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caligobeltrao · 4 years

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I for one would love 2 hear ur thoughts on the hannibal novel 👀👀 - bloodybrahms ☺

ahhh thank you BB!! <3 I’m gonna throw it under a cut bc I know people aren’t gonna want my ramblings clogging up their dash lol.

Edit after I’ve written it: Holy shit this turned into a monster but tbf I did say I was going to rant. I think I miss writing college essays...

Also, I would like to note bc I’m about to bitch, I do still love Hannibal and Clarice and all of the franchise. Hell, I even love book Hannibal because I’m garbage and want to be special. So yeah. It’s a fond bitching.

Okay where to fuckin begin man... This novel was a fucking Shit Show, my dudes. It was like baby’s first fanfiction.

Let’s just jump in, shall we?

So by now, having read both Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, I know Harris injects of lot of sexual shit into his novels, fine whatever, but the amount of pedophilia is insane. Like, Red Dragon with the grandmother threatening to cut his dick off by holding it in between scissors????? And then we have Mason Verger, worst human on the planet. Like jfc I’ll go into him specifically more later but just. Men. Why does it always have to be sexual.

Like that time Clarice wasn’t wearing a bra and she wanted to prove to Paul Krendler she wasn’t wearing a wire so she flashed him her tits?? Unnecessary, Harris. Bullshit on all counts.

Next, poor Ardelia Mapp. So he clearly wrote out her accent in Silence, which frankly reads racist since to me it seemed like he did it every time a character of color was met but he didn’t for Clarice’s Southern accent except for this book when she was talking to Ardelia. Now, that’d be a cool way to show how close they are, sure, but it just... She didn’t show up enough to warrant that reaction from me, plus all the other casually racist shit he throws in.

Ardelia’s literally there as the wise Black best friend to help Clarice along. She doesn’t feel like her own character, she’s only there in conjunction with her, or doing something for her. She was the fucking valedictorian for Christ fucking sake, she also works at the Bureau but if her department was mentioned it was only once in passing. She was not a full character which fucking blows because she could’ve been so cool.

And real quick before I forget, I hate how she’s treated in the end. I do like she gets a reference and that brainwashed Clarice sent her an emerald ring and a note saying she was okay, but Ardelia was abandoned by her best friend (that she had lived with) with not even a phone call and they will never see each other again and I think Ardelia knows it. It sucks and I’m heartbroken for this woman.

I’m gonna touch a little bit on the racism too. Now I’m white and not the most qualified to talk about this shit, but I do wanna mention it because it makes me mad. There’s just so many unnecessary slurs, any POC is more of a background helper character to Clarice than anything or a foil.

For example, Evelda Drumgo. She starts us off. Badass Black woman who runs a drug cartel. She chooses to shoot at Clarice and risk her baby’s life, and we have Clarice wash the baby off and save his life. Then Evelda’s mother is written as irrational when she slaps Clarice for visiting the baby in the hospital; I get Clarice’s impulse, but that woman just lost her daughter because Clarice killed her. I would’ve slapped Clarice too, even if it was a totally justifiable shot.

The baby himself is used as a foil throughout other parts, most notably to me when Clarice goes to visit Mason the first time. There are two Black boys from a foster home playing in a room with a camera so Mason can watch them, and it shakes Clarice up a lil bit because of the baby, but it says she’s getting more used to it.

Now this is half and half well written and shoddy to me. It’d be a cool moment, if the whole incident wasn’t nearly completely forgotten for the rest of the book shortly afterword. It could show growth, if Clarice had any growth to show.

And then the Romani people who are literally just used and thrown away. Sickening. Also very broadly used the stereotypes we hear which Sucks; the three we meet in any sort of depth are pickpockets, one was already in jail and Pazzi used his leverage as a police officer to get her to do what he wanted and threatened to have her baby taken away from her permanently, like it was just bad. And then the man got killed. Pazzi let him bleed out. Asshole.

