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hyperfashionist · 7 years ago

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Hannifashion January Challenge: 30 more days of Alana Bloom

Day 24: Ko No Mono - "I don’t think Hannibal is good for you and I think your relationship is destructive”

@fannibalgrowingcircle

$$$ Alana’s jacket: “The second jacket (size S) is made by Burberry Brit and has a green nylon shell with polyester lining.”

$$ My jacket: aqua turquoise quilted jacket, Eastex via eBay.

Alana’s scarf: dark blue with purple flowers. I was convinced when I did The Suits Are People version that this was the same one as in Mizumono, that it’s a kind of Murder Scarf. Totally wrong!

$ My scarf: sea blue with purple flowers, unbranded via thrift store.

Alana’s trousers: black ski pants, unknown brand.

$ My trousers: black fleecy leggings, Primark.

Alana’s gloves: looks like black gloves, possibly with a leather outer.

$$ My gloves: black leather gloves, Dent’s.

Alana’s boots: black knee-high or mid-calf zip-up snow boots with 1 to 2-inch block heels and latchets at the ankles (and calves?), unknown brand. They seem to be made out of leather or nubuck.

$$ My boots: black fleece-lined knee boots with thick cleated sole, 1- to 2-inch block heel and latchets at the ankles and calves. Clarks via eBay. I don’t know how good these would be as snow boots, but they’re warmer and their soles have more traction than dress boots.

Alana’s earrings: Alana wears two pairs of similar, but not the same, earrings in late S2. One pair is a partial hoop with white rhinestones, the other pair is a full latching hoop with pale topaz-coloured rhinestones that stand out from the goldtone setting.

$ My earrings: full latching hoop earrings with pastel-coloured rhinestones in a goldtone setting, unbranded. I forgot to take a picture but they’ll appear over the next days, and there’s a pic in The Suits Are People version.

S2 running total Alana outfits: 25

of which unique outfits: 24

garments worn more than once: 5

of which, worn more than twice: 1

Running total wrap bodices: 9

of which dresses: 6

Wrap bodice percentage so far: 36%

of which dresses: 67%

wrap dresses as percentage of total: 24%

Running total trousers: 3

of which jeans: 1

trousers as percentage of total: 12%

Running total coats: 6

Running total footwear: 11

Running total bags: 2

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Meta under the cut.

Both Alana and Will display considerable sophistication in this scene.

Box-and-Stick Trap

A naive tactic would be for Alana to say, Will is a bad influence on Hannibal! He is influencing Hannibal to kill!

Instead, she acknowledges consciously that Hannibal is influencing and manipulating Will. Back in the theremin scene, she warns Hannibal “People are not instruments” and that he has to pay careful attention to what he’s playing. She says it in a sleepy voice, because you can’t be held responsible for what you say when you’re not fully conscious. But it’s a lucid point, and she makes it.

Priorities

Fast-forward to this scene, and Alana is accusing Will not in terms of “you’re a bad influence on Hannibal” but “Hannibal is a bad influence on you” and condemns the relationship... because the problem isn’t that Hannibal is a murderer whether directly or by proxy... the problem is Will’s relationship with Hannibal!

So I guess, if Will had no relationship with Hannibal, the problem would go away!

Behaviourism

Meanwhile, a naive tactic would be for Will to try to drag Alana away from Hannibal, saying “he’s a very bad man... you’re not safe...”

Instead, he said “I’ve given up good and evil for behaviourism.” (The remark about destructiveness is a callback to that conversation.) The naive reading of this is: “OMG! Will doesn’t care about good and evil any more! He’s announcing that he’s just going to be a sociopath!” Actually, what he’s saying is that instead of appealing to people’s conscience, he’s going to appeal to whatever is most rewarding or punitive to them.

Reward (or the loss of it)

A major reason why Alana fled into Hannibal’s arms was to repair her social standing after narrowly escaping being caught making valentine eyes on the witness stand at the degraded and criminal Will.

But now, Will is saying “Hannibal’s good enough for you” in a scornful tone that clearly places Alana in a lower position. This is the second time in recent days that someone has done this - the first one was Freddie. And while Alana considered Freddie a low-life, having put her to the test Alana has come around to believing Freddie was right. So this time, instead of dismissing what Will says like she did when he warned her in Yakimono “he’s dangerous”, she takes it in. She realizes that instead of looking up at her with envy and admiration, two people she considers beneath her actually think less of her for her involvement with Hannibal *and she can’t prove that both of them are wrong*, because Will hasn’t been arrested yet!

