#and then reading hannibal rising after finishing the show

[somekindofhannibalcannibal]

i will be reviewing and assigning a numerical rating all of the books in thomas harris' "hannibal lecter" series just to get my thoughts out there. this is a once in a lifetime event you can't miss it

red dragon: the first and best to do it. easily my favorite of the quartet. i’m sure everyone knows by now that despite often being advertised as the first ever appearance of iconic character hannibal lecter he doesn’t actually appear all that much in this one, and i don’t know if it’s my unavoidable pop cultural knowledge that makes his presence feel greater than it is here, but i definitely get why harris felt the urge to bring him back. at the same time it’s really interesting to see how his characterization noticeably differs from later installments, and how harris was probably seeing him as more of a mundane serial killer figure than the force of personality he would become. but speaking of the more prominent characters; i think the book version of will graham is a much more compelling protagonist than he’s given credit for. i feel like a lot of people think the show made him interesting but imo he’s already plenty interesting here. i really really love that he’s a protagonist in a crime thriller procedural novel who experienced a significant trauma related to his job some time back and is being called back for one more case…and while most stories in this genre would have him get over his past issues and heroically face down the killer at the climax, this book really emphasizes how much the act of killing another person will fuck you up. yes, even if you absolutely have to do it. the fact that it ends so bittersweetly (and that description is an optimistic interpretation) instead of a standard “the day is saved, hooray” really makes this book stand out. book will is just so much more compelling to me than the standard main character type in this kind of story even today, and while i of course am into his show counterpart’s arc of trying to reconcile his own urges towards darkness, i think the book version’s relationship with violence and what the book says about the act of killing is so important to the themes. if more crime thriller procedural novels were like this i would probably read a lot more of them. the amount of page time devoted to the killer’s point of view also feels unique - it’s a level of depth and humanization that villains in these kinds of stories rarely get, to the point that francis dolarhyde is arguably the novel’s second protagonist. some of his backstory is a little cliche at this point, like most of his issues being traced back to a single abusive parental figure, but a lot more interesting than the usual page-long motive rant you get at the end of these things. it’s clear this was written at a time when criminal psychology was really heating up in the popular consciousness and people would have been interested in exploring the subject in fiction. harris really knocked it out of the park with this one and i’d urge everyone who’s only seen the show and/or movies to read it. i give it 5 out of 5 dragons 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

the silence of the lambs: unfortunately, despite having a lot of the same strengths as its predecessor, you can’t recommend this book without a ton of caveats. for all its good points - and there are indeed many - the transphobia at the center of the novel’s plot just looms over everything else and it’s impossible to talk about it without discussing how that affects things. part of the problem may be that in contrast to the first book, we get next to nothing from the killer’s point of view and it really feels like harris found this character too much of an insane freak to be worth sympathizing with. but it’s also because this book devotes more time to its actual protagonist’s backstory and characterization, and those parts are great - clarice starling is a very well-done character who is shaped by her background much more than will (who we know comparatively very little about), so we get to delve into her story more, which enhances the narrative as we get to know her. i really like her singular focus on saving lives and her sense of identification with the victims, whether found dead or going missing, and how the book goes into detail on how her background informs that. we also get an increased role for hannibal, who really establishes his personality as we know it in his pov scenes. it’s not surprising audiences found his dynamic with clarice so intriguing; it’s definitely the most interesting to me in this context, full of ambiguities and unspoken admiration for each other that never goes beyond the separation of the prison walls. it ends a lot more straightforwardly happy than red dragon, but with a new, younger protagonist who’s already been through a lot, it feels a little more earned than it could have. (i still don't buy her romance with pilcher, though. the movie made the right choice in leaving that out and having her be unimpressed with his attempts at flirting over a murder investigation.) it’s just…the transphobia. possibly made worse by the novel’s multiple attempts to justify or excuse this portrayal, which just make the book even more uncomfortable to read. (also honestly sucks how many people to this day believe those excuses and will insist “it’s okay because the author said the character isn’t REALLY trans!” whenever they discuss the book or film. you can like something and acknowledge that it’s “problematic”, i thought we’ve been over this.) aside from that it’s mostly good. i give it 4 out of 5 screaming lambs 🐑🐑🐑🐑

hannibal: this one’s complicated. i definitely get why people think it should never have been written in the first place, and why they think hannibal as a character doesn’t work outside of his original context as a side character influencing things from inside a cell, and i’m also not sure i buy harris’ claims in the author’s note that he just felt like he had to revisit these characters one last time, no other reason…but i don’t think the book is totally awful. it’s more of a mixed bag than anything. don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty i didn’t like at all - most people focus on the ending, which i agree doesn’t work or feel properly built up to. i might have been more accepting of it if it didn’t feel so much like it was rushing to a conclusion after spending so much of the rest of its length (i think this is the longest book in the series?) on other things. but there’s other problems too. my biggest beef with it is how relatively little clarice really gets to do over the course of it, despite being such an iconic active protagonist in the previous book. the inciting incident of her storyline is another case of the book getting really uncomfortable to read in ways the author probably didn’t intend - i know this series has always been “copaganda” on some level in how it portrays the fbi as basically good and necessary and heroic, but this takes it to another level by showing clarice becoming disillusioned with the fbi because…well, they’re actually prosecuting her for an action that the media is portraying as another instance of racist police brutality, for SOME reason. i’ve ranted about this before but it’s not good and leaves a bad taste in your mouth for the rest of the novel. we’re a long way from “killing someone, even if you have to do it…is the ugliest thing in the world”, and i don’t like it much. this is also the point at which hannibal is pretty much a mary sue in the purest definition - he’s good at everything, never gets caught, smarter and more capable than almost everyone around him, and basically everything he does is justified somehow. it gets pretty ridiculous by the end.

that said…there’s also a surprising amount that i liked in this one. the sequences with hannibal in florence are probably the best in the book, and whenever we’re in hannibal’s pov the narration really indulges in lush descriptions and poetic prose that’s actually very lovely to read. whatever his real motives for writing this, i do think harris enjoyed the process. on the other side of the pond, mason verger is an absurdly over-the-top villain for us to hate and feel no remorse when he’s inevitably killed, but there’s something kind of fun about the almost campy excesses this book gets up to in its more lurid moments. i also really like margot as a character, even if the narration gets kind of weird about her sometimes, and although she's obviously written by a cishet man in 1999 i do think harris might have been sincerely trying to offer some better representation of queer characters this time around. (i also like show margot as her own character, but…we really should have been harder on the show for making her so acceptably, conventionally feminine. ah well) when i was first reading the books i went looking for older posts about them from people who weren’t focused on the show, trying to gauge if this one was worth reading at all. one account i looked through really didn’t like how clarice was written in it (and they were pretty much the only one talking at all about the ~problematic parts at the beginning of the book, and not just discoursing about the ending), but they did like the rest of it and suggested that this book might have been better if clarice wasn’t in it at all and hannibal was the only recurring character. and honestly…i kind of agree. leave clarice alone if this is what you’re going to do with her. hannibal is already the protagonist of this book and the italy plot with pazzi + the plot with the vergers is plenty of story for the rest. margot is the secondary protagonist in my heart. my thoughts on this book could be their own post at this point but yeah, mixed feelings. not sure i'd recommend it freely but i wouldn't write it off as just bad. i give it 3.5 out of 5 brutal moray eels 🐍🐍🐍.5 (there’s no eel emoji)

hannibal rising: the last and least. yeah this one’s not good. it’s rumored this was only written because dino de laurentiis threatened to have someone else do it and if that’s true…you can tell. it’s the shortest book in the series and harris was clearly trying to get the minimum requirement written to get this over with and be free of hannibal lecter forever. at least that’s how it felt. anyway i didn’t totally hate this one - i actually thought the first half of the book was pretty good for what it was, expanding on an already kind of dumb backstory detail established in the previous book but also creating what felt like a pretty believable portrait of a young hannibal, growing up in a house of nobility, preternaturally intelligent from a young age, having his life torn out from under him by an intense traumatic experience, and rebuilding himself years later into a cunning and dangerous man. however the book really falls apart when it gets to the revenge plot portion of the story, which is just not interesting or enjoyable to read about at all. it’s just him tracking down and killing a group of generic interchangeable bad guys who lack any redeeming qualities or even the entertaining aspects of a mason verger. where this book really fails is as the start of darkness for its main character that it’s billed as. it just doesn’t feel like a villain origin story when every person the villain kills is an irredeemable monster; when exactly does this righteous vengeance-fueled kid become The hannibal lecter, who casually murders anyone who bothers or bores him? lady murasaki’s “what is left in you to love?” line falls flat when he hasn’t even killed any innocent people yet. i’m not even going to touch on the weird pseudo-romance plot between him and his aunt. honestly the book could stand to be a little weirder. it’s like. i hate to say this but it’s like one of those live-action disney movies that purport to tell the story of one of their classic villains but are really just about au versions of those villains who are actually good. 

well whatever. at least it’s still well-written on the level of its prose, even if it was under duress, and even though most people believe this book shouldn’t exist because hannibal is one of those characters who shouldn’t have any backstory (it does ruin the impact of the “nothing happened to me, i happened” line when there’s a whole book reducing him to a series of influences), it does give us at least something to go on when writing about his past for fanfic purposes. would be interested to see how the show would have handled this. i give it 2.5 out of 5 horses pulling chains to squish a man against a tree (extra half point for legit memorable imagery that inspired one of the show's best dream sequences) 🐎🐎.5

stay tuned for when i review the movie adaptations in similar fashion. 

[inlovewithquestionablecharacters]

Hi,

I just wanted to say that I love your stories. I have had a Hannibal idea rumoring in my mind for some time now and decided to share it.(maybe you can make a one-shot out of it). The reader from our world is a big fan of the show Hannibal and one day wakes up in it (at first without realizing it.After finding a corpse, she somewhat recognises the person, but can‘t quite place it.After she called the police abd the FBI arrives she soon realises where she is. (idk any further, sorry if it‘s really bad)

Could there be a love triangle of some sort between Hannibal,the reader and Will?

Hannibal X Will X Reader: In another life

a/n: not sure if this was what you were thinking but i hope you enjoy it.

Warnings: death, blood, injurys, attempted murder, being captured, hospitals, crime, fluff, female reader, no use of y/n, not proofread.

Word count: 2,2 K

You could smell a sort of coppery scent. Your head was hurting in a way it never had before. Still you managed to force your eyes to open up. You were laying on your back in what felt like grass. The smell was a bit overwhelming but you couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from. You lifted your body up slowly, resting on your elbows for a moment. It was dark but you could still make out your surroundings. You had no idea where you were. And you had no memory of what had gotten you here. You turn your head to the side and that's when you see it.

A body.

You let out a scream, quickly rising to your feet and taking a step back. The dead eyes of the body stare up at you. You realize that the scent you’d smelt was blood. Your hands moved around your body in search of your phone. Even though you had no idea what was going on you knew you needed to call this in. Your hands shake as you dial 911. 

“911 what's your emergency?”

“I’m in the middle of nowhere and there's a body. I don”t know how i got here and i don’t know who this person is i-”

“Okay I need you to calm down. Are there any street signs nearby?”

You look around desperately searching for something to help the dispatcher find where you were. Your eyes fell on the sign a couple of steps away from where you were. You couldn’t read it very well.

“Yeah there’s a sign. I’m gonna go closer. It's so dark.”

“It's going to be okay, just read it to me.”

You squint your eyes, trying to make the words clearer. 

“Wolf Trap. I’m in virginia.”

The sound of the operator's voice dulled a bit as you tried to understand what was going on. How the hell were you in virginia? You didn’t live anywhere near Virginia and you’d never thought of visiting it. The only reason you even knew about Wolf trap was because of…Hannibal. But there was no way.

Or was there?

You finished talking to the 911 operator who had told you she was sending cops to your location. You sat near the edge of the road and waited. You don’t know how much time passed but soon you were surrounded by police. They led you to an ambulance and placed a blanket over your body. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Well nothing other than the fact you were here.

And then they appeared. 

You were staring at the ground beneath you, your hands fiddling with each other. You heard someone call out your name, causing you to raise your head. Your eyes widened as you watched Jack Crawford walk over to you. And trailing behind him was none other than Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham.

You had to have been dreaming. That was the only logical explanation. You closed your eyes, pinching your arm. When you opened them back up again nothing had changed. You were still sitting in an ambulance staring at the characters from your favorite show. Jack called out your name against causing you to pull yourself together.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah sorry. I guess I'm still in shock.”

“It’s natural to feel that way after seeing a body.”

Hannibal's voice filled your ears as he spoke and you couldn't help but notice he sounded exactly like he did on television. 

“This is-

“Hannibal Lecter.”

Jack looked over at Hannibal in curiosity.

“And that's Will Graham.”

Will’s eyebrows furrowed at your words.

“You two know her?”

“No they don’t. But I know them.”

You paused for a moment, realizing you didn’t know what part of the series you were in.

“I mean I've read about them.”

“You really shouldn't believe what Freddy Lounds writes.”

You turned to look at will, observing the way he avoided your gaze. 

“She’ll do whatever she can for attention.”

You don’t know how you knew but something told you he was talking about Abigail. 

“Don’t worry. I don’t believe everything I see on the internet. My heart goes out to Abigail Hobbs.”

It was a shot in the dark but what did you have to lose? From the way Hannibal and Will looked at each other you could tell you’d said the right thing. 

“Let's focus shall we. What can you tell us about the victim.”

“Just that he’s a male. And that he is dead.”

“Well that we could figure out ourselves.”

You almost smiled at the sarcastic tone Jack talked in. They were just like you remembered them. 

“I woke up next to him. I remember my head was pounding so I'm guessing someone hit me with something and I became unconscious. But that's about all I can tell you.”

“Okay. Hannibal stay with her. Will you come with me.”

You watched Will walk away with Jack. You assumed Will was about to place himself into the killer's mind and as much as you wanted to watch him in action you knew better than to ask such a thing. You turned your attention back to Hannibal. He was looking over at where Will and Jack had walked over to.

“You can go with them. I’m okay.”

Hannibal gave you a gentle smile. The action made your stomach swoop. Damn your attraction to the cannibal. He moved over sitting next to you. 

“You shouldn’t be alone. This must have been a very traumatizing experience for you.”

“I just wish I knew what happened.”

You stopped talking for a moment, realizing something for the first time. What if you were the killer? Hannibal seemed to sense your uneasiness, his voice calling out your name. You turned to face him, a tear running down your cheek.

“What if I did it? What if I killed him.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t you. And if it was, I'm sure there was a reason.”

“Self defense.”

“Most likely. But don’t dwell on it. Will is going to figure it out. And I'm going to help him find who is responsible.”

You stared up at Hannibal. Everything seemed to rush into you all at once and before you knew it you were crying. Hannibal pulled you into his embrace, his arms moving over you back to soothe you.

“Shh it will be alright.”

After the officers went through their usual questions and forensics collected the evidence Jack told you you were okay to go home. The only issue was you had no idea where that was. You googled your name and were surprised to see your phone number and address pop up. You told one of the officers where they could drop you off. Will overheard you talking to the cop and realized your house was on his way home.

“I can take her.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah it's not a problem.”

Will turned to face you.

“Unless you don’t want me too.”

“No, it's perfect. Thanks for offering.”

Will gave you a small nod, beginning to walk towards his car. You trailed after him. Once you got in the car Will turned the engine on and reversed onto the road. You stayed silent for most of the ride, eyes moving over the trees outside your window. 

���It’s not you.”

Your head snapped to look at Will. His eyes were glued to the road ahead, his demeanor calm.

“Sorry what?”

“You’re not the killer.”

“How did you-”

“Hannibal told me you were scared it was you.”

“Well if it wasn’t me who was it?”

“That's what I'm gonna find out.”

For the next few weeks you helped with the investigation. You’d drive over to the FBI and try your best to give them as much information as you could. And you’d go over to Hannibal's office so he could try to help you remember what had happened to you. Being around Hannibal and Will almost daily made it easy for the three of you to grow closer. You’d go shopping for food with Hannibal and you’d take Wills dogs out for walks whenever you could. You found out that your “character” owned a small coffee shop and that was where you got your income from. Whenever you were free you’d spend your time in your coffee shop. You’d chat to the locals and from time to time Will would show up to talk to you. 

One day you were walking back to your coffee shop from the FBI when you started to feel like you were being followed. You grabbed your keys from your pocket speeding up your pace to reach the coffee shop quicker. You’d placed the key on the door when you felt something knock against your head. Before you knew it you’d fallen to the ground. You struggled to keep your eyes open. You let out a breath, your lips moving to call out Wills and Hannibal's name. 

Then everything went black.

Will had gone over to your coffee shop. He was planning on checking up on you. The moment he got to the front door and saw the key stuck in the keyhole he knew something was wrong. And then he looked down and saw the blood on the floor. He pulled his phone out, dialing Hannibal's number. Before the phone had even begun to ring, Will was racing back to the FBI. 

You opened your eyes slowly. You could feel a chair behind you. You moved to rub your eyes, only when you tried to move your arms you realized they were tied. Panic started to settle in. You moved to open your mouth but there was a piece of tape over it. Your eyes searched around the room, trying to figure out where you were and if anyone was with you. The room was empty except for the chair you were sitting in. You tried to move around but your legs were bound to the legs of the chair. In your attempt to move you've managed to tilt the chair and before you knew it you were crashing onto the floor. Your head hit the floor and you went unconscious again.

Will kicked in the door, his gun pointing into the room. His eyes fell on you immediately. He rushed inside being followed by Hannibal. Your eyes were closed but he could tell you were still breathing. Hannibal moved to tug the tape of your mouth as Will began to work on freeing you from the ropes. Jack walked into the room, his eyes falling on Hannibal and Will. 

“Shit. Is she alive?”

“Yes but there is a wound on her head.”

“Take her to the hospital.”

Hannibal turned to look at Will.

“What are you gonna do?”

“Find the person who did this.”

Your finger twitched  against the bed sheets. You groaned, opening your eyes slightly. A blinding light filled your eyes, causing you to shut them a bit. From the smell you could tell you were in a hospital room. You blinked a bit allowing yourself to become used to the light. You could feel a bit of weight on your hand causing you to look at it. Your eyes found Will's hand. He was sitting on a chair next to your bed, his hand grasped around yours as he slept. You continued to look around the room. On the opposite side of your bed you found Hannibal's frame. He too was slumped against his chair, his head resting on the edge of your bed as his hand gripped onto your wrist. They were clinging onto you to make sure you weren’t going anywhere. You smiled and let out a breath realizing that you were safe.

You shifted in your bed trying to get into a more comfortable position. Will's eyes opened as he felt you shift against him. His gaze found you, his free hand coming up to rub his eye. 

“You’re up.”

You turned to look at Will taking in his sleepy state. He looked awfully cute like this. 

“Sorry I didn't mean to wake you up.”

“You should have.”

Your head snapped at the sound of Hannibal's voice turning to look at him. He looked a bit more put together than Will but you could tell he was tired too. 

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Making sure you were okay.”

“I’m sure the doctors here are more than capable of doing that. No offense.”

The room was silent for a moment.

“We caught him.”

You looked at Will. 

“The killer?”

“Yeah. They arrested him a couple hours ago.”

“That’s good.”

“We should have been quicker.”

“Well you caught him didn’t you?”

“Not before he hurt you.”

You could tell Will was beating himself up. You shifted moving to place your hand on his cheek. He raised his head to look at you. You gave him a small smile.

“I’m okay Will. You saved me.”

You turned to look at Hannibal, wrapping your hand around his.

“You both did.”

You had no idea how you'd gotten here. But sitting in that hospital bed, holding onto Will and Hannibal you couldn’t think of anywhere else you’d rather be.

[titleleaf]

Can you talk a bit about your introduction to the Hannibal Lecter tetralogy? Did you see any of the movies first or did you read the books and then watch the films? What drew you to the series initially?

Absolutely!

I was really really into Demme's Silence Of The Lambs as a preteen in the era where you could just turn on the TV and the same 20 movies would be playing on cable —it’s interesting to look back on those really naive viewings where I wasn’t really aware of the world enough to grasp the film’s themes around misogyny (or the turbo-problematic elements, never mind the literal edited-for-TV censorship) and also not really astute enough to grasp why Hannibal Lecter was supposed to be a frightening presence. Hopkins’ Hannibal is having so much fun in that movie and when you can’t really detect the layers of irony and cruelty at play it’s a really different film. (The big thing in hindsight that's strange is that I perceived the museum bug guys as much more threatening figures — and they certainly do represent an ambivalent part of Clarice’s experience moving through the world as a woman, including being flirted with when you're trying to investigate an active serial killer but Foster plays Clarice's responses to them very differently to me now. I also just took it as a given that Clarice and Ardelia were girlfriends, not in a “I ship it” way but where I didn’t understand how it would be intended otherwise. I do ship it now as an adult, ofc #clardeliahive.) Something about Hannibal's combination of prickly sparring and weird courtliness was a blast for me even at that young (and dumb) age. I watched the film Hannibal later, probably on one of the zillion illicit movie streaming sites that used to exist and only let you watch 45 minutes of video a day, pretty miffed at the actor change but enjoying the weird villain/heroine loyalty kink soooo much… cannot remember, for the life of me, when I picked up the film adaptation of Red Dragon but there's a nonzero chance it was because of a gifset of that stabbing scene back in, ugh, oh god, 2012? Still an absolutely delightful dynamic, ponytail and all. I'm meh on it as an adaptation of the novel RD now (the novel's grim ambivalent ending makes people so uncomfortable that it seems to be nerfed in every adaptation) but it really blew my little mind.