The slurs. I could take out all of them and pretty much have the same damn thing. Like I get showing negative aspects of characters and just because a character’s racist doesn’t mean the author is, but with the characters already being as shitty as they are, fully didn’t need it to make them worse. Entirely unnecessary. Racism or the character being racist has no impact on the plot is the major thing, I think. And you can replace that with anything along those lines, like sexist, homophobic, transphobic. It didn’t impact the plot, they can still be shitty, you just don’t need to use them.

This also goes in reference to Margot being a lesbian. And the transphobia holy shit, it was disgusting. Harris had Clarice think something so cruel and unnecessary it’s like my guy why was that even remotely something we needed to hear. We didn’t. I wanted to stop reading because that’s not my Clarice, first and foremost, and second, this is supposed to be the character we LIKE. And now I don’t like ANYBODY in this damn book.

And he treats Margot like shit too, and Barney.

Their friendship was beautiful and great and finally for once something nice was happening in Margot’s life and I was happy reading it, and then FOR SOME REASON Margot goes to shower in the same room as Barney after a workout, which makes no sense, and then Barney tries to force a kiss on her (and he was hard, Harris made that very clear) and she had been sexually assaulted by Mason her brother and ruin the whole damn thing and none of it would have changed any other piece of the novel if you removed it!!!!!!!!! Entirely unnecessary!!!!!! And Barney had the gall to say well I couldn’t help myself like none of that was realistic in the slightest, she never would have went in the same room to shower with him.

Something you need to do is basically get some suspension of disbelief from your reader and maintain and stretch that as you go, right? Well mine was gone at that moment.

Also side note Margot is basically just there to show how shitty Mason is for the umpteenth time. Her whole thing is lesbian sexual assault victim.

Also heavily implied she was a lesbian because of the sexual assault. And we rarely see Judy, her girlfriend, so. Bad. Bad all around.

Circling back around to Clarice and how disappointing she is in the books as compared to the movies. Well, Clarice is also a poorly written character. She’s 1000x better in the movie. Hell, she’s even better in this book than she was in Silence, but that’s not fucking hard.

Pretty much all the characters are so flat they don’t even classify as two dimensional.

Like sure, maybe we wanna say Clarice didn’t really solve much in the first book and was just handed everything because she was a trainee and that’s what Hannibal wanted.

Like if you remember the John Mulaney sketch of Delta Airlines where he’s just going “Okay!” and running to the next place he’s told, that’s Clarice.

Okay so why does she get goaded into all this shit now? She should know better. She should know how to handle herself better. Like she messes up basic fucking shit like clearing a room before untying Hannibal, which was stupid, she seems oblivious to some of the politics at work even though she’s been in the FBI for like 7 years now, she would at least have more fucking contacts than Brigham who died in the beginning and Jack Crawford who died at the end by rolling over in his bed to his dead wife’s side and Ardelia who would be near the same level as Clarice I guess but I still don’t know her damn department???? Like you fucking network.

Plus after her final fall from grace with the FBI, we meet or are told of random side characters that go no where and do nothing just to say “hey look at my special little girl, everyone likes her and looks up to her!!” Why? Because she caught Buffalo Bill 7 years ago and then never got a promotion or even worked with the BAU? Again, it does not make sense. People may pity her? But a random girl in the lab wouldn’t be fangirling. Starling herself said her career had gone nowhere because of the politics and not sleeping with Paul. You need to show me why she’s likable in her actions not others words.

We spend more time away from her than with her anyways but Jesus.

AND HER IN THE ENDING. She was fucking BRAINWASHED????? Bull FUCKING SHIT. He completely ruined anything he even remotely might’ve had in this cluster fuck of a novel.

Case in point, difference from the movie, Hannibal spends weeks (possibly? it’s left purposefully vague and I’m guessing that’s because Harris didn’t know the ins and outs and wanted his novel done) meticulously brainwashing Clarice, he had stolen her father’s bones and she’s so far gone at that point she doesn’t care, and the whole scene where Paul is getting his brain eaten? Yeah, she happily indulges and when he insults her, she asks Hannibal for more. Fuck you, Thomas Harris.

And Hannibal’s a Gary Stu, fucking fight me.