And... now Alana is starting to actually feel unsafe. (Not that she’s acting as if that’s the case - she shows up alone and unarmed to tell Will he’s the killer? He has to hand her a gun to impress upon her that this shit is real.)

Because if Hannibal is dating Will right in front of her (which he is, in the more or less literal sense) then Hannibal is not on Alana’s side any more - not because he’s turned against her per se, but because the situation is humiliating for Alana and Hannibal is not only fine with that, he’s actually sitting at the dinner table laughing about it.

And making jokes about eating livestock animals despite loving them.

(That scene REALLY makes me angry on Alana’s behalf. How fucking DARE he. Hannibal is a dick of the worst kind, and it’s amazing that one has to keep repeating that, but he. really. is.)

I feel like that joke went over Alana’s head at the time, but maybe it’s flown back and is perched on her shoulder by now.

(Fucking seriously. Hannibal should eat himself as punishment for that conversation alone.)

Punishment

Remember what I said about Alana’s being in the place of CJ in the Lost Boys family back in Oeuf? CJ’s desperate mindguarding of his “brothers” was his way of making sure he didn’t age out of his role in the family, and become the scapegoat - which ended for another boy, with CJ’s help, in being burnt to death. Of course, the scapegoat role is to be avoided as a matter of life and death, but the problem is, Will won’t stay in it. And if the scapegoat role is vacant - anyone could be pushed into it.

And Will says it outright here: just like no-one believed him, no-one will believe her.

Warning

This statement is read as petty and vindictive, but it’s actually a warning phrased in terms Alana can hear: you are going to be in my position, you are going to experience what I experienced. Since Alana doesn’t really have the imagination to put herself in someone else’s shoes, she has to be put through a simulation in order to understand what was done to Will and what will be done to her if something doesn’t change.

The rest of the episode consists of Alana dashing around trying to avoid ending up in Will’s position, so the warning got through.

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hyperfashionist · 7 years ago

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Hannifashion January Challenge: 30 more days of Alana Bloom

Day 26: Ko No Mono - “I’ve had enough of the rot, noble or otherwise”

@fannibalgrowingcircle

I’ve picked one of the cut lines because I think it’s key to understanding Alana’s motivations here. Meta under the cut. In the meantime:

$$$ Alana’s blouse: “This Jose blouse (Size XS) features dark and light blue blotches with white highlights and is made of 100% silk.” As @fancybedelia has figured out, it’s actually by Joie.

The blouse is another blue leopard (predatory animal) print, which Alana wears in three out of five outfits in Ko No Mono. The predatory animal print signifies ferocity (obviously) and the blue signifies illusion (being fiercely protective of Hannibal). And the blurriness is picked up in the line “everything’s blurry and subjective”.

$$ My blouse: exact match via eBay.

$$$ Alana’s skirt: “Alana’s blue Diane von Furstenberg skirt (Size 0) features zipper at the hip.” @fancybedelia has identified the make and model as the Koto skirt.

$$ My skirt: blue pencil skirt, Thierry Mugler via eBay.

Alana’s earrings: “The gold colored earrings are studded.”

$ My earrings: goldtone hoop earrings with topaz-coloured/pastel rhinestones, unbranded via eBay.

Alana’s necklace: It’s when you get to the necklace that things get really interesting. This is definitely NOT the starfish, so what is it?

I asked loads of people, including the @fannibalgrowingcircle and the best guesses (IMO) came from @petri-dish-petrichor who said it looked like a twisted sugar bun. I asked @fancybedelia who thought it was abstract, in the same way as the Creole hoop earrings simple at first glance but convoluted when you get a closer look :-D

My intuition told me it was a chess knight, but it doesn’t look like one in the cropped photo. I’ve come back around to the opinion that it is a chess knight, which is what I wore.

However, we don’t actually get a good look at the necklace. There’s no way that they switched the necklace unintentionally, but in the end I think we’re not meant to see it. Maybe it’s some kind of symbol that they changed their mind about, or maybe it’s something prosaic like they lost the starfish and hoped we wouldn’t notice. IS MYSTERY.