I was dubious of the NBC series when it was announced (as a big Clarice boi), then watched s1 and enjoyed it, then got as far in s2 as Beverly getting sliced up and bailed. I didn’t finish the series until some time last year, but I'm glad I came back when I did, having boned up on the books in the meantime. Some of my frustrations remain (short version, I do think the show’s writing has a sexism problem, and I'm never as enamored with Hannibal as the writing seems to be) but it’s still so compelling to me and it’s one of those things I can turn over and examine from a million angles. Also it is stacked with hotties from start to finish, and it introduced me to the finest wettest Will Graham. Brain chemistry-changing shit.

Books-wise, I think I read Hannibal Rising first, which is probably not the way people should engage with those books — I still think that book and its film adaptation have a lot of fun stuff going on with them, it’s just not necessarily… necessary. The rest of the books only came along for me after my most recent revival of interest in the NBC series. (Which… came about after I went completely off my shit about Primal Fear and joking with a buddy about Aaron Stampler's summer internship in Italy got me rewatching the 2002 Red Dragon film for the first time since college.) I think I was scared away by the way people talked about the book Hannibal, but it ended up being my second favorite of all four, it’s gonzo and turns up the Grand Guignol nastiness to 11 but it’s also terribly fun.

I was a latecomer to Manhunter also for similar reasons — people loved to call that movie cheesy or act like it was some strange early effort superceded by the obviously superior adaptation of a different book — but simply as cinema I think it’s the finest of all the film adaptations, and Demme's SOTL owes it a massive debt. Mann gives Dolarhyde a tragedy and a dignity that no adaptation is willing to give to Jame Gumb and I’m sore about that but also. Tom Noonan’s double-l Dollarhyde being the only blond Francis on film is so funny, and I love Will Graham's tiny purple shorts. I miss the things it cuts/changes, especially with the friction within Molly’s marriage and the location specificity of the book, but it also has such a wonderful encapsulation of what’s at the core of both Will and Clarice to me — you can’t save all of them, but you still have to try to save as many as you can. Brian Cox's Hannibal is his own beast, and really compelling.

The CBS Clarice procedural is such a fun idea but it gets so tangled up in rights issues and the CBS procedural-ness of it all that it really impedes things. Some of what it adds is brilliant imo (I love the character of Julia, a married trans lesbian in the 1990s corporate world who makes tough choices and brings a fun element of the novels’ boring RL forensics to the fore as well as exploring the in-universe consequences that Clarice's explosively well-televised confrontation with Gumb has for innocent people who have nothing else in common with a skin-stealing serial killer than being queer and societally despised) but other choices it makes are totally inexplicable. (Several questionable choices made wrt Catherine Martin, and also what the fuck are they doing with PAUL KRENDLER�� it felt like a Mindhunter rehash, very much pejorative.) Other elements suffer from the absences dictated by the rights issues involved — not just no Hannibal Lecter but no Jack Crawford, no mention of Will Graham as the maimed and miserable failure-state for what Clarice is risking, no nothin'. I miss Jack! Also they just cannot commit to it being a full on 1990s period piece, which is a crying shame. If it were on another network, or made by a different team, it could have been really great, but it’s ultimately a frustrating watch for totally different reasons than NBC Hannibal is a frustrating watch.

I also listened to the musical parody of Silence Of The Lambs a lot in college and it's still major earworm material ten years later. I'm just trying to mind my own business and blammo, it's If I Could Smell Her Cunt on mental loop.

[thehistoriangirl]

To Chase a Silhouette [1/3?]

Someone hurt her hand doing basic housekeeping chores, but I’m not going to tell you who I am 🤡 🤡  It isn’t extreme, but I will laid back from writing from around two weeks or so.

But what’s this, then? A fic I didn’t get to finish for the Halloweek event ^^, once again clowning myself too much because it isn’t a oneshot.

Jayce x Viktor x Grim Reaper!Fem!Reader [Noir AU (?)]------8.7K----SFW** (check tags)

Synopsis: Monsters roam free in this city, both in the shadows and in plein daylight. As private detectives, Viktor and Jayce know better than anyone that people are scarier than any monster from the stories. That is, until one day due to a unfinished case, people began to fear a mysterious entity that seems to be a cold-blooded murderer—or perhaps the urban legends are right, and the feared suspect isn’t even human... [Or rather, Reader plays cat-and-mouse with Viktor and Jayce, until there's a new threat they must overcome together if they want to win.]

Tags: I rewatched Hannibal(TM) and it shows| Graphic Descriptions of Violence| Mentions of Blood, Murders, and Firearms | Haunted Buildings| Slight Mention of Religious Themes| Mentions of kidnapping| Jayce and Viktor are private detectives| Established Relationship toward the end (JayVik)| Kind Enemies to Lovers (with Reader)| Slow Burn| Eventual Happy Ending| Missing Person--> they got a lil obsessed about finding them| Summoning Demons & Demons Deals| Murder Mystery| Demon/Human Relationship(s)

  They said you can summon a demon by doing a simple ritual. It was a superstition that expanded wide and long over the city, kids whispering at each other, pocking at their ribs, and challenging to bet who was the bravest; people on the streets buying the required materials with only a slightly arched brow from the cashier on duty.

People said you can make a deal with them and lose your soul in exchange for your wildest dream.  Others, more experienced and greedier, said that it was possible to bound them, assuring eternal suffering after your death, but while alive, the demon would be at your disposal, dangerous and loyal servants, they could make real every wish at the mere movement of your hands.

Jayce didn’t want a servant, but a guide.

The room was dark, with a candle that couldn't illuminate enough space, and it looked as if the shadows were purposefully dimming it. Jayce felt the frenetic rhythm of his breathing as he waited, eyes trying to focus on his figure reflected in the mirror collocated in front of him, rather than the burning candle placed next to his body, its flame static even if his breathing sounded agitated.

Hands seemed all covered in the dark ashes of the paper he had to lit on fire to call you, even if the ashes barely brushed his fingertips.

The window by the left creaked, a ghost wind moved his hair and rising goosebumps over his covered arms, but his eyes remained looking at the mirror, his figure painted alone.

He heard you clicking your tongue behind him.

“Too desperate to try the impossible,” you said, heels clicking on the wooden floor, but stopping at seeing the circle of salt around his seated body. “I’m touched, Detective.”

Do you know me? Jayce wanted to ask, but he stood by the words of the summoning ritual.

He wanted to see you, curiosity drawn into the plain, almost bored tone of your voice that seemed to echo from all the directions in the room except behind, the place you were standing, your stare burning between his shoulder blades. But he remembered the warning: whatever you do, do not look them in the eye unless requested, or they will steal your soul.

You tilted your head, smelling the fear pouring from his body when you leaned against his back, mouth whispering in an airy tone: “Let’s make a deal, shall we?”

“Name your price,” he recited from memory.

Only a flame flicked in the mirror's reflection, twin to the candle, up in the air, where your hand lighted it when you took the burned paper and read his petition out loud.

“I’ll name yours first: To assist you in catching the delinquents hiding in the city. Hmm…” Your silence disturbed him, wriggling his body nervously.

Whatever you do, not turn. Do not look them in the eye. Name your price, and let them name theirs. Bargain. Seal the deal with blood and blow out the candle.

“You’re aware your petition is too much, don’t you?”

“What—what do you mean?”

“You can’t bind me to your job, Detective. You’re not that greedy.” You stepped further, eyes scanning the simple furniture of the room, a board filled with paper scraps and red thread catching your attention. Question marks in them already filled in your mind, for you knew most of the dirty secrets of this avid city. “It may not seem like it, but I have a life, too.”

Jayce scoffed. “What life? Tricking and forcing people to sign contracts in a disadvantaged position?”

You stomped the floor, lightly, tap, tap. The candle followed, the light dying out slowly as much as Jayce tried to protect it with his hands. Part of you didn't know why you were getting angry about his assumptions.

“I don’t make deals, and you know it. You called me specifically.” Your words were sharp and strangely even, no emotions could pour off of them despite the haughty words spilling from your lips:  “You know what I do, that’s why you need my help and not any other cheap, low-status entity, doesn’t it? Do not dare to lie to me, Jayce Talis.”

His hazel eyes widened when his name came out of your mouth as if it were a terrifying curse. “You should have told me you want to know the whereabouts of the Conray family and the real identity of the better known as The Death’s Jailor. It’s a much more concise deal—still bold, but I could have let it slide.”

Back flinching, you saw him fleetingly looking from the corner of his eye, catching the edges of your white suit, dark heeled shoes. The opaque scythe you used as a staff. Smiling slightly, you waited.

“Can it be done?”

You shrugged. “For a fair price.”

He sighed, lowering his head. “Like what?” Play my game, but you can never win.

“Your soul will do, Detective.”

He blinked, his face devoid of color in his reflection. Bargain. Jayce never knew how to do it, much less he would dare to do it with a demon. He could lose the opportunity he had to save those innocent people, to let the murderer roam free in search of a new victim.

"Alright," he breathed. And you chuckled, a sound so human-like that, for a moment, Jayce asked himself how demonic you would look if he'd turned around.

 “Hmm, face me and I don’t take your soul.” It’s lying, do not fall for it. And as if you were reading his mind, you added: “Looking at other entities right in the eyes would madden you, but not me.”

 He stood in his place, fingers shivering. You copied his sigh. 

"The cat went hunting, and he found two little mice, both with gray eyes. Oh, but, I think he's more of a squirrel. Don't you agree, Detective?" Jayce removed uncomfortably; the floor felt suddenly too cold to sit on. "He buries the mice and forgets about them. Your ridiculous human laws would charge him with kidnapping, but not murder, doesn't it? You know it, your rightful, grumpy supervisor does, too. Even I, a simple demon, do." You knelt, fingers brushing the grains of salt of the protective circle. "You don't want to imprison him, do you?"

Your presence was cold as if the air was drained from the room. He began to shake, lips tightened in a wrenched line.

The silence disappointed you.

“The mice are under your nose, Detective. Right under the ground you stand. You’re just too deaf to hear them cry.”

"Stop playing your riddles!" he growled, hands stomping at his sides, disturbing the salt circle when it got imprinted on its fingers, now broken. His face tilted backward, towards you. "Those people are going to die and you're going to let that criminal run free because it's amusing to you? What kind of monster are you?"

Your claws dug into the skin of his shoulders when you grasped them, head dipping next to his. Your cheek was cold, and he shivered. Jayce saw, with utter horror, how his reflection in the mirror disappeared as you claimed his soul in that simple gesture, hearing the low tune of a weeping shadow now snaking around your arms.

Your eyes were completely black, no sclera or iris, only darkness as you loomed over, cold pouring from your skin. A murderous smile greeted him, the black print of a hand could be seen cradling the base of your head, down the back of your neck. "You know what kind of monster I am, a sly one if the city's opinion is any trustworthy."

Jayce, despite the fear clenching his heart, stood his ground. “Tell me where they are.”

“You, police people, revised all the outskirts of the town, finding all the cabins that used to be his recreational villages. Space has run out, so he experimented with the opposite he’d done before. Foolish of him, but luckily for you.”

“Are you saying he put them in the middle of the city?”

You shrugged. “At the heart, yes.”

“But that can’t be, the historical block is always filled with people—”

“Not there where ghosts roam.”

Jayce’s eyes swept the room and your features, his furrow deepening. “The construction site in the city’s old district?”

A vulturine smile adorned the eerie features of your empty gaze that nevertheless was piercing him over your tight grasp. “You better hurry, or your mice would get trapped under meters of rubble when the building over their heads gets demolished.”

He squinted his eyes. “And who is the culprit?”

You chuckled. "You want it all, don't you? Ask yourself who is the owner. The man is both worshiped and loathed for renewing the city. A very powerful one, I might say. The ground you walk over belongs to him."

His eyes widened. “The entrepren—” Your fingers were cold when you stopped his lips to say the name out loud. A tingling sensation he couldn’t pinpoint, warm flooding him inside out there where your fingers touched his lips.

“Don’t get too excited. There’s a catch, Detective.” You pushed him to sit straight again, face away from his vision, reflection welcomed back in the mirror. “The mice, or the cat. You can’t have both.”

“But—” he retorted, eyes flaring with anger, body turning to glare at you. “You took my soul! It’s a fair price.”

You ignored him. “He’s not yours to chase, Detective. Besides,” you stood out, scythe reappearing on your hand; “I just gave it back.” Chuckling, your skin was dimming, suit becoming more gray than white as you disappeared. “I think it’s more interesting now that you owe a favor.”

Jayce scowled. “I would never do you a favor.” But both knew he was lying.

"We'll see. You should hurry and pick one," your eyes were the only thing in the room that was still visible from your body, and your chuckle made him grasp his hands in fists. "Time's always running short for you."

But even before he could blow the candle—because he wouldn’t, Jayce would freeze the time of your encounter until he was able to get them both, to save them and his justice. Though you already knew what he was about to pick.

“Wait—”

"Goodbye, for now, Jayce Talis."

The room got dark when you blew his candle, ending the summoning. The window cracked when you slid away, moonlight finally flooding inside the bedroom.

Jayce stood up, rubbing his hands against his face, groaning. But time did seem to pass faster, so he took his coat and went sprinting out the entrance door, ready to knock into his supervisor’s house.

*~*~*~*

The construction site was around thirty minutes by car, and Viktor grumbled all the way. Jayce could have supposed it was because he woke him up, but his boss seemed to cut very short his sleep schedule anyway.

“You better hope this isn’t another one of your misleading hunches,” Viktor warned as both entered his car, walkie-talkie filled with interrupted static as he communicated with the nearest police station. “I think you’ll have to go back to the Federal Police.”

Jayce didn't respond, fingers tightly interlaced as the car moved swiftly over the newly paved streets of the suburbs, down into the city's heart. Little houses with porches were replaced with tightly constructed apartment complexes, carbon copies of each other.

It was around 3 AM, but many apartments still got the lights on, yellow beacons over the defective streetlamps.

The old historic block was divided in two, the renewed one, filled with high-end restaurants, luxury stores, and five-star hotels. And then, over the south, was the unfinished section, an old hospital with black gates crowned in the middle among other smaller buildings, many of them abandoned. Thankfully, the thing scheduled to be demolished wasn't the clinic, but rather an old radio station, one of its towers already collapsed, and the metallic corpse of the antenna looked like a monster when the headlights illuminated it.

Both men stepped outside, a night of October chiller than usual, clouds blocking the moonlight. Jayce could hear sirens in the distance, but his instinct told him they needed to hurry. The other radio antenna—smaller but more robust, was crooked at a suspicious angle, looming over the already weakened walls of the construction.

“Alright, here we are. Where your sixth sense tells you they are, Detective Talis?” Viktor didn’t sound convinced.

He buried the little mice. Why did your voice sound so close? As if you were whispering in his ear.

“In the basement.”

His supervisor arched a brow, golden eyes twinkling slightly. "May I ask how you know the station has a basement, hmm?" Jayce shrugged. He wasn't going to tell the truth. "It sounds like an illegal exploration trip to me."

Perhaps, but not made for Jayce.

“Come on,” Jayce urged, grasping the gun over his thigh. He ignored his shivery voice as, with the other hand, he lit on a flashlight. Viktor sighed, cane clicking rhythmically as he followed him.

Inside there were only ruins, but over the creaked paved floor there were visible footprints, a dragging pattern over the dust and spiderwebs. Over the main hall, they ignored the stairs dipped in shadows, and instead went left, taking the stairs down the basement.

Jayce was careful not to let Viktor trip over anything, and Viktor was way too confused to notice the fleeting shadow sliding from the basement into the stairs landing, up to the speaker's cabin.

Wood creaked when you passed into your ghostly form next to them, Jayce shivering as Viktor looked around with a deep furrow.

"Is there an airflow near us?" he asked because it was highly improbable. Jayce swallowed, slowly shaking his head.

The basement was unnaturally filled with old furniture in one corner, mostly smashed and broken. Darkness deep and silence so thin, as if someone were holding their breath. The doors aligned to the right were all closed, but those footprints continued toward the last one.

“Hello?” Jayce said, and Viktor nudged him. But he knew the culprit wasn’t here, you told him so. “It’s the police, you’re safe now.”

Only their superficial breaths could be heard, until they began to walk towards each door, metallic knobs filled with ash, and strange patterns on the wood.

Then, the calm was broken with a sob.

Jayce and Viktor shared a look before they split, Viktor over the piled-up furniture, and Jayce towards the doors. Between broken wooden planks and metallic seats, Viktor’s flashlight found two pairs of terrorized eyes looking back at him.

He recognized the faces of those missing reports.

“You’re safe now, please come out,” he said, only half-ordered, voice low and as soft as he could say it, awe and curiosity both pouring over his tone.

Talis was right? After all those false alarms regarding the same case weeks ago, Viktor had to accept he grew a little skeptical of the Junior Detective, hiring him only because his social skills were slightly higher than his deduction capability. He needed a partner to run the interviews, anyway.

Until now, that was. His intuition was right, and they both solved the case and saved lives.

When Viktor walked toward the rubble, the younger woman—Gloria Conray, he remembered—looked at him with gray eyes filled with tears.

"Did the woman send you?"

Viktor furrowed. “Who?”

Gloria withdrew over the corner, in a complicated spot Viktor couldn't fit in. Jayce was already next to him, extending one hand toward the woman that was hugging her mother tightly.

“Yeah, she sent us.” Jayce was smiling, but his hazel eyes were hard to read. “Spooky lady, isn’t it?”

Viktor turned to him, but Jayce paid no attention, leaning inside the little cave the women were using as a refuge. Why were they hiding here, and not trying to escape? he thought.

The Conrays were shivering, scratches with dry blood staining both skin and clothes, a clearer path of tears like rivers over their dirty faces.

The way up was slower to keep up with their wobbly legs and panting breath. Both detectives almost didn’t hear the stomps some stories above. The Conrays stopped, eyes widened in terror, and Jayce advanced, taking out his gun.

“He’s here?” One whispered, body curled against the wall. “Please don’t let him imprison us again!” Viktor felt her tugging his coat, and he sent a silent look to Jayce. Go and check, I’ll take care of them.

Jayce nodded, quickly escalating the stairs into the main hall, running towards the right to climb over toward the higher stories. The police cars were just arriving, sirens off to avoid complications, but their lights flooded with a dizzying hue of blues and reds inside the gray building.

He sprinted outside, quickly telling them to search the left of the building and the basement, where his supervisor was with the victims. Jayce pointed to another two cops, signaling to follow him.

The stairs creaked with each step they gave, the building getting colder and darker. The first floor was deserted, all doors closed. One of the cops, barely a couple of years younger than Jayce, shivered when they began to climb again.

“Do you hear that?” he said hurriedly, shaky hands as he held his weapon.

Hear what? He wanted to respond, rather angrily, but the young man was right. It was a slight rattling sound, cut short when a concise, metallic clank interrupted it.

Jayce heard the scream of a woman, followed by a growl that wasn't human.

They stopped in the middle of the second-floor stairs, not recollecting such action. Jayce could hear his heart rushing blood over his ears, hands stiff and cold.

Time seemed to stop and at the same time, it ran so quickly that Jayce felt it sliding between his fingers.

Upside, on the third floor, it could be heard the song of metal unsheathing, followed by a wet scream, rain falling sloppily over the wooden floor.

Only it couldn’t be raining inside.

A fleeting shadow slid down the stairs, raising goosebumps over his covered skin. The cops whimpered, sensation foreign to them.

You can’t have both, Detective, the airflow whispered mockingly.

Jayce blinked, running upstairs. 

The speaker's cabin was lit by an old oil lamp, its flame flickering with each step he gave over the ominous ajar door. He once again encountered the same strange scribbling of geometric signs drawn with a strange ink that looked brown over his flashlight.

Inside, a metallic stench made him gag, wooden panels splattered with deep crimson, dragging marks of mud across the floor.

Jayce stood, frozen at the entrance of such nightmarish sight. Viktor’s voice broke his trance.

"Detective Talis! Why are those police frozen at the stairs?" There was anger in his voice. "What are you doing there just standing?" The inspector nudged him out of the way, taking the landscape with widened eyes. "What happened here?"