In the movie he either is or he’s tap dancing on that line, don’t get me wrong, but in the novels it’s insufferable because it doesn’t seem earned. The pigs didn’t attack him because they didn’t smell fear on him. No. He’s easily able to drug and brainwash Clarice and take her as his lover. No. Go away. He’s so smart and one step ahead and can manipulate anyone and everyone into doing what he wants and blah blah blah shut up! A character being perfect isn’t interesting even if he’s evil!! We all know he’s never truly in danger because of how Harris writes him and that’s boring!!

And I personally have a pet peeve where the villain is described as a monster or unstoppable. That’s boring and I no longer care about your story. I know 9 times out of 10 your main character is going to find a bullshit way around the impossible and kill it. Or it’s just like a default personality and nothing else is added to it. And that’s Hannibal.

I’m on Hannibal Rising now and, spoiler alert, he’s very bland as a character. (Also Harris switched some details in the novel which kinda annoys me like get your own canon right my man but whatever.) The plot itself is pretty fun? I guess? Like there’s action and stuff and I’m enjoying that. But it’s the same set up where Harris’s Gary Stu always wins, like he was 13 in the book when he killed the butcher. Let. Your. Characters. Lose.

Also even more racist shit but what did I expect really.

Anyways, I have no idea who I’m supposed to root for in the novel because all the characters are just kinda shitty. It really just boils down to Harris not showing any redeeming qualities or actions from any of his characters. I liked Margot for a while out of spite but she never really went anywhere and the way she killed Mason (btw she sodomized him with a cattle prod to get his semen bc side plot and then stuffed his Moray eel down his throat and somehow I still don’t think that’s the worst part of the novel) just. No thanks really.

All the random little side plots were also pretty not great. How many time does Harris have to say Pazzi of the Pazzis? Like I fucking get what you’re going for, even if I hadn’t watched the movie I’d be like, “Oh this dude’s gonna get hung outta that window, dope,” the literal first time. Stop treating your readers like idiots.

And then Margot’s side plot was that the will their father left said she needed a biological heir to inherit because he was pissed she’s gay and we needed the homophobia I guess, so Mason got everything, and she was helping him with the Hannibal shit because he’s pretty incapacitated duh, and in return he would give her his jizz so Judy could be artificially inseminated and they could have a child and get some of her inheritance. I don’t care. It was all very gross, and Mason kept saying shit like suck me off you’ve done it before, I won’t be able to feel it anyway, maybe Judy’ll suck me off you think she’d like that. It’s all gross.

And I guess this is a good a time as any to finally start on Mason. So a great rule of writing to make everything work better and give your story more depth is to give everyone both positive and negative traits right, even and especially the bad guys? Like, rules can always be broken if you’re a good enough writer, but I believe I have established that Harris isn’t quite there yet, to put it nicer than I have.

Mason is one bad trait after another. It’s like when Harris was bored of constantly writing about plain ole pedophilia, he threw a dart at a board of horrible things and landed on topics such as: pedophilia but make it incest, extreme sadism, sadism but against children now, and good old fashioned racism! Fucking Cordell was supposed to collect the children’s tears after Mason would make them cry and put them in martinis for him. Realism went out the goddamn door real fast with this novel y’all. Like a fucking Scooby Doo villain over here.

And he loves talking about being a sadistic pedophile, he will literally not shut up about it to Clarice when she first gets there telling her about his trip to Africa and this portable guillotine he has and just. I get it was probably like trying to make her uncomfortable on purpose because he’s a Freak, but it went way too far if only because it was annoying, not even uncomfortable for me as a reader. I was bored real quick. Get to the shit I actually wanna know.

And it sucks because of the weird, over-the-top way of how he died, I got zero satisfaction from his death. I couldn’t even be like, “Well at least Margot got her revenge,” because that’s not how she originally wanted to kill him!!! She wanted someone else to extract his semen for the insemination but couldn’t find anybody to do it for her, and then Hannibal, whilst tied up, said use a cattle prod and you won’t have to touch him and when you kill him you can blame it on me, and I’m pretty sure even if she hit his prostate right every time and he COULD cum from that alone in addition to how his body is Fucked Up now, it would’ve been a lengthy, gross, and re-traumatizing experience for her because all she wanted to do was avoid seeing and touching her brother’s private parts again, which I think is a totally fair and rational desire.

