukuna’s adrenaline was stronger. He never returned to the ring. By some miracle he was not convicted (or rather... They wanted to, but Sukuna was faster). By the way, it must be said that this is not the first time Sukuna has smeared someone on the floor. But for some reason he always got away with it. It didn’t work out here... He wasn’t very upset, to be honest.

Did you think that he would receive penalties cards? No. There are 100% problems with the law. I just decided not to do hardcore.

2) From here I could already talk about the second half of his cheerful life, but I must say that Sukuna, I think, would not go into big sports at all, since it requires a lot of organization, and besides, a lot restrictions. Even MMA is NOT fighting without rules. Elementary. Sukuna has very good stamina, as well as willpower, it’s just... He couldn’t get enough of it. He doesn’t chase fame and success, he’d like to get a thrill from a fight. You can’t just leave training, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. He is simply an excellent virtuoso and improviser who adapts perfectly to the situation, BUT! Only if he WANTS it.

There is a very simple formula: "I can, but I don’t want to. I'm lazy, I'm not interested." Sukuna is not an organized person at all, and if he behaves like this, it is clearly not in good deeds.

3) You can skip this part, but I liked this idea. First I came up with it myself, then I also found headcanons with JJK teachers, everything coincided.

◇It seems to me that Sukuna could become an excellent historian, I don’t know why.. The topic is this: as a cover, he could randomly choose a profession (purely because his history was going well, but he had already improved his dorm life, when he was detained in the police stations for several days)

◇He doesn’t believe in God, but God believes in him, so Sukuna passed the exams well. As I say, he very smart and capable, if only I had the desire.

◇ I’ll quickly go over it:

1) I didn’t want to teach at a university, but at a college - why not. He doesn't like teenagers, but he likes to mock them.

2) He is constantly late for lectures. He swore at his directors when they put the history first. As a result, on Thursday the history is only 50 minutes long.

3) We must give him credit, he talks SO INTERESTINGLY, it’s just crazy. Here you will either listen with your mouth open, or fall asleep to his voice (sorry, I couldn’t resist, phew. In this case, he will come up and knock on the head, like “Who’s there?”) 😭😭😭 (AZAHAZPH)

4) He talks like he went to Moscow with Napoleon, then he judged the Decembrists, then he was in Petrograd at the revolution, then he and Stalin thought about how to defeat the browns, and he also sat together with Goering at Nuremberg... I think there’s no need to even mention the process of battles in the Second World War. He wrote everything down in a notebook while he was in the trench. In general, it's tough.

5) Despite all the charm of the above, he has a terrible memory for dates, so even his students don’t bother with it.

6) Do you want a test? Buy him an expensive bottle of red wine, then he MAYBE will consider your offer (yes, of course he will, he’s just showing off, he’s not interested in that at all)

7) After the first month, the students began to suspect something. You know, mysterious, like a perfume set (russian proverb). Like that same physical education teacher who always hangs out in the back room (local joke...). The smart ones guess, but the smartest ones have already made inquiries, they just remain silent, since Sukuna, in fact, is respected and feared by teenagers (in a good way). It’s a pity that the love is not particularly mutual...Uh.

In general, you understand. But what does he do anyway? He became a teacher in order to divert attention from himself. Decent citizen, but is just some kind of grouch <3

It's time for us to go into his natural environment. Crime)

Here everything is based on:

1. Pleasure, risk

2. Money. Just to live large.

It all started with Uraume (here also Uraume is “they”, so you can consider it either a man or a woman. Whatever you want). According to the canon, Uraume is a cook. It’s the same here, but with a surprise.. In general, Uraume “cooks”, and in Russian, he makes interesting preparations...)))(EMHAJAJAJJAAHPA0, WHAT IS THE PLOT OF “BREAKING BAD”, AZAHAHAHCH I’M DEAD Okay, just give me a chance)

◇Sukuna knew his comrades so well that he learned about Ura’s affairs only after 8-9 years of acquaintance (Forgive him).

◇In short, Uraume cooks well, and also studied at the chemistry department. Uraume had a purely monetary question; they didn’t use their own product (and I don’t advise you to, otherwise you’ll later invent such garbage like I did)

◇ – What is this? - What do you think? Sukuna narrowed his eyes. - And you decided not to tell me about it? - And I didn’t hide it. Just why extra attention to yourself? There was silence in the room. - Listen... - Sukuna, don't- - LET ME FINISH. ◇ Uraume had no options.

◇Every drug dealer needs his own "sportik" (This is what we call those who punish or kill people who hide drugs). Well, you understand, right...?

◇Well, that’s how it started to spin and spin. Moreover, it was Sukuna who opened the doors to the darkest places. Accordingly, he himself stood up very quickly, and even the dog would not dare to growl. Hello, black market. The only problem is hiding all this from the police + there is not enough imagination on how to launder the money, but the business itself is going well and wonderful. Sukuna also managed to be a hired killer in the dark spaces. He lives a very happy life, he likes it. Finally able to use fighting skills. Hooray.

◇ Sukuna once even showed interest in “cooking” while watching Uraume. You will be shocked, but he does a great job. Wow.

◇Well, not really. It seems to me that Sukuna is either a pure humanist, or with an admixture of biology and chemistry (everything was reinforced there along the way). But algebra, geometry, physics - well, no. I was ready to fight to the death with one guy from the faculty of Physics and Mathematics, because they stood and proved what is generally more important in life. I think his name was Gojo...I don't know.

◇ The only thing he can do from this is count money and interest.

◇The same person who will walk into the room, be silent for 5 minutes, and then sigh and “I, you know, what I think...”. He will tell you the whole course of philosophy, and then he will also express his opinion. I advise you to remain silent, not breathe loudly and listen carefully.

◇Law of the universe: if Sukuna is nearby, then with a 99% probability something will fall, break... Or maybe someone...

◇ Law of the universe: if Sukuna is nearby, then with a 99% probability something will fall, break, or break. Or maybe someone..

◇MAKE IT TO THE HIGH FASHION! He really knows how to dress with taste. You can’t tell from him, since Sukuna, like Tyler Durden, destroys everything, but he still understands art, aesthetics and style. And you will find out this in a completely unexpected way.

◇“Combining green and yellow in the interior? What squalor...”

“Mmm... Like Baroque”

◇Prefers dark and deep colors: black, burgundy, red, emerald, purple, ocher, etc.

◇ He loves Japanese painting on clothes, although most often he wears plain ones. But he has one or two kimonos. How is this painting technique... Yuzen?

◇Despite the fact that he has large hands and fingers, he has well-developed fine motor skills (a useful skill))

◇Doesn’t go to the GYM and makes fun of those who go there. Real men should knock out brains and teeth! (He just somehow saw that Gojo and Yuji’s change were going to the gym. That’s where it came from)

◇He, of course, could become some kind of powerlifter, since his physical capabilities allows it, but he doesn’t want to. Does he even want anything other than to kill and ruin the lives of others? (NO)

◇He met Kenjaku through Uraume

◇Sukuna calls Kenjaku a freak and a pervert (f*cked, to be more precise) because of his strange humor (Believe me, Sukuna is not far off, like...Kenjaku jokes about necr0philia, and Sukuna about cannibalism)

◇ I sleep and see: two grandfathers are sitting and trying to tell jokes. Only Uraume is unfunny...

◇Sukuna has some problems with sleep, and it doesn’t matter whether he sleeps a lot or a little, 3 hours or 12. He often dozes. (Sleepy kitty)

◇ Head from school: Sukuna had no friends at all before college, and there’s no point in talking about friends. One against all, all against one. In the last year of study, he changed place of study because he almost threw a classmate out of the window, and he also received a concussion.

◇He hated team games. Do you get upset when you are accused of playing poorly and causing your team to lose? Pf. In the first few games, Sukuna deliberately threw the ball anywhere, and he himself took it away from his team, passing it to another. And it makes no difference which team.

◇ He was not respected, he was feared. And rightly so, they were afraid. He could really kill

◇In fact, his social skills are poorly developed, he simply does not consider it necessary. In college, he got involved with Uraume, and that was enough for him. Cosy.

◇By the way, according to the canon there is no wife or children, it’s the same story. We must pay tribute - he did not touch women, unless he killed them when it was necessary for “work”. Sukuna himself is a very attractive man, but 85% of women were afraid of him, the remaining 15% tried to somehow flirt with him, start communicating, but Sukuna 🤨❓️ then showed such contempt that these women developed complexes for the rest of their lives.

◇ He never took call women (prost|tute), he is above that. He generally has the vibe “woman, keep your hands to yourself”, “don’t embarrass yourself” ◇ He can respect you if:

A) You are very smart

B) You are very strong

C) A and B together

He will definitely praise you if he finds you something interesting about you and your business (unless you are Yuji)

◇You can challenge him, just don’t be too stubborn, keep silent again, otherwise your new accessory will become a crutch.

◇I remembered the phrase of one man: “It doesn’t matter whether you are a woman or a man, I will beat you the same way.” This is he.

◇HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT ANYONE. This is a constant. Will never take responsibility for another person. The only thing he will do is solve Uraume's problems, or just see how people cope. Independence is the key to a good relationship with Sukuna.

◇Content is content, but let's be honest, according to the canon, Sukuna is a very selective frame. This one is boring and not interesting, but this one is weak, and this one is annoying. In general, you won't please. I don't believe that Sukuna could fall in love with someone at all. It's amazing how most of the people here portray him in fanfiction. Well, he wouldn’t start this “subdue and rule” thing, he would immediately take your head off your shoulders. You should be on an equal footing with him, if not superior. Of course, he will fight for dominance, but he definitely values both physical and mental strength. In this regard, absolutely adequate and objective. The most important thing is to have something to praise for. And when someone crawl on their knees in front of him...Why the hell do you doing, you rag? We figured it out.

◇ At one time he used headphones very often, almost 24/7. Moreover, he turned it on purely for the background, without any purpose.

◇In general, he has no goals, only a path. And he does the right thing.

◇Frequent periods of “I don’t want anything, I won’t do anything.”

◇He has 2 states: either he does nothing AT ALL, sits on his ass, or he is a nightmare to everything and everyone.

◇He knows how to speak civilly, but only during some important negotiations. He himself is taciturn, sometimes he makes some obscene remarks. But once every few months he can give out some beautiful poetic remark. You hit the jackpot (“Moonlight helps me to see better how pathetic you are.” Oh, what a romantic)

◇He doesn’t like sweets, but it seems to me that he would like oriental sweets..Turkish delight)

◇A fan of Japanese and Kazakh food

◇He smells of "oldspice", heavy cologne, tobacco and sweat.

◇If he were an animal, he would definitely be a tiger. One big cat. Predatory, but with grace. Just like that.

◇He rarely responds to messages, but if he does, he gives out such a bunch of text, just so that you get tired of reading it all. He writes very quickly. But then again, in real life he's just quiet and grumpy.

◇A bunch of bad habits. It’s just one bad habit (but we’re not going to give it up, right?)

◇Gege Akutami once mentioned that he liked the performance of K-POP group MAMAMOO, in particular, Hwasa was the main shock. In short, if Yuji likes Jennifer Lawrence, then Sukune’s fatal luxury is Hwasa (I just really love this woman myself). He doesn’t listen to K-pop, he just likes her (hips don’t lie, friends..)

◇He would listen to either rock/heavy metal. I can also bet on darkwave, experimental, or maybe something with traditional Japanese motifs. Or maybe even a classic. Who knows..

◇He constantly carries all sorts of chewing gum with him.

◇It seems to me that he is one of those very people to whom you will say: “I went *somewhere*”, will not glance at you, and will remain sitting on the sofa. But after 30 minutes of your journey you will feel that something is wrong..(he is trailing behind you). Cause? He's bored.

◇ His main mission in life is to scare people until their hearts stop. No, just imagine: you’re standing in the kitchen, not bothering anyone, and suddenly a 2-meter big guy squints and slowly picks up a knife. And then he begins to walk towards you with a medium step. Your actions? (Spoiler: subway surf begins) And for realism, it will even leave a cut on your back. <33333 I luv this man sm

◇He clearly has some kind of jokes with physical contact. Pinches, pokes. Bruises are guaranteed.

◇110% organized all sorts of underground fight clubs.

That's all. The fantasy is over. I caught the cringe and laughed. It was fun and enjoyable.

Thanks

#sukuna #ryomen sukuna #jjk sukuna #sukuna jjk #sukuna headcanons #sukuna x reader #sukuna x y/n #jjk x reader #jjk headcanons #sukuna hcs #sukuna my beloved #sukuna ryomen #sukuna true form

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sihaya74 · 10 months

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NEW The Lessons of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal S1: E6 -- HOPE IS THE THING WITH SURGICAL TROPHIES

Lessons of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

S1:E6 – HOPE IS THE THING WITH SURGICAL TROPHIES

Hello readers and #FannibalFamily! Yes, it’s been a hot minute since I have updated this blog. What can I say? Life has a tendency to intervene. A few real-life events knocked me out of my daily writing pattern and I am just now beginning to regain my balance. This blog is, however, something I am committed to finishing no matter how long it takes, and so, I am digging back into the scripts of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal and prepared to create my next installment – an analysis of the theme, the message, the universal lesson in the happenings of Season 1, Episode 6: “Entrée.”

I must make an important note that at this point, I have rewatched the show some five or six times. But this is my first time delving into the scripts for all the episodes. I have to occasionally remind myself about scenes in these episodes or lines of dialogue that wound up being cut or moved to a different episode. But since I am approaching this project as an English major and analyzing both the show and the scripts as a TEXT – (my literary theory professor, Dr. Hogue, always said that everything in life is a TEXT and he was damn sure right about that) – then I see no issue with the fact that sometimes the words I am analyzing didn’t always make it to the screen in the exact form they started out in. Hannibal is a series that is a feast for all the senses – its visual beauty, its soundtrack and score and sound effects, the effort put in to rendering the most beautiful depictions of food on the screen and so perhaps the viewer can imagine their taste – (I have dreamed feverishly about those High Life Eggs more than once, I can tell you) – but all of it begins where good stories start – on the page. And so, it is to the page and the words that I remain loyal.

This episode of Hannibal, “Entrée,” had two authors. Kai Yu Wu conceived the story and Wu and Bryan wrote it together. The episode was directed by Michael Rymer.