Jayce wanted to throw up. “I… I don’t know.” Only that he did, barely.

You happened to this place, but why or how? He didn’t have a clue.

But there was the culprit, wearing the same boots as the footprints. Lying in the middle of the scene, motionless and cold. Near his body was a metallic bowl, the origin of the clanking sound from earlier. Viktor entered the scene, squeezing between Jayce's body and the wooden frame. White chalk covered the entirety of the cabin with scribbles and cryptic forms, salt was surrounding the room, and burned black over the entrance door. The room smelled like burned incense, but there wasn't smoke or ashes in there, though the fingers of the culprit were black.

A paraphernalia of religious items was aligned around a mattress thrown into the dusty floor. Candles half-molten, but all blown. Kneeling, Viktor moved the single pillow over the mattress, finding a couple of crumpled pages filled with prayers and rituals to ward off evil spirits.

“Inspector Talis, look at this.” He was already reading them, but the other man wasn’t moving. “Jayce Talis! Focus.”

Viktor looked at him, the man was gazing at the end of the room, where the oil lamp didn’t seem able to light, shadows cramped in one corner.

“What is that?” His cane clicked against the floor, tap, tap, tap. A single piece of paper glued to the wall, surrounded by what looked like a circle filled with more cryptic letters, Viktor thought, at first sight, it was a pentagram, but he was wrong. In the center, there was a drawing.

The paper was crumpled and burned at the corners, filled with holes from the pair of knives stabbed into the wood and in the paper.

“Who is she?” Viktor asked, but Jayce didn’t respond. Carefully, putting his cane against his left elbow, Viktor took the portrait in his hands, but he couldn’t recognize the face. Sure, she looked a little bit like Gloria Conray, but she wasn’t her, that was clear. “Another victim?”

She wasn’t reported as missing, and the face got a strange sensation, the air hung around it heavily.

Squinting, Viktor looked at the harsh charcoal lines, eyes almost breaking the surface of the paper for the times the culprit remarked them in circular motions. They were so dark, without irises or sclera. The young woman’s lips were slightly curved in a smile, the place where the man stabbed the drawing more times, leaving the unsettling eyes untouched.

Looking at the corpse, Viktor folded the paper and put it inside his coat.

“Let’s call the Forensics Team,” he said to Jayce, who nodded, disappearing from the scene faster than Viktor could blink.

Sweeping the scene one was last time, Viktor peeked over the deceased’s body, seeing a strange bruise over his neck, too big for being a bite, too dark to be a bruise recently made.

This makes no sense, he repeated. The sharp screaming, who was it? Was the woman from the drawing? And if not, who was? And what about all the scribbles? Even for a religious fanatic, it was too much.

But while descending, he stooped, remembering what Gloria said to him minutes ago.

Did the woman send you? And most importantly, Jayce replied yes.

He will ask him, Viktor promised, exiting the building. The air was still and warm, the moon peeking shyly over some clouds. He went over to Jayce, the Constable Inspector, who was talking with the victims in a low voice, his mannerism strangely tied up.

The sound of the gravel over his shoes covered most of the chat, but he still could overhear Jayce asking them about "the woman."

“She came to us and told us you were coming,” Iride Conray, the mother, said. “Very creepy lady, indeed. If you ask us, that is.”

Gloria nodded. “Yes! She broke the lock of the door, too. With a sword, I think? She told us, ‘hide, little mice’. So we did.”

"Did you look at her?" Viktor interrupted, dipping his head to look at them inside one of the police cars. But both shook their heads.

“No. When we opened the door, she was gone.”

Gloria shivered, taking her mother's hand with apprehension. "But she disappeared so quickly! We opened the door and peeked outside just seconds later but… nobody was there." She curled into herself. "We got spooked and hid then. We didn't know what was scarier, if she or that crazy man."

Jayce furrowed. “Why did you say he was crazy? Did he say something to you?”

Gloria curled her lip at him as if kidnapping them and letting them die inside an abandoned basement wouldn't be enough. But Viktor knew why he was asking. It was a rather strange modus operandi, and the sole reason he accepted the case after the Federal Police couldn’t handle it.

“He was looking for someone, someone that looks like me.” Gloria’s grey eyes pierced both men in place. “He told me, ‘You better be that crazy bitch or else—’, before locking us in the basement.”

Viktor tilted his head. “Or else what?”

Gloria shrugged. “I don’t know, he never talked to us after that. Why don’t you go and ask him? I just want to forget this happened.”

Viktor and Jayce shared a look. That wouldn't be possible, the silence of his unfinished threat weighed them both as the blood dripped out of your clothes.

Not that they could know. At least, not yet.

*~*~*~*

It didn't sit well for Jayce to lie, so that same night he tried to tell his boss the truth. But Viktor was too busy talking with the Forensics Team and the Federal Police. His dry and short answers made him aware that his supervisor's social skills were running low, but when he went after him, the Conrays being already driven to a hospital, Viktor only told him:

“Go to rest, Detective Talis. Good job today.” Not mine, but hers.

“You’re going home, too?”

Viktor tilted his head slightly, curving his top lip in a disappointed grimace. “I’m afraid not. I’ll wait until the Forensics Team finishes.”

"I can wait with you if you want." And then I can show you the kind of cheater I am.

Viktor chuckled. “No, no. Someone will have to take over the paperwork in the morning.” He pointed at Jayce’s chest with the handle of his cane. Despite the cold, cloudy night like this, he was finally happy.

Jayce smiled, dipping his shoulders. “Maybe we can celebrate that this case is over tomorrow night?”

“Perhaps, if you’re done with your workload, that is.”

He nodded. “I will. Can you come over to my house?” Viktor’s gaze shot back to Jayce, and he felt himself blushing. “I mean, I have something to… tell you.”

His boss squinted his eyes slightly. “And I suppose you can’t tell me now?”

“I don’t think I can, yeah.” You wouldn’t believe me.

Viktor hummed, considering it. Looking intently at the man next to him, he nodded after some minutes.

“Alright. I’ll be there around 9 PM, does that suit you well?”

“Yes, thank you, Viktor.”

One police car drove Jayce to his house. The first thing he noticed was the light in his bedroom on, even when he was sure to let it off when he went out running to Viktor’s house.

Jayce thanked the cop, cold air hitting his open coat covered in spiderwebs and dust as his heels clicked in the empty road. His sight went back to his apartment, now with the bedroom light off.

Frowning, he made his way up to his home. The door was locked, as he left it. And everything seemed normal, his bedroom door closed.

He took a deep breath, the metal handle burning cold against his bare skin. With a swift movement, Jayce flung it open.

You were laying over his bed, playing with the threads of the pieces of his investigation board between your fingers.

“Wha—”

“It’s good if you want to have a cute date with your handsome boss in your house, but do not try to summon me to bond with him over some supernatural being.”

He felt his cheeks hot, your tone sounded almost offended.

“A private clause wasn’t part of the deal.” You glared at him between his pillows.

“You have the right to tell him about what you did, but it’s on him if he believes you or not. Get me out of this." You sit at the edge, mattress creaking over the sudden movement. Jayce blinked, goosebumps traveling his skin at the unnatural way you seem to shift between positions in a too-fluid manner as if you were made of shadows instead of flesh, blood, and bones like him.

Maybe you weren’t.

“I helped you and I didn’t even take your soul. You owe me this.”

“Then… then are you going to give me all the credit for all that you did?”

Your shoes clicked softly on the wooden floor as you went near him. “Listen, Jayce Talis. You paid a fair price for your deal. It’s your credit now. Did I make myself clear?”

“I didn’t even end up paying the price.” Jayce’s tone dropped, eyes heavy with guilt.

“Maybe not yet, but you will, eventually. Besides, let’s just say it’s a treat for being so selfless. When you’re in this job, those kinds of deals are rather scarce.” You shrugged, cold hand brushing his cheek. “You got lucky I got interested in you.”

Standing back, you looked at his hazel eyes, and nodded. “I’ll see you around, Jayce Talis.”

*~*~*~*

Of course, the dinner was doomed now that Jayce didn't have any good reason to make Viktor drive toward his house, so he canceled it. Instead, with your words still rotating inside his mind, he went towards Viktor’s private office inside the apartment they both fix up to make adequate quarters for their business as private detectives.

Jayce knocked, and after some seconds Viktor replied with a muffled: “Come in.”

It was around afternoon, when the sun began to be orange instead of yellow or white, shutters half-closed so it wouldn't blind Viktor to read into the pile of papers in front of him. His eyes squinted suspiciously when he saw Jayce entering.

“Do you need something, hmm?” He didn’t sound annoyed for having canceled the plans so hurriedly Jayce made last night, first thing after Viktor entered the office.

He was fidgeting with a loose thread over his vest. “I have to tell you something.”

Viktor wasn’t even looking at him. “Alright, tell me.”

"I… I… I didn't know the Jailor's Death whereabouts…" His voice was wavy and thin, Viktor had to lean over his desk to hear him. "I… I got help."

Viktor blinked. “Someone told you, then.” Jayce nodded. “Who was it? Is this person linked to your sudden proposal from yesterday? ”

“Yes?” It wasn’t supposed to sound like a question. “Yes, it is.”

“Then, who was it?”

“I… I can’t tell you that.”

Viktor frowned. “You know you’re sounding extremely suspicious, yes?”

“Viktor—”

“Tell me who they are, Jayce.” His hands patted the pile of documents related to the case. “They can be a valuable testimonial, filled in the blanks.”

“I… I promise her not to—”

"Her?" Viktor interrupted. "A woman? Is she by chance the woman from the drawing?" Jayce felt his stomach drop, and of course, his supervisor noted the new stiff posture of his back. "So she is."

Jayce looked at him, pleading silently for him to stop questioning.

“What’s her name, Jayce?”

“Viktor I can’t…”

“I’m just asking for her name.” Viktor tapped his chin. “Perhaps we could become acquaintances, hmm?”

“I don’t know,” Jayce confessed, embarrassed. You only met twice, and in both Jayce was too stunned and confused to want to ask for your name—would you even have a human name? “I don’t know her name.”

“Don’t lie to me, Jayce.”

“I’m not! I promise I don’t know her name, she never told me.”

Viktor was playing with a pen, rolling between his fingers as he carefully considered the new information. “Where do you meet her, then? No, wait. I think you can’t also tell me that, do you?”

Jayce groaned.

“Did she kill that man, Jayce?” he asked, tone low and eyes piercing him. “That’s why you’re protecting her?”

Jayce didn’t answer, but the silence said enough for him.

“Alright. Thanks for letting me know, Jayce. You may leave now.”

“Viktor, I’m sorry—”

“I’m sure you do. Please fill out the paperwork by the end of the day, yes? Now that we don’t have any event scheduled for tonight, we have plenty of time, don’t you think?”

*~*~*~*

The horrible and mysterious murder of the so-called Death's Jailor plagued the newspapers and the radio stations for months. Illegal explorations went to the old site days before its demolition, taking morbid photographs of the ruins of the splattered cabin, filled with nonsensical scribbles that still filled Jayce and Viktor's desks, under some recent cases, of course.

Though the culprit was influential, his strange demise didn’t bring his family to want to discover the questions surrounding his death. Because the reputation of his last name was damaged, his distant relatives didn’t want to dig under all his crimes, fearing it would be more than they could handle.

In a way, it was.

For Viktor, in more ways than the obvious one.

It wasn’t just the crime, but also the strange link you have with Jayce, or at least, the one you used to have.

Days after the conversation with him, Viktor asked as lightheartedly as possible if Jayce knew something about his mysterious friend, to which he responded with a confused "no". The next day, Jayce looked tired and restless, a sleepless night, he told Viktor.

He didn’t want to push further, so he didn’t ask again.

It wasn’t the only time Jayce couldn’t sleep properly.

The case of the Jailor's Death was closed with hurried conclusions of the Forensics Team, explanations that couldn't hold in court. The culprit committed suicide when he heard the police arriving, using one of the knives he had to stab the drawing glued to the wall as the weapon. An urban legend began to spread then, when reporters slid inside the crumbled walls of the collapsing building and took illegal photographs of the site.

People began to say he was trying to invoke a demon, but the ritual went wrong. Now, the infernal creature was roaming free around the city, waiting for the perfect moment to attack.

Viktor knew better, of course. No such thing as demons could exist—but the death, the murder of that man still haunted him. He was a murderer and a kidnapper, around his height, in his mid-thirties at the time, and with around the same build as Jayce. How could someone subdue him so easily? There weren't signs of a fight over his body, only a clean cutting line on his throat.

Perhaps a much more dangerous murderer was walking in the city just as the urban legends said, a human dressed with the flesh of a demon. Or a ghost.

You were nowhere to be found, and Viktor did try all his cards to at least see you walking down the street. All are fruitless, only dead ends could be found.

The woman in the drawing was young, so he asked everywhere in schools, hospitals, bars, and restaurants. Nobody had ever seen you.

If you were new to town, then it would be more complicated, but you never went to the supermarket or around the old city district to buy clothes or any articles, for that matter. Viktor began to enter the abandoned part of the main district, looking at someone sleeping between the ruins of the buildings that after the Jailor's Death demise would be still standing.

He didn’t believe in ghosts, and thus he didn’t find anything in any of the places—except the old hospital, because the gate was too high for him to climb.

Perhaps Jayce lied, perhaps he imagined it.

It didn’t make any sense.

What more are you hiding from me, Jayce?

It was a grim night to think about it, paperwork about a robbery already filled out and properly tucked inside a folder over his desk. Viktor reclined into his seat, looking at the night outside, rain pouring against the opaque glass, illuminated from time to time with bolt of lightning and a deafening thunder that sometimes made the windows’ sill shake.

Jayce was napping over his desk, falling asleep revising the folder over the Death’s Jailor case again. Both tasted glory with the case, the beginning of their ascending career, and now it would chase them with its unfinished seal, perhaps forever.

Silence was ruling over the place when Viktor walked over to the coffee maker, he didn't want to fall asleep just yet, the photograph of the already lost drawing engraved with fire over his closed eyelids every time he blinked.

Who was that woman? Nobody knew. But everyone loved to comment on the possibilities: a lover or the first victim, even the demon or the murderer could be some guesses. People wanted to discover her identity, and a reward was signed by the police to anybody who could bring information about her, only resulting in false alarms and catfishes.

And it wasn’t that the drawing was too abstract to pinpoint somebody, it was quite the contrary. Many leads meet with people resembling her, but then again, eerily so, they didn’t have her eyes—the piercing gaze of the charcoal. The same gaze that Viktor knew couldn’t be real, though their intensity should be so.

He hated those eyes as much as he found himself longing for them. The missing piece of the puzzle, the woman that haunted his dreams. The same face, but flaring with anger as you looked back at him from a transparent surface, like a window. Fists stomping so loudly Viktor was surprised the glass never broke.

Viktor had the original drawing after he asked very politely for it to the Police Lieutenant. But some weeks from now, around six years after the occurrence of the case, the drawing disappeared. It wasn’t in his office, nor in his house when he swore he put it away, even hung on the wall and protected with a wooden frame and a glass.

One day, the darkest night up to now, his window creaked open, and he got a sore throat the next morning because of the chilly air that made him curl inside the covers, next to Jayce. Viktor woke up at the crack of dawn, gray light flooding inside his room, but the first thing that caught his attention was the frame hung on his right wall, empty.

Turning, he saw Jayce sleeping. Moving him slightly, Viktor said: “Jayce, did you open the window last night?”

But his confused eyes blinking towards him was enough of an answer. Why would someone want to steal that drawing?

Anxiety entangled over his stomach since that day, feeling a connection between the action and something. Expectation.

On his way back to his office, the phone rang, startling Jayce, who ran towards it as a second nature. Viktor walked faster towards him, wanting to hear what happened. There weren’t many police units available tonight because they were safeguarding the city’s mayor's birthday party. Maybe that was the reason they got a call.

Jayce went pale over the phone.

"Jayce? Jayce, tell me what's going on. Jayce!" Viktor snatched the phone over his stiff grasp, hearing screaming on the other side.

He recognized the voice.

“Lieutenant? Lieutenant, what happened?”

The man was trying to say something, his voice filled with panic. “Help, help, she’s here— I can hear her. Please come quickly! She knows where I am…” It seemed he was cradling the phone against his clothes. “Call for backup, please someone help me… she came to take me away. Call for backup I told you! This is an order! She… oh God, oh my God, she’s here—”

Thuck. The phone fell, filled with static, and Viktor was screaming the Lieutenant's name, but nothing came from it. Until then, the static was filled with nonsensical pleads.

“Please let me go, I-I didn’t, I didn’t want to do it, please…” Then, nothing. Someone unplugged the line.

Viktor frowned. Nudging Jayce aside to snap him out of the frantic scream of his supervisor.

“Let’s go, Jayce!” Viktor called him, already grabbing Jayce’s walkie-talkie from his belt and calling from units to gather over the Lieutenant’s house.

Over twenty slow, torturing minutes, five police cars parked outside the Lieutenant's house, localized in one of the best zones in the city, a house so big anybody could mistake it for an apartment complex.

All the lights were on, and there, in the last story, a seated figure could be seen next to the window, a figure too still to be human. Or alive, for that matter.

Viktor took Jayce’s hand as he dragged him upstairs, after commanding the rest of the policemen to search the house. Jayce had to smash the entrance door open, and inside there was a stench of burned incense and other plants, smoke disturbing the sight.

“What’s all this…?” Viktor said between coughs, intuition heavy over his stomach. Something was very off, terribly bad.

The hall's floor was flooded with drawings, protective circles, and religious items scattered over the walls, and up the stairs. Smashed mirrors around them, the house quiet.

Viktor put one finger over his lip to indicate Jayce to be as silent as he could be as they climbed the stairs. All hallways were empty and clean, the same scribbles covering every centimeter of the house, except for the last one. Where a fine line cut over the wooden planks, ruining the motifs.

Smoke was thicker here, coming from the third door to the left. Both tried to open it, feeling the knob burning cold, mahogany wood imprinted with a black hand. It wouldn’t surrender.

“Step back, Vik,” Jayce said as he began to kick it, the sound echoing too loudly. After a couple of hits, the wood opened with a wounded creak.

The inside was too foggy to see anything properly, but they stepped inside, stopping when the seated figure made itself clear. It was the Lieutenant, his body kept straight with the phone line tangled around his back and over the chair.

Not even the smoke could disguise the inhuman pallor of his skin, between blue and gray, and his eyes forever frozen in horror.

There wasn't any trace of blood except from five little perforations over his jaw, localized as if something or someone were holding his face. Same scribbled floor and walls as in the cabin, similar prayers, but no new drawing. Only photographs of the one made for the Death's Jailor.

Jayce was kneeling next to the Lieutenant, searching for anything that could help them to solve this case. Anger and the certainty of another open case drove them over the fear creeping into their skin, covered in goosebumps.

Viktor went to inspect the bathroom, stopping when he smelled stagnant water just at opening the door, bathtub and sink filled with something that smelled like sour tea. The liquid was still warm, steam covering the unbroken mirror, a pentagram drawn in it.

The room got no windows, but a cold wind blew over his neck, making him jump and trip over some thrown rug. His hand stained the painted mirror and Viktor cursed.

He heard a sigh coming from in front of him, and his amber eyes reflected over the surface, empty of anything else.

One blink, blank. Another blink, another void.

Viktor blinked a third time, the steam already disappearing at the corners, the pentagram fading away. Next to him at the left, he saw a pair of black eyes.

Jumping, and quickly turning towards his left, he encountered a ghostly figure, completely dressed in white, black eyes flaring with fury. The room's temperature dropped, and his hands quickly went to grab his gun. And the eyes followed the motion, black claws materializing. The air was stolen from his lungs as the claws pushed him out of the bathroom, the grip similar to a rock's hit.

Viktor collapsed against a nightstand, splinters flying. Jayce ran to his side as the figure dressed in white slid out of the bathroom and towards the window. He pushed Jayce, screaming: "Go after her!"

“Vikt—” Jayce’s eyes shone with worry, and then, pure fear, darting between the figure and him. He knew Jayce wouldn’t catch you on time, nobody could. You moved very fast.

Dexterous fingers found his gun, and quickly pushed Jayce aside as Viktor aimed towards the figure, right leg wounded.

The shot made his body shake with the impact, and the characteristic powder smell filled the room. The figure collapsed next to the deceased Lieutenant with a muffled groan. Panting could be heard from you, and Jayce looked horrified at Viktor.

Horrified, why?

“What are you doing?” he retorted, pushing Jayce's chest aggressively as he was trying to help him up. “Stop her!”

Her, as if called—and you did were called. Turned your face towards them, and both stopped dead in their tracks. It was as if the charcoal made itself flesh and bone, the eeriness of something it shouldn’t be real. Only the eyes remained as dark as the drawing, just as piercing.

This can’t be real…

You chuckled, black blood spilling from your ankle, and you knew your teeth looked inhumanely sharp.