So I have to live with the fact that she was desperate enough to not lose the house and business because of her homophobic father to go through her childhood trauma again. There’s no place in this book that has a somewhat positive conclusion.

Even the very last bit where Barney has a girlfriend and a ton of cash from Margot, all he wants to do is see every Vermeer in the world right? Well, because Hannibal and Clarice are in Buenos Aires where one of them is on display, Barney gets spooked and has him and his girlfriend leave before he can see it and it ends that bit with he never got to see it ever so he didn’t even complete his dream!!!

Also for good measure, Harris throws in that Hannibal and Clarice enjoy having sex regularly. For no reason. Just letting us know.

I know this seemed like just a bitch fest, because it was, but I kinda sorta enjoyed it? It kept my attention at the very least. It’s really disappointing because like I said, I love the movies, all of them, and have since I was little. To see the original not stand up to that image in my mind is a little heartbreaking. Especially Clarice. She was a strong female role model to me, but turns out she’s... just kinda there. And her ending is that of her no longer being herself and getting that agency taken away from her.

There is a reference to her waking up from a sleep, if she is asleep (that’s kind of how he worded it), that kinda let us draw our conclusions on whether she was just brainwashed into being good for him or if she was willingly going along with this and was in love with him I guess and it felt like a slap in the face. She turned from a hardworking, modest country girl working her way up to the FBI into a female Hannibal. Which on the surface sounds kinda cool because we love luxe serial killers, but that’s not what she wanted or who she was set up to be. And to insinuate that she would even remotely consider choosing that path for herself is at its best an insult to her and at its worst a complete erasure of her background, what little character Harris did set up. It also completely erases my own connections to her, as a girl from a small town myself who has bigger dreams than this and also... a good, strong set of morals. He just tossed that out the window.

Obviously if you’re on this blog, you like slasher x reader shit, and this is a novel with a slasher x a person, right? So why am I so mad about it? Because the whole point of this blog and reader insert fanfiction in general is that you are taken as you are and loved wholly as yourself and that you are worthy of that love (in a fictional setting, not really loving people who are like this, which I think we understand but I want to clarify). She was not taken as she was. He is not in love with her, she is not in love with him. She was transformed into what he wanted out of her. He couldn’t get her to be Mischa, his first plan, so he made her like himself. And the fact that he was so easily able to do it makes me upset, and even more so is that it’s not written like it’s weird or wrong. It’s written like they’re in love and this is a good thing.

He may have been going for the classic “everyone is capable of doing bad things” stuff we see a lot, but we got that from Margot already. And Barney, for stealing Lecter’s stuff and selling it. And Paul, and the entire FBI for turning on Clarice, and the kidnappers, and Pazzi, and random shitty side characters. And none of it was particularly well written or made some sort of strong statement. It just was. And that’s not a good enough basis for a novel.

Anyways, if you made it this far holy shit you’re a saint and I love you, let’s be friends?? <3 Have a good day y’all, thank you BB for giving me permission to ramble.

#bloodybrahms #ask #no joke i spent like 5-6 hours total writing this i had a Lot to say

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hopelesscobwebs · 8 years

Text

92 Asks Game!

I’m finally doing this. I thought it would be fun and i’m bored af so here we go:

Tagged by: @just-a-crazy-nerd love you <3

LAST

1) Drink: Water (gotta stay hydrated y’all)

2) Phone call: My Dad.

3) Text message: “My legs are dead. All I wanna do is sleep but I have to do music homework” to my friend like a week ago (I don’t text much lmao).

4) Song listened to: Sumertime, By My Chemical Romance

5) Time you cried: Maybe 2 days ago? (I was really sad over MCR), but the last time I really, like really cried was maybe last week.

HAVE YOU EVER

6) Dated somebody twice: ahaha twice? You’re so funny. I haven’t dated someone once...

7) Been cheated on: My cat once slept on my sisters bed instead of mine so that counts.

8) Kissed someone and regretted it: What don’t you get about FOREVER ALONE HERE.

9) Lost someone special: Perhaps, It kinda depends really what you count as “lost”. But yeah, unfortunately.

