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tough like the stuff in your grandpa's glass

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Incredible

What do you see, Will?

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What really resonated with me was that the term of affection for them is, “I see you.” And there’s no greater expression of affection. That’s how Will felt with Hannibal — he felt seen. He felt naked and vulnerable, and yet understood in that.” –Bryan Fuller [x]

In reading commentary and discussions about why people don’t understand Will’s affection for Hannibal and are against the Hannigram relationship, it becomes apparent that there is a fundamental misunderstanding about who that audience thinks Will Graham is vs. how Hugh Dancy plays him/Bryan Fuller writes him. In part, it’s shock – what Will has done runs directly against the normative cultural and moral expectations of the mainstream audience. Not even in the glamorous Hollywood sense of embracing darkness for power either, but in a true savage, wild, morally reprehensible fashion for, well – love and self-acceptance.

In the normative view, it’s quite easy to understand Hannibal’s desire to possess Will. For the first time in his life, Hannibal has found someone who can see him as he is, and Hannibal continuously hungers for that experience. But in the same normative view, it becomes difficult to understand why Will craves Hannibal’s attention and affection in return – even after leaving the FBI, he’s able to find another job, get married, raise a family, find someone to share a life with. Hannibal may need Will, but there are others who care about and love Will. And in the normative understanding, why isn’t that enough for him to get by?

For that, we have to turn to the most important comment Will has made about what he gets out of his relationship with Hannibal.

Chiyoh: Why are you looking for him, after he left you? With a smile? Will: I’ve never known myself as well as I know myself when I’m with him.

In Red Dragon, Will’s “pure empathy” is not just framed as him understanding what other people feel and think, it’s that he can actually feel what other people feel.

If we view Will from that context, the entire premise of the series changes: Does Will continue working for the FBI despite his health problems because that’s what he wants, or is it because he wants what Jack wants? Did Will have feelings for Alana because Alana had feelings for him and he felt compelled to reciprocate what she felt? Etc. This is not to say Will’s own feelings, opinions, preferences don’t also influence his actions because they do, but Will exists in a world where everyone is able to use their personal feelings to manipulate him, whether subconsciously or unconsciously. For the most part, it is unconscious on their part and subconscious on Will’s part. If we’re to be really scrupulous about our reading, it can even be argued that Will chose Molly and her premade family unit because she would want him to be a certain way, and it was a means of self-manipulation to make himself want what she wanted from him.

So Will literally feels what most other people feel. But with Hannibal – while it would be reductive to call Hannibal a sociopath, he shares a number of characteristics of a typical sociopath including a limited emotional range. It’s textual to the show that Will has a hard time reading Hannibal, that the whole point of him going on the Quest of Love in the former part of season 3 was about Will understanding Hannibal when for almost anyone else, all Will needs is the blink of an eye. (Not to mention the ridiculousness that it took him years to figure out Hannibal is in love with him. For Heaven’s sake, Will, was the blunt force metaphor of Hannibal’s broken heart-corpse not enough?)

For someone like Will whose life is a constant barrage and absorption of other people’s emotions, for the first time in his life, there is someone with whom he feels safe (for relative value of being safe with Hannibal) that Will can use to draw a baseline for what his own emotions are rather than the emotions that he has because other people around him are having them. And that has to feel like a safe harbor in storm, to be in and have company but know what you’re thinking and feeling is your own.

That isn’t to say that Hannibal doesn’t manipulate Will, but as we’ve seen with other psychopaths and normative-level empathy characters in the series, no one is immune to Hannibal’s manipulation. This conclusion also seemingly contradicts Will’s own assessment that they’ve begun to blur, but it actually supports it: for the first time in his life, Will knows that if he’s being manipulated, it’s a conscious manipulation rather than the unconscious emotional manipulation he’s constantly subjected to. For Will, this unconscious manipulation can even be crueler than what Hannibal does to him because it is often patronizing, and devalues his own ability to make choices and have those choices be respected.

– and there is someone Will can emotionally manipulate back just as much, knowing what Hannibal’s weaknesses are. To say that Will and Hannibal are blended means that what Hannibal wants for Will may become what Will wants, but also that what Will wants also profoundly impacts what Hannibal does. And there’s a balance and clarity Will can’t have with anyone else.

Will’s personal darkness aside, for the first time there is someone who sees and loves Will for Will, not Will as a reflection of themselves or their desires for him.

So for Hannibal, the appeal of Will is, “I see you,” but for Will, it’s “I see you.”

[graphic/screencap]

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Ritual

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But once God saw that he existed, he was not amused. Sheer existence horrified him, because he recognized that nothingness is better than being. So God longed for nothingness. Since, however, he could not immediately negate his existence, he decided on a suicide by proxy. God would destroy himself through other things, by creating the world and fragmenting his existence into a multitude of individual things. To achieve his goal of complete non-existence, the total serenity of nothingness, God had to create the world as the necessary means toward his self-destruction.

Frederick C. Beiser, Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860 - 1900

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Mmmmmm reverse it and give it to the next person

fanfiction truly being the savior for everyones sanity

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to rewild your witchcraft

walk barefoot on stones in shallow streams.

talk to the wind and let it carry away your regrets.

forage for wildflowers to place on your altar, press in thrifted books, or give to loved ones —be careful when identifying

watch sunrises and sunsets. wake up before the sun. bare witness to the painted sky.

spend hours in the woods among the wild. take long long walks or sit still and watch the world.

talk to plants and listen to them. make friends.

get field guides to trees, plants, birds, etc. that are native to your area. learn which are which. bookmark pages that you recognize or want to find.

sing back to the robins. caw back to the crows.

journal by firelight and feel the flame burn your worries away.

gather snow and bring a bowl inside. talk to it and tell it your worries. your fears. let it melt, transmuting your stress and worries into healing nourishment. bring it outside and water the soil. see how things can be changed.

dance. run. move your body to sweat, if this is something you can do

collect stones from the river and try to find the best ones. keep them in your pocket. hold onto them to remember that you’re an animal.

go to a lake and float. feel the water carry you. lifting you from your stress. bring a vial and collect some for spellwork.

make a necklace out of an acorn and thread.

stand in the rain. dance in it. lay down in the grass and let it pour. let it wash fears away, transform doubt to hope. start anew.

𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘

(wild winter witchcraft here)

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The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

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