“You—” Viktor wanted to say, while Jayce looked at you with terror.

Did you miss me? You looked at Jayce, but instead of saying it, you recollected air as you opened your lips to scream.

Lights flickered in and out, the detectives covered their ears as the windows, glasses, and mirrors broke in unison.

The scream dissipated, the sound growing distant. Seconds later, the light stabilized, but you were already gone. Only leaving a river of black blood over the floor and death behind.

*~*~*~*

You were trapped underwater, in a crystal, cold cage. Dormant unless commanded otherwise.

You'd granted too many wishes, and stained your hands with blood so many times. You were tired, and not just so, but furious.

They tricked you, forcing you into becoming their loyal servant. Your hands were sore from banging over the glass surface of your cage.

And nobody could hear you, not the Detective with hazel eyes a selfless soul, much less the Other One, with sharp golden eyes and gentle heart underneath. No matter how many times they’d dreamt of you.

Ravishing private party, the fountain inside the Mayor's house was tinted with a special shade of navy blue that didn't reflect the vaulted roof decorated with gold, balloons, and thin, shiny fabric. It was a particularly chaotic night, with no moon and many candles burning like fireworks for the Mayor's birthday countdown, almost midnight.

Your powers wouldn't be this strong again in a year. So you called a random drunk guest that went to throw up behind some plant pot, fountain gurgling with whispered words of encouragement. A cold wind blew, and mourning voices lulled out the water. The woman tripped when she was about to sit over the marble fountain, rock scratching her hand, now stained with blood.

You held your breath, ambiance still when she dipped her hands in the fountain to clean her wound.

A slight, mortally thin crimson thread came out of her skin and you felt the bounding spell breaking. Not reinforced on time, that was on them, but this escape was thanks to this clueless woman.

The room temperature dropped and the guest ran away screaming when the fountain’s surface became murky, her reflection replaced by a pair of bottomless black eyes and a predatory smile adorned with pointy teeth.

Good thing nobody minded her, blaming the alcohol for poisoning her senses.

You slid away from the manor, up to town, to the first person on your list to hunt down. The only one that wasn’t invited to the private reunion, because just like you, he was also tricked.

You arrived, knowing the Lieutenant was aware of the eerily still night, expectation over the place as the silence screamed something was wrong. He should have had premonitory dreams for around a week, for him to prepare. He was peeking outside from his bedroom, the house filled with protective runes and trapping pentagrams, religious items that wouldn't be useful for him for he wasn't a believer. Not of a merciful God, anyway.

You stepped over the basement window that wasn’t covered with salt, a beginner’s mistake, but he was in a rush, and you were too worn out to burn out the salt from the entrance door. Making your way up to his bedroom, you could smell his fear mixed with the nauseous stench of burned incense.

The scythe felt strange and heavier in your hand, so many years of unuse taking its toll. Swinging, you cut the hallway's protection symbols as you stepped in, metal singing as it cut swiftly over the wood. You heard the man screaming over the phone.

You wrinkled your nose, annoyed. You didn’t want to deal with more people tonight.

Your hand over the door burned both your skin and the wood. But the sudden pain made you aware of your surroundings, making you remember that your days as a slave were over. The door opened, and you went towards his hunched figure down his bed.

He could see your usual outfit of spotless and unwrinkled white, dark heels that clicked warningly. The Lieutenant was screaming frantically over the phone as you dragged him out of his hideout, hand human, you being totally human, in fact. The only reason you would stay in this room in this form after all the energy used to escape your prison.

His green eyes widened, tears falling on his cheeks as he pleaded, and knelt in front of you.

“Please let me go, I-I didn’t, I didn’t want to do it, please…”

You looked at the black phone behind him, using your scythe to cut down the line before speaking.

“It’s nothing personal, Henry. The deal is over, and I came here to collect your part of the bargain.”

“Th-they trick-tricked m-me… please… please, I-I don’t want to die… I’m-I’m sorry…”

You knelt, eyes glued on him to your level. He could see the past, when he drew blood to make a deal to bind you to the fountain, and among his blood, many others.

“Look, Henry. I’m going to be generous tonight.” You dragged him towards the desk next to the window, putting him over the chair. There was a blank note there, open with a pen over it. “Where’s your list? I know you have one. We were both tricked and they’re going to pay, but the first name claimed in the bounding ritual was yours, I’m afraid.”

You put the pen over his shaky hand, closing his cold fingers around it, digits that were beginning to tint black from your touch. But he shook his head and instead pointed towards the closed door of the bathroom.

“I-I don’t want to d-die…”

"Not worry," you said, stroking his hair backward as he slouched down to scribble with an irregular, strong letter over the paper. "I'll be quick."

You couldn't say it wouldn't hurt, because you didn't know what it felt like to die. You didn't want to lie to him.

Your left hand became a claw, and Henry cried when your nails pierced his skin, drawing five equal little threads of red down his jaw and over his pajamas.

"Look into my eyes and tell me what you see," you muttered, his soul slowly slipping out of his ownership. Black eyes, normal people shouldn't see anything, but damned ones? They saw the future that awaited them over your Father's realm. “Was it worth?”

Henry wanted to scream, but his jaw hung open in silence when his life slipped out of his body. You had to tie him against the chair with the telephone line and put it near the window, only for shock value, you supposed. What did he see in your eyes? Who knows, you didn't want to. Your Father should be furious with them to keep you trapped for so long.

Inside the bathroom, the list was tucked between the mirror and the wall, and the bathtub and sink were filled with purification waters. The man always trying to use all the opportunities he had to escape. You committed the foolish, human mistake of wanting to see yourself over the surface, catching a capturing pentagram over the steamed surface.

Hissing, you felt trapped again. Time ran differently inside the mirror, just like on the other side of the fountain, so you waited for the pentagram to disappear, the water growing cold.

Only it didn't, a hand printed on the surface breaking the sigils. Next to you was a man with golden eyes, two moles on his sharp face, and a metallic cane.

You knew him.

You weren’t about to move, only stare, so he could run away and leave the free way for you to escape. But he didn’t, his right hand quickly grabbed the gun’s glue instead. Your hands twitched when you pushed him outside before he could grasp it completely, his body smashing one nightstand.

The other man, an old acquaintance, went quickly to his aid. It was your cue to go, but then that stupid, reckless man still drew his gun and shoot you.

Pain conquered as you suppressed a scream, jaw tightened so much that your teeth gnashed. Black blood spilled on your ankle, and the man was screaming, ordering Detective Jayce Talis to get you.

His hazel eyes met yours briefly, as your lips cracked open to scream out loud, pouring every ounce of frustration and pain and anger piled up inside your body. The lights went out, all the glass broke, and you slid out the window, becoming your ghostly figure before hitting the garden.

Down the street, in your human form, the list felt heavy on your hands. You remembered, and you were ready to make them remember, too.

[malarki]

Harry Potter FanFiction I greatly enjoy (it’s just tomarry and sevitus)

Fair warning, I’m not good at describing stuff, and most of these are not complete (yet) but if you have similar tastes as I do then you’ll definitely like these stories.

Meddling of a Mischief Maker - by Athy

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380535/chapters/12427268

I enjoy this fic because it shows a more human Voldemort with him still being an asshole as per usual. They do a good job of having Voldemort believably change into a not crazy murderous bastard haha. It also has Sirius interacting with Voldemort and for some reason I find those scenes hilarious in any fic I read.

“Harry's being a horcrux is a bit reworked here in this AU Story set during the summer after 5th year. A Mischief Maker intervenes in the Ministry during Voldemort and Dumbledore's duel, changing the course history. MorallyGrey!Dumbledore, Sirius, Restored Souls, HP/TR”

Draw Me After You (Let Us Run) - by ToAStranger @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22327684/chapters/53334382

This story is a delight, it’s tone is very good and they do a great job of writing in the characters ‘voices’ for their pov’s. I especially like the posh way Voldemort talks and acts. This story is also hilarious on top of just being a very good slowburn, AND it has Sirius, which as you might have guessed, I love dearly. They also don’t bash any of the characters, and instead make them well rounded but flawed individuals, which I really appreciate.

“Harry Potter,” comes the soft, sibilant hiss of a voice he has heard in his dreams, in his nightmares, in his waking hours for years.

Slowly, carefully, Harry twists over and pushes up onto his hands and knees. He stays there, short breath fogging in front of his face, and his pursuer lets him. Harry has no doubt of that; he’s being allowed this respite. This small moment to catch his bearings, heart pounding in his ears, blood singing.

“It seems I have finally caught you.”

Consuming Shadows - by Child_OTKW @childotkw

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040089/chapters/16011331

I’ve read two of childOTKW’s fics and both of them are fantastically written and attention grabbing stories. This one was the first one I read, and it has a very interesting take on lily Potter (one which I really enjoy) and the plot can leave you on the edge of your seat at times. The characterization is great, and the process of Harry and Tom getting to know each other is done very well.

“His attention skipped passed the students and moved to the politicians’ pavilion. His gaze locked with crimson, and he nearly faltered under the sheer hunger in those eyes.

It unnerved him how fixated the man was on his dirtied, exhausted figure.

But what troubled him more was the slight smirk he could make out on the man’s lips. It was almost pleased.

On the night of the attack, Lily managed to escape with her infant son, but at the cost of her husband’s life. Distraught and distrusting of her friends, she fled to France with Harry, to raise him away from the corruption in Britain and the rising influence of the Dark Lord. She trains him to the best of her abilities, shaping him into a dangerous, intelligent and powerful wizard.

But when Britain re-establishes the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry is forced to return to his once-home, he finds himself questioning whether he really wants to kill the Dark Lord. Voldemort finds an unexpected challenge in the child, and as his intrigue and amusement grows, so too does the desire to possess the spark in those defiant green eyes.”

A story that is kind of similar but not really: The Train to Nowhere

You Belong To Me (I Belong To You) - by child_OTKW

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11270490/chapters/25203408

This is a story inspired by the manwha ‘At The End Of The Road’ by Haribo. A comic I read before reading this, which is very good I recommend it. They do not take the exact plot from the comic though, obviously changing significant details for it to work properly as a Tomarry Fic, but one main thing stays the same, which is that this is a body swap. Honestly I really enjoy childOTKW’s works, and this is no exception. The characterization is wonderful as always, and Harry is Fantastic. Plus I’ve always been a fan of time travel fics. (Fair warning this is another slow burn and Harry centric)

“What I find absolutely fascinating,” Riddle said, stalking closer, “is you.” He marched forward, backing Harry up until he was pinned to the cool wall of the common room. “Do you know why?”

“No. And I’ll be honest here, Riddle, I don’t particularly care.”

The taller boy grinned at him, small yet infinitely pleased. “That. Right there.” One hand rose and brushed some of Harry’s fringe from his face. “Nathan Ciro was a spineless little boy too afraid of his own shadow to dare even glance in my direction. But you…”

He leaned closer, “You look at me like you want to stab me.”

“After an accident, Auror Harry Potter wakes up in the body of fourteen year old Nathan Ciro, a tormented Slytherin who recently tried to end his own life. Seeking answers to his strange predicament, Harry returns to Hogwarts, and causes quite the stir through staff and students - especially when they come to realise he is not the same boy as before.

He tries to avoid suspicion, but as his quest for the truth draws more and more attention to him, Harry begins to think that he might not like what he will discover.”

Some Bonus AU tomarry

A Thousand Paths Among The Stars - by Haplessshippo @haplesshippo

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015060/chapters/27191238

This is a star trek au and it’s honestly my favorite tomarry au fic. Granted, I am a huge sci-fi fan. There’s also a bit of a twist at the end, or at least it surprised me, due to the way we usually expect tomarry plots to go.

“Harry Potter, newly appointed Captain of the Marauder and son of the famous Captain James Potter, was falling apart at the seams. His crew didn’t respect him, he was lost in the empty expanse of space, nightmares plagued his sleep, and his Commander deserved the Captain position more than he did. Good thing multiple attempts on his life and a vicious warlord after his head was all it took to turn it all around.

Alternatively, that space fic in which Harry Potter almost dies too many times, Tom Riddle slowly becomes the most smitten fool on the ship, and the rest of the crew are all just a bunch of assholes with popcorn watching the show. And exploding ships, don't forget the exploding ships.”

The Matchmaker - by TanninTele

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16507676/chapters/38664089

I am ALSO a huge true crime fan, and this story has a criminal that kinda reminds me of one that might appear in Hannibal (but with less murder). I enjoy the characterization, though tom is pretty tame in this compared to more cannon fics, considering he’s not the criminal and instead an investigator. Harry is also different from how people usually portray him, but I still like it.

“'The Matchmaker' is a serial abductor whose modus operandi consists of pairing two same-sex individuals together in a coffin, six feet underground - buried alive. He isn't a killer. He's a kidnapper with morals, and Detective Chief Inspector Tom Riddle finds himself obsessed with solving the case.

Unfortunately for Tom, the Matchmaker is just as intent on knowing him.”

And on to the Sevitus Stories

Far Beyond A Promise Kept - by oliversnape

https://archiveofourown.org/works/547431/chapters/974693

A classic, Harry stays with snape and unintentionally proves all his assumptions wrong and makes snape care about him. Both the stories have this aspect, but this one has snape a bit nicer from the get go. Probably because it takes place during the third book, so they’ve only known each other two years. It’s quite wholesome though, and I rather enjoy the progression of their relationship.

“Snape never wanted anyone to know of his promise to Dumbledore, but has realised that he can protect Potter much better by taking a less passive role in the boy's training. Actually liking Harry Potter has never been part of his plan. mentor/guardian.”

Crime And Punishment - by melolcatsi

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102232/chapters/58018174

Snape and Harry have way more of a rocky start in this one, and Snape having to pick Harry up from the police station Really Doesn’t Help Snape’s opinion of him. This story very realistically shows the progression of their relationship, going from enemies to family, and near the ‘end’ (it’s not finished) it becomes very wholesome with Snape trying to help Harry with his mental and physical health after years of abuse/ neglect.

“Harry is accused of burglary. The Dursleys leave him to rot. Dumbledore sends Snape to remedy the situation. Harry finds himself in the care of an irate Snape. Not slash, gen-fic w/ focus on Sevitus relationship. Angst galore. Warnings: coarse and suggestive language, mentions of abuse/neglect. Un-betaed and un-Britpicked.”

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor

https://ift.tt/2URb21b

As recently as September 2020 David Tennant topped a Radio Times poll of favourite Doctors. He beat Tom Baker in a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine poll, and was voted the best TV character of the 21st Century by the readers of Digital Spy. He was the Doctor during one of Doctor Who‘s critical and commercial peaks, bringing in consistently high ratings and a Christmas day audience of 13.31 million for ‘Voyage of the Damned’, and 12.27 million for his final episode, ‘The End of Time – Part Two’. He is the only other Doctor who challenges Tom Baker in terms of associated iconography, even being part of the Christmas idents on BBC One as his final episodes were broadcast. Put simply, the Tenth Doctor is ‘My Doctor’ for a huge swathe of people and David Tennant in a brown coat will be the image they think of when Doctor Who is mentioned.

In articles to accompany these fan polls, Tennant’s Doctor is described as ‘amiable’ in contrast to his predecessor Christopher Eccleston’s dark take on the character. Ten is ‘down-to-earth’, ‘romantic’, ‘sweeter’, ‘more light-hearted’ and the Doctor you’d most want to invite you on board the TARDIS. That’s interesting in some respects, because the Tenth Doctor is very much a Jekyll and Hyde character. He’s handsome, he’s charismatic, and travelling with him can be addictively fun, but he is also casually cruel, harshly dismissive, and lacking in self-awareness. His ego wants feeding, and once fed, can have destructive results.

That tension in the character isn’t due to bad writing or acting. Quite the contrary. Most Doctors have an element of unpleasantness to their behaviour. Ever since the First Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara, the character has been moving away from the entitled snob we met him as, but can never escape it completely.

Six and Twelve were both written to be especially abrasive, then soften as time went on (with Colin Baker having to do this through Big Finish audio plays rather than on telly). A significant difference between Twelve and Ten, though, is that Twelve questions himself more. Ten, to the very end, seems to believe his own hype.

The Tenth Doctor’s duality is apparent from his first full appearance in 2005’s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. Having quoted The Lion King and fearlessly ambled through the Sycorax ship in a dressing gown, he seems the picture of bonhomie, that lighter and amiable character shining through. Then he kills their leader. True, it was in self-defence, but it was lethal force that may not have been necessary. Then he immediately topples the British Prime Minister for a not dissimilar act of aggression. Immediately we see the Tenth Doctor’s potential for violence and moral grey areas. He’s still the same man who considered braining someone with a rock in ‘An Unearthly Child’. 

Teamed with Rose Tyler, a companion of similar status to Tennant’s Doctor, they blazed their way through time and space with a level of confidence that bordered on entitlement, and a love that manifested itself negatively on the people surrounding them. The most obvious example in Series 2 is ‘Tooth and Claw’, where Russell T. Davies has them react to horror and carnage in the manner of excited tourists who’ve just seen a celebrity. This aloof detachment results in Queen Victoria establishing the Torchwood institute that will eventually split them apart. We see their blinkers on again in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, when they take Mickey for granted. Rose and the Doctor skip along the dividing line between romance and hubris.

Then, in a Christmassy romp where the Doctor is grieving the loss of Rose, he commits genocide and Donna Noble sucker punches him with ‘I think you need somebody to stop you’. Well-meaning as this statement is, the Doctor treats it as a reason to reduce his next companion to a function rather than a person. Martha Jones is there to stop the Doctor, as far as he’s concerned. She’s a rebound companion. Martha is in love with him, and though he respects her, she’s also something of a prop.

This is the series in which the Doctor becomes human in order to escape the Family of Blood (adapted from a book in which he becomes human in order to understand his companion’s grief, not realising anyone is after him), and is culpable for all the death that follows in his wake. Martha puts up with a position as a servant and with regular racist abuse on her travels with this man, before finally realising at the end of the series that she needs to get out of the relationship. For a rebound companion, Martha withstands a hell of a lot, mostly caused by the Doctor’s failings. 

Read more

TV

Why David Tennant Lost Hannibal Role According to Bryan Fuller

By Kirsten Howard

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Staged: BBC Comedy Confirms Sheen & Tennant’s Double-Act Greatness

By Louisa Mellor

Series 4 develops the Doctor further, putting the Tenth’s Doctor’s flaws in the foreground more clearly. Donna is now travelling with him, and simply calls him out on his behaviour more than Rose or Martha did. Nonetheless the Doctor ploughs on, and in ‘Midnight’ we see him reduced to desperate and ugly pleas about how clever he is when he’s put in a situation he can’t talk himself out of.

Rose has also become more Doctor-like while trapped in another reality, and brutally tells Donna that she’s going to have to die in order to return to the original timeline (just as the Doctor tells Donna she’s going to have to lose her memories of travelling with him in order to live her previous life, even as she clearly asks him not to – and how long did the Doctor know he would have to do this for? It’s not like he’s surprised when Donna starts glitching). Tied into this is the Doctor’s belief in his own legend. In ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ he holds a gun to Cobb’s head, then withdraws it and asks that they start a society based on the morals of his actions. You know, like a well-adjusted person does.

What’s interesting here is that despite presenting himself as ‘a man who never would’, the Doctor is a man who absolutely would. We’ve seen him do it. Even the Tenth Doctor, so keen to live up to the absolute moral ideals he espouses, killed the Sycorax leader and the Krillitanes, drove the Cybermen to die of despair, brought the Family of Blood to a quiet village and then disposed of them personally. But Tennant doesn’t play this as a useful lie, he plays it as something the Doctor absolutely believes in that moment, that he is a man who would not kill even as his daughter lies dead. It’s why his picking up a gun in ‘The End of Time’ has such impact. And it makes some sense that the Tenth Doctor would reject violence following a predecessor who regenerated after refusing to commit another double-genocide.

In the series finale ‘Journey’s End‘, Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into weapons. This is because the Doctor’s friends have used weapons against the Daleks who – and I can’t stress this enough – are about to kill everyone in the entire universe. Fighting back against them seems pretty rational. Also – and again I can’t stress this enough – the Daleks are bad. Like, really bad. You won’t believe just how mindbogglingly bad they are. The Doctor has tried to destroy them several times by this point. Here, there isn’t the complication of double-genocide, and instead the very real threat of absolutely everyone in the universe dying. This accusation, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, should absolutely not land.

And yet, with the Tenth Doctor, it does. This is a huge distinction between him and the First Doctor, who had to persuade pacifists to fight for him in ‘The Daleks’.

In ‘The Sontaran Strategem’ Martha compares the Doctor to fire. It’s so blunt it almost seems not worth saying, but it’s the perfect analogy (especially for a show where fire is a huge part of the very first story). Yes, fire shines in dark places, yes it can be a beacon, but despite it being very much fire’s entire deal, people can forget that it burns. And fire has that mythical connection of being stolen from the gods and brought to humanity. The Time Lord Victorious concept fits the Tenth Doctor so well. Of all the Doctors, he’s the most ready to believe in himself as a semi-mythic figure.