10) Been depressed: I have been in dark mindsets a lot lately.

11) Gotten drunk and puked: Never been drunk before (I am so cool like that)

THREE FAVOURITE COLOURS

12) Probably Blue, But to narrow it down: Teal

13) Rich purple

14) Probably black

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU

15) Made new friends: Tons (ilysm guys)

16) Fallen out of love: no (kinda yes... but William doesn’t count)

17) Laughed until you cried: Yes, Yesterday (we were bottle flipping and then someone made a seal noise, don’t even get me started)

18) Found out someone was gossiping about you: Hopefully not, there’s not much to gossip about when it comes to me.

19) Met someone who changed your life: If Discovering MCR counts... then yes.

20) Found out who your true friends are: *Ahem*... yes...

21) Kissed someone on your Facebook list: Haha this list of asks is so funny. what don’t you get about NOT BEEN KISSED EVER... *cries*

HOW MANY/MUCH

22) Facebook friends: like almost 400? idek. (I know them all in person btw, i’m not one of those weirdos that just friends anybody). I barely use FB tbh

23) Pets: oh boy.... I have 6 cats guys... thats right, you can call me the crazy cat lady.

24) Want to change your name: My last name yes. Quick, somebody marry me

WHAT

25) Did I get for my birthday: A Spongebob birthday cake, a Vampire Diaries pillow, depression um what... I got to eat all my fave foods in one day, that was pretty special even though i threw up at the end of it

26) Time I woke up: like 9:30?

27) Were you doing at midnight: Watching Frerard video edits...

28) Can’t you wait for: FOR ME TO ORDER MCR MERCH AS A TRIBUTE ON MARCH 22 *cries and dies*

29) Was the last time you saw your mom: like 4 hours ago.

30) Was something you wish you could change about your life: I sometimes wish I was born 10 years earlier but then I remember... there’d be no quality memes for a long time...

31) Are you listening to right now: MCR, what else honestly...

32) Gets on your nerves: When people make up those shitty things like “ UR NOT A TRUE FAN UNLESS YOU HAVE THIS OR DO THIS BLAH BLAH” like stfu, I am a fan in my own way. Racists, Homophobes, just basically anyone who thinks they have the right to tell you not to be yourself, like seriously, fuck off.

33) Talked to a person named Tom: My cat is called Tom, so that counts.

34) Is your most visited website: Tumblr, no doubt (or YouTube or guitar tabs, or Putlocker lets be honest)

35) Elementary school/primary school: I can’t even remember tbh and I ain’t tellin you

36) High School: The one I’m at now. Ha, got ya

37) College: n o , I am too young, gosh

38) Hair colour: Brown/ Blonde (streaks, naturally from sun lmao)

39) Long/short hair: I just cut it all off this year. Think 1920′s hair and that’s me.

40) Crush: There’s a cute guy in my chem class but that’s about it #foreveralone

41) Do you like about yourself: My final wakeup call of music interests. I used to be so shallow in that department. Um.... I guess I like the fact that I get on better with older people (I skipped a year at school so all my classmates are a year older anyways) idek. There’s not really much to like.

42) Piercings: 1 on each ear (i’m thinking of getting a second set) But I barely wear earrings tbh

43) Blood type: Idk, it would be cool to know tho

44) Nickname: Some of my friends call me Em but barely. Emy / Emz by family (if any of you call me that, it’ll be weird lmao) PLEASE START A TREND...CALL ME EM

45) Relationship status: single as a pringle and not ready to mingle please i have anxiety *daydreams about meeting perfect boy*

46) Zodiac: Scorpio yeah boi

47) Pronouns: she/her

48) Favourite show: Supernatural, Miraculous Ladybug (don’t call me a kid for watching it I swear I’ll end u ahaha), Rick and Morty, The Vampire Diaries... I could go on for days

49) Tattoos: I always think they’re a cool concept but i’d probably chicken out at the last minute, so no

50) Left or right handed: right

FIRST

51) Surgery: I got a tooth removed quite a few years back, I went under genral anaesthetic and everything.

