#Alana bloom

[br0nzefox]

I’ve been noticing some discourse about Will’s and Hannibal’s sexuality - like whether they are pan, bi, gay etc. and I have some thoughts.

I wanna preface this though by saying there’s nothing wrong with headcanoning them to be a specific sexual identity, this is, as always, just my opinion. That being said:

The way I see it is that Hannibal doesn’t really feel attracted to people at all. He views them as beneath him, so just as we don’t feel sexually attracted to a pig, Hannibal doesn’t feel sexually attracted to a person. He doesn’t mind sleeping with someone (Alana Bloom for example) if that benefits him but it’s not a desire, it’s practicality.

Will is a bit more complicated just because of how repressed he is. Because of that I think Will would seek physical intimacy as a replacement for emotional intimacy. An example of this would be when he kissed Alana as a clutch for balance. I think this is also highlighted beautifully in the scene where Will sleeps with Margot. During the scene he keeps seeing Hannibal as the Wendigo constantly looming over them. So I think through sleeping with Margot, another patient of dr. Lecter, he hopes to emotionally connect more- not to her, of course, but to Hannibal (more on that later though).

Everything said earlier though does not matter, their sexualities do not matter because when it comes to each other all rules, all standards, all boundaries go out the window.

Will’s and Hannibal’s sexualities do not matter because the only people they could ever actually, truly be attracted to in any way is each other. And because both of them are so desperate for companionship the physical form of their beloved, their gender, their sex, their appearance would not matter.

Hannibal is attracted to Will because Hannibal considers him his equal. His only equal. And thus the only person he would ever even consider starting a genuine relationship with. And thus he clutches to that person because it’s his only hope of companionship and understanding. Will is the only person in a world of pigs. And so Will is the only person Hannibal would ever actually want physical intimacy with.

Will is attracted to Hannibal because he sees that Hannibal is the only person who will accept him as his true self. Without the person suit. And thus Hannibal is the only person who can provide Will with the emotional intimacy he seeks. And through fulfilling that desire for emotional intimacy Will would be then open to the want for physical intimacy. And only then would he be able to desire physical intimacy not as a replacement for emotional intimacy, but rather as its own kind of connection. And the only person who could open that possibility for Will is Hannibal.

[authorafterhours]

Maybe niche, maybe controversial, but I love when fanfic writers have Will post BSHCI refusing to be Hannibal's side piece. If Hannibal confesses his feelings, or leans in to kiss him, or anything that suggests a deeper intimacy, Will just reminds Hannibal he is with Alana.

Will is many things, but he refuses to be a home wrecker, he tells him with a smirk.

It's even funnier when Hannibal immediately breaks up with her, so Will no longer has that excuse.

[mandoriana]

Hannibal talking to Jack and Alana about Will.

Hannibal: Don't worry, Alana, Jack, Will is doing very well, and... *phone rings* Excuse me for a moment. Hello?

Will: I bought a rope...

Hannibal: What 😨

Will: Calm down, I was planning to jump...

Hannibal: Will, please think carefully about this, you...😰

Will: I just wanted to say I was going to start jumping rope for exercise and wanted your opinion, calm down, doctor.

Hannibal: Oh dear, never start a conversation with your psychiatrist with "I bought a rope."

Will: Oops, sorry, doctor.

[xblackmariahx]

weeeeeeeeeeeeeell back at my place i got a california king okay maybe it's a twin bed and some roommates a psychotic abusive disfigured twin brother

[alcibiade-0]

[thedarkmongoose]

[manamania]

I kinda empathize with the Hannibal fandom’s majority opinion on Alana Bloom, especially the negative reception towards the writers making her “The Girl” between Will and Hannibal (a tired old trope that needs to die and no actress should ever have to suffer through again). But once she slept with and then MARRIED Margot Verger and started dressing like a 1940’s noir detective, I became a full-on simp.

Sometimes the best way to improve a female character is to end her weak-ass love triangle with two men and make her a lesbian. I’ve said it about Bella Swan, I’ll say it about Dr. Bloom.