Even when regenerating there’s a balance between hero and legend: the Tenth Doctor does ultimately save Wilfred Mott, but only after pointing out passionately how big a sacrifice he’s making. And then he goes to get his reward by meeting all his friends, only to glare at them from a distance. His last words are ‘I don’t want to go’, which works well as clearly being a poignant moment for the actor as well, but in the context of Doctor Who as a whole it renders Ten anomalous: no one else went this unwillingly. And yet, in interviews Russell T. Davies said it was important to end the story with ‘the Doctor as people have loved him: funny, the bright spark, the hero, the enthusiast’.

It’s fascinating then, that this is the Doctor who has been taken to heart by so many viewers because there’s such an extreme contrast between his good-natured front, his stated beliefs, and his actions. He clearly loves Rose and Donna, but leaves them with a compromised version of happiness. They go on extraordinary journeys only to end up somewhere that leaves them less than who they want to be, with Russell T. Davies being more brutally honest than Steven Moffat, who nearly always goes the romance route. Davies once said to Mark Lawson that he liked writing happy endings ‘because in the real world they don’t exist’, but his endings tend towards the bittersweet: Mickey and Martha end up together but this feels like they’re leftovers from the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. The Tenth Doctor doesn’t, as Nine does, go with a smile, but holding back tears.

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It’s a testament to how well written the Tenth Doctor is that the character has this light and shade, and with David Tennant’s immense likeability he can appeal to a wider audience as a result. It’s not surprise he wins all these polls, but I can’t help but feel that if the Doctor arrived and invited me on board the TARDIS, I’d want it to be anyone but Ten.

The post Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3iaqbDk

[areyougonnabe]

Fic Writer Questions!

tagged by @palamedessextus !!! thank u i love to procrastinate on writing by writing about writing

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

110 on my main account (+ 4 on my sneaky sock for Crimes™ lol)

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

614,551 on my main account which is. hm. a lot

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

obvi the main ones are the terror (50 fics) and good omens (35 fics). beyond that: TMA, the OA, doctor who, LOST, red dwarf, what we do in the shadows, the aubreyad, legends of tomorrow, banished, MCU, bbc ghosts, jeeves & wooster, russian doll, true detective, twin peaks, fleabag, & it's always sunny.

so technically 19, but wow a LOT of those are because i am a fiend for crossovers. (true detective x red dwarf... twin peaks x hannibal... the OA x lost.... russian doll x doctor who...) and many of the others were one-offs for yuletide. i'm pretty monofannish when it comes to writing!

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

lol they're all going to be for good omens... let's see

1. "it's a new craze" - the podcast fic. imho this fic is the definition of "The Claw," a.k.a. the phenomenon that sees some fics plucked out from the fray to become super popular. i'm not denying that it's good! i still think it's pretty clever! but its popularity was probably as much a function of timing as of quality

2. "what a way to make a living" - the uber driver fic. honestly still pretty proud of this one, it flows well and is structurally interesting and genuinely very funny and the perfect length. i had a blast in good omens fandom writing comedic fic, this one

3. "dearly departed" - another one i'm still very happy with. my first ever finished multi-chapter fic & the story that proved to me i could sustain a plot and original characters and also that people would actually enjoy it. so a pretty big deal!

4. "blame it on my juice, baby!" - the fake love potion one. i wrote this fic while delirious with horrible fever cooped up in a tiny council flat airbnb bedroom in london. i think it's still pretty strong although since writing it i've developed a severe aversion to the "meddling friend engineers a get-together" trope in fic & so cringe a bit when i read it back, lmao

5. "greatest hits" - the one with the original songs! the songs are still good.... the fic is ehhhhhhh i guess.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i don't respond to comments on most of my gomens fic anymore because 🤷‍♀️ but i do try to reply to everything i get on my terror fic/smaller fandom stories! my replies are usually very lame but i do like to take the time to thank people for reading.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i usually don't write angsty endings because i'm a weenie BUT the one exception is probably my terror/TMA crossover which cannot be said to end well by any means lol

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

dearly departed has a very lovely ending... i will also plug my OA fic heat rises which is GREAT and has a GREAT ending and nobody read it because nobody watched the OA. i'm fine it's fine

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

as mentioned above, yes, compulsively... award for craziest simply has to go to It's Always Sunny In Another Dimension which is, yes, an IASIP x OA crossover. i apologize for nothing

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not that i can recall, [bubbe voice] tenks gad!!!

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

i do i do.... when i first picked up fic writing again after college i thought smut would forever totally beyond me but after some very kind encouragement from friends i tried my hand at it & was off to the races.

i would not say i am an expert at it by any means but i have a lot of fun with it, & people seem to generally appreciate it, so i will keep going!

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

also no, phew

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, a bunch of my gomens fics have been translated into chinese and russian, which is so so super cool!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yuh, i had a few legendary cowrites in GO! the slow show metafic with cherry @fremulon and the shitscript crossover extravaganza with hallie @kalelraejepsen !!! both tremendously fun experiences

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

that is a very tough one. if you go by my ao3 bookmarks it's aziraphale/crowley, which might be true still tbh... but i dunno. maybe ten/rose because that shit never leaves you.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

in terms of fic i already started posting, there's my one terror WIP with amnesiac tozer that i swear i WILL finish one day... and same goes for my good omens music & lyrics AU, which i fully expect to pick back up and finish off when i inevitably return to the fandom for series 2.

as far as stuff that never made it out of drafts, i started a hodgson-centric fic a few weeks ago that i got like 4k into before realizing i need to seriously refine my approach. so hopefully after exe fest i will get around to that!

16) What are your writing strengths?

well i am funny. so i've got that going for me. other than that ummmm i don't know. i don't think of myself as a particularly good or strong writer bc i really am just here for a laff. i think i can turn a phrase well and get the most out of imagery; i'm good at coming up with compelling story concepts and weird gimmicks, i guess?

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

i fundamentally don't know or understand how People Actually Act And Feel so i have a hard time getting realistic or interesting reactions and conflicts out of characters. my plots (when my stories have them at all) are very powered by external events, i wouldn't call myself a character-driven writer by any means. for the same reasons i struggle with voice and dialogue beyond superficial signposting via vocabulary/syntax. also, sustaining a long story/finding enough Stuff To Happen to fill it up/having the patience to keep writing... is something i need to work on for sure.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i'm a lame american who only speaks english so honestly i don't really have thoughts!

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

i distinctly remember hand-writing in my notebook two or three pages worth of a story about what happened to the main precog in "minority report" after watching the movie when i was like seven. the first fandom i actually wrote fic for and posted it online was probably doctor who circa 2010 ish? but my warrior cats RP career predates that by a few years and i did a LOT of writing there. oh warriorsforest39 dot proboards dot com you are missed....

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

SEX GHOST AU! SEX GHOST AU!

tagging folks :))) @laissezferre @titleleaf @theburialofstrawberries @girdedheraround @flanneryoconnorfanfiction @wreathedwith if u want!!

[darling-i-read-it]

Piano Lessons

Hannibal Lecter x reader

Word Count: 1k

Warnings: insinuations to smut 

Author’s Note: Hi love! I caught the smut short because I’m shit at writing it but I thought this would be pretty cute regardless so I hope that’s okay! I just loved the basic fluff idea a lot :)

Requested: by anon, Hey love! Really love your Hannibal fics 🥺💕 Can I request one on where Hannibal teaches the reader how to play the piano with some fluffy smut 🥺💕

Summary: the request

Genre: fluff 

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director 

(not my gif)

Hannibal was the lover of beautiful things. He loved things that made him smile. The idea that music was in the very essence, nearly always beautiful made  him continuously happy. His cooking was beautiful, his home was beautiful, you his lover was beautiful. He surrounded himself with many things he thought were stunning, inside or out. It was the same way with Will Graham who was gorgeous both inside and out in the way that his mind was stunning.

One of his favorite things was music. He learned things about different pieces of music along with different kinds of instruments. He loved the idea of them, the things that seemed so simple that they could not possibly produce music that would move people like they so often did.

You and Hannibal frequented the symphony when you got the chance. You loved the music as well though you didn’t know nearly as much as he did. You enjoyed the way that it made you feel and that, in of itself, was more than enough to go. You and Hannibal walked out of the symphony together that afternoon. It had been a compilation of Beethoven's works that you particularly liked.

You held Hannibal's hand as you walked out of the building into the chilly city. People and cars rushed past you in the night air and you stayed close together as you walked back to his car. You were both in a dreamy like state which you always seemed to be in after a good listen. 

“I liked that one a lot,” you whispered. He squeezed your hand.

“More than the John Williams?” You laughed lightly.

“Perhaps not. I’m sorry that one just had Jaws and Star Wars and I love those films. But this one reminded me of Clockwork Orange.” He nodded. 

“An artistically beautiful controversial film. Seems like something to think of when listening to Beehtoven,” he said fondly.  You rolled your eyes.

“It’s the main soundtrack of the movie Hannibal. Don’t pretend you were engulfed in every second of Kubrick's genus.”

“I preferred the book.”

“Yes well so did I but I am not about to discredit Malcolm Mcdowell acting crazy. In any event, this show was good. Wonderful even. I especially enjoyed the classic piano pieces,” you told him absentmindedly. It was starting to rain outside and Hannibal walked closer to you so that you were both warm. 

“They were quite powerful. They are also a dream to play.”

“You can play them?” 

“Some of them.” You looked up at him as you reached the car.

“Can you teach me?” you asked. He gave you a smile

“If you’d like.”

It was a few days later when you both had some prolonged free time. Hannibal had a piano in his home and he quite enjoyed playing it. He wanted to teach you. Perhaps one day he would come home to you playing the more complex pieces but for now he would simply stay with Ode To Joy, staying in the vein of your Clockwork love.

You sat beside him, your head on his shoulder as he played the whole piece for you, the more difficult parts that you would likely not be getting to anytime soon.  You watched his fingers as they moved quickly and were amazed at the speed, the presion, the carefulness. You smiled as he finished it up and then looked over at you as you took your hand off of his shoulder.

“Shall we try?”

“You can play it again,” you joked, nervous now that you had heard his expertise in the area.

“Come, simply put your hands here.” He put your hand up on the keys and spread them enough to hit the few keys at the beginning. He started to play the notes, very slow, with your fingers and then gestures for you to play them back to him.

“Come on Hannibal I can’t play it yet.”

“Try.” 

You started to try and you got a few notes right until you completely lost the way and started to play random keys, laughing at your inability to play even a few notes. 

“You’ll learn to read the music over time and then it’ll be over for all those professionals,” he promised, playing the notes with your hand again. He did it even slower and the tension was rising in your chest as you felt his hand on yours and his body flush with yours. You looked up as he finished the notes with your hands and your eyes met. He was the one who started to lean forward and you met him in the middle, your lips connecting easily.  You brought your hand up to his cheek and he put both of his hands on your cheeks.

Regardless to say, the piano lesson was shelved for another time.

[chibi-tofu]

Hearts In Boxes

A Very Hannibal Christmas AU

(Domestic Hannigram. Stealing each others clothes. Awful Christmas Puns. Doggos. Hannibal being a shit. Will being a flirt. An apology. SO MANY BOXES. Mainly fluff and a bit of smut.)

Hannibal stretches out Will's shirt and has to apologize. V cute.

Crop Top Hannibal.

(Sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes, kinda new to writing.)

-----

December.

Hannibal started noticing his winter wardrobe getting smaller bit by bit. Starting in mid October up until the 15th of December, The day he caught Will red handed! Will was making coffee and preparing the dogs’ food and seemed to be wearing a lavender button up. While it seemed slightly big on him, he looked stunning. The fact that he was wearing a silver chain and that the button up was only buttoned halfway distracted Hannibal from registering it was his shirt. The next day Will was wearing a dark navy sweater that he knew would get noticed. As it was the one Hannibal would store in his car for if it got below 45 degrees outside or if he got blood on his current outfit. He was wearing it paired with some ridiculous boxers with dog paw prints on the back while reading by the kitchen counter. Hannibal was amused and decided to play along as he stood in front of Will and put his hands on the counter on either side of him. “Darling, Is that my sweater? It looks rather familiar.” Will smiled and gestured to his torso “This? Is it? I had no idea.” then ran a hand up the side of his lover “Would you like it back? Now? I do have a busy day. Might have to pencil you in.”

Hannibal loved this game. Really, any game where he could make Will laugh. 

So began the Wardrobe Week War.

Hannibal stealing Will’s beanies, Will stealing Hannibal’s ties. Both stealing and hiding each others shoes, then keys, and even any pair of fuzzy socks. Most nights would end with kisses, a few with “Will, This shirt cost more than your entire wardrobe, I’m not going to rip it off you.” 

Hannibal decided to be a shit on the 21st and wear a shirt that was gifted to Will last Christmas. An ugly Christmas sweater shirt that read “Bah Hum-Pug” with pugs running across the bottom of the shirt. It just barely fit his boyfriend, rising up to show a bit of his stomach when he lifted his arms. So when the blonde stretched this shirt onto his torso he expected Will to laugh and retaliate. Will cocked his head and gave a tame half smile then sighed “You’re a dork. What are we making for dinner?” Not much of a reaction, this was strange but he decided not to bombard him with questions. “I was thinking prosciutto roses on watermelon since the two bottles of Batard-Montrachet were delivered yesterday.” Will pouted a bit “Not the most festive, is it?” Hannibal made a slight twirl with his hand as he boasted “I promise you it will taste incredibly festive, he was dressed as Santa after all.” Will shook his head, kissed Hannibal’s cheek, then stood up “Change and meet me in the kitchen, or you’ll have to fight me for the oven.”  

December 23rd.   

Hannibal was busy trying to find a whisk so he could finish the sugar cookie dough as Will sat at the bar and mixed icing colors. Hannibal asked him if he had seen the whisk twice but his beloved seemed to be stuck in an introspective state. He softly rubbed Wills back as he asked “Feeling okay? There’s something lonesome about you, pet.” Will looked tired, bags under his eyes and his hair slightly mussed. He made a small hum in response and continued mixing the food coloring into the icing. Hannibal dipped his finger into one of the small icing bowls and swiped the tip of Will's nose. Will gasped and did the same with a smirk. Hannibal could still feel how shutdown his lover was and decided he’d talk to him before bed. 

Hannibal leaned against the bathroom door frame and looked at will in the mirror “So...Is the silent treatment your solution, Will?” He questioned while undoing his tie. Will was silent for a few beats before replying. “No, stealing all of your damn ties and hiding them around the house is my solution. I just happen to be brushing my teeth and deep in thought about how to kick your ass.” Will smirked and resumed brushing his teeth as his lover continued undressing. “You know, it was only one shirt. I’m sure you’ll steal one of mine as a replacement.” Hannibal walked up behind him and slowly wrapped his arms around his partners frame. “Hannibal. Dear. Darling. You stretched my shirt into a crop top. It’s rude. If I recall you have a saying about those who are rude.” He smirked and squeezed Will ever so slightly in his arms then lowering his voice stated “Are you planning to eat me, Will?” “Not with utensils.” Will teased. He spit then swished with mouthwash before turning around in Hannibal’s arms. “I’m alright, just tired...and you ruined one of my favorite shirts.” he teased “I just need to sleep it off.” he pulled Hannibal into a hug and felt his boyfriend kiss his neck. A muffled “Come to bed my sweet.” was the last full sentence uttered before they shuffled off to their bed.  

December 24th.

As Hannibal closed the oven after checking on his sugar cookies he heard a sigh. He could barely hide his smile for how his partner in crime was pouting around the apartment. The brunette was stringing the Christmas lights around the tree and huffing every few minutes. He watched as Will disappeared behind the tree and decided to give him some Christmas spirit. He quietly padded to their room while six wagging tails followed him, nearly blowing his cover. After a few minutes of putting together his surprise he collected two items from the bedroom closet then slid into the kitchen. Grabbing two sugar cookies from his first batch, the ones with snowmen on them, he led his troop of fuzzy step children into the family room.

As Will was hanging Hannibal’s ties around the tree he paused when presented with six fuzzy children wearing velvet red collars with little silver bells attached to them. “It seems you have resting Grinch face Will.” The shorter man grimaced and chuckled “Where did you even hear that?” Seeing that his plan is starting to work the blonde stepped a bit closer with his hands behind his back. “The younger detectives use slang around crime scenes. Possibly inappropriate but incredibly entertaining. I’ve also heard the term Velvet Daddy.” Will laughed out of surprise “Please NEVER say that again. Is this you apologizing?” Hannibal sheepishly took another step forward and softly put antlers attached to a headband onto Will’s head. “This is only the first part, the next piece of my apology comes tomorrow. But I thought you might indulge me and our children?” He pulled out his phone  “Take a Christmas card worthy photo with us?” He pulled Will in close and softly kissed his cheeks. “I could put a splatter of blood on our sweaters just for fun.” Will whispered just inches from the blondes lips. “A beautiful idea darling, but where would we get the blood?” Words could no longer be heard over their heartbeats becoming collectively louder. They kissed softly, Hannibal’s face held in Will's hands, while his hands were around the shorter mans back grabbing his shirt with a bit of urgency. 

A few jingles and an adorably loud whiny yawn made them laugh into the kiss. They let go of each other and got ready for the pictures, Hannibal put on a matching set of antlers, and Will got the picture timer set up then grabbed a few dog treats. They ended up laying on their stomachs on the floor with the dogs, the phone took three quick photos. In the first one they were all smiling at the camera while the two men held hands and the second was the same but now the men were looking at each other preparing for chaos. Right before the third was taken Will smiled, counted to three, and said “Go!”. They giggled when they saw the last photo, The children were looking up and even some mid jump as they scrambled to catch the treats the men threw into the air. 

“One more, just you and me?” Will rolled his eyes but held the camera up and was about to snap the picture when his lover shoved a sugar cookie into his mouth. His look of surprise deemed adorable next to Hannibal’s look of pure love and joy in a smile as he held one with a bite already taken out of it up next to him.  

December 25th.

Hannibal was the first to stir as Will unconsciously squeezed his hand. He stared at his person for a bit, just admiring how sweet and relaxed he looked as he slept. He rolled onto his stomach and partly onto Will. He started kissing up Will's side and then his chest, he paused briefly as a hand gently ran through his hair. “Good Morning. Did you sleep well?” Will raised an eyebrow as he remembered just how well the apology wound up going last night “Good Morning, Velvet Daddy.”  he giggled and pulled Hannibal up to kiss him “Yes I slept well, did you?” Hannibal whispered “I slept well, but call me Daddy again and I’ll make sure this night is sleepless.” Will bit Hannibal’s lip “Is that a threat or a promise?” Hannibal got inches from Will’s lips then put his hand around his throat. “Oh darling, It’s the most fun when it’s both.”

About an hour and a half later the two appeared downstairs to make breakfast. Will made coffee as Hannibal grabbed a Labrador sized present “I want you to open this one before we cook.” Will rolled his eyes lovingly “Before food, Hm? Must be good.” He shook it lightly then tore through the shinny red wrapping and opened the box to revel...another box wrapped in the same red wrapping paper. Will tilted his head at his lover but Hannibal just sipped his coffee with a big grin. He picked up the next box and tore the paper again to revel...yet another box. He could since where this was going but repeated the steps again to revel...another. fucking. box. This continued for about fifteen more boxes and will had now been doing this for ten minutes. The boxes were now medium small and he could hold them in both hands. He suspected there were about seven boxes left. He was off by two. 

It had now been fifteen minutes. By this point Will had chugged a cup and a half of coffee, was now sitting on the couch next to Hannibal, and the dogs had begun playing in the mountain of wrapping paper. He had finally reached the last box, wrapped in black matte paper with a metallic silver tag. Will beamed as he read the tag “Beloved.” and the noticed a small black heart at the end that was slightly smudged. He carefully unwrapped and opened the box. Sitting in a deep red velvet pocket was a beautiful pocket knife, the handle made of bone. Engraved on one side of the blade was Will and other side Hannibal . Will teared up a bit and chuckled as he quipped “If you eat me on Christmas, Who will tell the dogs you miss them when you’re at work?” Hannibal put the knife back in the box on the table then took Wills face in his hands “I’m not going to eat you Will, Well not with utensils anyway.” Will snorted as Hannibal smirked. “Our names are on both sides to symbolize we are two sides of the same coin, or knife in this case. We are the same. You are my Beloved.” 

Will kissed him hard and pulled him close. His nails dug into Hannibal’s sides claiming him as hard as the kiss. “Beloved, Huh? “ Hannibal nodded “Is it as good as Velvet Daddy?” Will laughed hard “PLEASE stop saying that.” “Maybe after Christmas?” Will blew out a puff of air “Finnee. Who gave you the box full of boxes idea?” Hannibal shook his head and scoffed “You’d kill them and me.” Will picked up the pocket knife and put the tip gently against Hannibal’s chest. “Would you like to go first?” Hannibal kissed him deeply and grabbed the knife

 “Where would the fun be in that?”