52) Piercings: Ears

53) Best friend: Gabby, We don’t talk anymore sadly but I still love her <3

54) Sport: Ummm well i’ve always loved badminton but i’ve never taken a serious sport class before lmao

55) Vacation: I’m pretty sure it was to Melbourne, Australia, We saw some really cool outdoor art and went to see Wicked at some theater, that’s all I remember.

56) Pair of shoes: Say wat?

RIGHT NOW

57) Eating: I wish I was eating

58) Drinking: the dead souls of my enemies wait what

59) I am about to: Rearrange my sitting position and continue to write this long ass ask thing.

60) Listening to: The End, My Chemical Romance

61) Waiting for: My sis to get home so I can use her credit card to buy MCR merch, no really, this is the truth. I n e e ed it

62) Want to see: MCR get back together in 2019 for at least a reunion song or SOMETHING PLEASE. Also, a Panic! concert because I missed the last one in my country. ALSO a Supernatural Convention

63) Want to get married: Well it would be nice, gotta find a guy first, there’s the hard part

64) Career: I never know... I like to think that my dream is to be in a band but that aint ever gonna happen. I really wanna do something that can help people idek.

WHICH IS BETTER

65) Hugs/kisses: Well i’ve never kissed anyone and I lOvE HuGs, THEY ARE JUST SO NICE, LIKE AHHH GIMME UR LOVE, GIMME HUUUGGSSS. If I ever meet any of you in person, I’ll be really shy, but know deep down that all I wanna do is HUG YOU SNDKJGSND.

66) Lips/eyes: Eyes hold secrets, I love them

67) Taller/shorter: gimme da toll peeps, But I love the smol beans too

68) Younger/older: It depends

69) Romantic/spontaneous: probably spontaneous just to keep me on my toes.

70) Nice arms/nice stomach: um wat? idek i dont pay attention to that

71) Sensitive/loud: Sensitive

72) Hookup/relationship: Relationship definitely

73) Troublemaker/hesitant: Hesitant alien

HAVE YOU EVER

74) Kissed a stranger: W h A t D o N t Y o U g E t A b O u T i T... I AINT KISSED NOBODY BEFORE. gosh, way to rub it in *cries*

75) Drank hard liquor: well. i’ve tried some heavy stuff before but it was a sip and I spat it out coz it literally tasted like p o i s o n. Alcohol is so gross

76) Lost glasses/contact lenses: Don’t need glasses

77) Turned someone down: ??? There hasn’t been anyone to turn down god damnit

78) Canoodling on a first date: They gotta earn that, so no

79) Broken someone’s heart: I sure as hell hope not.

80) Had your own heart broken: mcr breaks my heart E V E R Y GOD DAMN DAY

81) Been arrested: no, I am a good gal

82) Cried when someone died: yes, my grandmother

83) Fallen for a friend: Oh boy, yesyesyes

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

84) Yourself: Not really, but I want to.

85) Miracles: I wish for them but I don’t really think they occur

86) Santa Claus: No, I actually never believed in him when I think about it

87) Kisses on a first date: YAS when it’s been all perfect and he walks ya up to your door ABJISLBHDLBHLA

88) Angels: um... Castiel???

89) Love at first sight: Yes but not like first sight, more like first discussion, when you can instantly click with someone in that first moment idk.

OTHER

90) Best friend’s name: Can I just list all my tumblr friends names? Because YOU GUYS ARE ACTUALLY ALL MY FAVES, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU <3

91) Eye color: Grey Blue

92) Favourite movie: idek there are so many but: The Abduction Club, is one of my faves, Singin’ in the Rain, Sing Street, and that’s all that’s coming to mind atm.

I tag: (all my BEAUTIFUL AMAZING tumblr frens I mentioned before) @omg-i-cannot-even @shipsareamazing123 @mychemicalchinchilla @potterlock5ever @immacrazyfangirl @trashholeofshittybandstuff @shadowgirl077 @that-awkward-fangirl @lizbeth-loves-bobear @anyone i forgot and anyone who wants to do it! go ahead! <3

#asks game #i tag you #tags #tag game #frens #questions #yay #92 asks game!#i love you all so much

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