In the order of our French dishes, by which each episode of the first season is named, at this point in the series, we have partaken of the following: a pre-dinner drink, a little bitty appetizer, a bowl of hearty soup, some eggs, and a chicken or fish dish baked in a sauce and served in a scallop shell or scallop-shaped dish. And so now, a viewer must ask, “What’s next?” That or: “I need to take a break because I’m full.” At which, Bryan Fuller points at the viewer’s plate and says, “You’ll clean your plate and you’ll like it. You’ll love it. You’ll beg me for another season when we’re done.” Just trust him. He’s the chef. You always trust the chef. They know what they’re doing.

In a classic French meal, the entrée is not necessarily the main dish and it is not always served – sometimes they skip courses. When it does appear, it is usually a meat dish, in a sauce (GOTTA HAVE A SAUCE), and with sides. In American cuisine, entrée has come to mean a MAIN COURSE always. And what an entrée is in American cuisine varies wildly by what is on the menu, who is eating it, and how many fried cheese sticks and jalapeno poppers the person had prior to the entrée arriving at their table. Still, the idea holds. When you say the word “entrée,” people expect a main course – something substantial, something that sticks to your ribs. And in this episode, there is definitely a lot of meat – meat that has been rubbed and aged over the last five episodes and is now sliced and steaming from the oven. This episode is mostly about advancing the MAIN storyline – that of the Chesapeake Ripper and the FBI’s and namely, Jack Crawford’s, attempts to catch the seasoned killer. (Seasoned… see what I did there? YOU GOT PUNNED!)

And on a thirsty side note: After viewing the scene in which Will Graham reenacts the murder of nurse Elizabeth Shell, the fact that the episode is named “Entrée,” makes complete sense. Hugh Dancy in that scene is an entire meal with ample meat for leftovers. (Seriously – JFC – if you haven’t seen it, or seen it lately, do yourself a favor and have some GOOD FOOD.)

We start the episode with our introduction to one of the series’ completely original characters, Dr. Abel Gideon, a former transplant surgeon, who after being convicted of the murders of his wife and her family, has been incarcerated in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, for the last two years. The character is portrayed with amazing skill, subtlety, and awesomeness, by Suzy Eddie Izzard. I have been a longtime fan of Izzard’s work and was insanely pleased to see the actor amongst the cast members.

I must point out the literary significance of the character’s name – Abel Gideon, a smorgasbord of Biblical allusion. The import of the Doctor’s first name is obvious – Abel, in the Biblical version of things, was the first murder VICTIM, slain by the hands of his jealous brother, Cain, who was angry that God liked Abel better and had a right fit about it. The character of Gideon is slightly more complex, but basically it goes as follows: Gideon was a prophet in the Old Testament. He destroyed the idols of Baal and others in his town’s temple because the townspeople were worshipping false gods. An angel told him to. Then, Gideon led the Israelites against other “heathen” tribes and won. They wanted to make him king, but he told them their only king was God. Still, he had them melt down the golden earrings of all their enemies who had fallen in battle and they wove the golden thread into an ephod, a priestly garment that is worn under the breastplate. Gideon put it in the temple and the people started worshipping it as an idol, because I guess, it was gold. Old Testament people always seem really impressed by gold. The Scripture is unclear, but it does say that the ephod was “a snare unto Gideon, and to his house” (Judges 8: 27).

You could say Gideon was a hypocrite, or more accurately, a terrible fool because he tried to stop the people from worshipping false idols and then he just led them into doing it again by creating something they would see as a sacred object. At best, Gideon was naïve. At worst, he was a fraud.

Dr. Abel Gideon’s name therefore could translate into something like: Dr. VICTIM FRAUD – or Dr. VICTIM FOOL. Despite his intelligence, he is lured directly into Dr. Chilton’s trap to believe and admit he is the Chesapeake Ripper solely because of Frederick’s needy ego – Frederick wants more feathers in his cap – he doesn’t have near enough and Hannibal Lecter’s are brighter and bespoke and where the fuck did he even find a custom featherer in Baltimore?

Then, later in the series, Gideon is led directly into the trap of the true Chesapeake Ripper and probably desperately wishes he had stayed in the BSHCI and eaten his stewed apricots and minded his own business.

Poor Abel is nothing but a puppet for two different egotistical psychiatrists. Unfortunately for him, one of them happens to be Hannibal Lecter.

And so, we begin the episode with the scene of Gideon passed out on the floor of his cell in the BSHCI and a team of prison guards approaching his limp form very cautiously and eventually shackling him, hand and foot, to a gurney, and wheeling him into the hospital infirmary, where he is treated by the aptly named Nurse Shell.

As evidenced by my previous discussion of Gideon’s name, I have come to realize the significance of character names in Bryan Fuller’s work. They are often allusions or tributes – homages to the work of other writers, directors, artists, scientists, and so on, that Bryan admires. For example, one has to assume that the surname of Bryan’s beloved Bedelia (another original character), Du Maurier, is a tribute to author Daphne du Maurier, author of many books and film adaptations of suspense – such as Rebecca, which Bryan and many of his horror colleagues discuss in the fabulous AMC/Shudder series Queer For Fear, on which Bryan was an executive producer and director. Basically, Mrs. Danvers was either literally or only metaphorically all up in Rebecca de Winter’s undergarments and when the woman died, Mrs. Danvers decided to make it everyone’s problem. The movie is awesome. Go watch it if you haven’t already. And then watch Queer For Fear. I believe they discuss Rebecca in both episodes two and four.

Anyway, Nurse Shell is correctly and tragically named because a shell of her former self is what she winds up as when the deluded Gideon is done with her.

As Nurse Shell turns her back, Gideon extricates the broken-off tine of a fork he has hidden in an incision in his palm. I believe this scene is an homage to the scene in The Silence of the Lambs when Dr. Lecter unearths a metal fragment from the back of his jaw, the inner workings of a ballpoint pen that has fallen into his hands. He uses this makeshift lockpick on his own handcuffs, much to the chagrin of Lieutenant Boyle and Sargeant Pembry. Classic scene.

Anyway, Gideon uses this tine to pick the lock on his handcuffs and when Nurse Shell turns around upon hearing the heart monitor hit a flatline, it’s lights out for the poor woman. We do not see Gideon kill her, but we see the results of his work soon.

Next, we see Jack Crawford and Will Graham vaulting up the front steps of the hospital, Jack explaining that based on the method of Nurse Shell’s murder, Freddie Lounds has run an unconfirmed story suggesting that Abel Gideon is the Chesapeake Ripper, which would explain the lull in murders for the last two years. Will is indignant that he is “fact-checking for Freddie Lounds,” but Jack coddles him with the statement, “You’re fact-checking for me” (Wu and Fuller 2).

There is heavy foreshadowing in the following exchange between Jack and Will before they enter the hospital:

WILL GRAHAM: I’m always a little nervous going into one of these places. Afraid they’ll never let me out again.

JACK CRAWFORD: Don’t worry. I’m not going to leave you here.

WILL GRAHAM: Not today (Wu and Fuller 3).

I really do recommend you watch the series more than once so this dramatic irony is not lost.

Once Jack and Will enter the hospital, we see the first appearance of another of our main characters and one of the most important in the Hannibal canon: Dr. Frederick Chilton.

In Fuller’s series, Chilton is rendered flawlessly by actor Raul Esparza, a deep daddy of mine (see ADA Rafael Barba of Law and Order: SVU fame). Esparza is another Fuller Favorite, having appeared in one of Bryan’s previous masterpiece shows, Pushing Daisies.

There have been three actors who have portrayed the petty and obsequious Dr. Chilton, starting with Benjamin Hendrickson in 1986’s Manhunter. The second actor, and perhaps the most well-known portrayal, is that of Anthony Heald who took on the role in both 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs and reprised the role in 2002’s Red Dragon.

Heald’s portrayal of Chilton is masterful – the Doctor is intelligent, but smarmy – officious and gladhanding – his pass at Clarice in the early moments of the film immediately puts the viewer off on him. Hannibal only seals the audience’s hatred of the Doctor by regaling Clarice with Chilton’s petty tortures of him, which are effectively contrasted by the treatment Hannibal receives from the ever-present orderly, Barney Matthews, played by awesome Frankie Faison, who treats Hannibal with a cautious respect, as a zookeeper might treat a venomous reptile. Barney never forgets what Hannibal is capable of. Chilton supposedly knows as evidenced by his relation of Hannibal’s biting attack on a nurse – he left only one of her eyes, ate her tongue without his pulse getting above 85 – but still, Chilton prods and humiliates Hannibal in unnecessary ways that LITERALLY come back to bite him in the end.

Esparza’s Chilton is as intelligent as Heald’s, but slightly more savvy, ounces more petty, a bit more of a drama queen, and as opposed to Heald’s Chilton, who is ostensibly tortured and eaten by Hannibal at the end of The Silence of the Lambs, Esparza’s Chilton, in Fuller’s hands, is the favorite whipping post of killers and law enforcement alike – being practically disemboweled by one murderer, shot in the face by a traumatized Ripper victim, and later suffers the fate that Harris’ original Freddy Lounds suffers, a lip-ectomy and burning at the hands of Francis Dolarhyde. Freddy Lounds dies in both Manhunter/Red Dragon from this attack, but in Fuller’s Hannibal, no matter what, Frederick Chilton continues to survive, almost Fuller’s own version of the endlessly respawning Kenny of South Park fame.

By my calculation, at the end of Season 3, Chilton is down 3 lives, so logic dictates that he has 6 left. If Fuller ever gets to make the full 7 seasons of Hannibal he imagines, if Chilton averages a death per season, he should survive the completed series with 2 lives left over, proving him to be the true winner of The Hannibal Games.

But, once again, I digress…

As Jack and Will sit in Chilton’s office, Chilton can barely seem to contain his curiosity about Will. Chilton’s open is clunky and obtuse; he says, “Doctor Bloom just called me about you, Mister Graham. Or should I call you Doctor Graham?” (Wu and Fuller 3). From his first line, Chilton seems to embody his later Season 2 remark, a gem from Harris’ canon, that attempting to analyze Will “makes [him] feel…like a freshman pulling at a panty girdle” (Fuller and Lightfoot 20). Chilton’s questions are telegraphed from a mile away – his overtures for more information are blunt and tasteless. Chilton’s questioning of Will, throughout the series, is contrasted with that of Hannibal – the difference is like watching a skilled surgeon with a scalpel as compared to a poorly trained medical student with a plastic spoon. Chilton can’t cut it, in any fashion. Will seems to understand this from the beginning – he sizes Chilton up correctly from their very first meeting.

In their conversation, Chilton betrays himself a little, saying of Nurse Shell, “I can’t help feeling responsible for what happened. I had sessions with Gideon for years…I had no idea what he was hiding. And now one of our staff is dead” (Wu and Fuller 4). Of course, this is foreshadowing of Hannibal ascertaining later in the episode that Chilton is indeed COMPLETELY at fault. However, the most interesting thing about this exchange is Jack Crawford’s reaction. The script indicates that after Chilton’s remark here, it “strikes a chord with Jack…who can relate” (Wu and Fuller 4). Undoubtedly this “relation” is about Miriam Lass, Crawford’s lost trainee, who is first introduced in this episode.

This is all important because of our lesson in this episode and because it highlights one of the driving motives of Jack’s character. In Episode 1, Jack and Alana agree that one of Will’s deepest motives is fear. If that is the case, then we can say that one of, perhaps the most, significant of Jack’s driving motivations is GUILT. Jack’s guilt is so present, so prevalent, so real, it is almost tangible. He feels guilt about Bella, about Miriam, later about Beverly, about Will, about Pazzi. His guilt is so weighty, so integral to his being, that often it overwhelms him, wobbles his sense of reason and the health of his psyche. Our lesson is not about guilt, but it is about an emotion Jack Crawford will not allow himself. In his position as Special Agent Jack Crawford, head of the FBI’s storied Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, Jack does not allow himself much in the way of the easier emotions in life – laughter, joy, wonder – these are not things he can traffic in. Jack Crawford lives in a chapel of death. He is a chronicler of pain.

As Chilton continues to prod Will for information, Jack finally states, “Graham isn’t here to be analyzed” (Wu and Fuller 5). It’s funny to me how people in the show, including Will, keep insisting that he’s NOT THE ONE to be analyzed, but since the very first moments of Episode 1, even the murders seem secondary to everyone else’s analysis of Will. It’s ironic, but I imagine purposefully so. Chilton retorts that “perhaps” Will “should be” analyzed; Chilton wants Will to speak to his colleagues in the hospital, but then he stops himself, saying, “no, no, not this trip. Dr. Bloom was very severe with me on that point” (Wu and Fuller 5). I also find it quite ironic how no one listens to Alana’s advice about handling Will. It speaks to the usual patriarchal pooh-poohing of women, even when they are extremely accomplished members of professional fields. Thankfully, Bryan saw to it that everyone who discounts Alana’s advice winds up paying for it.

Just before escorting Jack and Will to the infirmary where Will can view the crime scene, Chilton says, “Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won” (Wu and Fuller 6). This sentiment is attributed to the Duke of Wellington, and later to writer Robert Jordan, but to me the importance of it here is how it so perfectly illustrates the difference between Harris’ Chilton and Fuller’s Chilton. Every once in a while, especially in Season 3, Chilton seems to disinter these gems of wisdom from the muddy bottom of his intelligence. Often, lines like these, coming from Frederick are like an icepick of truth stabbed into the temple of the scene. A viewer who is familiar with all of the Hannibal canon can see – Fuller’s Chilton is smarter and more poetic than Harris’ Chilton, who is a slick, sad functionary who is both out of his depth with Hannibal Lecter and out of his league with Clarice Starling. Fuller’s Chilton is never in Hannibal’s league, but at times, real insight flashes up from the shallows of his brain, and it makes his character more sympathetic to the viewer. We feel sorry for Fuller’s Chilton. Harris’ Chilton never arouses such pity.

When Will and Jack finally view the nurse’s body, it is described as follows:

She’s IMPALED on the BROKEN FRAMES of several PRIVACY CURTAINS that have been fashioned into SPEARS. They PROTRUDE from wounds over the entire canvas of her body. Additional shards of wood and metal prop her organs above her corpse, giving them the appearance of floating outside her body.