Happy Holidays Fanibals.               

[v-e-l-v-e-t-g-o-l-d-m-i-n-e]

I'm almost finishing the Hannibal novel - with that, I'll have finished the Hannibal series, at long last and after years. I also read it in the worst order ever lmao - i first read Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Hannibal Rising and only now i'm going into Hannibal lmao.

So far is interesting, it was really nice to see Margot. And boy, the differences between her on the book and the show... on one hand i think it would be really interesting if in the show Margot was played as a gnc woman, but on the other hand she infortunately plays in a lot of negative tropes so I can understand they wanting to change this for the show (also I love Katherine Isabelle on this role).

Really enjoying Clarice too - she's a character i have always loved, and while i'm not sure i'll love her ending so far her chapter are always nice

[youghvaudough]

Rewatched Hannibal Recently...

... here are some random thoughts brain chips on the third season

watch out for a text wall it's a doozy down under

this rewatching I finally realized the first half of this season Hannibal was basically like “I’m touring Europe with Bedelia one last time before I check myself into jail so I can see my bf often”

Will must’ve been real good at arts and crafts. He made a whole ass butterfly?bee?dragonfly?firefly man display out of shattered wine bottles and garbage from a basement basically

Also how did he not cut his hands with the glass???? He had leather gloves sure but it’s not like those are cut resistant?????? Does he have cut-resistant leather gloves???????

In Hannibal Rising Chiyoh is Hanni’s aunt’s lady-in-waiting (?) and was described as being about his age; if we’re going by that, she’s the same age as him in the show, which, ughhhhhh, let’s just say really really plays into the idea of us Asians not raisining (not mad at all; Tao Okamoto is so beautiful im gay as HELL —)

Bedelia: you’re in love with Will Graham and also leave me alone plz can I stop finishing murders on your behalf now

Hannibal was remarkably off his killing game at the end of the second season (or just really on his planning game) like NO ONE except for poor Abigail is dead by the 3rd season

Thinking about the filming of some scenes is so funny like: 

the crew carrying leather arm chairs and fancy glass side tables into the middle of some woods for a single shot

Bryan Fuller being like “ughhhh can I get a membrane-like sheet over this macro lens so I can film it bring sliced open like its will’s stomach skin” 

“also I need three thousand gallons of fake blood for some cool reverse drip shots”

everyone: Will help us catch Hannibal you must hate him so much right???? Will: busy imagining alternate reality where he and Hannibal actually worked it out at the end of the 2nd season

Will: tries his damndest to ignore everyone telling him he and Hannibal are in love while being very much smitten

Mason: talks religious mumbo jumbo  Alana after her bi awakening: *choke stare

the only saving grace for Jack Crawford is how much he’s the “I love my wife” trope

Frederic: ...why does no one wanna help me with Hannibal hunting when I go a-knocking but when Will does it everyone’s with him????????? What’d I do

No one:     Bryan Fuller: I NEED SOME SNAIL FUCKING SHOTS HERE

Bedelia: i feel like I’m your diet Will Graham Hannibal: what? no *continues to talk about how special Will Graham is and how no one will be his equal basically

WOAH question on Chiyoh so did Hannibal ~literally~ taxidermy her in time with some cannibal magic & that’s why she looks about, I don’t know, in her twenties still ?????? /s

Bryan Fuller: NOW I NEED TO OPEN AN OLD PAYPHONE FOR AN INTERIOR SHOT

Chiyoh: he’s good looking but dumb about Hannibal so 

I’ll kiss him

then push him off the train

(hopefully dude’ll be warned but also finally learn how to gay)

Bryan Fuller: ARE YOU MISSING SOME SLOW MOTION SHOTS OF HUGH DANCY FLIPPING OF THE TRAIN IN YOUR LIFE? ALWAYS

how did Mason and Pazzi achieve high resolution uninterrupted overseas video chat with the front camera of Apple laptops????? the power of wealth????? whenever I call my mom my phone turns into a potato pretty much

the jack v hannibal fight was the ultimate “I luh my dead wife” man v “I just need to stay alive and go meet my boyfriend” man fight

Bedelia: I know what your goodbye is; I know what you wanna do to Will and you’re in love with the dude. No thanks I’ll yeet myself outta here

“waving your uterus around like a weapon” how iconic

Dolce will forever go down in cinematic history there I said it. Nothing tops the mirroring scars, the downright sensual romantic dialogue in front of a fucking Botticelli, this 水乳交融 of two minds (can’t find a good enough translation other than maybe “melding”), one of the weirdest most kaleidoscope-forward lesbian sex scene of all times, a lot of overlapping orgasm faces, reflexive hugs and pats of comfort, weirdly timed lip-lickings, etc etc

At least Mason recognizes how good looking Will’s is lmao even with all the burnt penis talk on the table

“He’s looking very dry a little moisturizer please” Mason your gay is showing

“It’s dangerous getting exactly what you want” yeah we got this season of Hannibal and then no more of it I’d say you’re right on the money Dr. Lecter

Alana and Margot helping Hannibal and Will: LGBT solidarity at its finest

dumbest thing mason did was probably pissing off Margot

So basically Chiyoh is made of a stable metal element between iron and silver that’s why she doesn’t age?????? /s

maybe “I found you in my mind palace” can be our “always”

I remember the first time I watched Digestivo and I was so worried Hannibal’s gonna finish eating Will or take off or continue into the book silence of the lamb arc or something after Will basically went “I won’t go looking for you at all bye bitch where my dogs at” so imagine my fucking delight ecstasy when Hannibal threw himself at the FBI just so Will can always find him. I cried buckets and became a devout Bryan Fuller STAN that day

Chiyoh: fuck this shit im out; don’t wanna protect this idiot boy with luv no mo

Molly: weirdly familiar sharp features, sand-blond hair, husky sultry deeper voice hmmmmmmmmm guess WHAT

...but she actually likes doggos so 

Bryan Fuller: HUGH DANCY. COVERED IN BLOOD. NAKED. UNDER THE MOONLIGHT. NOW

Will gives Bedelia SO MUCH SHIT about using Hannibal as a means to fame that he almost forgets how possessive  protective of Hanni this makes him look

Bedelia: calm yo ass do you know how many “Will is special you’ll never be him” talks I’ve been in with Hannibal as the main lecturer?????

Bedelia: did you go visit him Will: ...yeah Bedelia: whelp fuck my leg is about good as steak any day now

An odd detail I remember about this Will/Bedelia interaction was Bryan Fuller saying in some interview (probably) that this is basically wife confronting mistress; you know who’s which

when Reba was touching the tiger that vet guy must’ve stayed in the room right??? for safety and stuff??? guy must’ve had the weirdest time just seeing Francis freak the fuck out watching Reba

also Reba deserves all the nice things in the world; Francis though an overall shitty person can recognize beauty

...wait i take it back dude said Will was ugly (ok he said “not very handsome” but) like bitch where

for a series with pretty good sfx that teeth scene in 310 was fake as f---

will and bedelia taking shots at each other verbally cracks me tf up like is this the psychology people’s version of “you suck” “uno reverse”

i have to keep reminding myself that this is a crime show that actually aired on national tv bc these dialogues mama??? downright telenovela. Bryan Fuller has a point when he described them as wife and mistress

Bedelia: I would’ve preferred to be bluebeard’s last wife Will: challenge accepted

i cannot stress this enough REBA DESERVES BETTER she seems like the nicest, most well-meaning person ever and deserves to be cherished like so

it's so strange, getting everything that you want; take Will’s slow-burn-esque realization of Hannibal’s twisted affections for example

Bryan Fuller: NOW GIVE ME A CLOSE UP OF ICE SUCKING

So  basically Hannibal’s attitude is “if I can’t be a constant fixture in his life I’ll be on his mind”

Hannibal is always a sucker for some good will ehhhh

Hannibal, in a police vehicle: get in Will we’re going cliff-diving dragon hunting; no but the actual line is just as cheesy geez hanni u smooth man-eater

The Bloom-Vergers look straight out of some gothic family catalog (if those exist)

like i will spare y’all the contrived complements of the Wrath of the Lamb bc like fucking hells mate there's no straight explanation for this finale

that’s it thanks for reading mates hannigram forever also someday some wealthy person will revive this I'm sure and we’ll rejoice then

[luckywilliams]

APPRECIATING PAINTINGS

Paintings can be complex things to appreciate in an informed fashion. Such informed appreciation can be undertaken via a number of different methods:

Firstly, the artistic methods and techniques undertaken can be examined. Thus, Jan Van Eyck was famous for his oil painting technique, which produced a characteristic luminous finish. Michelangelo was renowned for his fresco technique, and for his skill with anatomy and male nudes. Leonardo da Vinci was famous for his sfumato, and Rembrandt for his chiaroscuro. Titian and Matisse (amongst others) were distinguished by their colourism, Caravaggio for his Tenebrism, and Frank Auerbach for his impasto. These techniques, and many others, are an important feature of informed art appreciation.

Secondly, COLOUR has always been a very important aspect to consider, and often, throughout history, the use of colour has been subject to certain rules and conventions. For example, Ancient Egyptian paintings only made use of 6 colours – red, green, blue, yellow, white and black. Red was the colour of power and authority. Green was used as a colour to indicate new life and fertility. Blue was the colour of rebirth, while yellow was used to represent eternal things like the sun, and gold. White was indicative of purity, and black was the colour of death. As an extension of some of these principles, male bodies were painted in darker colours than female bodies.

Byzantine icon paintings followed similar conventions: Blue was the colour representing human life, while white became the colour used to represent the resurrection and transfiguration of Christ. In icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary, Christ was usually depicted wearing a red undergarment, together with a blue outer garment (symbolising the idea of God becoming a man). Conversely, Mary was usually depicted wearing a blue undergarment, and a red outer garment (indicative of someone starting off entirely human and mortal, but moving closer to God).

During the Renaissance, burgeoning European art academies restricted the use of bright colours, which were only to be used in the most appropriate contexts. It is only much later in European history, with the advent of the French Impressionists and the Fauvists, that colour really became utilised independently, and without restriction. Of course, the development of new colour pigments also had a significant impact on the tonal range available to painters. – After all, a Renaissance colour palette was a very different thing to the palette available to a 19th century artist.

The narrative content of a painting (How to appreciate it).

In order to make an informed judgement, we can subdivide the narrative content of a painting into 4 parts: a) The main message. b) Subsidiary messages. c) Symbolism. d) References and analogies. (At the end of this section, under Activities, you will be given the opportunity of carrying out some research, and completing an initial assessment of the narrative content of a famous Renaissance painting, using these 4 subheadings).

Interpreting Western art (c.500 – 1700).

Byzantine art, and its icons, together with other hieratic styles such as the Gothic, was packed with narrative meaning and symbolism – but all of a Christian kind. This exclusive focus on Christian symbolism makes the art somewhat easier to decode, though the fantastic imagery of Renaissance alterpiece art of the sort produced by Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder can be more difficult to work out. Much baroque painting was more straightforward, as (during the era of the Counter Reformation) its focus was mostly just on the promotion of Catholicism. Its best works consisted of trompe l’oeil ceiling frescoes and other monumental religious works. Even here, there were some exceptions, such as the Realist School within Dutch Baroque art, which possessed much complex imagery and symbolism.

Dutch Realism 1630-90.

Some exceptional schools arose in the newly independent (from Spain) protestant areas of the United Provinces, such as those in Amsterdam, Delft, Utrecht and Haarlem. Dutch realism really developed as a result of the historical context. – The 17th century was the period of the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ in which trade grew with the East Indies, and other areas of the world, and Dutch merchants grew rich on the profits. These merchants were a new type of art buyer, requiring a new type of painting, and they commissioned some of the most complex still life paintings ever produced, by the likes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Willem Kalf, van Hoogstraten and others.

The Decline of Religious Paintings from 1700.

Religious art declined elsewhere (not just in the United Provinces) because of the decline in the number of ecclesiastical patrons available, and the rise of the secular, middle class/professional patron, who wanted – and paid for – small scale portable paintings which could be displayed in their homes. Moreover, these new buyers wanted portraits, landscapes or genre paintings (rather than massive religious allegorical works) which showed off their newly acquired power and status. As a consequence, this ‘new’ type of painting lacked obscure religious symbolism, and can be easier to interpret.

Interpreting paintings from 1700 onwards.

For analytical purposes, these can be divided into 5 main types: i) HISTORY paintings ii) PORTRAITS iii) GENRE paintings (of everyday scenes) iv) LANDSCAPES v) STILL LIFE.

History Paintings:

This category of paintings can include mythological, religious and historical works with a ‘narrative’ which can be difficult to interpret when designed to convey inspirational or philosophical sentiments.

Portraits:

This category of painting is generally easier to interpret, though it must be remembered that the buyer of a painting often prefers to purchase a ‘manipulated’ image showing him/her at their best (e.g. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits of the Prince Regent during the Regency period).

Genre:

These can be relatively straightforward to interpret, when the artist is focused, principally, upon portraying the social history of a particular scene. However, a genre painting can also be used to convey a philosophical message, making the interpretation more complex to determine.

Landscapes:

In the hundred years between 1700-1800, many landscape paintings were commissioned by landowners who wanted a pictorial record of their estates. Thus, such paintings can be relatively straightforward to understand and interpret. However, in the later 18th Century, as the Romantic movement began to take hold, many painters went into the countryside in order to ‘capture’ the essence and beauty of nature – adding considerably to the meaning and purpose behind such works. Impressionists like Pisarro and Monet can fall into this category. There are also landscapes with more of a philosophical message, which can be quite difficult to interpret fully.

Still Life:

Some of this type of painting can look very static when looked at in a superficial manner. Nevertheless, the best of Still Life painting can still be loaded with symbolism, and influenced by artistic traditions going back to at least the 17th Century.

How to appreciate abstract paintings.

The key principal behind a proper appreciation of abstract paintings is the realization that FORM is just as important as REPRESENTATION. Thus, a picture of a human face could be a very anatomically inaccurate, ‘bad’ one, but it could have a very effective and striking use of colours or shapes, and might therefore be adjudged to be a ‘beautiful’ picture/painting.

Thus, form is everything, and we need to look at colours, shapes and surface textures (and their relationship to each other) when assessing and interpreting a particular piece of work.

 ACTIVITIES

 Now that you have completed this introductory section, please have a go at the following activities. You can either talk to your tutor about the possible answers on the telephone, or via skype, or send written responses via email or post. Please enjoy thinking about your answers, and the initial research that this entails!

Task 1: Try and find out more about the artistic techniques of sfumato, chiaroscuro, colourism, Tenebrism and impasto. What did these techniques/skills actually involve?

Task 2: Try and have a look at the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch (1500-05) either on-line or in a suitable textbook, which is one of the great Renaissance paintings. Once you have looked at a copy of the painting, and maybe read a little about it, try and complete a brief assessment of the painting’s narrative content, using the 4 subheadings described earlier in this Section.

Task 3: Using the information supplied above about the 5 main types of paintings produced from 1700 onwards, say whether you think the following 11 paintings are either history, portrait, genre, landscapes or still life works of art: Some are more straightforward than others!

Death of Marat (1793) by Jacques-Louis David.

The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya

The Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy (1881) by Vasily Surikov.

Arrangement in Grey and Black: Whistler’s Mother (1871) by James Whistler.

Portrait of Madame X (1883-4) by John Singer Sargent.

Man with a Hoe (1862) by Millet.

Marilyn (1967) by A. Warhol.

At the Moulin Rouge (1890) by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Ennui (1914) by Walter Sickert.

Mr and Mrs Andrews (1750) by T. Gainsborough.

Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) by JMW Turner

  Adrian L. Bridge

[gintamajustaway]

Hi! Would you mind me asking if you like reading? And what's your personal recommendations (if there are any and you are comfortable enough to share them of course)?

Are you kidding? I love to read! I haven’t been able to read as much as usual lately because of some writing deadlines I’ve needed to meet, but I’ve always been a vivacious reader. I’m also incredibly picky which is why I moved away from reading fanfiction with the exception of recs from friends and it can take me a long time to find a book I’ll read from cover to cover.  

List below the cut!

1. Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin – these books have been a huge inspiration to me. I think George is a brilliant writer with phenomenal talent. He’s the only author that has given me characters that I absolutely loath, but at the same time I love to read their chapters and can’t get enough. The Game of Thrones show was a failure to me from episode 1, so I don’t stand by or support the show in any capacity, but I have nothing negative to say about the books.

2. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – Listen, I generally don’t like first person books, but this singular book is my exception. It’s the only first person POV book you’ll find on this list. There was just something really charming and gripping about this story and I couldn’t put it down. However, I will not be seeing the movie. One of my favorite characters in the book is Boris and in the movie this character is portrayed by Finn Wolfhard and 0/10, I can’t stand that kid or his acting. Which is an enormous shame because I’d love to see how a movie adaption to this would turn out. The book is a bit too het for my usual tastes, but just like with the POV exception, I’ve made an exception for this typical turnoff as well.

3. The Sight and Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies – I found these books when I was really, really young and by then they were already kind of old, but to this day, I can still see them clearly in my head. They were so mythical and different, I was totally captured. I read the sequel to The Sight, called Fell, and I didn’t care for it at all, but I can definitely recommend the two listed because they were just so magical, it was easy to get swept away and I’ll never forget that feeling.

4. A Column of Fire by Ken Follett – I’m adding this one to the list even though it’s not a favorite. It was way, way too het for me ((among other things)) and I won’t be reading anymore from this author, but from a historical standpoint, it was fascinating. That’s the reason I want to recommend it. I’m a huge history nerd ((especially in the Mediterranean with the rise and fall of the Roman and Greek empires)) and Ken does something really cool to tell his stories. The characters are mostly fictional, with loose inspirations based on real people, but the actual events in history are true. This book centers around Queen Elizabeth I from just before she took the throne to after she passed away. It includes her rivalry with Mary Stuart as well as all the religious issues during that time period. 

5. Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien – Arguably this series is the best and most inventive fantasy series of all time. Not only that, but the movie adaptions are epics worthy of the books. I rewatch that trilogy several times a year. There’s probably not much I can add here that hasn’t already been said in a hundred different ways, but my god, what an enormous inspiration. 

6. The Black Stallion by Walter Farley – Obviously read this when I was practically a baby, but it’s worth recommending. I didn’t care much for the other books in the series, but the first one is a classic for sure and the movie is really well done.

7. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris – This book has one of my favorite villains in it: the famous Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The plot was creative and intriguing, the story as a whole was well rounded and it was just a real page turner from start to finish. The movie adaption was excellent too, which is always a bonus. I can’t say the other books in the series were as appealing to me, but I can safely say that this one is just fantastically done. 

8. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King – Unfortunately, I am not at all a Stephen King fan, but after seeing the movie Shawshank Redemption, I had to give the book a read. However, it’s not a book, it’s a short story within the book called “Different Seasons: Four Novellas.” The story is worth the read even though I do prefer the movie in this case. 

9. The Art of War and Other Classics of Eastern Thought – Pretty self-explanatory. Just a nice read with different disciplines and very interesting and educational. 

10. House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer – I read this book a long time ago so I honestly don’t remember it too well. I remember what happens, like the whole plot, but I don’t remember all the events that lead up to the end. However, I do remember how I felt as I was reading it and I was engrossed. It was such a journey and I remember being unable to put it down. I’d hide under the covers at night and use a flashlight to keep reading it. Having just remembered this one, I want to go back and reread it to see if it’s as good as I remember.

So, there’s 10. They’re not a top 10 ((I mean, some of them are like Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Song of Ice and Fire)) but the list dabbles into different genres and hopefully provides enough of a variety for you to find something interesting! If you have any questions or want to know more about any of them, hit me up! I’m always ready and willing to talk about books!

[elfnerdherder]

Opus Dei: Chapter 1

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A special thanks to my patrons: @evertonem @sylarana @starlit-catastrophe @frostylicker, Mendacious Bean, Superlurk, Duhaunt6, and Laura G.! <3

Well guys, here’s to another Fannibal fic. :) I’m not sure if there’s a lot of call for a sequel/revenge fic, but I’m going to do my best to not make a muck of it. As always, I hope you enjoy! Happy Friday.

Summary: "Behold, I will make you fishers of men," Abigail said with a laugh.

And so Will did. Bait for Hannibal the Cannibal is tricky, though, especially when the hunter knows they're hunted. Four years in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane gave him time, and in the end time was all he'd really needed, isn't it?

Will Graham had never meant for so much death. After being released for crimes he hadn't committed, he knows the right thing to do is move on with his life and begin a new chapter as an innocent man. Go to college. Meet the girl. Fall in love. Put his past behind him.