[cunty-hunty8]

i can’t stress this enough, I HATE JACK CRAWFORD!

if you don’t go deep in the roots of will’s relationship with him and hannibal, you might think that jack cares, but hear me out, i rather have will stay with hannibal, cranial search and ear eating than “saving lives” with fake friend jack.

jack wants will to solve murder cases while he just commands and yells (the fact that miriam calls him “the guru” is a joke to me, ‘cause this bitch dumb af)

jack only listens to will (to anyone, actually) when he wants, when it benefits him

jack gets hannibal to clear will to work for the fbi, even though he never passed the screenings and alana says he shouldn’t, but he doesn’t give a fuck ‘cause being a hero saving innocent people is more important (“he’s innocent too!”-alana bloom about will graham)

jack guilt trips will when he asks to quit

jack chooses not to understand when will tells him that hannibal is the cheseapeak reaper not because it doesn’t make sense and he can’t see it but because it’ll fuck his career. he had a serial killer consulting for the fbi while he killed his agents and tried to wife the neurodivergent boy and he never saw it

and this is a very surface viewing still

i was rooting so bad for will to just run away with hannibal and just be murder husbands together since the beginning of the show… because at least hannibal is what he is and is willing to accept will as long as he accepts who he is first on the other hand jack thinks he’s so righteous when he’s just a bad boss and a bad friend who doesn’t even care to see will graham.

[cece693]

mano mažylė Pt. 2

pairing: platonic! hannibal lecter x gender neutral reader tags: leaving was the best choice, hannibal unable to handle feelings, chiron is over his drama, dead abigail, part 3 coming soon

Distance makes the heart grow fonder—a sentiment you didn’t share one bit.

When you left home with nothing but a bag of clothes and some money, a hint of regret settled in your bones, heavy and unwelcome. The image of your last act before leaving—the angry, desperate scrawl of I HATE YOU on the mirror—lingered in your mind. How could you have left Hannibal with nothing more than those words? How could you have reduced everything he had done for you—the home he provided, the security, the life most would envy—to that final, hateful declaration?

But then, as you sat on a train heading to nowhere in particular, watching the world blur past the window, you realized it really didn’t matter.

Hannibal wouldn’t miss you. He wouldn’t sit in the silence of that house and long for your return. No, if anything, he was probably relieved. Now that you were gone, he could fully embrace his twisted vision of fatherhood with Abigail. The unwanted thing had finally removed itself from the picture, leaving space for someone more deserving.

The thought hurt more than it should have, but it also encouraged you to keep wedging distance between you and Hannibal. Perhaps you had been a burden, but maybe—just maybe—this could be the first time you made him proud. The first time he would be thankful for something you did. And that was enough. Enough for you to settle back into the stiff train seat, exhale softly, and close your eyes.

In the months following your escape, you found a modest studio apartment with creaking floors and a single window overlooking a busy street. It was cramped, but it was yours. The landlord didn’t ask too many questions, and the rent was low enough that you could afford it by working at a local bookshop. Between the dusty shelves, the soft hum of customers chatting, and the friendly banter with your new coworkers, you slowly built a life that felt…normal.

But that comfort was disrupted soon enough. It was late on a cold Wednesday night. You had just finished closing the shop, the last customer having left half an hour prior. The street outside was nearly empty, save for a few cars idling at the traffic light. As you clicked off the lights and locked the door behind you, your breath plumed in the crisp air.

That’s when you saw her.

A woman stepped out from the shadows beneath a flickering streetlamp. She wore a long, tailored coat that looked far too expensive for this part of town. Her hair was meticulously styled, and there was an air of quiet confidence about her posture. She stopped a few paces from you, lifting her chin in greeting.

“Excuse me,” she said softly. “I’m looking for—” She spoke your name.

Instantly, your stomach dropped. The key in your hand felt suddenly heavy. You glanced around, but there was no one else on the sidewalk. “Who wants to know?” you asked, forcing your voice to remain calm.