(Wu and Fuller 6)

The visual of this tableaux is important, as it will contrast with the Chesapeake Ripper’s actual rendering of the famous medieval Wound Man shown later in the episode in a flashback. Later, Will calls this murder “plagiarism.” The viewer, especially one who has watched the entire series at least once, can understand Will’s assessment easily. The Chesapeake Ripper is an artist – even when his tableaux are deconstructionist in nature, like Beverly Katz’s murder scene in Season 2, there is still a lingering sense of the whole that once was. The essence of the thing that has been taken apart is still suggested by the Ripper’s composition. Gideon’s attempt at mimicry is just that – a sad parody. He merely skewered organs like Nurse Kabob. He merely jabbed implements in her like Nurse Pincushion. There is no whole left to be had. In Act One, we see the replaying of the gurney scene at the beginning of the episode, except this time with Will in Gideon’s place. This time, we see the attack on Nurse Shell; this time at the hands of Will, who is doing his mental recreation (pendulum swingy – this is my design-y) of the scene.

Will’s recreation here is filed very lovingly by the #FannibalFamily under the title, “THINGS THAT HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING INSANELY HOT,” but Goddamn it… it is.

It’s not just Will’s torn open shirt – it’s not just the visible sweat on his muscled chest and furrowed brow (although those things REALLY HELP) – it’s the power and the confidence Will exudes when he is in the mental guise of the killer. In truth, every time Will does a mental recreation of a crime, he becomes inordinately hotter because he is not the unsure, confused, flinchy Will Graham of outside-his-mind – he is the take-charge, aggressive, Will Graham with some goddamned agency, that he only seems to be able to muster when he slips into the minds of other people – that is until the end of Season 1, anyway. Will’s agency gets a glow up in “Savoureux,” just wait.

I will say that when Will gouges Nurse Shell’s eyes out with his thumbs, that’s a major ick for me. Eye stuff always deeply bothers me. I had two very invasive eye surgeries as a child and I think it makes me sensitive. The needle in the eye scene in Fire In the Sky is a trauma from which I will never recover.

After Will’s recreation is finished, the viewer is then treated to a flashback three years earlier when the character of Miriam Lass enters the series. It is well known that Miriam Lass, played astonishingly by Anna Chlumsky, is Bryan’s substitute for/homage to the character of Clarice Starling, who, because of copyright issues, Bryan could not use in Hannibal. This, of course, is a damn shame, because Clarice is a god-level character and I would love, love, love to see what Bryan could do with her. (I would also like – if we ever get future seasons – to see Ardelia Mapp, Barney Matthews, and Multiple Miggs show up, but I digress…)

Miriam and Clarice share similar backgrounds – they were both FBI Forensic Fellows – Clarice had the great distinction of studying under fingerprint examiner par excellence, Jimmy Price – but they both came through the same program there and at the FBI Academy. Their university degrees differ a little – Clarice is the daughter of a lawman, which Miriam does not seem to be – but both women are the same with regards to their stunning intellects, dogged determination, and their fascinations with and devotions to “the Guru,” Jack Crawford. It reminds me of a passage from The Silence of the Lambs. At the end of the chapter, (I tell you, Thomas Harris knows how to end a fucking chapter) – after Starling and Crawford return from the Potter Funeral Home in West Virginia, Harris writes, “She watched him walk away, a middle-aged man laden with cases and rumpled from flying, his cuffs muddy from the riverbank, going home to what he did at home. She would have killed for him then. That was one of Crawford’s great talents” (96).

Jack tells Miriam that he has culled her from the herd of FBI hopefuls to work for him in the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) because she is at the top of her class, has impressive credentials, and wrote him a fan letter when she was accepted into the Academy. When Jack brings up the Ripper, he says, “The Ripper is very hot right now” (Wu and Fuller 10). Jack is, of course, indicating that the Ripper is on a spree, having taken “his last two victims in six days” (Wu and Fuller 10). But I can’t help but think of Zoolander every time I hear Jack make this remark. “Ooooh, that Ripper – he’s so hot right now…” And let’s be honest, if there’s anyone who could pull off a perfect “Blue Steel,” it’s Mads Mikkelsen.

Miriam impresses Jack with her assessment of the Ripper – not a “true sociopath,” but a killer with “some of the characteristics of what they call a sociopath,” but that in truth, “they don’t know what else to label him” (Wu and Fuller 10). Jack then begins briefing Miriam on the case and we are flashed back to the present and find ourselves sitting with Alana and Will in Frederick Chilton’s office.

Alana and Will are both there to interview Gideon – they will be conducting their interviews separately and then comparing notes. Chilton is “convinced” Gideon is the Ripper (when he knows damned well he’s not), Will is convinced Gideon is NOT the Ripper – Alana is unsure. Chilton informs Alana that even though she only had two sessions with Gideon when he was first admitted to the BSHCI, Gideon has “given [her] a lot of thought” since then (Wu and Fuller 12). It ups the creep factor and of course mirrors the novel Red Dragon, like much of this scene does, except that the inmate is Hannibal Lecter and the person he’s “given a lot of thought to” is Will Graham. Hannibal thinking a lot about Will is deep canon. Always has been. Always will be.

Alana goes into interview Gideon first – when she does, the script indicates, “The STEEL DOOR of the maximum security section closed behind Alana Bloom. She hears the bolt slide home” (Wu and Fuller 13).

I’m always deeply thrilled at how often the writers of Hannibal return to the “Forward to a Fatal Interview” from Harris’ Red Dragon and snatch little phrases from it they leave like glistening Easter eggs for fans to find. This is one such bejeweled egg – a Faberge of one, in fact. This forward is about how Thomas Harris came to create the characters of Will Graham, Clarice Starling, and most importantly, Hannibal Lecter. In the final paragraph, he says, “When in the winter of 1979 I entered the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and the great metal door crashed closed behind me, little did I know what waited at the end of the corridor; how seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slides home” (XIII).

An adaptation is a beautiful thing when you have such beautiful source material to work with. I am forever fascinated by what different filmmakers and actors have done with the Hannibal canon, but we cannot, should not, ever forget the mind that created it and created such compelling characters that withstand the test of time and are enriched every time a new generation of writers and viewers return to them.

The interviews between Alana and Gideon and Will and Gideon are now intercut with each other, a wonderful technique that allows the viewers to compare and contrast for themselves, the differences and similarities between Alana and Will in their questioning, the differences between Gideon’s reactions to Alana and to Will. The most important fact that seems to arise from the interview is when Will says to Gideon about the death of Nurse Shell, “Brutalization of the body was done posthumously. The Chesapeake Ripper usually does that sort of thing during, not after” (Wu and Fuller 15). Will never buys Gideon as the Ripper. His other murders were spontaneous, not planned. Gideon is not an artist; he’s a plagiarist. What Will can’t figure out is why Gideon is copping to murders he didn’t commit.

We begin Act Two with Jack Crawford arriving unannounced at Hannibal’s office, just as the Doctor is about to leave for the day. Hannibal asks if Jack was just “in the neighborhood?” – Jack answers, “Something like that” (Wu and Fuller 16). This line is one of those TV/film chestnuts that you hear over and over and it never actually happens in real life. I have never in my life had someone show up at my door saying they were “just in the neighborhood.” Just like I have never had a cat suddenly jump on me from some unseen elevated position when I am in a darkened alleyway or corridor and things feel all spooky. It’s film logic. It’s kooky, but it works.

Bella is out of town and Jack has come to Hannibal to pry some sort of information out of him about Bella’s cancer – how she’s feeling, what she’s saying, what she thinks – all of which she is not telling Jack and all of which Hannibal cannot tell Jack due to doctor-patient confidentiality. Jack becomes angry. Their conversation is enlightening with regards to Hannibal’s character:

JACK CRAWFORD: You talk to me about Will Graham.

HANNIBAL: Will Graham isn’t officially my patient. We have conversations.

JACK CRAWFORD: What do you consider this?

HANNIBAL: Desperate coping.

(Wu and Fuller 17)

The line here – “desperate coping” – is such a wonderful illustration of how accurately Hannibal is portrayed as having some sociopathic tendencies or at least the tendencies of a narcissist. Throughout the series, Hannibal shows how he can go cold at a moment’s notice – how he can so easily shift from a seemingly caring, compassionate individual to a nightmare of stone-faced, murder-eyed calm. It’s terrifying. I was once very much in love with a man who could do this – he was not a murderer, but he could go dead-eyed and cold on you like this in seconds – and you never knew when it was coming. It scared the shit out of me.

Some might say that Hannibal’s line here is compassionate, that he feels for Jack and his attempts to handle the imminent death of his wife – but I think the line is meant to cut Jack to the quick – he slices right into the meat of Jack’s pain here – as if to say, “Yeah, your wife’s dying. Pull it together, wimp.”

It is canon that Hannibal prods people to cause pain – it is entirely for his own pleasure. A good example is from The Silence of the Lambs. When Hannibal meets with Senator Martin, supposedly to tell her the “real name” of Buffalo Bill (ha ha), he makes a cutting remark about the Senator breastfeeding her daughter when she was a baby. Then this happens: “When her pupils darkened, Dr. Lecter took a single sip of her pain and found it exquisite. That was enough for today” (201).

The man drinks pain. What else is there to say?

Then Hannibal immediately “salves” the wound he has created (“Salve” is the word used in the script directions) – saying “I’ll offer this one insight: she thinks she married the right guy” (Wu and Fuller 17). See Hannibal playing with Jack? Always playing.

Jack then says, “I look at her side of the bed and wonder if she’s going to die there or where she’ll die and I feel myself going uncomfortably numb” (Wu and Fuller 18). I believe this to be a reference to Jack’s actual, canon death that Thomas Harris wrote for him in the novel, Hannibal. It is a death that I completely understand but hate like fire because I think a character like Jack deserved a lot better. I feel that Bryan was writing a better end for Jack.

The end in question is as follows. Clarice Starling has already been drugged and hypnotized, pulled into a strange “relationship” with Hannibal – they live in Buenos Aires together under assumed names. Clarice finds out that Jack has died from the FBI website. Apparently, “after Crawford was home for a month from the hospital, the chest pains came again in the night. Instead of calling an ambulance and going through it all again, he chose simply to roll over to the solace of his late wife’s side of the bed” (483).

I understand it, but dammit Jack deserves better. I believe Bryan was going to give him better. At least he gets to go to Italy and kick Hannibal’s ass. At least he gets another chance.

Jack and Hannibal have a conversation about loss, which leads Hannibal to ask, “Who else couldn’t you save, Jack?” (Wu and Fuller 18). Once again, Hannibal pokes at the wound, tugs at the scab. We know full well that Hannibal has Miriam Lass hidden in a damp, darkened oubliette of a well in a secret farmhouse – all wet and cold with a missing arm in a dirty nightgown and in desperate need of some wet wipes and dry shampoo. We know this – which means all of this questioning about “the lost trainee” is just Hannibal enjoying himself, just Hannibal savoring Jack’s pain. I really do think he lets Miriam live because he likes her – (the same reason book/film Hannibal lets Clarice live – she’s a “deep roller”) – but I also think he lets Miriam live solely to give her back to Jack – just like he gives Bella back to Jack when he thwarts her suicide attempt. Just as he takes Abigail away from Will, then gives her back, then takes her away again – Lucy and the football. Hannibal is “curious” what will happen, but also because he loves the pain. Pain is so much more than hum-drum everyday life – and Hannibal doesn’t like mundane pain – like the worries and neurotic spoutings of Franklyn Froidveaux or Neal Frank, no. Hannibal wants Greek tragedy level pain – a boy who wants to be a killing monster, a girl who wants to kill the brother who has been raping her all her life, a man watching his wife die, a man torturing himself with guilt because he lost another girl, and Will Graham, whose pain is beautiful in its kaleidoscopic, ever-changing qualities – it is always the pain of the killer he is profiling, the victim he is investigating, and sometimes, Will’s own deeply buried pain, abandoned by mom, distant from dad, outcast at school, outcast among colleagues, always alone and beautiful, always alone and confused – in terms of pain, Will is 31 Flavors.

At this point, Jack refuses to tell Hannibal about Miriam Lass – but later on he breaks. The breaking is always Hannibal’s favorite part.

We are now flashed back again to three years earlier; we see Miriam and Jack surveying the Wound Man tableaux rendered by the authentic Chesapeake Ripper. The victim is lashed to his worktable, and all of his tools from the peg board on which they once hung are dug into the man’s body in varying places all over the corpse.

This is not an unfamiliar moment. Jack with a whip-smart profiler assessing the carnage of a crime scene; he has also cleared the way for that profiler by sending all “the others” – the crime scene techs and photographers and forensic creatures -- away. Jack seems to understand that the brilliant ones need to be unfettered by noise and stimuli, even before Will Graham joins his pack. Miriam concludes several important things about both the murder and the murderer, namely that the victim was awake during the attack, and that the Ripper was selective about the organs he harvested. Miriam calls these organs “surgical trophies” – in this way, she is half right (Wu and Fuller 19). It is Will who will determine that the Ripper’s trophies are edible and et. The Ripper is a medical doctor, male, and – and I love this line – “exotic somehow” (Wu and Fuller 19). I believe the “exotic somehow” is meant to refer to the fact that Hannibal Lecter is European. I assume Europeans do not consider themselves “exotic,” but most Americans are flabbergasted by anyone with an accent different than theirs, so… If “exotic” is referring to the fact that the Ripper is being played by masterful and devastatingly beautiful actor Mads Mikkelsen, then yes, he's EXOTIC AS FUCK. Point is, he’s not your run-of-the-mill American. He owns a cravat – more than one probably. He probably has a bidet – he calls sedans “saloons” – and he buys all his table linens and china at Christofle. Miriam compliments Jack’s “peculiar cleverness” and we move out of the scene back into the morgue at the BAU, where Team Sassy Science is examining Nurse Shell’s body and Will is observing (Wu and Fuller 20).

The team is discussing the similarities between Nurse Shell’s murder and the Wound Man murder. They are attempting to rule Abel Gideon IN or OUT. They are unsure how Gideon could have known about the wound patterns the Ripper inflicted on his victims because those details were kept away from the press. Will says, “I see the Ripper but I don’t… feel the Ripper. He’s an artist. This is… plagiarism” (Wu and Fuller 21). Will has his finger on Hannibal’s pulse from the very beginning of the show – whether it be Hannibal as the Copy Cat or Hannibal as the Ripper – when Will finally realizes the two are one and the same, it seems like something that has been on the tip of his tongue since the very beginning. And Will is also very correct in assessing that the real Chesapeake Ripper is not going to let Gideon take credit for his work.