There's just one small problem: Hannibal Lecter isn't quite ready for him to move on, and truth be told, Hannibal is a itch that Will just can't help but scratch. When The Great Red Dragon begins to stalk the halls of George Washington University, Hannibal's ready to see just how far Will is willing to go to see his reckoning through.

In the end, the fire could take them all.

Thriller, cat-and-mouse, romance, angst, murder, mayhem, gaslighting, slow(ish) burn, old(er) Hannibal, whole-heartedly grumpy college-aged Will Graham.

Act I: A Part in Which the Hero Meets His Arch-Nemesis

Chapter 1: Enter Stage Right

The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane specialized in two things; first, they provided a safe space for the criminally insane to receive aid, and second, they took perfectly sane individuals and found delicately devious ways to make them certifiably mad. Within the dreary brick and concrete blended walls of only a lower-income-modest budget, there were certain rooms that aspired for civility with their floral wallpaper and gauche leather sofas, but even the hired help could barely boast the environment in which they toiled away at. The mental instability was an airborne virus, one that preyed on the strong of mind and completely obliterated the weak.

Will Graham was neither of these things –the criminally insane, nor the perfectly sane. Rather, he was a curious mix of both, and currently to date he would actually call it more of a curse.

He currently sat in the only room not bugged by the warden’s microphones, staring at the hands of a gristly, aged FBI agent. There was no polite ceremony to his visit. They knew each other well enough that pleasantries died when Jack Crawford first accused him of a murder that Will most certainly had not committed –several, in fact.

“Are you listening?”

“Vaguely,” said Will. A lie, but he’d become pretty good at those.

“Vaguely,” Jack repeated, awed. Before Will could tack something on, he tossed the file down for Will to see. “Read for yourself, then.”

Will glanced down nonchalantly. “I see what it says. I guess I’m just processing what it means for me exactly, is all.”

“What it means?”

“I mean, it says here the Chesapeake Ripper’s been at large for the last four years. Says here he’s actually been killing for awhile before that.” Will pushed the file folder back to Jack and crossed his arms.

"Yeah."

"Says there's evidence showing there was no copycat to Garrett Jacob Hobbs, just the Chesapeake Ripper."

Jack gestured and nodded. “So?”

“So?”

“I’m saying you’re innocent, Will.”

Will smiled. “Shit, Jack, but I already knew that."

“We made a mistake,” Jack replied, and it was obvious in the lines of his face that he’d been forced to eat crow. A whole lot of it. “One that the FBI does not take lightly. We contacted your lawyer, and a negotiation of wrongful imprisonment reimbursement was reached.” He slid a crisp, bland check over to him, scritching along the file folder. Will scratched the whiskers on his cheek thoughtfully.

His lawyer had called the night before, so he'd had time to mull it over. He lets it sit in a puddle of discontent on the table. “Two hundred thousand is pretty high dollar,” he finally said thoughtfully.

“Considering the specifics of the situation—"

“—My sickness the perfect excuse to not participate in any real detective work—"

“—it wasn’t difficult to convince us to offer the maximum amount,” Jack finished.

Will looked to his eyes, then to his mouth. “Is it that difficult for you to realize you should have listened to me?” he asked.

“Is it still that difficult for you to look people in the eye?” Jack retorted.

Will forced himself to look into his eyes. “I already know what I’ll see when I look into your eyes, Jack,” he said, “I'm sick of looking in eyes like that.”

“The evidence—"

“Was gift wrapped with a neat bow on top for you to keep as a souvenir,” Will cut him off. “So easy that you didn’t think to question whether or not it was really that simple to catch someone supposedly so smart you’d recruited an eighteen-year-old to tag along to horrific crime scenes. Easy as pie.” He folded his arms and dragged his thumb over his bottom lip, thinking. Temper, temper. Try again. Finally, “I’ll take your money. Four years in this place will ensure that I take anything I can from you.”

Jack’s lips puckered, but the papers were produced. Will took the stack and signed each specified place, gaze occasionally cutting to the check that rested at his elbow. Two-hundred thousand was indeed the highest he’d ever heard of, the closest being Inmate 2361-B who’d been imprisoned for allegedly killing his brothers. Three years got him one-hundred thousand dollars, but it also got him a bullet to the head a week after his release when he couldn’t adjust to civilian life and decided that eating a gun was better.

Paperwork done, Jack placed everything in a neat stack and seemed to hesitate. Will studied the clock overhead. 2:13 P.M.

“This killer that framed you—"

“Not interested.”

“He’s killed at least fifteen people, and we could really use your insight.”

“I don’t care,” Will snapped. “You know who I said did this to me.”

“Not that tired old drum about Hannibal-”

“Where you’re not inclined to hear me out, I’m not inclined to give a singular shit about your inability to catch a serial killer.”

“We did investigate him, Will! We found nothing!”

“Only because he’s smarter than you.”

They glared at one another from across the table, and Jack nodded reluctantly. “This killer is, yes. I need you to at least look.”

“I don’t care about your problems.” A beat. “And I don’t want to look.”

“No, but the Will Graham I know wouldn’t want to see so many people get hurt, even if it meant that you got to see me flounder in the process,” Jack said.

Will rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and he sighed. “The Will Graham you claimed to know was, in your eyes, a psychotic killer,” he said conversationally.

“At the very least, help me because you could become a target if he wants to go after you again,” Jack prodded, not rising to the bait.

“My struggles are old and overused to him. I’ve become a boring study as of late, so it furthers him nothing to continue to try and ruin my life,” said Will with a non-committed shrug. “That’s the only thing you’ll get from me. Free advice, too: you’re no match for him, Jack. Let someone else take the case while I get back to my life.”

“Your life’s not—"

“FOUR years, Jack,” Will snarled, and something in his tone startled Jack enough that he didn’t interrupt. “Don’t you dare try to soften that.” He paused, waited long enough to get control of his voice. Temper, temper. “I don’t…I don’t want to help you.”

“It’s not about me, it’s about the innocent people,” Jack argued.

“At this point, I don’t care about them, either,” Will lied. It was a good lie, though, the kind that slid smooth off of the tongue like oil. “When can I leave?”

“Today,” Jack said, and he looked to the small window in the corner, just big enough to be legal. “They’re already processing your things for release. I took it on a hunch you'd say yes.”

Will heard the lock in the door turning, and he stood, studying Jack out of the corner of his eye. It was something he’d had to learn to do, and he’d become as good at that as he has at lying. “If you’re trying to imagine four years here, Jack, I’d not recommend it.”

“Oh?” Jack turned, likely ready for another fight.

Will stepped out when the door opened for him, and he smiled grimly. “You’re an FBI agent. They’d have slit your throat a week in.”

When Will returned to his cell, he found his things –what little he had in his cell that could be claimed as his –put neatly into a small vinyl duffle bag, the hospital’s logo emblazoned on the side. Clearly this was something that’d been in the works long before he’d ever been consulted.

He wasn’t handcuffed, and he walked down the endless grey walls without the metal biting his wrists for the first time in his entire life. The guard that walked beside him wasn’t friendly, but he made no move to stop Will when his pace quickened. He swore he heard whispers, hisses, other inmates calling out, and it nipped at his heels, threatening to trip him until at last the thick, barred doors shut with a definitive THUD.

A familiar face met him at the small space between worlds, where the check-in blocked both the entry to the institute and the exit to the real world. He’d been allowed to change out of the jumpsuit, a simple pair of sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt his only other clothing, and he was relieved when she threw her arms around him that they’d been recently laundered. He dropped his duffle bag to hug her back, only a beat too late. It’d been a long time since he’d been embraced like that.

“Look at you,” Alana breathed, letting go of him. Four years hadn’t changed her, although it could be said that was because Will had witnessed those four years. Her raven hair was still swept back in loose waves, and her blue eyes still froze whatever they set their gaze on. She smiled, and he felt his own lips twitch in response, a tingling sensation rippling over his skin.

“Look at you,” he replied. He tugged loosely on his shirt, and he grinned. “They said that I could keep one item as a souvenir.”

“A good choice, Mr. Graham,” Alana stated, studying it. “I’d have done the same.”

“Are you off so soon, Mr. Graham? I’d have thought you wanted an exit interview.”

Will couldn’t help the small, tense knot of unease. “I don’t,” he said, curt.

Frederick Chilton laughed as he reached them, although it wasn’t quite humorous enough to be real. “I found the timing of your release interesting,” he said, gesturing to Alana. “I must admit, I was a little upset that I only found out ten minutes before you did that it would be occurring.”

“I think you know me well enough to know that nothing that happens is coincidence,” Will replied. Frederick opened his mouth to reply, but at the expression on Will’s face, it snapped shut.

“Congratulations on your promotion, Frederick,” Alana said from around Will. She moved around him to shake Chilton’s hand, and her offer was returned after a beat.

“It was a surprise to me, truly,” Chilton said with faux-modesty.

“The last Head Administrator was lobotomized,” Will informed Alana. “No one wanted the job after that. He was the only one with credentials that applied.”

“Yes, well, I met all of the criteria, and they were more than happy to offer the position to me. If you’re looking, Bloom, I can set you up with a wonderful residency here,” Chilton offered coyly.

“I have a good residency, but thank you,” Alana said with an amiable laugh. “Will, should we go?”

“Oh, yes, you should,” Chilton stated, laughing at a joke only he knew. “Whoever the killer is that framed you, you must find yourself inherently indebted to him for deciding to let you go free.”

“Goodbye, Frederick,” Alana said curtly, and she led Will towards the exit before he could reply with something nasty.

It was spring in the real world, sunlight rippling through maple leaves, and when Will’s shoes touched the concrete outside, he stopped at the steps and stared, eyes hungrily consuming everything in sight. Baltimore, Maryland wasn’t exactly home, but the trees were green, the flowers bloomed, and the air positively reeked with growth and birth and all those happy, renewing things. He inhaled deeply, savoring it.

“What do you think?” Alana asked.

"I'm hungry," he said, taking a step. No guard burst through the doors to detain him. No orderly found just the right spot to sink a needle and send him into a dizzying sleep. He hurried down the steps, pace quickening.

“What are you feeling?”

“Burgers,” he replied. Then, dryly, "glad to see the car hasn't changed."

"Hey, student loans before cars," she laughed, and they climbed in.

His bank assured him that four years had grown his account by exactly a penny and a half. Not surprising. Will drummed his fingers on his leg and was quick to leave after the check cleared, mingling by the mildly spindly maples struggling to grow in the indirect sunlight. Sunlight by the trees felt nice.

“Whoa,” Alana laughed, following him out, “no need to rush. They aren’t going to take it back, Will, I promise.”

“Right,” he said, and it took him a second to really register what she was saying. He laughed, a curt sort of noise that startled a woman walking by. “…Right.”

He waited outside of the burger place, loitering beside a table with an umbrella, and when Alana walked out he sat himself down with his back to the building, watching everyone on the street. His gaze flicked from teen to child to angry, middle-aged man, fingers plucking at his steak fries. He was hungry, but there was a different sort of hunger that took precedent, the kind that made him note hand gestures and tone, smiles that were quick and lingered. The only people he’d been able to observe for the past while had been guards, orderlies, and inmates, and those were the worst sort of people to see in a miserable, dreary, everyday setting. Miss Avery would have cautioned him that those were not the people one wanted to imitate and reflect.

“How are you processing everything?” Alana asked as she added ketchup to the burger. Will grabbed a fry and stuffed the entire thing into his mouth, sitting up to get his burger unwrapped.

“It’s very real,” he said, hands grazing over a bun that didn’t feel like it’d been baked at twelve thousand degrees before being dropped on something cold and left. “But it very well could be a dream. I could still wake up on that cot tomorrow.”

“It’s not a dream,” Alana assured him. “I was there when Agent Crawford met with the lawyer, and we discussed a few things before it was approved and he went to meet with you.”

"Jack didn't know I already knew." Will grinned. He'd enjoyed watching Jack dish out what he already knew was coming.

"I told him no matter what he did he was to get you out as soon as possible," said Alana.

“That’s a relief,” Will said. “I don’t think I’d manage another round.” And that was a lie, but it was the kind she’d allow him to have. If there was one thing Will had learned about himself, it was that no matter what seemed to happen to him, he woke up the next day –not necessarily stronger, but angrier. More resilient.

He took a bite of the burger, and yes; just what he thought. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. He chewed slowly and swallowed, savoring every moment.

“Do you have plans?” she asked.

“Get my phone turned on, call my dad, get my things, get a car, get a place, get a job.” Will ticked off the items on his fingers, grabbing another fry.

“Does…Hannibal fall into your plans?”

Will made a face. “Why would he?”

“Jack tells me you’re still convinced he framed you for everything,” she said tentatively.

“Yeah, but I don’t know what Jack’s playing at either, telling you that. He says a lot,” Will replied with a shrug.

“You think Jack is...playing with you?”

“This whole thing could be Jack’s idea. He could try and use you to convince me to help him suss out his killer.” Will shrugged, taking another large bite, uncaring of the use of too much mustard and not enough tomato. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d even had a tomato, let alone a meal that hadn’t come pre-packaged.

On second thought, he could remember, and he didn’t want to.

“You think so?”

Will finally braved a glance to her face, and the tone matched the facial expression. Her displeasure and disbelief were matched only by her reluctance to intentionally hurt him.

“No. I think Hannibal finally got bored with me, and sooner or later he was going to have to take credit for his work.” A beat as Will mulled something over. “Is that what they call him since they refuse to use his real name? Chesapeake Ripper?” He glanced over to a mild argument a couple was having at the farthest table, partially to note how she flipped her hair when she was indignant, and partially to avoid Alana’s disapproving expression.

“Leave it to you to still accuse the only man that stood by your side during the trial and believed your innocence,” she replied dryly.

“I don’t think any of you understand just how much he enjoys toying around with people,” Will said with pseudo-pleasantness. He took another bite, looking away from the couple to study Alana’s hands. They’d forgone handling her food in order to maintain business.

“He was trying to help you, Will.”

“He wanted his thesis to be new, bold, and innovative, and if he got to crawl into the head of some messed up kid that was too stupid to realize he was being manipulated, then so much the better,” Will snapped. “Which, by the way, I read his thesis; Dr. Chilton ensured I had access to see just how much Hannibal profited off of everything that happened to me.”

“Then you’ll have also read that he urges others to look for the necessary signs in order to prevent what happened to you to happen to anyone else,” she retorted.

“Yes, if the great Hannibal Lecter can’t cure the encephalitis, no one else should try,” Will said sarcastically. “I got to read a lot about psychology in the hospital, since everyone at first was convinced that I was an intelligent psychopath. He uses forms of coercion and persuasion to get what he wants, all the while his hands stay clean.”

“You’re not an intelligent psychopath,” Alana said pointedly. “Your presence here should show you that none of us think that.”

“The evidence shows me the Chesapeake Ripper finally decided that he wasn’t having fun anymore, so he needed to change things up a bit. Now he gets to take credit for his work, and judging by the desperation in Jack Crawford’s tone, I can assume he can continue toying with Jack a bit more. If he’s going to Hannibal to ask for help next, the Chesapeake Ripper won’t have to go far to get his kicks –the FBI will take the fun right to him.”

“He still asks about you, Will. Even after everything you’ve said, he still worries about-”

“My well-being, and do I eat, sleep, bathe, shave, read, and just generally take care of myself because sometimes at night he wakes up with such paternal thoughts in his head he can’t help by drop by the next day to make sure everything’s alright,” Will interrupted.

“Then why-”

“Because I know him better than any of you, and I see exactly what lies behind that artfully constructed veneer of calm, collected concern,” he replied. “And let me be honest, Alana, behind that careful construction is an intelligent psychopath that took away some of the few people in my life that I care about, and when I was able to piece it all together, he framed me for it.”

“He hasn’t taken me,” Alana observed, tilting her head. In that moment, he saw her as more of his therapist than his friend. “In your skewed perception of him, why is that?”

“You’re useful,” he said, swallowing with difficulty. “And you’re better off blind to him than dead.”

She pursed her lips, and maybe it was the way that she bowed to the meal for a moment that gave it away. Halfway through her burger, she set it down. “I’m dating Hannibal, Will,” she admitted at last.

He blinked, stunned. Another bite, then a douse of soda to wash down the bitter taste of disappointment masking fear. “…I see.” He nodded, feigned contemplation. He couldn't quite look past her chin. “And when should I expect the announcement in the mail?”

“Stop,” Alana warned.

Will laughed bitterly, plucking at the bun. “No, no, congratulations,” he praised, waving a hand dismissively. “I mean, really, I’m just…happy for you.”

“No you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” he agreed, and he drummed his fingers on the table, needing to expel the anger that threatened to burst from him. He focused on the feel of the plastic table against the pads of his fingers, ruminating in the silence.

“You have every right to feel upset, given what you think about him,” she offered lightly.

“You’ve put yourself in a very dangerous position,” he finally replied, when he felt that he could control the timbre of his voice, “and it’s frustrating when I’ve warned you for years, and you still somehow thought that the best place to be was right beside a man like that.”

“Hannibal is a good person, Will,” she said, exasperated.

“You know, if you say it with a little more passion, you may just convince me,” he urged. He needed his hands busy; he fiddled with more ketchup for the fries.

The couple at the farther table was beginning to lose their cool, too. The man’s voice rose and lowered in cadence, rough and stiff with something like the hard consonants of an insult. The woman’s arms were crossed, her posture stiff.

“What are your plans, Will?”

“You already asked me that,” he sighed.

“Are you going to hurt Hannibal?” she pressed, and he looked back to her as he realized what she meant.

“Oh…oh, do I have plans for him?” he asked, incredulously. “Are you serious? I want to stay as far away from that man as I possibly can!”

“It’s not an unfair question.”

“It is when you’re being protective of a man capable of cutting the lungs out of someone while they’re still using them,” he replied sweetly. The more he felt the anger bubbling from the other table, the more he felt an insistent need not to replicate it.

Alana treaded carefully. Maybe she sensed it, too. “I know that in traumatic events, especially when undeserved actions are done against you, it makes sense for people to find ways to blame mentors friends for what happened,” Alana said gently. “You went through something horrifying, and you weren’t really allowed to properly grieve for your losses because everyone turned against you when it happened. It makes sense to me that you, in a time that was plagued not only by severe and horrifying losses but also a sickness that literally set your brain on fire, would take that burden and sub-consciously place it on Hannibal since he’d been trying to help you for months and was unsuccessful.”

By choice.

The man was gesturing with his phone, jabbing for emphasis. The woman was furiously ignoring him, her own soprano cutting into his tirade every so often with something biting but indistinct.

“Is that an apology? You completely believed I killed those people--”

“I never believed you as Will Graham consciously did anything to hurt anyone,” she countered. “I have always believed in you. Did I think that it was entirely probable, given the evidence, that the person that manifested as a result of a high-stress situation coupled with a deadly disease had a capacity for violence? Yes.”

“Those two people are the same person. One just had better control over our time.”

She startled him when she reached forward to grasp his hand just as the man shouted something particuarly foul. “I’m sorry for any time that I made you feel like a criminal.”

Will swallowed with difficulty, and he looked at their hands. Unlike Jack’s, dry and calloused with a life of hard work, Alana’s were smooth and unblemished, nails filed professionally and scented with something floral--Fresias? In stark contrast, his looked much closer to Jack’s, and he saw the precise place that one of Charlie’s hooks had caught on the back and broke skin. He let go of her hand to snag another fry, nodding curtly.

“If you want to talk about Hannibal-”

“I don’t want to talk about Hannibal anymore,” Will said curtly. “When I say that I want to remove him completely from every aspect of my life, I mean that. We can talk about what you want to talk about.”

“What I want to talk about is what you don’t want to talk about,” Alana said with a small smile.

“We can talk about whatever it is that I do or don’t want to talk about, how’s that,” Will offered. He glanced at her eyes, then over her head where a man in a greasy t-shirt carried a to-go order in one meaty fist.

“I don’t want you to worry about me, Will. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long, long time.”

“People that I care about tend to die. Worry comes with the territory.”

“You still have me, your father, and despite what you think, Jack Crawford is very much invested in your well-being.”

A rum deal, no matter how you looked at it. The only one he felt especially grateful for was the one sitting just across from him, and she was currently dating the only person in the world he’d gladly murder.

“Just promise me that you’ll be careful,” he said, looking to his food. The burger had about two bites left, and he wanted to savor them. “I know…I know you believe Hannibal is great, but he’s a snake. His venom is slow acting, and…I just want you to be safe. When the time comes-” He sighed, scrambling to find the words-- “when the time comes that you…have the choice to be blind or brave, Alana, please just be blind. I think maybe he’d let you live if you just chose to be blind.”

“You weren’t blind.”

“Oh, I really was, until I wasn’t. By the time I saw, though, I wasn’t in any position to do anything about it. I think that’s one of his favorite parts.”

“I’m as safe with Hannibal as I am with you,” Alana assured, and Will peeked up at the umbrella again, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

He could say with utmost confidence he’d never had the inclination to eat someone, but maybe his definition of safety and Alana’s were completely different.

