#PHILO.

[dwellsinparadise]

Pretend, for example, that you were born in Chicago and have never had the remotest desire to visit Hong Kong, which is only a name on a map for you; pretend that some convulsion, sometimes called accident, throws you into connection with a man or a woman who lives in Hong Kong; and that you fall in love. Hong Kong will immediately cease to be a name and become the center of your life. And you may never know how many people live in Hong Kong. But you will know that one man or one woman lives there without whom you cannot live. And this is how our lives are changed, and this is how we are redeemed.

What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.

—James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket

[jisatsual]

[vitalphenomena]

"I have had your fingers in my mouth? What the fuck are you—oh." Forgive the professor; he's concussed. It takes him an extra few moments to connect that, in order to force-feed Cain pain pills, maneuvering his digits into Cain's mouth was, somehow, required. Suddenly, Cain is aware of the bitter, acrid taste of leather against his tongue. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, distasteful.

"I am not a liar," he protests, his character, somehow, important to defend to the individual he can only assume has been hired as a hitman or kidnapper. Also, as we've already experienced, his tolerance for pain is incredibly low. He's not eager to feel any more agony. The pounding headache and literal bullet wound are enough for the rest of this life time, thank you very much.

And as Philo's vehicle approaches the plot of land Cain knows as Glass, Cain also begins to feel a nauseating dread pool in the pit of his stomach. What has he gotten himself into? What has he gotten Kieran into? Talk of people getting out of this alive—Cain laughs, hysterical and terrified.

Also, the idea of Kieran or any of the girls wielding weapons as casually as Philo is kind of hilarious.

"They are not armed, but there are cameras. Do not ask me where—where all of the cameras are." He tries not to think about it. "I have no idea. You will see a fence, soon."

Yes! As Philo will tell you, it all depends on the angle. If it enters your brain you're basically dead but sometimes it might just leave a hole in your mouth. And while a hole in your mouth would be unpleasant and difficult to deal with, you'll be alive.

"Well I know your name and now you've had my fingers in your mouth. I'd usually call that an acquaintance." Which now begs the question; how often is he putting his fingers into people's mouths?

That will remain unanswered, sadly. "We're not in Stockholm, so don't even worry about it!" The music is brought up a little higher, the rambling rock tunes filling the space more and making Cain's whining more bearable. "But we are almost to that place you told me about," Finger taps at phone, cracked screen showing the GPS route. "So real soon we'll know if you lied to me or not. Just remember, if you did lie, any pain you feel because of it is your fault."

There are few more bumps as cement turns into dirt road, the scenery rather nice for what Philo assumes is some weird cult commune. Eventually he's half a mile away and this seems like a good time to pull over. Cain has a few more questions to answer before Philo goes in all willy-nilly, guns blasting.

"Now...and again, be honest with me, is there security in there? Are they armed? And keep in mind that anyone that comes at me will get shot. If you want more of your friends to get out of this alive than dead, you tell me everything."

[paexie]

OC - Sataniel - Philo

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Essence Taylor wearing Phoebe Philo photographed by Jens Ingvarsson

[hommedessept]

[grrl-beetle]

Chloë Sevigny

[unbfacts]

Philo Farnsworth, who invented electronic television, was disheartened by its applications, believing it hadn't met his educational goals. But on July 20, 1969, while watching Neil Armstrong's moonwalk live, he told his wife, "Pem, this has made it all worthwhile."

[ourlittleuluru]

This came to me randomly in a convo with dear moot Lumi 🤣🤣🤣

I know I'm dragging back a dead art meme but I can't get it out of my head

I've said it once, twice and I'll say it again!

Jeremiah is never beating the "creator of the Lumiere outfit and name for Xavier" allegations for me! You can't even pry it out from my cold dead hands!

[pikaberi]

[arcanegifs]

some more details about Arcane Season 2 from the Annecy panel

[scarletdreamers]

There ultimately is one question that bothers many when it comes to Will: Is Will Graham actually a bad person? (because no one knows what exactly swims around in the hot darkness of his mind, but I tried to sum it up anyway)

The thing about Will is that yes, he is certainly not a ‘good’ person. At least not after Hannibal started messing with his head, though I’m convinced Will never was in the first place. However, not only Will’s character, but pretty much the whole show is about the thin and multi-shaded line of good and bad. Moral and immoral. It’s exactly that blurry line that makes Will such an interesting protagonist. He is not the bad guy, neither is he the hero in his own story. He tried to play the roles of both (FBI agent vs killer), managed to fool even himself for a while, but Will knows very well who he is and what he was doing.

It’s an ancient question, isn’t it? What is good and what is bad? Are those two defined by societal norms and standards? Are they based on culture, religion, or is morality something personal? Something only you can decide for yourself? 

I’m going to include Hannibal here for a second, because when it comes to Hannibal, the last one of those options applies. The thing with Hannibal is that he has his own philosophies, his own ideals and morals. Hannibal constantly rivals God, claiming that he himself can’t be called evil because God does the same things and isn’t considered ‘’bad’’. Hannibal has his own borders and limits very straight. He can recognise plain cruelty, but the thing with Hannibal is that he is a very stylised manifestation of sin.

Hannibal is religious, though there might not be a specific religion or deity he believes in and he worships no higher beings, he does believe in the ‘’rules’’ of certain religions. He is well aware that he crosses most of those. They hold no value for him. He makes his own rules, plays his own game. In his world, there is no ‘’good’’ or ‘’bad’’ when it comes to actual crimes against humanity. A bad person is for him someone very rude, someone who lacks respect and manners. He doesn’t consider himself a ‘’good’’ person. He is something entirely else. A way of perceiving life and his own morality that no one except from Will can truly understand. 