She offered a polite, practiced smile. “My name is Chiron. I’ve been sent by Dr. Lecter. I’m sure you can guess as to why.”

Your heart pounded in your chest. Of course you could guess why. Chiron took a step closer, holding out her hands as if to show she meant no harm. “He wants you to come home,” she said gently. “He’s worried, and—”

“Worried?” You barked a laugh that sounded more bitter than amused. “You’re joking, right? Hannibal Lecter doesn’t do worried.”

She seemed unfazed by your scorn. “He cares about you more than you know. He…regrets things. He wants to make amends.”

“Amends,” you repeated. “Let me guess: he wants to show me how sorry he is by offering me a nice meal, maybe a glass of wine, and some carefully chosen words about ‘family.’” You swallowed, the taste of your own sarcasm nearly choking you. “I’m not interested.”

Chiron exhaled slowly. She reached into her coat pocket and produced a sealed envelope, dark red wax pressed into an elaborate seal. “He asked me to give you this. Please read it. If you don’t believe me, see for yourself how he feels.”

Your gaze shifted to the envelope, but you made no move to take it. “Burn it,” you said coldly. “I left for a reason. That hasn’t changed.”

“Listen,” she pressed, her voice taking on a more urgent tone, “I know you’re angry—”

“Angry?” you cut in, clenching your jaw. “Oh, I’m beyond angry. I gave him years of my life, hoping he’d see me as anything more than an accessory. And the one time I needed him to notice—” You stopped, your breath trembling, memories flashing of Abigail being hugged so tenderly by Hannibal. “He chose someone else. So yeah, angry doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Chiron’s expression softened. “He wasn’t trying to replace you. Abigail was...complicated. She needed help—”

“So did I,” you snapped. “And guess whose help I didn’t get?”

Silence stretched between you, weighted with everything you left unsaid. Finally, Chiron stepped back, slipping the envelope into your coat pocket anyway. You glared, but she ignored it, her tone quiet and careful. “He’s hurting in your absence. He thought he was protecting you.”

“Protecting me,” you repeated, voice dripping with sarcasm. You shook your head and turned on your heel. “Tell him I don’t care what he feels. I’m not going back.” You walked off, not bothering to watch as Chiron remained behind, the glow of the streetlight flickering over her motionless figure. By the time you glanced over your shoulder, she was gone—as if she’d been nothing but a phantom in the night.

Far away, in that house you once called home, Hannibal Lecter was unraveling.

When you first left, he tried to maintain his usual routine. He prepared elaborate meals for carefully chosen guests, kept his appointments, and played the perfect host. But the silence in his home weighed heavily, like an echo that wouldn’t fade. You were missing. The one variable he had never intended to lose.

Abigail Hobbs was still there, at first. The girl who had unknowingly stirred the pot of jealousy. She tried to tiptoe around Hannibal, sensing his growing agitation. One evening, she found him sitting at the dining table, staring at a stack of your drawings—yes, the ones you thought he’d thrown away. His fingers traced the edges of the paper with a tenderness she had never witnessed before.

“Dr. Lecter?” she said quietly, stepping forward.

He lifted his gaze, dark eyes filled with something close to sorrow—but also a mounting fury. “Do you know,” he said, almost conversationally, “that these were drawn when they were four? And yet, you could see the hope in every stroke, every color they chose.”

Abigail swallowed. “I didn’t mean to come between you and—”

“Didn’t you?” He rose slowly, placing the drawings down with precise care. “I saw the way they looked at me after you arrived. As though I’d betrayed them. Perhaps I did.”

“I didn’t ask for your attention. I was just—”

“You existed,” Hannibal finished, his voice low and dangerous. “You came into my home, accepted my care. Took something that wasn’t yours to take.”

Abigail’s eyes widened, realizing too late the shift in his demeanor—a predator uncoiling. “Please, Dr. Lecter, I never wanted—”

Her words were cut off by the abrupt movement of Hannibal’s hand. He struck her with a force that sent her stumbling back. Dazed, she tried to stand, tried to speak, but Hannibal was already upon her, calm and methodical.