We end Act Two with Jack Crawford at home, asleep in his bed alone, his wife still out of town at a NATO summit. The phone rings. Jack shakes awake and picks up the phone. The clock reads 2:47 A.M. Clocks are an important motif in Hannibal, especially in Season 1. I will address what I think the motif means when I get deeper into Season 1, when Will’s encephalitis begins to worsen, but needless to say – clocks are humankind’s desperate attempt to not only measure but control time – and quite frankly, time rarely cooperates.

When Jack answers the phone, he doesn’t recognize the voice at first – or perhaps he doesn’t believe what he is hearing. The words said by the caller are important because it is these words used to torment Jack for the rest of the episode:

MIRIAM LASS’S VOICE: Jack… Jack… Jack… It’s Miriam. I don’t know where I am. I can’t see anything. I was so wrong. I was so wrong. Please… Jack… I don’t want to die like this. (Wu and Fuller 20).

And then the line goes dead.

We start Act Three back at the BAU. Beverly Katz has checked all the online databases for telecom systems and says she cannot find a trace of any call to Jack’s home at 2:47 AM. As Brian Zeller continues to question Jack’s skills of perception and memory (that maybe Jack dreamed it, that he doesn’t remember what Miriam sounds like), Jimmy Price points out, “whoever called could have tapped in from that little box outside your house. Or the junction in your neighborhood. There would be no trace signal to track” (Wu and Fuller 23). We, the viewer, know this is exactly what the Ripper – Hannibal Lecter – has done, solely because he is Hannibal Lecter, the James Bond/MacGyver of serial killers. He is a psychiatrist, a medical doctor and a surgeon; he speaks/reads/writes at least four languages that we know of. He is a world-class chef, butcher, snail cultivator, beer brewer – he can tie knots, sew, handle a variety of weapons. He can fist-fight – he can ballroom dance. He can give lectures on Dante in the medieval Italian. Obviously, he knows how to tap a phone line. I also feel very certain that Hannibal can fly a plane, hack into any computer (although he finds it distasteful), make his own soap (Fight Club style), and he knows at least one martial art, if not more.

Incidentally, tapping into phone lines is also something Francis Dolarhyde can do – both later in Season 3 when he taps into the phone line at Hannibal’s office and calls Hannibal in the BSHCI with the call masked as Hannibal’s lawyer. But, according to Bryan, the Marlow murder in “Apéritif” is one of Francis’ early murders, and he had to tap into the Marlow phone line to record Mrs. Marlow’s call to the security company. It occurs to me that being a serial killer must create endless hobbies, solely based on things you have to learn, like phone tapping, lock picking, glass cutting, tree-climbing, and “this-is-my-designing.”

Will points out that the 2:47 call obviously didn’t come from the BSHCI, and therefore, could not have been Abel Gideon. When Brian Zeller again suggests that perhaps Jack dreamed the call, Jack shouts at him, “I know when I’m awake” (Wu and Fuller 24). The script then indicates, “Will reacts to that, not always sure he knows the same” (Wu and Fuller 24). Poor Will’s encephalitis is worsening. It only serves to isolate him from others who might possibly help him. And the only person he thinks can help him is actively worsening his condition. I forgive him later, but from this point through the end of Season 1, I am mad as hell at Hannibal. My loyalty is to Will. Hannibal not only doesn’t help my poor baby, he purposely alienates Will from the people who could help him. Grrrrrrr…

Next, we see Will in his classroom at Quantico. Soon, he hears the clacking of hooves on the floor of the corridor. When he looks up, he sees the Black Stag sidling toward him – then this vision morphs into the reality of the circumstance, Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford walking into the room. Jack floats the idea of baiting the Ripper with a well-placed story in the media, a story that will anger the Ripper because the reporter will heavily suggest that Abel Gideon is the REAL Chesapeake Ripper. Will thinks the scheme is dangerous. He says, “You might push the Ripper to kill again just to prove he isn’t in a hospital for the criminally insane;” to which Jack replies, “I have to push, Will” (Wu and Fuller 26). Jack’s statement is very telling – not just about his relentless pursuit of the Ripper, but of himself as a person. Jack does indeed “push.” He pushes everyone. He pushes Will so hard he practically has a nervous breakdown. He pushes him into the hands of the Ripper himself. He pushes Miriam so hard, he pushes her into that same man’s hands. He pushes his wife so hard, she flees to that same man for advice.

Considering that Hannibal and Jack don’t officially meet until Episode 1, Hannibal is already WAAAY involved in Jack’s life and already deeply embedded in Jack’s head. It’s funny upon their first meeting in “Apéritif,” that Jack is meeting his nemesis and doesn’t know it. The man who took Miriam from him, who will take Will from him, who will take Beverly from him, who will almost take Jack’s own life. Talk about “a bolt of fate sliding home.”

Will is disgusted with the idea that Jack is going to cahoot with Freddie Lounds, but you know how Jack has to push, so the next scene reveals Freddie Lounds entering a conference room at Quantico to meet with Jack, Will, and Alana. Jack and Alana are amiable and friendly to Freddie; Will is cold and bitchy (and insanely hot…) Jack tells Freddie he wants her to confirm her story about Gideon being the Ripper. Alana promises to talk to Chilton to get Freddie an interview with Gideon. In one of my favorite of Freddie’s lines, she says, “Not to snap bubblegum and crack wise, but what’s my angle? Is he the Chesapeake Ripper or you just want me to tell everybody he is” (Wu and Fuller 28). Jack suggests he could be because Gideon is a surgeon. The three then discuss the fabled list of professions which psychopaths most favor – journalists and law enforcement being two more. I often wonder if there is also a list of professions that psychos LEAST inhabit. Like, in the bowels of the BAU, a criminal profiler is saying, “Well, we know he’s not a pet psychic, a cupcake baker, or a crossword puzzle author, so we can rule those out! Thank God!”

We are then transported to the high security sector of the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane and see stylishly dressed and coiffed Freddie Lounds entering the prison and introducing herself to Abel Gideon.

When Freddie’s story is finished and published to Tattlecrime.com, we then see Hannibal at his desk with his little tablet reading it – his face as close to “bothered” as you ever see Hannibal come. This is the same face he makes when Franklyn leaves a soiled tissue on his end table, when Mason Verger stabs his chair. I like to call it Hannibal’s “I’m About To Cut a Bitch” face. This is one thing I will say for Mads Mikkelsen over and over again – he acts with every part of his body, including his beautiful face. Fannibals love to discuss Mads’ microexpressions – the little twitches at the corners of his eyes, the dead-eyed, yet sarcastic stares, the tears that appear from nowhere, the minute turnings of his lips into wry smiles – and the most prized being the MIKKELSNARL, the King of All Expressions. The look on his face when reading Freddie Lounds’ story makes you fear for her. Amazingly, she survives. It’s actually insane.

We then see Dr. Chilton and Alana dining with Hannibal at his home. Hannibal says that the dish is a lamb tongue served with Duxelle sauce and mushrooms, created by famous French chef Auguste Escoffier. After some tongue wagging amongst the diners, Hannibal says to Chilton, “Don’t give me ideas. Your tongue is very feisty and as this evening has already proven, it’s nice to have an old friend for dinner” (Wu and Fuller 30). This line is, of course, a tribute to the ending scene of The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal’s phone call to Clarice in which he implies he will be soon killing and eating the bumbling Dr. Chilton. As previously stated, Fuller’s Chilton stubbornly survives every season.

Alana, Frederick, and Hannibal begin discussing Abel Gideon. Frederick proudly claims Gideon to be the Ripper. Alana begins questioning Frederick and asks, “Is it possible that you inadvertently planted the suggestion in Gideon’s mind that he was the Ripper?” (Wu and Fuller 31). Frederick replies, “Psychic driving is unethical” (Wu and Fuller 32).

I have to admit that I NEVER heard the term “psychic driving” before Hannibal. Truly, it sounds like a Cronenberg video game for the Atari 2600. Hannibal says that psychic driving is allowable “in certain circumstances” and actually seems to arouse some gentle suspicion from both Alana and Frederick (Wu and Fuller 32). They don’t seem suspicious that Hannibal is the Ripper – we are a looooong way from that – but they both seem a little shocked that Hannibal might condone the practice, even in narrow cases. Hannibal so desperately wants to play, I think he actually overplays his hand here. He so rarely gives anything away and usually only does so on purpose – perhaps Hannibal’s admission is just to facilitate the conversation Hannibal has in the kitchen with Frederick, in which he states that he believes Frederick already has “psychically driven” Gideon, but it seems a little haphazard to me. Perhaps he’s still amped up because Freddie Lounds has landed a hit on him.

Speaking of Gideon, we now see him in his cell at the BSHCI, this time being questioned by Jack, who states point blank to the prisoner, “You’re not the Chesapeake Ripper” (Wu and Fuller 33). Gideon tries to convince Jack, tries weakly to explain why he, supposedly as the Ripper, takes surgical trophies, why he didn’t display the bodies of his wife and her family, and so on. Gideon ascertains that Jack is not concerned with those prior crimes.

DR. GIDEON: But you’re not here to talk about my wife or even the night nurse.

JACK CRAWFORD: What am I here to talk about?

DR. GIDEON: Your trainee. Miriam something.

(Wu and Fuller 34)

This minor detail, the fact that Gideon does not know Miriam’s last name, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Gideon is not, cannot be the Chesapeake Ripper. The real Ripper, Hannibal Lecter, has a meticulous memory palace built in his mind. Thomas Harris explains the grandiose proportions of the Doctor’s psychic estate in both Hannibal and Hannibal Rising. In Hannibal, Harris even treats us to a description of the palace’s interior. It has a “Great Hall of the Seasons… [a] hall of looms and textiles…[and a] Hall of Addresses,” just to name a few wings (252-254). Hannibal actually retrieves Clarice Starling’s address from this cognitive library, buried in a mental construction that Harris says, “is vast, even by medieval standards” (252).

I know for a fact that Hannibal Lecter remembers the name of every victim he ever killed, how he killed them, what organs/limbs he took, what dish he made with them, and how they tasted. There is no way he forgets a victim’s name. With the exception of the incidental goons from the Questura in Season 3 or Mason Verger’s goons, Hannibal knows the name of every victim he chooses. No way he would forget Miriam’s last name. Gideon is an amateur.

As their conversation continues, Jack’s phone rings. He walks out of Gideon’s cell block to answer the call as the caller ID announces the number as “HOME.” Jack misses the call and redials. He believes the caller to be his wife, having returned early from her trip. Whoever answers the phone (you know who), then plays the same haunting recorded message – Miriam Lass scared, alone, and begging Jack to help her.

Immediately, we are in Jack Crawford’s bedroom, where Team Sassy Science is pulling and processing evidence from Jack’s bedroom carpet, bedside phone, and even his wife’s pillow. Will is once again observing. Jimmy Price pulls three sets of prints from the phone – the first two sets are identified as Jack’s and his wife’s. The third set is later identified as belonging to Miriam Lass. Beverly even finds a long blonde hair on Bella’s pillow. Will, of course, asks questions: “Did Miriam Lass know where you live?... Did you know you were sending her after [the Chesapeake Ripper?]…” and then states, “Whoever made that phone call thinks you were close to Miriam Lass and feel responsible for her death;” to which Jack replies, “She was my trainee. I am responsible for her death” (Wu and Fuller 36). Jimmy Price floats the idea that Miriam may be alive since her prints are on the phone. Jack cannot accept the idea.

This new evidence spins Jack into another flashback – the circumstance of Jack’s last meeting with Miriam – the last time he saw her alive. They are back at Quantico – Miriam has skipped a class called “Exclusionary Rules of Search and Seizure” to ask Jack’s opinion about a report she left on his desk (Wu and Fuller 37). Jack seems needlessly cruel to Miriam in this scene. He tells her “go back to class” and “Frustrated, Lass? Better start forming a callus or frustration is going to wear you through” (Wu and Fuller 37).

This is perhaps one of the reasons Jack feels so guilty about Miriam’s death, or what he believes to be, death. In their last conversation, he wasn’t very nice. This is one of the unfortunate things about life. The last time I saw my father, the night before he died, the last thing I said to him was, “Dad, don’t eat all that ice cream.” My father was a diabetic and my mother and we children fought him tooth and nail to eat better. Towards the end of his life, he merely circumvented us – he hid Snickers bars in the clothes hamper, peanut butter crackers in the visor in his truck – he finally just broke down and started buying all the sweets he wanted himself since my mother refused to buy them. He was unstoppable. The last time I saw him, he was digging into a half-gallon of Blue Bell chocolate ice cream, and so I told him not to eat it all. All he said to me was, “Bye.”

If I had known that was the last time I would ever see him alive, I would have told him that I loved him. I would have told him that even though he was a shitty dad, abusive and obstreperous, that I still loved him, and I always would. I have to content myself with the idea that either my dad knew that I loved him or he just didn’t care.

Miriam’s report makes a smart but dangerous suggestion in the hunt for the Chesapeake Ripper. She explains, “If the Chesapeake Ripper is a surgeon, we should look at medical records of all the known victims” (Wu and Fuller 38). Jack points out that this search would obviously be illegal – medical records fall under very tight privacy laws. Then, the following conversation proves yet another thing to the viewer about Jack’s character:

JACK CRAWFORD: It’s one thing for a trainee to go poking around private medical records without a warrant, very much another if “The Guru” did it…

MIRIAM LASS: Better for a trainee to ask for forgiveness than an FBI agent to ask for permission?

JACK CRAWFORD: In my experience.

(Wu and Fuller 38).

There is something to be said of the fact that this is exactly the way that Jack “loses” people. This strategy is how he loses Will, how he loses Beverly – sending subordinates to do things he can’t do. I suppose it is a comment on larger patriarchal culture – how men in power get little people to do their dirty work for them – everything from cleaning their toilets to fighting their wars. It is not lost on me that two of the people that Jack “loses” this way are women. Strong, stubborn, beautiful women who went off doing things Jack couldn’t do because of “rules.” I love Jack Crawford with all my heart – but he should feel guilty. The loss of Miriam Lass IS very much his fault.

After this conversation, Miriam wanders off to begin her search of the medical records and we are flashed back into the present where we see Alana Bloom again at the BSHCI, again interviewing Dr. Gideon. Two scenes here at the end of Act Four and the beginning of Act Five, one where Will has a conversation with Chilton, and one where there is a lockdown in the prison were cut from the final episode, so I shall skip them.