Alana’s makeup: Alana’s eyeshadow is a chalky, pale, almost blue-grey. Over these last few episodes - since Hannibloom basically - they’ve been making her look increasingly puffy and bloated. In the interview with Clark Ingram they do things like film her from under her chin so that the lower part of her face looks heavy. They make her eyes look smaller in that scene, as well as in the scene where she interrogates Chilton; previously they were going out of their way to make her eyes look doll-like and limpid (false lashes etc.)

This puffiness disappears in Mizumono (so not due to crying) and I think it’s because Alana is the ortolan - blinded to make it believe it’s always night and always time to gorge itself.

S2 running total Alana outfits: 27

of which unique outfits: 26

garments worn more than once: 6

of which, worn more than twice: 1

Running total wrap bodices: 9

of which dresses: 6

Wrap bodice percentage so far: 33%

of which dresses: 67%

wrap dresses as percentage of total: 22%

Running total trousers: 4

of which jeans: 1

trousers as percentage of total: 15%

Running total coats: 6

Running total footwear: 11

Running total bags: 2

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That wasn’t meta. This is meta - extra long, very extremely lengthy and verbose meta under the cut (LOTS)

The Noble Rot, or, Hannibal as nobleman

In the Magna Carta the legal principle was established that the King, himself, is not above the law. This legal principle is the foundation of human rights.

The definitive explanation of why Hannibal has so much influence is in a 2014 comment, from user rue72, from a MetaFilter discussion. I’m going to quote it verbatim here, and it is long, but it is also spot on:

He seems very intimidating to me, and purposefully so. He looks like he's got about thirty pounds of muscle on anyone else in the show, and he's taller and more broad-shouldered than any of the others save (soft, out of shape, older) Jack. (As soon as I saw Will's new guy had that limp, I thought "uh-oh.") Hannibal could throw any one of them across the room as easily as spit, and you can tell just from looking at him. He looks like he's made of concrete, even his face is white and chiseled (which I assume is also an aesthetic/makeup/hair choice), he doesn't laugh or smile much, his posture and how he moves is so unyielding. To me, he looks like he could just smash a person to bits if he felt like it, and nothing about how he moves or relates physically to other people reassures that he won't feel like it. It just makes the feeling of "Hannibal's got all the power!" stronger to me that, on top of being physically intimidating, he chooses to surround himself with only the most expensive, most formal, most "elite" stuff -- fancy suits, fancy music, fancy house. I interpret that as his way of communicating that he's got all of "civilization" on his side, too. As though, not only can he smash a person to bits, but he's *meant* to -- he's the king, he's the one who is inheriting the rights to (the best of) everything, and that includes rights to do what he wants to you, because you're just another thing that he owns. He doesn't just have the physical power, he's got to cultural/social/historical* power, too. And then on *top* of that, he's also got the (legal! socially approved!) power to control other people's bodies. He's got a literal (medical) license for it. In that same vein, I think, is how he nearly always controls the food, which at least some of the characters noticed (the vegetarians and Abigail, anyway, maybe Bedelia and Will). It makes sense that nobody would be onto Hannibal in the sense of realizing that he's secretly a serial killer who eats people, because *nobody* is secretly a serial killer who eats people, it would be nuts for anyone to even have that as a possibility in his head. At the same time, though, I don't think Hannibal is aiming for "mild mannered" in terms of his image, I think he's aiming to seem powerful and in control, and he's surrounded by The Best because that's where he (thinks he) *belongs,* because he's also The Best. And to me, he pulls that image off in spades, and it's pretty intimidating.

To me, this explains why Alana is so drawn to Hannibal - because Alana believes in the social order, and Hannibal is the literal embodiment of the social order. It isn’t simple attachment to one individual, but her entire belief system that’s in question here.

It’s worse for Alana because she believes herself and her worldview completely normative, and is not at all used to questioning the normative view. This is what is meant by the “blurry and subjective” line here.

But my point is. Alana is starting to consciously question her implicit doctrine here. Alana isn’t feeling “pressure to believe” that Hannibal is influencing Will to murder - she has believed that, and said so, ever since the theremin scene!