[vivypotter]

Vivy’s Harry Potter Fic Recs

I’ve had a load of people ask me for my favourite tomarry fics, so I thought I’d compile a fic rec! This will probably be updated as I think of things. However, I have a lot of favourite fics which aren’t Tomarry, so I thought I’d add a few other pairings as well. I think I’ll put up a few recs of other fandoms as well when I get ‘round to it, like Hannibal or the Hobbit (I have weird reading habits okay?) It’ll help me find them too xD.

Tom Riddle or Voldemort/Harry Potter

Consuming Shadows by Child_OTKW (WIP)

On the night of the attack, Lily managed to escape with her infant son, but at the cost of her husband’s life. Distraught and distrusting of her friends, she fled to France with Harry, to raise him away from the corruption in Britain and the rising influence of the Dark Lord. She trains him to the best of her abilities, shaping him into a dangerous, intelligent and powerful wizard.

But when Britain re-establishes the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry is forced to return to his once-home, he finds himself questioning whether he really wants to kill the Dark Lord. Voldemort finds an unexpected challenge in the child, and as his intrigue and amusement grows, so too does the desire to possess the spark in those defiant green eyes.

I feel this is genuinely one of the best Tomarry fanfics maybe ever written, and I’m sure you’ve probably read it since it’s so popular - but I thought I’d recommend it anyway! It’s not finished, but there’s enough of it to really sink your teeth into and action is properly going down right now. Harry is such an interesting character and his cat and mouse dynamic with Voldemort is so entertaining. I anxiously wait for every update!

Set the Sails (and don’t look back) by Terrific Lunacy (Complete)

1724. All Harry wanted to do was to cross the Atlantic and start his apprenticeship under one of the most renowned physicians. Tom Riddle is convinced everything floating in the seven seas belongs to him. That includes ship-wrecked, green-eyed youths. Especially if they tell him to fuck off.

This is a fic that’s really stuck with me. It’s complete (a miracle in the tomarry fandom) and there’s a fun back-and-forth between Voldemort and Harry. Our goodhearted Harry is a doctor! And for some reason, I’ve been really into Pirate AUs recently.

A Thousand Paths Among The Stars by haplesshippo (Complete)

Harry Potter, newly appointed Captain of the Marauder and son of the famous Captain James Potter, was falling apart at the seams. His crew didn’t respect him, he was lost in the empty expanse of space, nightmares plagued his sleep, and his Commander deserved the Captain position more than he did. Good thing multiple attempts on his life and a vicious warlord after his head was all it took to turn it all around.

Alternatively, that space fic in which Harry Potter almost dies too many times, Tom Riddle slowly becomes the most smitten fool on the ship, and the rest of the crew are all just a bunch of assholes with popcorn watching the show. And exploding ships, don't forget the exploding ships.

Another pirate AU, kind of! But this one is in space! And it’s actually more of a Star Trek AU. Okay, it’s not really a pirate AU but I wanted to keep the theme going. This is such a freaking good fic- the relationship between Tom and Harry is very unusual (not as combative as the last two fics) and there are some nice twists, as well as combination of HP lore and what I assume is Star Trek (I’ve never seen it okay). And the extended cast is excellent. I fully recommend!

The Dragon's Mate by Strange_Soulmates (Complete fics but WIP series)

Harry Potter has recently escaped from his dragon-guarded tower. So has his fellow prisoner - the dragon who was enchanted to guard him. Harry's friend is missing, however, and so he sets off to assure himself of his well-being before he finds the person responsible for imprisoning them both. Accompanied by a stranger with a familiar name, Harry finds himself with more questions than answers as he slowly learns about the customs of dragons and the history of the dragon he befriended, the fearsome Voldemort.

I really love pretty much all of Strange_Soulmates’ fics, but this is definitely my favourite (and maybe the only complete one? Don’t quote me on that.) The characters are so well done, and although I love the first fic a little more than the second, they are both excellent reads! Dragons and wizards? Yes, please!

Everything's Fine in the Beast Division by Merrinpippy (Complete)

Harry's lifelong ambition is to become an auror, but as his knowledge of Dangerous Beasts is somewhat lacking, Newt Scamander agrees to take him on as an apprentice. Contrary to the Weasley twins' predictions that Harry would die of boredom, Harry finds his time at the Ministry very interesting, and befriending the very attractive Tom Riddle doesn't hurt at all- in fact, quite the opposite.

This is such a fantastic fanfiction, and a crossover with Fantastic Beasts (a franchise I can’t stand but that’s a conversation for another time). It manages to be fluffy without going OOC which is difficult for tomarry fics, and the supporting cast are adorable!

To Be Set Free by Merrinpippy

Harry Potter, raised and abused by the Dursleys ever since his parents died, lives in the cupboard under the stairs. He has no friends or family who love him and his life is dull until one day a letter arrives arrives for him, written in green ink, that promises freedom. Sounds familiar, right?

King Thomas Riddle's illness combined with his political paranoia pushes him to arrange three royal balls, after which his son, Prince Tom Riddle, must choose a guest to marry, thereby securing the kingdom's future and solidifying their strength in the eyes of their allies/enemies. Tom is convinced that he will be able to defy his father and choose no-one, or at least he is until at the first ball he meets an attractive stranger with dark hair and glasses who won't tell anyone his name...

This is also excellent, and I love a good Fairytale AU. Merrinpippy has some really good stuff. I love all of it!

As Clichéd as Clichés Go by thecrimsonmonarch (One-shot)

Harry Potter wasn't known for his social skills, mainly because they were practically non-existent.

This is a bit random but very fun. Harry is a fucking dork. That’s all there is to say. A thoroughly amusing Lawyer AU.

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus by The Carnivorous Muffin (WIP)

As the unwitting personification of Death, reality exists to Lily through the veil of a backstage curtain, a transient stage show performed by actors who take their roles only too seriously. But as the Girl-Who-Lived, Lily's role to play is the most important of all, and come hell or high water play it she will, regardless of how awful Wizard Lenin seems to think she is at her job.

This is a still-uploading fanfic and one of my faves. It’s not for everyone- it’s a fem!Harry and she’s so different that she’s really an OC to be honest, and the story is slightly complicated. This is certainly not a fic to go for if you want IC characters. But I really love the writing and the ideas and it’s basically a new, fascinating universe. And even if they’re not IC, I love the characters all dearly. The Carnivorous Muffin is certainly an extremely talented writer- all of her stuff is excellent.

Little Bits by lordmarvoloriddle

Inspired by Cinderella. Only there's no prince and surely no one is singing about their feelings and Harry's life could be a lot worse than having three step-brothers and a father who didn't liked him. He's going to be proven right.

This is such a bloody creepy fic and so so good. The ending is a complete twist and you should definitely read it!

Drarry

Draw a Line from Your Heart to Mine by CreateImagineWrite (Complete)

Being Harry Potter's best friend isn't always fame and beating off raving fans. It's also the anxiety of hearing your best mate's been cursed by another Dark Lord, or love potioned by some crazy woman. Or having his boyfriend you knew nothing about turn up on the Burrow's doorstep.

This is a bit of a random inclusion, but I was just reading this and it is SO GOOD. Perhaps a bit cliched in places, but Ron Weasley’s inner monologue makes up for it.

Turn by Saras_Girl

One good turn always deserves another. Apparently.

This is an also an excellent fic that I read bloody ages ago and has apparently stuck with me. There’s this whole Harry going into an alternate dimension where he’s married to Draco Malfoy plot, but the really beautiful thing is Harry exploring his dissatisfaction with his life- through carpentry! I know it sounds like a crack fic, but it’s not- it’s a gorgeously written fic.

Away Childish Things by lettered

Harry gets de-aged. Malfoy has to help him.

This does the ‘Harry was abused’ revelation so well and really interestingly explores both Harry and Draco’s childhood. The overarching plot is also excellently done, which can’t always be said for character-focused fics!

Jily

#Jily by Chie (Chierafied) (One-shot)

Twitter seemed awash with the hashtag Jily. Lily blinked at in confusion, until she realised it was one of those silly couple monikers people had bestowed on her and Potter. …Though there was a small dissenting crowd following a tweet from Potter’s bandmate Sirius Black: Jily? Hah! More like LAMES.

This is such a fucking cute one-shot. I love social media AUs (if you find any, send them my way), so I loved this!

The Rise and Fall of the Extraordinary Jilysanschilly: Including Excerpts of their Best Collected Works by elanev91 (One-shot)

James Potter and Lily Evans are both wildly successful YouTubers and Sirius cannot believe that people ship them enough to write erotic fanfiction about them. 

You might be picking up on my love of modern Jily AUs. This is so cute, Sirius is weirdly IC as he gets caught up in a smut addiction and James and Lily don’t hate each other from the beginning so that’s fun. A very sweet YouTuber AU.

Hit the Like Button by elixirsoflife (One-shot)

YouTube star James Potter is living it up at uni: filming videos, getting drunk and professing his love for aspiring singer Lily Evans to anyone who'll listen.

It’s another modern AU, but this time, Lily is a famous singer! This was fucking adorable, enough said.

The White Album by cgner (Complete)

James poses as an advice charm in Lily's diary. He's really got to start thinking through his shenanigans.

This is the strangest mix of angst and fluff that I’ve ever read, but it really, really works. It’s also kind of a crossover, as it’s written by the co-author of:

Haggis from Algernon by Rude Gus (Complete)

The fic about nothing.

Everything written by both Rude Gus and cgner is brilliant (not a surprise as they’re almost the same person), but Haggis really is a classic. And check out their Bachelor AU fic! It’s surprisingly brilliant.

Gen and Misc

Kid by Anonymous (Completed)

A Potion's "accident" turns Harry into an eight year old. Draco Malfoy begins planning his kidnapping/conversion to the Dark Side. But Harry's a passive-aggressive, revenge-obsessed little bastard. Maybe Draco will wait on that whole Dark Lord thing… 

Such a cute fic! A really nice character study of Draco and cute kid Harry is always a bonus. I’m not usually a Draco Malfoy fan, but this is a great fic.

Harveste by kyaru-chan (Complete fics but WIP series - probs abandoned)

He's done it. He's just five years old, but he's finally done it. The Dursleys are gone. And now he's with a new family who seems just as twisted as he is. How strange.

This is a really weird fic series. It’s actually an Addams family AU? Harry kills the Dursleys and gets adopted by the Addams family, and then there’s a separate fic for each HP book up to Half-Blood Prince, where I think they stopped. It definitely still worth a read though. Harry is certainly not IC but it’s a fascinating combination of the two universes with all the quirky Addams family humour. It’s certainly a bit of a crack fic to read when you’re down.

Sarcasm and Slytherin by sunmoonandstars (Complete stories but WIP series)

After ten years of misery with the Dursleys, Harry Potter learns that he has magic. Except, in this story, it's not a surprise-the only surprise is that there are others like him. Including his twin brother, Julian Potter, the savior of the Wizarding world.

This isn't the Harry you think you know.

This is WBWL kind of story (although we don’t know if Harry actually is the BWL yet. Harry is a really interesting character and his relationship with his family- especially Jules - is very well developed and nuanced. Harry’s friendships and the authors interpretation of Slytherin house is also a new twist on old tropes- it feels very fresh! I’m eagerly waiting for updates!

So there it is. Just some of my HP faves. I’m considering doing one for Hannibal, Yuri on Ice, The Hobbit, Labyrinth (my tastes are so weird) etc, so let me know if you’re interested!

[randomwordprompts]

If It’s Magic | Chapter 7

A/N: This is a bit longer than my usual posts, but it’s worth the read. You’ll probably wanna cuss me out after, so I’m prepared for the feedback.

Warnings: angst, smut if you squint

Taglist: @bakarilennox @oceanscorazon @wakandas-vibranium @wakandan-flowerz @soufcakmistress @supersizemeplz @reaperdeldrunk @great-neckpectations @babygirlofwakanda @storibambino @yaachtynoboat711 @thebesstjewl

“Amira, wait!”

Xavier called out to the retreating form of the young woman he loves, garnering stares from the people around him as he slumped back in his seat instead of chasing her. His mind replayed the second half of their conversation that escalated into the beginnings of an argument before she left him at the table alone.

“If I was that easy to love why did you lie, Xavier?”

He was at a slight loss for words. He didn’t expect her to ask that, if anything. Instead of trying to placate her, he tried to be honest without being harsh.

“I fucked up, Amira. I broke our rules and I just...I’m sorry.”

“Ya know, I didn’t even care about you breaking that stupid ass rule. We feed off people’s desires, that’s nature and I would never ask you to try and change that. But it’s the fact that you lied to me. Me, of all people. You chose to do that and now you can’t deal with the consequences.”

Her tone made him pull back slightly, stung by the truth in her words.

“Of course I miss you! I feel like a part of me has been missing ever since you left, I won’t deny that. But if we’re being totally honest I didn’t think it would matter to you, which is why I didn’t tell you about that girl coming by. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

Amira looked at him like he’d grown a second head that she wanted to smack right off of him.

“So you thought you were protecting me by lying? You are so full of shit right now! If you were actually being honest you’d say the reason why you didn’t tell me was that you were still hurt over me turning down your proposal.”

“What?! Amira we talked about that and you made it clear that it would be better to wait.”

“Yes we did, but you’re so used to getting everything handed to you that you expected me to cave. That’s the truth that you won’t say and until you’re honest with yourself and me I don’t want to see you again.”

“Me? Used to things handed to me?? That’s very ironic coming from the pampered princess that rode her father’s name through most of her li-”

Before he could finish Amira stood and punched him in the face, resulting in a busted lip and slightly swollen jaw.

“You keep my family’s name out of your fucking mouth. Just because you never knew your fucked up father doesn’t mean you can degrade mine. I worked to get where I am and the people that made me had nothing to do with that. Goodbye, Xavier.”

With that she grabbed her wallet and phone and turned to walk out of the restaurant, ignoring the gasps and murmurs of the other patrons.

After paying for the check and making it clear he wasn’t going to call the police, Xavier grabbed his keys from the table and made his way back to the dorms.

…

“You punched him?!”

“I’m so proud, I’m gonna need a tissue.”

“Shut up Fran, that’s not a good thing!”

“To be fair, she could’ve done worse. We all remember what happened to Justin.”

“Yeah, it took five grown men to pull her off him and we had to pay a small fortune to keep his parents from pressing charges.”

Amira paced in her kitchen with a small towel full of ice on her hand, listening to the varying reactions of her family when she relayed to them what happened. Lucy sat in the living room listening to both the story and the six people trying to talk at once. When she called it was only her mother but at the words “fight with Xavier” everyone gathered in Hannibal’s study to find out what happened. So far everyone spoke except her father and Amira was tired of them going back and forth so she interjected.

“Hey, guys! Y’all are talking a lot but saying nothing relevant right now. Dad, your opinion?”

It was quiet on the other end of the phone as everyone waited to hear what he’d say since he’d been silent until this point. Sitting behind his desk, Hannibal was silent for a moment longer before he finally replied.

“He shouldn’t have said what he did, but you also shouldn’t have punched him, frau. As you know, two wrongs never make a right.”

Amira sighed and looked over at Lucy, who was not at all trying to hide that she was listening in.

“I guess. But I meant what I said and I’m not going to apologize for that.”

“Understandable, but give it some time. Maybe you two will be able to talk when things are less tense.”

“I don’t know dad, we’ll see.”

…

“What the hell did you do??”

It was a statement instead worded as a question that Daniel posed as Xavier walked through the door of their shared space with a napkin held to his busted lip. At the implication that he caused his minor injury, the incubus went into full defense mode.

“I didn’t do shit! I asked that spoiled brat a question and she accused me of something that wasn’t true. When I told her about herself, she got mad and punched me.”

“So you ran into Amira, she told you the truth you don’t wanna hear yet, you got defensive like you are now and insulted her, and she decked your foot-in-mouth ass. Did I miss anything?” Daniel asked with a straight face.

Xavier huffed and sat on the couch as his angry facade began to crack. He knew that Amira was right, but hearing it out loud from her lips drove him to deny it out of fear that she’d simply cut him off again, which she did anyway after he said what he did.

“Man...I fucked up. She’s going to go and fall in love with this Jason nigga and I’ll be stuck with a hole in my heart.”

“Or, hear me out, you can apologize and try to start over. It took time to build what y’all had and it’s gonna take time to get it back. Right now you just have to accept her relationship and focus on being her friend.”

“I guess you’re right. I’ve got some work to do, but I need to find out if our bond is still as strong as it used to be…”

…

Two Days Later

Amira and Jason are on the couch of his temporary apartment cuddled together, Jason smoking a blunt of his special blend of Indica. His free hand rested on Amira’s lower back while they idly watched Fresh Prince re-runs, his mind clouded with both the weed and how to broach the subject of what he’d said to her just a few days ago.

“Mira, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah babe, what’s up?”

Jason hesitated before replying, “Do you love me?”

“Wh-what?”

“I said, do you love me? Because when I said it the other day you kinda clammed up on me.”

Amira sighed and took a minute together her thoughts before deciding that right then wasn’t the time to break his heart. As much as she liked Jason, and she liked him a lot, she didn’t love him and knew that even if she did it wouldn’t be like he loved her. With that in mind, she decided to save that conversation for another day.

“I’m sorry I hung up on you, I was just caught off-guard and then Xavier showed up out of nowhere and I had a knee-jerk reaction. Forgive me baby?” her answer was ended with a sweet kiss to his lips, one that made him give a smile that reached his hazy eyes.

Having him distracted Amira kissed him again but slower, deeper, slipping her tongue into his mouth with ease as his hands started to roam her soft body. Without another word, he sat up and she straddled his lap, hands going into his hair as he directed his lips to the column of her throat and trailed down towards the valley between her breasts. Amira smirked to herself as she felt him start to harden beneath her, prompting her to roll her hips slowly against the growing length.

It didn’t take long for heated kisses and fondling to turn into Amira and Jason doing a familiar horizontal dance on the couch. Amira bounced on his dick at her own pace, enjoying the faces and sounds she could pull out of him as she got her fill, the energy flowing from him giving her a high that was totally different from what he got while smoking. Just when she leaned her head back to give Jason access to her neck once more she heard what sounded like a faint voice saying her name. She assumed it was Jason and simply tugged on his hair again as she rolled her hips a bit more fervently, gasping when she heard her name again.

“Amira…”

Her eyes popped open as she realized it wasn’t Jason, but Xavier’s voice she heard. She knew he wasn’t there, they hadn’t spoken since their fight a few days ago, but she knew that voice anywhere. Not letting her movements falter she looked around as subtly as she could so as to not alert Jason to what she was doing. Not seeing the source of the sound she tried to relax and told herself she was hearing things. She closed her eyes and bit back a moan as her movements sped up, Jason slapping her ass at the same time she heard the voice saying her name again. Her lips parted in a gasp as she felt a familiar sensation shoot up her spine, one that she hadn’t felt in months but she’d never forget. Amira’s eyes rolled back behind her lids as she felt her climax approaching, the voice growing louder and more urgent in her ears.

“Amira, I need you. Can you feel me? Because I can feel you, mon petit…”

She let her head fall back as she felt her body release, her pitch rising as she said his name in a yelp. It wasn’t until she realized Jason stopped dead in his tracks that she realized exactly who’s name she said.

“Did you just call me Xavier?!”

Amira’s head snapped forward and she met Jason’s shocked gaze, his hurt quickly turning into anger the more he replayed the moment in his mind. Before she could respond he pulled back from her arms and looked at her in a way she knew all too well, though that still didn’t prepare her for the accusation that came from his lips next.

“Is that why you didn’t tell me you loved me the other day? Because you were fucking him?”

“Excuse me?! Jason are you serious right now?”

“You’re asking me that like you didn’t just say his name during sex! What else could it be?”

Amira pinched the bridge of her nose before getting up from Jason’s lap, grabbing a t-shirt and pulling it on while she put some physical distance between them before she found herself saying something she’d regret.

“I can’t explain why I said his name without sounding completely insane, but I didn’t fuck Xavier.”

Jason scoffed as he pulled his boxer briefs and sweats back on, glaring at the back of her head.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised, honestly. I fell in love with a succubus and expected her to be faithful.”

Amira paused the small sway she was doing when the words left his mouth, a pain settling in her chest and spreading as she turned to return his glare. When he saw the look on her face, he felt a tinge of regret, knowing how sensitive she was about that subject. Feeling bad at that thought he opened his mouth to apologize only to have her hold up her hand and stop him. Without another word Amira started to collect the rest of her clothes and get dressed, Jason watching her and trying to find the right words to say. When she had everything she walked over to him and got so close that if she was tall enough they would’ve been nose to nose, ensuring he’d hear exactly what she had to say when she opened her mouth.

“If I wanted to play into the stereotype of being a succubus, just know I would’ve killed you the first night we were together. Asshole.”