The scene we alight upon is Jack, back in the present, walking down a hallway at the Academy, and once again his phone rings. Jack accepts the grim possibility that the call might once again be the Ripper taunting him and answers it. It brings us to one of the most interesting and important locales in the series, the abandoned observatory. The real location is the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. We see the observatory several times in the series – it is always a place of gruesome revelations.

We see Will, Beverly, and Jack approaching the building – Beverly explaining that the last call Jack received from the Ripper “traced here. Or within a 100 feet of here” (Wu and Fuller 42). Jack then redials the last number the Ripper called from – one that wasn’t masked or anonymous. They hear a distant ringing coming from inside the observatory.

They enter the building, and underneath a bunch of discarded equipment, at the base of the main telescope, they find a severed arm, the hand holding the ringing cell phone. A note on a card beneath the arm says, “What do you see?” (Wu and Fuller 43). The viewer understands that this is Miriam Lass’ arm – it explains the fingerprints on the phone in Jack’s bedroom.

I must say, I do find the image kind of funny… Hannibal in his squeaky murder suit – which I affectionately call his “garment bag” because DAMMIT that’s what it looks like – a garment bag with sleeves turned sideways – in Jack’s bedroom, opening a plastic bag and tweezing out one of Miriam’s head hairs, laying it on Bella’s pillow – making the call from Jack’s bedside phone and then laying Miriam’s decapitated hand over the receiver – pressing the finger pads down with his own to make sure the prints stick. I always imagine Hannibal waving Miriam’s arm around with a dramatic flourish when he’s done – like some morbid maestro conducting an insane symphony all of his own composition.

The episode ends with a flashback – Miriam Lass showing up at Hannibal’s office door to question him. The Wound Man victim was a “Jeremy Olmstead” Hannibal had treated for an arrow wound in his thigh the man received while bow hunting – when Hannibal worked in the emergency room, most likely at Maryland Misericordia Hospital in Baltimore. Hannibal says he doesn’t remember the man (he totally remembers) – but under the guise of going to retrieve his notes from the years he worked in the ER, he leaves the room, removes his shoes, and then in his stocking feet creeps up behind Miriam, just as she discovers Hannibal’s own Wound Man drawing and begins to realize the trouble she is in. Hannibal begins choking Miriam – this is the episode’s second installment of “THINGS THAT HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING INSANELY HOT.”

The script describes the scene as follows:

Hannibal is like a column of marble, motionless as Miriam twists and throws, trying in vain to knock him off balance. She reaches behind her head, clawing at Hannibal but he presses his face almost sensually against the back of her neck to protect face and eyes from her slashing fingernails. Miriam’s eyes roll, defeated, tear-filled, knowing she’s going to die. She begins to go limp in Hannibal’s arms.

(Wu and Fuller 48).

This scene is an homage to the same scene in Red Dragon when Hannibal attacks Will from behind, just as Will spies a medical book on Hannibal’s bookshelves that contains the Wound Man drawing. Will’s gut is slashed by Hannibal in this attack – in Fuller’s Hannibal, Will’s gut is spared until the end of Season 2.

This is why I adore Bryan’s Hannibal so much – it is not just an adaptation; it is a remix. Scenes are moved and laid in the hands of different characters. Conversations are shifted – things Hannibal said to Clarice, he says to Will – characters are gender-swapped or their fates are interchanged. Much of Bryan’s remix remains the same – like the tiger scene between Reba and Francis in Season 3 – but so much of it is recut, reimagined, broken down and put back together. Hannibal is an artist of deconstruction and reconstruction and so is Bryan. I still say and always will that Hannibal is the best show ever on television. Good God, it is that fucking good.

But, you ask, “JESUS CHRIST! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET TO THE LESSON?” I shall now deliver.

The lesson takes place in the scene just before Miriam’s attack. After having discovered Miriam’s decapitated arm, Jack is badly rattled and goes to see Hannibal at his office. When questioned by Hannibal as to what he believes the Ripper’s motives are for trying to convince him that Miriam is alive, Jack responds “Hope. The Ripper wanted to cloud my vision in the fog of hope;” Hannibal then says, “It can sometimes be brave to allow yourself hope” (Wu and Fuller 44).

Hannibal then asks Jack when he gave up hope that Miriam would be found alive and then makes the leap from one woman in Jack’s life to another saying, “Don’t give up hope for your wife. Not yet” (Wu and Fuller 44). At the end of the scene, Hannibal coaxes Jack into telling him about Miriam, even asking what her name was. I have to say it, but making Jack tell him, as if he is absolutely unknowing of the details, about Miriam Lass and her disappearance seems almost masturbatory to me – Jack is talking dirty to Hannibal and doesn’t even know it. Hannibal sits there, absorbing every minutiae, every crease of pain in Jack’s face, every flutter of guilt in his eyes, enjoying every moment knowing exactly where Miriam is, and how she disappeared. Perhaps it is in this discussion with Jack that Hannibal decides to spare Miriam’s life. Perhaps that was always his plan. Hannibal couldn’t have known he would be called in to consult with Jack on his beautiful, but twitchy profiler, so who knows how long he was willing to wait, keeping Miriam alive, bleeding her for info that would bring him directly into Jack’s domain. All of it is devious and cruel.

It is perhaps the cruelest of things for Hannibal to talk to Jack about hope. The viewer knows that Hannibal is the one who has given Jack this “false kind” of hope (Wu and Fuller 44). It is important to remember that on a first time viewing, an audience member is not aware that Miriam is still alive. Just as on a first time viewing, the audience does not know that Abigail Hobbs is still alive after her ear turns up in Will’s gullet and then his sink. This “give the desperate loved ones a piece of their missing people and taunt them with hope” like a sadistic kidnapper, but one with no asking price, is a pattern Hannibal uses twice in the series – both times to manipulate people he cares for – to spin them in circles and watch the motion – no doubt in this spinning, Hannibal searches for weak spots, but he also delights in their pain and confusion.

It is interesting to think that the people Hannibal seems to care most about are the ones he plays with in this way. Will, Jack, Bedelia – he offers hope; he yanks it away. He lies and lies until suddenly, at the precise moment it will make the greatest impact, he tells the truth. A colossal tease is Hannibal Lecter. But he plays with these people because they interest him enough to invest time and effort into them, into both their pain and their pleasure.

Hannibal pokes at Jack’s hope not just about Miriam, but about Bella. As a surgeon, Hannibal knows the hope for Bella is even more of a longshot than for Miriam. But he wants Jack to hope because without hope, there is nothing to lose. It is best that Jack, Will, Bedelia, Alana – that all of them have something to hope for, something to lose. They will all become truly dangerous to Hannibal if they don’t. Which is basically what happens with most of Season 2 to Will, and for Jack and Alana in Season 3 – vengeance arcs – when Hannibal has stripped them of hope.

Our lesson resides in Hannibal’s line: “It can sometimes be brave to allow yourself hope” (Wu and Fuller 44). Leaving aside Hannibal’s qualifying statement of “sometimes,” the most important diction in this line is of “brave” and “allow.”

Mostly, we allow hope for others. For a sick friend, a family down on their luck, a whole group, a whole country – a sports team or a heroic dog – we can give our hope to them. That makes sense. And it feels good.

But often, hope is not a thing we are willing to give ourselves. It seems like something only for other people, like compliments or compassion or birthday cakes. Hannibal says it’s “brave” to allow ourselves hope because when our lives are in abject turmoil, hope is the last thing we want to give ourselves because… hope hurts. When things don’t turn out as we want – when we don’t get the promotion – we lose the contest – we fail the test – we screw up the date – or worse yet, our loved one dies – when we crash and burn, utterly crash and burn – we remember the hope we had beforehand and say, “You fool. You stupid fucking fool. How did you even dare to hope?”

And so the lesson, dear reader, is this – as he often is – Hannibal is right (the bastard…)

It is brave. Let yourself have it.

ALLOW YOURSELF HOPE. BE BRAVE.

I know it seems easy for me to say. It’s not. It’s hard for me too. Some days, I just can’t do it. But you and me… we’ve got to keep trying. I deserve hope. And so do you.

It seems impossible is this world full of pain and death and smiling villains.

But if Jack Crawford can muster hope from a decapitated arm and a dying wife who won’t talk to him, you and I can too.

Here endeth the lesson…

References:

Fuller, Bryan and Steve Lightfoot. Writers. “Kaiseki.” Hannibal, season 2, episode 1, Chiswick Productions, 2014.

Harris, Thomas. “Foreword to a Fatal Interview.” Red Dragon, by Harris, Berkley, 2000, pp. IX-XIII).

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

Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

“Judges 8:27.” King James Bible Online, www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/

Judges-8-27.

Wu, Kai Yu and Bryan Fuller. Writers. “Entrée.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 6, Chiswick Productions, 2012.

#lessonsofhannibal #hannibal #fannibals #fannibalfamilyforever

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moyazaika · 5 days

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KUINA. MOTHER? IS THAT MOTHER?? Everyone else out here lookin busted af meanwhile queenie is standing there PLUCKED not a hair out of place. She graduated from the university of cuntology with a degree in servitude of motherology and minored in face card banking. I'm sorry she was letting y’all HAVE IT.

Good to have you back! Hope you are coping with the impending doom of summer, where the sun has no mercy and the shade is scarce. Recently I've discovered this fun little movie called Martin from 1977, it's a vampire movie from George A. Romero (the dude behind the og zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead) and it's super fun! I say a vampire movie, but is our boy really a vampire? It's something I like to think about just a lil 🤔 delusional characters r my thing.

OH MY GODNESS YOU UNDERSTANDDDD 1000000% there are people out there who truly believe that the best, most pure way to keep someone with them is to take all of them. Cannibalism is such an intense device in storytelling, especially as a metaphor and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. That kind of obsessive “love” is scary, not just because of the actions a person may take, but the feelings they harbor. People who are so far gone that the only world they live in is the one only they know and experience? What do you mean you think eating someone is the only way to keep them with you??? What version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar were you reading??? This entire topic reminds me of how love and consumption go hand in hand. If someone wants to go as far as to eat someone they love, do they love them? Or do they want to consume them, own them, possess every fiber of their being and become one with them so they can feel complete again? Does possessing a beating heart mean the same as possessing one torn from the chest of a loved one?

also. What does it taste like? I'm just curious. I've heard human meat tastes like chicken.

The other trope I’ve been sent tumbling back into is the classic cult story, maybe it's because I just rewatched Hereditary? I think that demons, or entities of incompressible power, are scary because they can't be emotionally swayed. There's physically nothing you can do or say to persuade an entity that has existed for far longer than you could ever hope to, so you have to shut up and take whatever kind of pain they decide to grace your senses with. How do you change a god's mind? What do you mean I can't mansplain my way out of this one? Y'all why don't valak want me 😔 can't malewife or manwhore our way outta this one fellas 😢

maybe I should stick to human men. - 🕺🕺🕺

just dug this up too cus im going thru asks tonight (i took a 5 hour nap and sleep evades me now. help it’s 3am)

she’s fucking gorgeous serving looks the entire time and i love how that,, didn’t take away from her character complexities. yes she was hot. she also had a complex backstory and emotions which were woven into her character as a woman and fighter. Love how they handled her!!!!!!

i love the way you measure time or describe seasons. it’s so oddly endearing <3

“what version of the very hungry caterpillar were you reading” dawg these bitches were eating the book not reading it 😭😭😭

did yk interestingly there’s a disease where your own proteins go ‘rogue’ (prions) when you consume human meat? i think it’s called kiru/kuru?? they eat the brains of deceased people as a funeral rite (not sure if that’s rooted in respect or love) but it’s crazy to think that this is like. Something Humans Do. yk?

i’ve heard the same!! (fbi agent please don’t hurt me) but speaking of cannibalism i feel like u would love the hannibal tv show. (symbolism is INSANE in this one. also they’re hot as fucj oh yeahh) or yellowjackets. i haven’t finished either but i’ve been told they’re VERY promising from the few eps i saw before life was like Damn Bitch get back on the grind 🤬🤬🤬🤬

I LOVE HEREDITARY the sinking feeling when it dawns on you that they’re all insane. they’re all fucking insane and they believe in their insanity to such an extent convincing them otherwise is a waste of your time. both the God and their followers—nothing you can say to weasel out of this one.

i love a good cult story i have something in my wip but it’s more of a long term project i wanna make a series of (again, once i graduate 😥😥) but oooooh boy Many Thoughts Thunk. the abuse of power… misplaced trust… the feeling of something being just. not normal. even tho it should be. even though everyone around you says it is. the paranoia. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😊😊❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

#speaking of cannibalism this isn’t a horror movie but society of the snow #that shit fucked me up had me staring at a wall after #highly recommend. best watched when you feel lonely or miss your friends just trust me bro source trust me bro #ring ring #lovely anons

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toru771 · 2 years

Text

Happy Halloween, everyone! To mark the occasion, I thought I’d share something I’ve been working on. You may be aware that years ago, I made a page where I translated the Japanese lyrics for POTO. (Link is below.) I’ve been meaning to update it with some corrections and fixes, and may move it to Tumblr because of some issues I’ve had with Weebly since making the page.

But recently, I learned that in the time since the show reopened in Japan after the pandemic, those in charge have made some changes to the lyrics and other aspects of the show to bring Japan’s production more in line with those in London and the US. I got an audio bootleg from Masked Lion and spent some time over the last couple of weeks listening to it and noting the changes I could identify.

Recording from January 17, 2021; Tokyo, Japan

Cast: Yuta Iwaki, Sae Yamamoto, Susumu Kato, Aya Kawamura, Koichi Taira, Morito Masuda, Kimura Chiaki, Atsuto Yamada, Mariko Gosho

(info from Glass Prism)

My notes (far too many for your taste?)

- Auctioneer sounds more dramatic than in other performances

- Added a “Saa!” (“Now!” or “Here!”) at the end of the Prologue

- Overture is using the new track

- Reyer still insists on “Romu” (which doesn’t mean anything) over “Roma” (which is correct)

- Counterpoint in the “Hannibal” chorus when they start singing again after the ballet/instrumental seems to be missing

- Key change in ToM is now D-F like in all other productions; Japan had kept it as D-Eb (like the OLC album and early West End performances) for their whole run before Covid

- Christine seems more staccato on some notes in ToM

- Phantom still says “Bravi”/“Bravissimi” before AoM

- Phantom is more mocking on “brave young suitor” than usual — Ethan/Brad influence?