“This is not your fault,” he murmured, voice eerily gentle as he pinned her to the table. “But you are the catalyst. And for that, I cannot forgive you.”

In the final moments, Abigail tried to plead, to find some spark of mercy in his eyes. She found none. Hannibal dispatched her with the same detached elegance he reserved for his darkest practices. The dining room was silent save for his steady breathing. When it was done, he stood there, gaze flicking to the scattered drawings that had fallen from the table in the struggle. A few were stained now, the colors warped by splatters of red. He picked one up, turning it over in his hands.

It was a child’s drawing of the two of you, hand in hand.

[vivianthehannibalobsseor]

First post! I got a bit bored and made a Hannibal edit.

[will-graham-coded]

I hope you all understand Fredrick buying all those lightbulbs is a reference to the strobe lights. Otherwise beverly would take that spot being a Home Depot lesbian

[bloodycraquelures]

So I’m supposed to believe that Freddie Lounds cared about Abigail when she just told Nick Boyle that Abigail woke up from her coma which led Nick straight to her. Everyone had an agenda when it came to Abigail.

So yeah I’m mad at everyone.

Even Alana isn’t as white as snow when I think about it. She took Abigail as her patient just so that she could control Will’s and Abigail’s interactions. I mean she tried to help her but she went at it the wrong way right at the start. Like leaving her alone to rot in that damn hospital which led her straight to Hannibal too! I’m seething 😡

She needed help not any manipulations or hidden agendas and I get it that she had issues I mean who wouldn’t? But everybody failed her and I’m sad 😢

Mad and sad. Smad…

No but for real everyone was like save Will Graham but who was here to think about Abigail Hobbs?

I’d really love to write about her in a fix it fanfic but my wording is lacking which leads me to huge anxiety to be as articulate as Hannibal. So maybe later lol

Which leaves me here again. Trying to make sense of it on tumblr…

[flock-of-cassowaries]

I think the different types of masks (transparent vs. opaque) also speaks the difference between Dr. Chilton’s extremely unethical approach to the presumed Ripper, and Dr. Bloom’s (equally, but differently) unethical view of the real thing.

As head of the BSHCI, Chilton’s main aim (with Will as with Abel Gideon before him) is to uncover some sort of sensational insight about the “Ripper” that he can use to further his own career. He wants to communicate with the Ripper - to see him, to analyze him, to build trust with him that he (Chilton) can exploit. All of this is supported by the choice of a transparent mask. It potentially assists (at least a little bit) in building trust with the “patient” / exploited party by dehumanizing them slightly less than an opaque mask would, and it allows the clinician / exploiting party to glean maximum information from the exploited party’s facial expressions.

Alana, on the other hand, has no interest in deepening her understanding of Hannibal by the time he ends up in her custody.

And while she’s probably an overall better steward of the BSHCI than Chilton, in that she isn’t trying to use the inmates to further her own career, when it comes to Hannibal, she illustrates exactly why psychiatric professionals are expressly prohibited from providing care to persons they’ve had romantic relationship with.

(More detailed Alanalysis under the cut. I don’t hate her, but I think that the way she breaks down in s3 is under-appreciated and under-examined.)

Dr. Bloom is absolutely not objective about Hannibal. She dismisses out of hand the possibility that there is anything about him that could or should be treated, and instead appears intent on punishing him to the greatest extent possible.

(I am assuming all the special privileges we see Hannibal enjoy in the BSHCI are the result of blackmail - something he alludes to when he mentions Mason, and says “You’re welcome for that.)

The opaque mask serves her purposes better than a clear one would, because (as the story of The Man In the Iron Mask illustrates), being forcibly deprived of the identity and expressive capabilities of your own face is its own form of dehumanization.

Quick Side Note, because Islamophobia is A Thing:

This is not an anti-niqab statement, or some covid conspiracy nonsense. Miss me with that conspiratorial racist bullshit. Choosing to cover your face is completely different from being forced to do so, and Muslim women are absolutely capable of choice, dear god. Looking at you askance from across the river, Marois and Legault governments.