But wait a minute. If Chilton is so despicable for influencing his patients to murder, why is Hannibal getting off so lightly here? All she’s done is murmur at him a couple of times, and make some pointed remarks over dinner WHILE tipping him off to make sure Freddie doesn’t blow his cover.

So when Will dropped all those HINTS about how he’s at Freddie’s funeral because his THERAPIST thought it would be THERAPEUTIC to engage in common post-murder behaviour, well... Alana is starting to actually really wonder...

I mean... Just because he’s Count Lecter VIII with a psychiatric practice and surgical skills and a taste for The Finer Things and so on, is it possible that that... DOESN’T make it OK for him to influence his patients to murder? This is where the “noble rot” remark comes in: she’s saying that even though Hannibal is at the top of the social hierarchy (as Alana sees it), that doesn’t give him the right to do what he’s been doing, and crucially up until now Alana has been acting as if it does.

And she’s also questioning that whole Is It Possible Hannibal’s A Murderer Himself thingy. I said yesterday that she’s scolding Will for being a murderer but not acting proportionately wary, given that she’s alone and unarmed with him in the middle of nowhere while she’s telling him off. She goes for Will (and she’s not the only one to do this) partly because he looks like the easier target. And he’s made it apparent by now that he’s not the pushover everyone perceived him to be. But confronting Will is still easier than confronting Hannibal, so that’s what Alana does.

In contrast, her manner with Hannibal is circumlocutory, conciliatory, and in the end submissive. She looks right at him and tells him she’s got a gun and is going to use it (on him, is the implication) but trusts him to be alone with her purse that has the gun and ammo inside. (As an aside, note that Hannibal does the Grabby Hands test on her.) She leaves the conversation having tried hard to convince herself that Hannibal is not the threat here. This is exactly what Miriam Lass had to convince herself of, knowing that the guy behind the glass would walk no matter what she said.

And this is another thing that Alana is having to face up to right now, expressed in the rest of that comment:

I think that a lot of the characters (definitely Jack and Alana, but I don't think Will) who are drawn to Hannibal recognize that he only likes The Best Things near him or on him or in him, and that's why they're flattered by his attention, it makes them feel like one of Hannibal's chosen Best Things. To me, that just ends up being dangerous complacency, though -- and not even "dangerous" just/primarily/even because Hannibal is a killer, but because they've got to realize that regardless, one day Hannibal won't think they're Best Things anymore, just things (that have gotten broken or boring), and how can even the best case scenario not end up with them hurt and Hannibal gone? You don't have to jump to the conclusion that a person will literally consume you to be wary of someone like that.

Alana redeemed her Hannibal gift card, and now she’s used up her options. Even under normal circumstances, this would be incredibly distressing. Add up Alana’s newfound questioning of her safety, and of reality itself, she is absolutely in crisis here.

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hyperfashionist · 7 years ago

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Hannifashion January Challenge: 30 more days of Alana Bloom

Day 27: Ko No Mono - “Do you think Dr. Chilton’s the Chesapeake Ripper?”

@fannibalgrowingcircle

Meta under the cut.

There’s that green outfit again. It’s exactly the same as the one she was wearing when she interrogated Clark Ingram, and only the jewellery is different.

Alana’s blouse: green silk secretary blouse, unknown brand.

$ My blouse: green silk secretary blouse, Limited Collection via eBay.

$$$ Alana’s skirt: “This Talbots skirt (Size 2p) features a blue square print over stretchy green material. At the waist is a gold chain belt.” This is a chain print, and the links are connected. This is the point at which Alana has put it all together.

$$ My skirt: green skirt with gold woven square (and connected) chain links, Betty Barclay via eBay.

$ My belt: goldtone rectangular chain-link belt, unbranded via eBay.

Alana’s shoes: cobalt suede stiletto pumps with pointed toebox, unknown brand.

$$ My shoes: cobalt suede stiletto pumps with pointed toebox, M&S via eBay.

Alana’s earrings: “The gold colored earrings are studded.”

$ My earrings: goldtone hoop earrings with topaz-coloured/pastel rhinestones, unbranded via eBay.

Alana’s necklace: okay, yesterday I said I thought this was a chess knight, but changed my mind. Today I think it is. If you zoom in, you’ll see that it’s definitely not shaped like a starfish, and that the top part is asymmetrical and is pointing to the right in a shape consistent with a horse’s head.