Hannibal, however, is to us a bad person. He is the ‘’ultimate bad guy’’, because the way he feels about Will doesn’t excuse the rest of his behaviour. Hannibal is a sadist, a narcissist, a manipulative and awful man. He kills and feels no remorse for most if not all of his victims. For him killing is an art, a pleasure, he delights in it. For him, that is not as ‘’bad’’ or evil as it is for us (society), though he knows he is alone in that world. 

For that same reason, Hannibal doesn’t consider Will a bad person. He considers Will his equal. He knows that the both of them are deemed ‘’bad’’ people to the public, but that doesn’t matter in his world. In Hannibal’s mind, it’s just him and Will against the rest of the world. They are neither good nor evil. They simply are.

So back to Will, who understands Hannibal’s view of morality, but doesn’t necessarily think the same. If we look at it the same way as we looked at Hannibal, in a societal and common sense, yes, Will is a bad person. Can a stereotypically ‘’good’’ person like killing, even if it’s bad men? The satisfaction in killing, even if it’s a bad person, isn’t a moral thing. Someone truly ‘’good’’ would always choose punishment over murder. Then there’s also the fact that Will didn’t blink twice when he and Hannibal ate human meat and that he consumed it, knowingly, without a single complaint.

Will had no issues using innocent people (Chilton, Freddie Lounds, etc) to achieve his own goals. He is as (if not more) manipulative as Hannibal and is sometimes cruel in ways that even shocks the Chesapeake Ripper. Will made absurd sacrifices to get what he wanted, did things no stereotypically ‘’good’’ man would ever think of doing. Then I’m not even talking about maybe the simplest and most ordinary example of how little he actually cares for most things, which is his sweet wife, Molly (her son Walter, too). 

However, Will did try to be good. He tried very hard. He wanted to be a good person, to save people. Will can care for others in ways Hannibal can’t. Hannibal has no moral compass, Will does. A broken one, but he does. Will wants to help people more often than he wants to hurt them (The conversation with Bedelia about crushing or saving a wounded bird is a perfect example of this. So are his needs to save dogs and Abigail.) The thing about Will is that he desired to be good. He worked for the FBI, saved many lives, because he understands pain and suffering like no other. He doesn’t wish such horrid things upon innocent people. 

During the show, Will's morality is completely tied to Hannibal, so much that Hannibal himself and the stag even serve as metaphors for his corruption, while at the same time, his morality has nothing to do with Hannibal. Will always had dark urges. He always knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with him, with the things he wanted and was capable of doing. Perhaps that’s why he joined the police and later the FBI. He suppressed the worst of him by focusing on the best of himself. By forcing himself to save people through a job, he couldn’t afford to misbehave and do things he knew were wrong. Will’s fantasies, dreams and understanding of killers throughout the show make it very clear that he struggled with his own morality, even before Hannibal.

Then came, of course, Hannibal. Who fueled those urges and gave them attention. Who didn’t create them, but cared for them. Allowed them to sprout and grow until Will got entangled in such a web of situations and feelings that he couldn’t suppress them anymore. Hannibal forced Will to deal with who he really is, he broke Will’s shield. His costume, the same way Will did with Hannibal’s person suit. Hannibal is a ‘bad’ influence on Will because he brings out what’s always been inside him, but was repressed for years because Will was aware that society would label him a monster or a freak if he acted on those feelings. Will felt alone and alienated his entire life, of course he tried everything to not fall into a complete pit of loneliness and darkness. 

That was until Hannibal came into his life and Will realised that there was someone who understood him, who loved him for who he really was, even (especially) his ‘darker’ side. Someone who was like him. Who understood how he felt and didn’t see him as an immoral person because of it. Will spent his whole life understanding others, but Hannibal was the first person to actually understand him in return. 

Hannibal thinks Will’s ‘worst’ side is the most beautiful version of him. Will himself is torn between what Hannibal (the one person who understands and cares for him) and society (his upbringing, religion, anyone he ever met, norms and values) think of him. He doesn’t know what to believe. He knows he’s a bad person, he doesn’t try to make himself believe he isn’t. As I said, Will still has a moral compass, he’s self conscious about the things he does.

However, there is a great possibility that Hannibal changed Will’s perception of himself. That he made Will see that there’s no need to think of himself as a bad person. Just as a person. A human with urges and desires. Who can decide for themselves whether their actions are good or bad. Law is far beneath them at this point. In the end, Will and Hannibal navigate their own morality through their perceptions of their own actions. They both have a dislike for labels. Good and bad, moral and immoral, those are all labels society has forced upon humanity. Cruelty and kindness are not. Will knows very well when he’s cruel and when he’s kind.

So my conclusion is, yes, Will Graham is stereotypically a self-conscious yet immoral person. At the ending of the series after everything has happened, at least. 

But, I think that, just like Will himself, it’s up to you to decide whether he’s truly good or bad. Some people have other reasons to believe someone is one of the two than others. Some believe that if a person can love, or if they feel guilt or know what they’re doing, they aren’t a bad person. Others don’t. I think that’s entirely up to you to decide. It’s just what you like to believe, because believe me, to Will the line is just as blurry as it is to us. He is as unpredictable to Hannibal as he is for the audience. Will is a mystery of a character, certainly when it comes to his morality. And I think that that is exactly what makes him so fascinating.

[jisatsual]

[pubescentdramaqueenn]

[paexie]

OC Philo

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Phoebe Philo