Also, I’m immunosuppressed. I obviously support public health initiatives to limit the spread of respiratory infections.

…back to the topic at handibal..

But yeah…. as far as Alana’s choice of an opaque mask for Hannibal, I think it’s a good reflection of the fact that she only wants to punish and diminish him. She does not want to know him, or work with him as a patient.

She just wants to grind him down to a fine Hannipaste - to destroy him just as he has so casually destroyed a part of her.

Sympathy for, and criticism of, the soon-to-be-delicensed (if anyone spills the beans about her prior relationship with Hannibal) Dr. Bloom

And like… I get it. Hannibal, as a character, deserves many slaps.

But also… Dr. Bloom is probably not making him any less of a risk to the public with this approach.

Like, it’s hard to know if there even is an approach that could succeed in rehabilitating an offender like Lecter, but… this is definitely not an approach that ever had any hope of achieving anything constructive.

On Hannibal as the author of this dynamic / Hannibal’s solitary act of kindness to Alana

In a sense, Hannibal himself created this dynamic - not just through his atrocities (generally) and cruelty to her, but also through one of his only acts of actual kindness: specifically, the conversation at Muskrat Farm where she asked if she could ever have understood him, and he said no.

(Parenthetically, I think that, and “In your defence, I worked very hard to blind you” are some of the kindest gestures he actually makes towards anyone in the course of the show.

It’s far more kindness than Hannibal ever shows to Will, or to Bedelia.)

But yeah, in freeing her from the hope of ever understanding him, he allowed Alana to see him as a an unambiguous villain, without any nuance or shading.

Conclusion and Inevitable Personal Anecdote

As a person whose ex (accidentally) did something similar for me in our breakup conversation*, I can attest that being liberated from the binds of seeing an abusive partner as a salvageable human being that you “failed” or “gave up on” is very, very helpful to one’s recovery. 10/10, would recommend.

But like also, I probably shouldn’t ever be made responsible for my ex’s living situation and psychological care in a custodial environment.

* As I was breaking up with him, my ex said something so stupid and cartoonishly despicable that it instantly undermined my entire conception of him.

Kind of going insane about the different choices of bite masks for Will and Hannibal.

Transparent for Will vs. white for Hannibal.

At this point of the show, Will is in prison, but he is also needed at a crime scene because of his special autism powers.

His transparent mask is an interesting choice for that. People think that they have discovered his true nature. That he's a killer, a cannibal. That all along, he has been lying to everyone about who he truly is.

However, a transparent mask allows people to still see him and his facial expressions. Yes, he is being held back, but at the same time, he isn't hidden. It's all out there for anyone who has eyes and doesn't jump to a conclusion because it's the most convenient and easy option.

Those who choose to look, to really see him, can still do so, even when he's muzzled. In fact, Jack Crawford's first order of business at the crime scene is to take Will's mask off.

For Will, his mask doesn't take away from his essence, his character.

Now Hannibal gets a white mask.

Let's ignore the obvious associations of "clean", "sterile", "medical", and "Doctor". Instead, let's focus more on what the mask literally does.

Hannibal is at BSHCI on an insanity plea. At this point, people know who, or rather what he is. A killer. A murderer. A man who quite literally eats people. The metaphorical mask is off.

But at the same time, that is also what he is being reduced to. Hannibal the Cannibal.

This is where the mask comes into play. It hides his face. You can't see his facial expression. It's a shield, but it's a shield in both ways. It protects the world from Hannibal, but it also protects Hannibal from the world.

Even if you wanted to look, you can't. Everyone is locked out.

Everyone except for one person.

The one person in front of whom Hannibal chooses to take off his mask.

Will Graham.

[rocktheholygrail]

[filmsdkye]

the scene where alana is like “i feel like I’ve been poisoned” and will’s like “we’ve all been poisoned” is funny in hindsight because alana is talking about how she was being fed human meat and cartilage beer for 8 months and will is talking about how he’s kind of in love with hannibal

[stupidcopper]

hannibal season 2 summary