- Chorus added to title song — lyrics are “A world hidden in darkness… That is the Phantom of the Opera”

- IHBY - Watashi ga (instead of wa)? Grammatically iffy; probably a flub

- Extra timpani on “long to be” — live orchestra?

- Orchestra mostly at the usual (somewhat fast) tempo for Japanese MOTN, but slower in last instrumental break?

- Music box kept slow, unlike London/Bway/restaged

- Phantom a bit ahead of the beat in “Damn you” section of STYDI

- Magical Lasso — lines rearranged (description of Phantom first, then avoiding being caught)

- Changed line for “In which case I think our meeting is adjourned,” and possibly for Firmin’s spoken part reading Phantom’s note

- Slower tempo for first verse of “Prima Donna”

- Slower tempo for first part of “Poor Fool…” and in the ballet

- Rather Earl-like laugh after Buquet’s hanging

- Restaged orchestrations for “But his voice filled my spirit…”

- Sound effects make it seem like they did something like the restaged or new London version for the chandelier drop?

- Gets rather slow in the instrumental break for Masquerade

- Need to go over “Madame Giry’s Tale” in older boots to see if anything was changed

- Chaotic bit in Notes 2 doesn’t get as fast… I liked that it did in the older versions

- “Twisted Every Way” is slower, which I *am* glad for

- Christine says “I can’t do it,” orchestra transition is like the restaged version

- “Hide your sword now, wounded knight” bit in DJT Rehearsal may be changed?

- POTO reprise before graveyard changed to original title song lyrics

- WYWSHA second verse changed, somewhat flipped the lines

- Second “help me say goodbye” added

- “Wandering Child” now a trio; Raoul’s lines added

- Intro and many sections of “Don Juan” performance sound quite slow

- Some laughter added for Piangi and Passarino

- PONR slower, more like other productions’ tempos

- Kokoro *mo* kimeta wa? (“My heart has *also* decided”)

- Good tentative emotion from Phantom in AIAOY reprise after PONR

- Phantom yells “Naze? Naze da?” (“Why? Why?”) instead of singing “Naze kou na no da?” (“Why does it have to be this way?”)

- “Track Down This Murderer” after Raoul’s dive starts quite slow, gets faster

- Octave jump in “it’s in your soul…” brought back

- Phantom’s reply to Raoul in

- now “Nasake nado shiranai (“I don’t know compassion” instead of “I don’t have compassion”)

- “Sou, mohaya modorenai” — last “We’ve passed the point of no return” in Final Lair is changed

- “Make your choice” shouted rather than sung

- Slow drumbeat

- “Go now…” shouted rather than sung

- Mistake from the brass in MOTN section of playout

Cheers!

- Toru771

#POTO Japan #lyric translation #the phantom of the opera #phantom of the opera #poto

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loominggaia · 1 year

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Remembered seeing an old ask of how Fae meat is useless and barely offers sustenance. However, I must about all the other species, and how they may taste! What does each Commoner and Gaian species taste like, and which would be the best to devour?

Hannibal Lecter is in the askbox again!

I think the "best" tasting species would be a matter of personal opinion, so I can't really speak on that. But this is a fun question, so here's what I think their meat would be like...

COMMONERS

Human: Apparently tastes like pork IRL, so...that.

Dworf: Like pork but worse. The fatty parts are greasy and the muscle is dense and hard to chew.

Roshava: Muscley, sinewy, and chewy. Flavor is probably tangy.

Troll: Super gamey flavor with inedibly tough skin. Once you get past the skin it's not that bad, probably like eating wild boar.

Ogre: The blubbery parts are decent, but good luck getting to them because the skin and muscle are so damn tough you'll break your jaw off trying to chew them.

FAE

Elf: They taste strangely sweet, but you're hungry again 10 minutes later. You burn more calories picking the meager amounts of meat off the bone than you get from eating it.

Goblin: Their meat is lightweight yet tough, unsatisfying, has a bland taste.

Gnome: Earthy little snaccs that never seem to fill your stomach no matter how many of them you eat.

Sirene: Tastes fishy in a bad way. Horrendous sinewy texture.

Cecaelia: Think of the shittiest sushi you've ever had. It's basically that. Cecaelia meat shrivels into an inedible string no matter how you cook it, and eating it uncooked is a slimy, miserable experience that tastes like licking a whole raw tuna from the seafood counter.

GAIANS

Satyr: A lot like mutton, although you might get drunk or high from consuming it...

Faun: Tastes similar to venison, except you don't get nearly as much meat from them as you would from a deer.

Minotaur: Probably pretty good honestly...like if pork and beef fused into one weird frankenmeat.

Centaur: The equine part is not much different than eating a horse. So, if you like super lean meat, you'll be into it. The humanoid part has more of a pork flavor, but it's way chewier and more muscley, and overall not very good.

Gorgon: Have you ever eaten snake? It's a lot like that.

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

#ask #askcuisine #askgaian #askfae #askcommoner #askbiology

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tuomivuori · 2 years

Text

Got tagged by @morewyckedthanyou, thanks a lot for the tag! Always up for talking about myself! :D

favourite colour(s): I love greens, especially desaturated/dusty shades and deep, dark, cool shades, leaning towards turquoise. Also dark purple, burgundy, and light/muted shades of pink.

favourite flavour(s): So hard to choose! I live for food, and unfortunately my tastes are very unhealthy. Salt in both food and candy (the saltier the salmiakki, the better), creamy/buttery things, sweet and sour candies, savoury treats, umami foods, give me everything except for things that are too sweet in the wrong way (the way that things like figs and applesauce are sweet). And of course spices! I especially love East and South Asian kinds of spice combos.

favourite genre(s): Fantasy, magical realism, mystery

favorite music: Ranges from dance pop to rock to metal, and my ears do like classical stuff and musical songs as well, even though I don't really actively listen to those. Well, I don't actively listen to music in general these days, but I've had stages in my life when I did, my 80's rock and metal phases being the most prominent ones. Nowadays I just listen to whatever strikes my fancy or happens to get stuck in my head.

favourite movie(s): I'm more of a series kind of person than a movie person, it's always difficult to come up with favourite movies (though I'm sure there are many that I'm simply forgetting) - except for the LotR trilogy, those have been my favourites since they came out and they still hold up (even though they're not perfect, they're very close!)

favourite series: This is hard to answer since there are shows that I have been absolutely obsessed with for years and years in the past that I'm now totally ambivalent about or even actively dislike (Sherlock is a prime example), and nowadays I don't watch that much stuff. I don't even have a TV or any subscription services. A big recent favourite has been Our Flag Means Death, and one long-time fave that I'm still fond of is Steven Universe. Oh, and Hannibal! That was a damn good show.

last song: The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, I'm trying to create a custom map of the song for this VR drumming game I've been playing with a friend. Chose it because it's rather bare-bones, not too fast, and has a clear rhythm.

last series: The Witcher, finally got around to checking it out. There are amusing parts but it's a bit too gruesomely violent and bleak for my taste (in a similar way to Game Of Thrones), and somewhat confusing plotwise and character motivation-wise, as I haven't played the games or read the books.

last movie: I think it must have been Black Panther 2? I don't watch that many movies either.

currently reading: Nothing, unfortunately. Too much stuff to do to invest time in a book, though I would really like to read more.

currently working on: That custom song map, an art nouveau floral tiffany mirror design for my glassworking course, and a fic that's not progressing at all because of the aforementioned other projects...

If we're mutuals, I'm tagging you! I'd like to know more about you lovely people :>

#tagged #morewyckedthanyou #about me

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slasher-male-wife · 2 years

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Hi!! Can I request any kind of fluff about being in a poly relationship with Hannibal and Will Graham? (Fic or headcanons, whichever you prefer ☺️)

Oh I'm totally down for writing this. I am an avid fluff lover so I'll happily write this for you. And because the holidays are coming up I'm going to make this holiday themed but not explicitly Christmas because I know not everyone celebrates. So this is just gonna be more like a holiday gift giving thing. Vague I know but I try to make sure a lot of people can enjoy my writing. I also threw in some of my own head cannons for Will and Hannibal because I can.

Happy holidays: Hannigram x gn reader

It's a cold and snowy day in December. You'd just finished a lovely dinner made by Hannibal. You'd tried to help him in the kitchen but he insisted you go spend time with Will. So you did. While Hannibal cooked you cuddled with Will on the couch, his cold hands pressed against your belly making you laugh. You knew that they were planning on giving gifts soon. Each of you got each other three gifts. After dinner, while Hannibal is taking away the plates you head over to the living room with Will.

Because the fireplace was rarely used in the living room you'd set all the presents there. Hannibal wrapped his in black wrapping paper perfectly. He used twine instead of ribbon and you couldn't help but admire how stunning it looked. Will used blue wrapping paper and you could tell he tried wrapping them the best he could but it just turned out messy, but it got the job done. You'd used some wrapping paper with a scene of a snowy house at night. You loved the winter so it only made sense that you used this wrapping paper. While your wrapping wasn't as neat as Hannibal's you still did a decent job.

You two sat on the couch waiting for Hannibal to join you.

"I'm a little surprised you didn't wrap some gifts in their exact shape Will," You tease, "Although I doubt I could actually tell what it would have been if you did." You chuckle and Will rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, well for your information I tried my damn best to do this ok? I should have just used bags." You smile at him and pull him into a hug.

"I love spending winter nights with you Will. And not just because you keep me extra warm."

"I love being with you in general Y/n. I just love you."

"I love you too Will." You hear Hannibal enter the room and you sit back up. He's got a slight smile on his face.

"Well we should get to unwrapping." He picks up one box for you and one for Will, handing them both to you. Will unwraps his first to find a beautiful painting of his dogs. He did have to give them up, but it was to Alana and Margo who are taking great care of them now. Will smiles and runs a thumb over the frame the paining is in.

"Thank you so much Hannibal." He says.

"Of course Will." He replies. They look to you and you open your smaller box. You're careful not to tear open the wrapping paper because it just looks to beautiful to ruin. You find a small velvet ring box underneath the black paper. You open it to find the most beautiful ruby ring. Knowing Hannibal it has to be real and probably very old. You carefully take it out of it's box and slide it on your ring finger.

"Oh Hannibal. It's so beautiful."

"I bought it back in Italy many years ago. I'm lucky it's your size." A big stupid smile spreads across your face as you look over at him.

"Thank you so much Hannibal. I love it." You can't help but keep staring at it. How the red gem catches in the light so beautifully. It really is just too much, but you know Hannibal has amazing taste. Will gets up and grabs two of his gifts. He hands one to you then one to Hannibal.

"I'm sorry it's so poorly wrapped. I'm not good with wrapping gifts." Hannibal opens his first and finds a bottle of wine with a label written in a language you don't speak. But he smiles at this.

"Sternenklarer Himmel," He says, "German for Starry sky. 2018, very finely aged I must say Will."

"Well I flew it all the way over here From Germany just for you. With how much it cost I hope it's worth the money." Will replies. You open your gift to find a small cardboard box. You open the box to see three tickets. When you pick them up you read it's three tickets to a concert coming up for your favorite band.

"Oh Will!" You shout unable to hold back another huge dorky smile, "These must have cost so much! But I can't believe I get to see my favorite band live!" You have to throw your arms around him while he hugs you back.

"Well I had to get you something super special, because I know Hannibal is going to get you something even better."

"Oh Will don't lie! This is so amazing! Thank you so much!" You let go of the hug and get up to grab their gifts. You hand one to Will and one to Hannibal, "Now I'm not sure these will be as good as the ones that you two have gotten for me but I hope you still like them." Hannibal opens his first. In it he finds dried pressed flowers.

"These are the flowers I bought you when we first met." He says with a smile.

"They are! I dried and pressed them then put them in the frame so you could keep them forever!" You say beaming.

"Well thank you very much Y/n. These will be going into my office very soon." Hannibal looks over the flowers in the frame while Will opens his gift. Inside he finds a cassette tape decorated with paint. The word, "For Will, love Y/n" are written on it too.

"I made a tape to add to your collection. I put all of the songs that remind me of you on it." Will smiles and takes your hand.

"Thank you very much honey, I'll give this a listen as soon as I can." He sets it on the coffee table and Hannibal gets up to grab the next two gifts for you and Will. Over the next couple of hours the three of you talk and open gifts from each other.

You beam and hug both of them for the thoughtful gifts that they have given you. They hug you back for the gifts that you had gotten for them. But as the night winds down you feel yourself begin to fall asleep on the couch. Soon enough you're fully asleep. Hannibal carefully picks you up and carries you to your shared bedroom, Will following behind. Hannibal sets you in bed and him and Will soon join you under the covers.

Will cuddles up to you and Hannibal watches, soon also joining in. The three of you lay together on a snowy night. Warm in bed and full of love.

#hannigram #hannigram x reader #hannigram fanfiction #hannibal x reader #will grahm x reader #hannibal nbc

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shegatsby · 2 years

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Hiii i like your story so much.. would you continue Hannibal x female!avenger!reader part 2? Where it takes place after the snap which 5 years later when everyone that turned to dust already come back and Hannibal come back to search for her. Thank you.. And I hope you have a amazing night!!

A/N; Hi! Thank you so much for suggesting this, I had fun writing. Sorry for any typos, enjoy!

This fanfictin is a continuation of this fic; https://shegatsby.tumblr.com/post/636415824576528384/losing-him

(aww he is too cute here)

Y/N's days after the snap became so dull and regular. She would wake up, have breakfast which is a piece of bread and coffee, black. She wouldn't eat anything for lunch and when it's night she would order take out. Hannibal was the one who used to cook in the house, eversince his death she couldn't bring herself to cook. Over the time the kitchen's cabinets got dusty, the carpest felt raw under her feet.

Slowly, she withdraw from her friends and family members, all she did was work, come home, sleep and repeat.

Little did she knew that this will chance soon.

Recently there were news about people who passed away 5 years ago are coming back to life. The HQ of SHIELD was buzzing with new information and crisis that she had to be quick with her job.

That day, she decided to walk from her job to her home, it was a warm day and she needed a long walk to clear her head.

The streets were busy, highschool teenagers were getting off busses to go to their homes to their families... she wanted to have her own family with Hannibal one day... how stupid she was.

As she kept walking, her head low, she noticed that she was close to her door she lifted her weary head to look up and gasped in shock. She had to take a step back, her hand on her chest, she could feel her heart about to jump out of her rib cage. There he was, sitting on the stairs, waiting for her.

''Hannibal..'' she whispered, couldn't believe her eyes. Was this real?