Also, Alana talks about Jack’s “moving pieces around the board”, we just had that thing with the woman in the horse, and there are things that happen in Mizumono that I’ll talk about tomorrow.

Now, we never get a good look at this different necklace and you have to be watching really hard to realize it’s changed. But still.

Why would Alana have changed her jewellery at the point she did? The timing would fit if the necklace and earrings were gifts from Hannibal. It seems less likely that she chose this moment to go out and get herself new stuff.

My necklace: goldtone chess knight, a repurposed earring (as you can probably see).

S2 running total Alana outfits: 28

of which unique outfits: 26

garments worn more than once: 6

of which, worn more than twice: 3

Running total wrap bodices: 9

of which dresses: 6

Wrap bodice percentage so far: 32%

of which dresses: 67%

wrap dresses as percentage of total: 21%

Running total trousers: 4

of which jeans: 1

trousers as percentage of total: 14%

Running total coats: 6

Running total footwear: 11

Running total bags: 2

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When Freddie warned Alana that Will probably thinks “If you can’t beat Hannibal Lecter, join him” it gets through, because that is what Alana believes, deep down. As she says herself in this scene, “You are going to lose, Jack!”

Alana’s been a stalwart enforcer on Hannibal’s behalf up till now - but she can’t count on his support any more. Not that she ever could, but now he is making it plain.

This whole episode, for Alana, has been running from pillar to post looking for someone to either blame or realign herself with, or both.

First she runs to Will: “Sea, won’t you hide me?” and tries to accuse him, only to have him push it right back to her.

Then she runs to Hannibal: “Moon, won’t you hide me?” and gets a very dissonant answer that she goes away reassured by, but, not really.

Finally she’s run out of options, so she runs to Jack: “Lord, won’t you hide me?” Only to have Freddie - dressed as a snake!!! - pop up and be all “Lol you should’ve been a-praying”.

Among all the other implications of finding Freddie alive, there is the certainty, now, that Freddie will put Alana to shame. Shame is the one thing that Alana fears the most. Death (preferably other people’s) before dishonour has been an operating principle for her up to now.

But there’s more. I’ve written elsewhere that Alana believes the communal consensus is truth, that you can literally change something from false to true and back again by making it be the thing everyone believes. This is why she’s been working so desperately to control the communal consensus - because Alana can literally stop Hannibal from being a murderer as long as she controls the story. Except that she isn’t controlling the story, not even with Freddie gone, and yesterday Hannibal was a respected psychiatrist but today he’s a murderer, and it’s not just that Alana has lost control of the story but that she’s been so far outside the communal consensus, for so much longer than she realized, that in her own eyes she is actually insane.

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hyperfashionist · 8 years ago

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The Suits Are People, No. 189 S2E11 - Alana Bloom: “It’s common for a killer to revisit their victims after death”

Gee, Alana, you don’t say.

Alana’s footwear: not seen, but presumably snow boots, either her mukluks or the ones that look like dress boots.

$$ Since it wasn’t snowing the day I wore this outfit, I wore my dress boots that sort of look like Alana’s snow boots. Roberto Vianni.

Alana’s trousers: not seen, but presumably the black ski pants she wears outdoors on snowy days.

$ My trousers: black fleecy ski pants, Primark.

$$$ Alana’s coat: “The Soia & Kyo brand coat is made of blue wool and features a button-up placket with a built in black leather belt.”

$$ My coat: blue wool coat with button-up placket, Rocha by John Rocha. Black faux-snakeskin belt, thrifted.

Alana’s scarf: blue scarf with blurry leopard print, unknown brand.

Alana’s predatory animal prints are out in force lately. In my opinion, her use of predatory animal prints evolved from floral prints, which are not a good sign for her.

$ My scarf: blue scarf with blurry leopard print, unbranded via eBay.

Alana’s earrings: “The gold colored earrings are studded.” These have topaz-coloured rhinestones, in contrast to a similar pair that she wears in late S2 which have white rhinestones. In both cases, I think we’re meant to perceive them as real precious stones.

$ My earrings: goldtone hoop earrings with topaz-coloured/pastel rhinestones, unbranded via eBay.