Hannibal bolted to his feet and didn't say anything just ran to her and wrapped his arms around her. Felling her warmth once again,

''My love.'' he said with a shaky breath, she broke down, years of burden on her shoulders, years of pain and torture has come to an end and she finally let go, her tears made her vision blurry. Hannibal pulled back a little to touch her warm face, ''No, no, please,'' he started to cry too, as soon as he opened his eyes again he had only one thing on his mind, to find his love. ''We are together again. We're given a second chance and I'll not be a fool, I'll make this work for both of us.'' he promised. He leaned in to kiss her sweet lips, damn it felt good to taste those lips once again, they give him life. Foreheads touching he exhaled, ''I love you.''

Thank you for reading. :)

#hannibal lecter fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #reader insert #hannibal #hannibal lecter #mads mikkelsen #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal x reader #hannibal x you #hannibal lecter x you #hannigram #the avengers #avenger endgame

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whiskehorange · 3 years

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Howdy! FREEBIE ANYTHING YOU WANT FOR LIZARD AND HIS RADIO ACTIVE ASS!

Slashers meeting Lizard's bum-ass inbred self

*yellow is Lizard's reaction

Michael: Holy fucking Christ. Jesus shit cakes who the fuck let this worm out of the looney bin? Avoids him at completely all costs and refuses to touch or kill him in fear of getting a disease. Lizard is equally as intimidated by Michael but constantly tries to square up with him.

Jason: Damn man, even he doesn't look as bad as that. If he didn't know better he probably would have thought he was a suffering animal lying in the woods and would have killed it. Thing looks like it's miserable *inaudible gibberish from Lizard that sounds like a dying animal*

Freddy: Bullies him back into his shitty little cave without a second thought. Doesn't even bother fucking with his dreams, he's worried about what he'll see in them (Look even Freddy has a few things he'd like to stay out of). Lizard clicks with Freddy because he looks equally as fucked as he does and thinks maybe he can smash.

Hannibal: Has to take a day to mental prepare himself to be in his presence the day after he makes any form of eye contact with him. Hand sanitizer, Febreze, cologne, wipes, anything to just disinfect the air around him. Steers clear of him just like Michael does, he probably tastes like shit anyways. "Hmm that bitch kinda smells good, he looks good too goddamn lemme get a BITE."

Thomas: Feels pity for him, but is equally scared of him. Thomas is an elephant and Lizard is like a mouse and Thomas will trample anything that gets in his way to get the fuck away from Lizard. He's too unpredictable and he just wants to kill him immediately. Lizard however has no understandings of social queues and is not able to read the room so he just chases Thomas constantly.

Bubba: Has no pity for him, but also doesn't understand anything that's going on around him but he can tell that Lizard is just like him in someway so they become best friends. They look alike and both eat people so, it's a match made in heaven. This dude kinda smells like meat and ass. I like him *possum stance and shits violently*

Carrie: Tries so hard to be friendly with him, but he's far too pushy and handsy for her to take. She can't help but throw up when she's around him for too long and normally has to have either Jason or Hannibal keep her from his eye sight. Titties good. Yeah.

#lizard x reader #michael myers #nightmare on elm street #freddy kreuger #hannibal #thomas hewitt #bubba sawyer #carrie white #slashers #slasher x reader

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young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years

Text

The Sommelier (Hannigram x Female!Reader) pt. 5

More people said yes to Hannigram, which is good because Will is already involved in the plot and it would be awkward to have him just disappear. Also, I had someone request a Hannigram x reader in my asks. Apologies to the one person who voted no; I promise there will be more solo Hannibal x reader content in the future.

Hannibal decides to that y/n could do with some extra protection, but doesn’t anticipate what she has to tell him.

I have no idea how to make a proper tag list but @deadman-inc-bikeshop and @dovahdokren here you go

Trigger warnings: discussions of alcohol, victim blaming

“When I saw his face, I immediately knew he had never once experienced the touch of his own hand, let alone that of a woman.” Charissa read out loud to everyone on staff. “Or, that he was buried so deep in the closet he found Narnia, but those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

It was expected to be a slow night, as was normal for an ordinary Tuesday. On nights like those, you could get away with more, like reading a tabloid article out loud for everyone to hear.

“I can’t believe [F/N] actually went public.” One of the new busboys commented. “What an absolute madlad.”

“Did you just unironically use reddit terminology in an actual conversation?” You narrowed your eyes at the kid.

“[F/N], you are making a very dangerous enemy.” An older waitress said, cryptically, from the corner of the room.

“Who, Jason?” You gestured to the busboy. “What’s he gonna do? Make me cringe myself to death?”

“You know that’s not who I mean.” She frowned. “I’m talking about Chase Mulvaney.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” You shook your head. “He’s not stupid enough to come back here.”

Charissa made a noise that denoted her doubt. “I dunno, [F/N]. You’d have to be pretty stupid to start stabbing people at a crowded restaurant in broad daylight.”

“But he was smart enough to get away, right?” Jason asked. “That’s gotta count for something!”

You and Charissa exchanged glances. Neither of you had the emotional bandwidth to explain white privilege again. Instead, you just humored him.

“Yeah.” Charissa lied. “He was smart enough to get away, meaning he probably knows better than to come back.”

"You're kidding yourself." A third waitress, who's name you couldn't seem to place, added. "People always say that killers are these galaxy-brained superhumans, but they're not. Mulvaney believes he's divinely ordained, so any thought that pops into his coked-out head is a sign from god."

And so shattered your thin firmament of denial. You made a point to never learn this person's name just out of spite.

“Oh, shit.” You said, trying to hide your genuine fear with a sarcastic voice. “Maybe he is coming back for me.”

Charissa glared at the two other waitresses, equally pissed at them for scaring you.

"And it'll be your own fault for provoking him with that article." The older waitress said.

"Holy victim-blaming, batman." You mumbled.

“Alright, listen up, y’all.” Matthew announced to the group. “In ten minutes we open for dinner. Remember, if you want to switch shifts with another person, you have to run it by me first. I don’t want to see anybody but [F/N] at the bar tonight, capiche?”

“Yessir.” You saluted him and made your way over to the bar. You’d been doling out your bartending shifts left and right to avoid even the possibility of being cornered by another Freddie Lounds. You were only prolonging the inevitable, though. Eventually, you needed to return to the bar.

You passed the hostess's stand, where Charissa was stationed. Suddenly, you felt someone grab at your arm.

"Fucking hell, dude?!" You flinched violently and your heart rate jumped. "Don't do that!"

"Shit, sorry!" Charissa looked immediately regretful. "But, look!"

You followed her gaze through the window where a fancy car was parked. He leaned against the door, adjusting the cuffs of his dress shirt.

Now your heart was beating fast for a completely different reason. You squeezed Charissa's hand, trying to keep a lid on your nervous excitement.

"I think your luck's starting to turn." She said in a sing-songy voice.

"Yeah, I bet he'll protect me from the Baltimore Butcher." You whispered, trying not to giggle like an elementary school girl.

"Oh, could you imagine those arms around you?" She sighed deeply, her hand firmly against her chest. "I would die."

"Not until he sinks his teeth into your neck." You smirked, gnashing your teeth together.

"I would let him." She rested her chin on her hand.

"Yeah, me too." You agreed.

"I would give anything to trade shifts with you." Charissa groaned.

"Well, you heard the boss." You shrugged, suddenly feeling much better about your assignment. "I gotta stay behind the bar."

"Oh, pobrecita." Charissa rolled her eyes. Underneath the stand, she put up her middle finger in your direction. "Suck a dick, [L/N]."

You walked backwards towards the bar, keeping your eyes on your friend. "That's the plan, baby."

You tried to make yourself look busy. You dared not look at him as he entered the restaurant.

He exchanged pleasantries with Charissa then took his seat at the bar. You pretended not to notice him right away, only to give you an extra second to compose yourself.

"Hi there." You greeted, knowing you'd feel stupid no matter what you said. "Er- good evening."

"[F/N] [L/N], I assume?" He asked.

Fuck, you thought. His voice was dark, low and made your insides tremble. Even though part of you knew he was going to know your name, it still felt so sensual passing his lips.

You realized you had waved to him with your bandaged hand. That's how he was about to identify you so quickly. "Yes, I am she. I mean- her. Me."

Way to go, dumbass. You thought. Now he knows you're nervous and he's going to wonder why.

“God, I need to stop wearing this damn thing.” You said, clearing your throat. “What can I get for you tonight?”

He was quiet for a moment. "What do you recommend?"

"Well, that depends." You said, pulling your gaze from him and grabbing a few wine glasses down from a high shelf. It was the only way you could maintain your composure.

"On?"

"What you're having for dinner, for one." You said. "And whether or not you're a vulpine tabloid journalist trying to corner me into a dubiously ethical interview. That's also a factor."

"So that's how Miss Lounds wore you down?" He concluded. "With wine?"

You rested your elbows on the bar, filled with an intoxicating confidence. "She tried wine first. Then she tried to get me fired because she asked for chardonnay and I brought her chablis. And when that didn't work, she siphoned my gas."

"I wish I could say that was out of character for her." He looked at you, apologetically.

"I take it you've had your own run-ins with Freddie?" You smiled.

"She's tried to infiltrate my practice multiple times." He sighed. "She's entered my office under a fake name with a recording device in her purse."

"What a sick fuck." You said, before remembering you really weren't supposed to curse in front of customers. You covered your mouth. "Sorry."

The corners of his mouth turned up into an amused smile. "Don't apologize. You're right."

“So you’re a doctor?” You asked, hoping he wasn’t the type to be offended by questions.

“I’m a psychiatrist.” He nodded. “I used to work as a surgeon, but I find the mind much more compelling.”

"Seriously, though." You pushed yourself back to your feet. "What can I get for you?"

He eyed the wine menu and then looked back at you. "What is your favorite red?"

"My favorite red?" You placed your hand on your collarbones. "On a night like this, I enjoy a nice, dry Argentinean Malbec."

"In that case," he thumbed through the list once more. "I'll have a bottle of Cobos Chañares from 2016, please."

You smiled. You wouldn't mind taking a sip of that if he offered. "Right away."

You carefully pulled the solid black bottle from its crevice and placed it on the bar. You removed the plastic seal and reached for the corkscrew. The bottle opened with a satisfying pop, filling the air around you with the strong, complex and seemingly contradictory aromas.

You poured a bit of this criminally expensive wine into his glass. He smelled it, then swirled it for a moment before taking a sip.

"Redcurrants and vanilla," he began. "With floral notes that operate with the precision of interlocking gears in a clock. Everything in its place."

"So you're a sommelier and a poet?" You tilted your head and filled his glass. "I'll bet you make women swoon at every corner."

You never had the best grasp on flirting, but even you knew that line was awful.

“Are you flirting with me, Miss [L/N]?” He asked, clearly not too worried about the consequences and enjoying the flattery. “Or are you just trying to get a taste of this Malbec?”

“Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.” You shrugged. “Though you are as handsome as everyone says, I’ve had my eyes on that wine for slightly longer.”

You fought the urge to slap your hand over your mouth. You had just broken the cardinal rule of workplace gossip. Panic reverberated through your body as you tried to break down his unreadable expression.

Once again, he just looked amused. “I’ve seen those lingering glances, the way you all whisper and giggle. It’s flattering.”

You felt your cheeks growing hot. “...I see.”

“If you tell me what they say about me, I’ll let you have a taste.” His eyes bored into yours.

You paused, trying to decipher exactly what he was offering. Then it hit you.

“Oh!” You interjected. “The wine.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant.” He said. “Dare I ask where your mind went?”

Your cheeks stung from all the uncomfortable smiling. “I’d really like to keep my job, thanks.”

“Have you never heard of bartender-client confidentiality?” His voice lowered and his eyes found your lips. “Nothing we say tonight has to leave these four walls.”

Your insides turned to jelly. He rested the wine glass in his hand and offered it to you. Your hands shaking, you cradled the glass like an 18th century French village prostitute being offered a mug of hot soup. You brought the glass to your lips, the strong, overwhelming smells assaulting your orifices.

You let the wine grace your tongue. You had taught yourself to overcome the sting of the alcohol and focus on the undertones. Your eyes rolled back in to your head and you let out a little noise of pleasure.

“Christ on a bike, that’s decadent.” You said, gasping for air a little bit. You quickly passed the glass back to him before Matthew could see you. “Thank you.”

“Now, indulge me.” He instructed, glancing at the fresh pink lipstick mark on his glass. “What do the lovely women of Terroir whisper while I’m just out of earshot?”

You rested your elbows on the bar and leaned in close. “They say you’re a vampire.”

Judging by his unchanging neutral expression, it clearly wasn’t the first time someone had made that connection. “Perhaps they’re on to something.”

“One of our line cooks used to say you were the devil.” You informed him, hoping that was one he hadn’t heard before.

“Used to?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Until Chase Mulvaney came around.” You instinctively ran your fingers over your bandages, as if to make sure they were still there. It was a nervous tick you’d developed anytime someone brought up that day. “He’s stopped talking about, like, anything having to do with his religion ever since.”

“It takes a lot to get an evangelist to stop evangelizing.” He refilled his glass. “Do you think he lost his faith?”

“I heard someone say in passing that it was because he and Chase Mulvaney went to the same church.” You whispered. “But I can’t verify that.”

“I’d say it’s more likely than a regular customer being a vampire, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t trust their word because they made a regular customer into a vampire.” You corrected, hoping he would overlook the fact that you were one of them. “Secrets may stay within these four walls, but they tend to bounce around. It’s only a matter of time before one escapes, and you’d better hope it’s not one of yours.”

This man must have been an exceptional therapist, because, there you were, baring your soul to him after fifteen minutes and one sip of wine. Occasionally, you were pulled away from the conversation by another customer who had the audacity to also want a drink. But, very few people came to you with the sole intent of drinking on a Tuesday evening. You and the sommelier talked until closing time.

“Thank you for a lovely evening, Miss [L/N].” He said pulling out his wallet. “You are as delightful in person as you are on paper.”

“Thank you, but I never caught-” you said, but stopped yourself. “I mean, you never gave me your name.”

He signed his name on the paper check, then pulled out a fifty and unceremoniously handed it to you. “Now why would you want to ruin the mystery?”

“Nothing we say tonight has to leave these four walls, remember?” You grinned and crossed your arms. “Come on, I won’t tell anyone.”

He took the customer copy of the receipt and scribbled something down on it. He the folded it in half and slid it in your direction as if it contained nuclear launch codes.

“Join me for dinner someday.” He ordered. “I’ll supply the Malbec.”

#hannibal x reader #hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hannibal x you #hannigram #hannigram x reader #the sommelier #wine #tw trauma #tw victim blaming #tw alcohol

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nicoscheer · 3 years

Text

-Will‘s rating of Hannibal: got stabbed and manipulated would rate 1/10, do not recommend, would totally do it again

-Bryan said that the stag is a representation of Hannibal’s and Will’s relationship and that after it‘s literal death (Mizumono) their relationship would be represented differently in Season 3 and I may be dumb but how exactly was it shown?

-(almost) Every Therapist has had personal issues that’s how they end up with their profession, looking at you Hannibal

-Recently there was a advertisement for Chaos Walking on the radio and they didn’t use Tom Holland but Mads Mikkelsen (“as known from James Bond”) to advertise the movie, they did mispronounce his name but still…

-Hannibal actually couldn’t eat all parts of Will cause his liver is certainly damaged because of all the whiskey (Hannibal would most likely also have a damaged liver with all his late wine drinks)

-possible ways to pronounce Mads Mikkelsen:

~Mass Mikkelsen (like Thomas)

~Mäds Mikkelsen

~Matts Mikkelsen

whenever i see a comment that Will and Hannibal never actually loved Abigail but simply adopted her for their own benefit I gotta cry

-Hannigram consent:

Sexual stuff 100% always asking

all the murder stabby/druging/framing stuff…not so much

-The Hannibal fandom destroyed every chance for me to ever read any other fandoms fan fiction again because of Fannibals I am now used to high standard beautifully crafted stories and can’t just go back to those ‘slightly‘ weird stories written by 8 year olds with no context

-Hannibal always drinks wine while preparing meals and cause he’s alone he always has to weirdly hold his wine glasses (for example him holding his glass with his middle finger like who does that apart from crazy criminals) and then in season 4 he cooks and whenever Will senses he craves another drink he will pick up his glass so that Hannibal can simply drink without having to use his own hand

Just imagine Hugh had been there, simply his look afterwards

-Hannibal as a religious show:

Nietzschen Fish, needs no explaining

and all the ‘killing must feel good to God too‘ is Theodizee

so basically Hannibal is just playing God and he’s damn good at it

- I just love how Hannibal thinks he’s so much better than everybody else that he doesn’t even consider it cannibalism unless the food and water are equals so to him he’s literally just eating animals unless he had actually tasted his Will

#hannibal nbc #hannibalecter #will graham #hugh dancy #mads mikkelsen #hannigram #bryan fuller #murder husbands

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a-flickering-soul · 3 years

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EverymanHYBRID And Deer In Media: In Five Parts (click for individual comparisons)

Deer are both a symbol of fragile purity and the untamable wild–here, we examine deer in the context of man, where deer come to represent the urge within us to abandon the conscious ego for the subconscious id. The deer is a symbol, too, of rebirth, of transformation, of shedding and regrowing its weapons each year. To kill, to be reborn, to choose to be monstrous through our proximity to humanity. Is there not something pure in surrendering to animal instinct? If deer are the twin themes of innocence and wildness, then we in turn are the juxtaposition of humanity and monstrousness–our actions made monstrous by the attempt to temper them with humanity.

(transcript, analysis, and sources below cut)

1: The Secret History & EverymanHYBRID--Bodies

The Secret History, on the killing of a man in a hallucinatory bacchanal:

"'Henry,' I said at last. 'Good God.' "He raised an eyebrow. 'Really, it was more upsetting than you can realize,' he said. 'Once I hit a deer with my car. It was a beautiful creature and to see it struggling, blood everywhere, legs broken ... And this was even more distressing but at least I thought it was over. I never dreamed we'd hear anything else about it.'"

EverymanHYBRID, "Ryan and the SEVENTRIALSOFHABIT":

A shot of a deer's dead body at the side of the road at night, looking crumpled and not quite right. The captions read: "Jeff: It's a fucking deer, dude. (Evan: See it?) Yeah. Something cut its belly open. (Evan: It cut its belly open the wrong way.)"

Parallels drawn:

Consider this one an amuse-bouche. Henry draws comparisons between a man he killed to a deer he accidentally hit with a car, mildly naming the incident ‘distressing’. There is a lack of human empathy, of guilt over killing a fellow man. In comparison, Jeff, Evan, and Vinnie at this point in the EMH plotline have not yet become hunter or hunted–they have not yet been warped by their roles in this iteration and can acknowledge the upsetting nature of the events that befall them. Henry has tasted that amoral nature and is less human for it, more visibly willing to shed that veneer of attempting to care about other people. Jeff, Evan, and Vinnie have not yet reached that point.

2: “Whoso List to Hunt”, EverymanHYBRID, and The Secret History--The Chase

"Whoso List to Hunt", on hunting a fabled white hind:

"I am of them that farthest cometh behind./ Yet may I by no means my wearied mind/ Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore/ Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,/ Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind./ Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,/ As well as I may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds in letters plain/ There is written, her fair neck round about:/ Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,/ and wild to hold, though I seem tame."

EverymanHYBRID, "Slushpops and Surprises”

A shot of white text on a black page, "[Enter the tragic hero and his unattainable companion.]"

The Secret History, on hallucinations experienced during the bacchanal (bold for emphasis):

“‘Camilla said that during part of it, she’d believed she was a deer; and that was odd, too, because the rest of us remember chasing a deer through the woods, for miles it seemed. Actually it was miles. I know that for a fact. Apparently we ran and ran and ran, because when we came to ourselves we had no idea where we were.’”

EverymanHYBRID, “December & early January”:

A shot of Vinnie, hand covering his face in shock, as he sits and listens to Jessa’s last voicemail before she went missing. Jeff can be seen in the background, listening in silence. The captions read “[Jessa’s voice, recorded]: Steph, that thing you were talking about, I saw it...he’s real, he’s right here. What the hell does he want? I think he’s following me.”

Parallels drawn:

The deer symbolizes wild nature, something that man cannot obtain, touch, or capture without abandoning something of his own humanity. Similarly, deer represent the unattainable prey. Noli me tangere, says Caesar’s unattainable deer– touch me not, no matter how hard you may attempt to catch me. Jessa of EMH is deemed the unattainable companion and Jeff’s driving force to discover the truth behind the situation they’ve been placed in–it is Jessa, dangled in front of him after she goes missing, that leads Jeff down the path that inevitably leads to his own death after uncovering too much. The deer is to be chased, to be hunted, and never captured. Camilla from The Secret History believed herself to be a deer during the same hallucinatory bacchanal that cost a man his life, and led her brother and friends on a chase spanning miles. Jessa was hunted by an unknowable force, then used as bait to draw her partner down the path to his own death. Unattainability, the shape of something fleeing in front of you, elicits a powerful reaction to follow, to hunt, to chase. Jessa fell victim to that reaction. Camilla, and the white hind, did not.

3: The Myth of Diana and Actaeon, EverymanHYBRID, and The Secret History--Madness

The Diana and Actaeon Fountain at the Caserta Royal Palace:

The detail of the fountain shown depicts the pivotal scene in the myth of Actaeon and Artemis, where Actaeon, mid-transformation into a stag, is killed for the slight of viewing the goddess Artemis nude.The sculpture shows the transformation in no mercy, plain in its depiction of Actaeon’s pain and terror, and the simple ferocity of the hounds that surround him.

EverymanHYBRID, “May & June”:

A shot of Jeff, blood spattered across him, speaking with a shocked and angry tone. The captions read, “Jeff: Why were we doing that? That was...that’s not what we were looking for. We knew damned well that wasn’t what we were trying to kill. (Vince: Close enough.) It was a deer! It was a fucking deer! I tried to pull you off, you tried to punch me in the fucking face!”

The Secret History, on the Greeks’ view of beauty and terror (bold for emphasis):

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful to souls like the Greeks or to our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripedes speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, ‘more like deer than human being’.”

Parallels drawn:

Most depictions of Actaeon, sculpture or painting, usually show him with antlers or a deer lower body, leaving his head and face a recognizable human shape. However, the sculptor here decided to subvert expectations and leave his body human, giving Actaeon the animal head of a stag. The loss of control and the descent from human to animal is not glorified or made palatable by the mere addition of a crown of antlers--there is only the one constant, fear, that follows him all the way down. Madness may be defined as a loss of control, and there may be something beautiful and terrifying in feeling your sanity slip through your own fingers. Jeff, Evan, and Vinnie are overtaken by brief, inexplicable madness and tear apart a deer as they come dangerously close to uncovering exactly who and what is hunting them. They skate close to seeing soemthing they shouldn't see. It is only Jeff who looks up, shocked by the blood on his hands, and voices his fear. Vinnie, apathetic, lets it go. But Evan, houndlike and irrational, defends his kill.

4: EverymanHYBRID & Hannibal--Warnings and Temptation

EverymanHYBRID, “May & June”:

A shot of Evan, spattered heavily with blood, standing with shoulders caved in protectively. His left hand is raised to his mouth, with his hair covering his eyes, and he is licking the blood off of his fingers.

“Shot Through The Hart, and Hannibal’s To Blame” (bold for emphasis):

“In my post about ravens, I talked about how it’s not always easy to tell what the Ravenstag really means. Is it evidence of the Hannibalesque elements of Will’s soul? Or a warning of those parts growing within him? Does the Ravenstag urge Will forward on his journey, or warn him of what’s to come?”

Hannibal, Season 1, Episode 1 “Aperitif”:

A shot of the Ravenstag, staring directly into the camera with one hoof up, as if to approach. There are black feathers interwoven with its pelt and its eyes have an uncanny shine.

Parallels drawn:

On a naturalistic note, deer are skittish creatures. They have thin legs and a sleek body, made for running. A small head and big eyes, placed wide-set to see coming predators. Keen ears. They are ready at any moment to sense danger, warn others, and flee. When a deer does not move, it is either safe or sizing up its options, either accepting where it is or preparing to run. Deer, staring directly at the viewer, come as a sympathetic warning to flee or, in its dark eyes and firm stance, a temptation. Me tangere, they say. Come closer. We are one and the same. In Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, the commanding presence of the Ravenstag serves as both a warning and a beckoning temptation to turn his feet down the darker path. It is otherworldly, black-furred and feathered, and yet a warning of events rooted in the real world--does Will understand what danger he is in upon meeting Hannibal and take the warning, or will he ignore it, sensing that same darkness in himself, that same potential for corruption? In EverymanHYBRID, it is that same killing of a deer that hints at that same potential for darkness growing inside Evan. He licks at his fingers, animalistic, fully ignoring his own Ravenstag warning signs for the delight of the hunt. Is he Evan anymore? Or is something else growing inside him?

5: EverymanHYBRID & Hannibal--Predator and Prey, or the Final Act

EverymanHybrid, “:D”:

A shot of HABIT, looking up a set of stairs with one foot on the bottom step. In one hand down by his side, he is holding a knife. His posture is tilted forward, poised, ready to spring into action, like that of a hunter.

“Shot Through The Hart, and Hannibal’s To Blame” (bold for emphasis):

“The idea of deer as symbols of rebirth also stands out to me. Hannibal is a series obsessed with becoming and transformation. People start one way, and are reborn as something completely other by the end of the show. There’s even a character sewn up into a deceased pregnant horse in the hopes that when she’s released, she will be literally reborn as something different. It’s thus a neat fit, this significance of deer with the themes of the show.”

EverymanHYBRID, “:D”:

A shot of Jeff, looking up and to the side with an expression of caution and fear. His eyes are unnerved, squinting as, from offscreen, HABIT’s hand plays idly with his hat.

Parallels drawn:

The first and final incarnation of the deer is, of course, prey. Beyond and before any symbolism of innocence and wildness and warnings, deer are prey animals, to be hunted and devoured. And yet, in keeping with the concept of contrasting symbolism, deer are not helpless. Yearly, they shed and regrow their antlers in a transformation of horn and blood. At the climax of EverymanHYBRID, the final reveal, the final transformation, comes to fruition. HABIT, formerly Evan, takes its place as the Hunter, the archetypal predator, with Jeff shown most prominently as the Prey. Jeff’s luck has run its course, with him in the chair as the sacrificial prey-victim to fall to HABIT’s knife. HABIT, reborn, reiterated, made incarnate through Evan’s unwilling transformation, is poised to start the hunt. This is the big reveal, the crux of the transformation, Actaeon caught mid-transfiguration and the bloody sloughing-off of velvet humanity to reveal perfect and gleaming antlers. This is what it comes down to, time and time again. The hunter and the hunted. The wilderness embraced and the wilderness captured, and the monstrosity in that act.

Works Cited

Callimachus. Actaeon and Artemis. C. 220 BC

Fuller, Bryan. “Apetirif.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 1, NBC, 4 Apr. 2013.

Koval, J., Caffarello, V., &; Jennings, E. (Directors). (2011, July 12). May & June [Video file].

Koval, J., Caffarello, V., &; Jennings, E. (Directors). (2012, October 9). :D [Video file].

Tartt, Donna. The Secret History. Penguin, 2006.

Uhminuh. “Shot Through the Hart, and Hannibal's to Blame.” Read the Rude, Wordpress, 19 July 2020.

Wyatt, Thomas. “Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind.” c. 1530.

Honorary mention to this fanart by @/rrhaes that started this whole spiral

#emh #everymanhybrid #flickerthoughts #flicker wrote this #i'm serious when i say this has been brewing in my head for a calendar year #i finally pieced it together at the beginning of this week and it's STILL incomprehensible but i think the vibes are there #emh my beloved emh and the themes and motifs and symbolism that exists in my head #i have a love hate relationship w the secret history but i put it all in here #also i am two eps deep in hannibal but i think i got the gist idk #anyways i want you all to know i REALLY wanted to work in the iphigenia/steph parallels but it just didn't make sense in this context #maybe i'll post it later idk but!!! here take this #in keeping with the theme of my best literary analysis showing up when i'm at my breaking point wrt life #this :handshake: reylux parallels post -- created under emotional duress #i rly wanna do one that's like 'slenderverse women + being followed' bc that's a FEELING.#if i am saying the emh boys are actaeon torn to shreds by their own dogs after they hunt the wrong prey.....that's my business lmao #should i tag the other stuff? here i'll tag em here so they don't show up in search #hannibal #the secret history #flicker's meta

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