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xaryxarybdis · 2 years ago

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hello!!!! i have a very indulgent writing question as i am working on a short story for my creative writing class😭 for your work on archive of our own, i bequeath nothingness by no one, what inspired some of your perceptions on time loops and nihilism? what were your key inspirations for writing?

Hello ! First of all, my apologies for taking so long to answer, I hope this doesn't reach you too late to be useful. And don't worry-I love talking about writing and everything it implies, and I guarantee you your question was no less self-indulgent than my answer will be.

Concerning the time-loop aspect of the story, the most immediate source of inspiration that comes to my mind is the movie Edge of Tomorrow (2014). The movie itself is a fairly classic action flick, but I remember seeing it when it came out and immediately being completely enamored with the concept of a time loop that isn't the classic groundhog day-type situation, but rather one where the loops are dependant on the death of the protagonist. So that definitely stuck at the back of my mind and ultimately inspired the way I wrote I bequeath nothingness to no one. I have not looked into the matter and this particular movie might not be the first piece of media to put this particular spin on the idea of time loops, but it's the one I personally came across during my formative years, so that's the one I'd quote as an inspiration.

The nihilism part of your question was much more difficult for me to answer, because I found it much more difficult to reverse-engineer where most of this stuff came from. So I'm afraid my answer might not be quite as complete as you might have wished, and for that I apologize. I think part of the difficulty that much of it is simply part of the greater cultural canon I grew up in, though I can pinpoint some key elements: looking back, a lot of the sense of absolute alienation from the rest of human society can be traced back to Albert Camus (esp. The Stranger, wherein the protagonist's profound otherness and decaying sense of reality really stuck with me). Moreover, I remember reading Kafka's Metamorphosis not too long before writing this particular piece and while I don't disagree with all the classical interpretations of the story, I felt very strongly that it also served as a particularly striking metaphor for mental illness (or, well, at least mine): the sensation of slowly transforming into something monstruous and unrecognizable, of being put away in a room, neither allowed into human society nor to escape it entirely, but kept quietly, with an iron grip, at arm's length. More pertinently, I think Sasuke's mental state in the story has a lot in common with that of the protagonist of Kafka's tale: he, himself, is slowly changing, metamorphosing, into something he feels is profoundly alien, while all around him, the world stays the same, stays normal in a way he knows he will never be again.

The last work I will quote as inspiration will sound random as shit, but hear me out, I swear I have a point in there somewhere: Thomas Harris' Hannibal, third installment in his Hannibal Lecter series. I fucking hate this book. It makes me unjustifiably angry. Not because it's bad, it's great. I just hate what it does to its Main character with a passion.

Now, for context (and spoilers ahoy): Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal both follow Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent who, for reasons unclear and unimportant to our purposes, attracts the attention of the titular character Hannibal Lecter, who then proceeds to slowly, thoroughly fuck up her life. Towards the end of the book, Clarice’s life clearly has gone past the point of no return: even if she survives, she has no life to return to. Her career is gone, she is under suspicion from the law, and even her friends are in danger by association. She is cast adrift, and there she has one choice: let the man who did this to her die (not even kill him herself - simply let his death happen), or try, herself, alone, with no support, against overwhelming odds, to save him.

Here is the thing about Clarice Starling: she is not a heroic paragon of virtue. She’s a cool, calculated person, who’s clever enough to recognize in herself seeds of ruthlessness that could become evil. But here is the thing about Clarice: she chooses to do good. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t come to her instinctively, as it does some people, because she consistently, relentlessly, makes the choices that will benefit others. And here, at the end of her journey, where all around her is darkness, and the world is screaming at her that everything and everyone is terrible and cruel and unjust, she drops the sickest line of Thomas Harris’ entire career:

The world will not be this way within the reach of my arm.

This simple sentence - both acceptance and refusal, a decision to stand her ground on this undeniably dark earth - crystallises Starling as one of the most memorable characters I’ve ever read in fiction.

And then Thomas Harris just goes and fucking ruins it. The tl;dr: she succeeds in saving Hannibal Lecter’s life, he kidnaps her and brainwashes her into eating people with him, they’re in love and they go off into the sunset, to live happily ever after. The end.

In a book series about the most fucked-up murders you could possibly come up with, this might be the most repulsive thing to happen. Because, let’s be clear: Clarice Starling, at this point, is dead. The one we know, anyway. She dies the moment she saves Lecter, because what comes out of what he does to her next is a scrambled mess of the parts that used to make up Starling, but now make up this still, eerie, bobbing doll. For the reader, who has followed in Clarice’s footsteps for two books, it feels as close to a profanation as can be. It’s obscene. And perhaps it’s the point, but what I wanted to get at is: Sasuke, too, is not a “naturally” good character. His morals are fucked, he doesn’t know what normal is, he commits acts of objectively great evil. Like Clarice Starling, goodness is something he has to seek. Part of his growth is learning that not only goodness is a choice he has to make, but that it is one he can make. That the world is dark, and cruel, and terrible, but that he doesn’t have to be. He can refuse this dark and unjust world the right to be this way within the reach of his arm.

So, basically: if only out of spite, I like to think a little bit of Clarice Starling lives on in Sasuke. (She deserved better and I will die on this hill, thank you very much.)

The last source of inspiration I’ll quote is, quite simply, folk tales. More specifically folklore about fairies and elves, who contributed quite a bit to my version of Kaguya. I won’t divulge the exact area I come from because I don’t want to dox myself, but in the version of the tales I grew up with, the fair folk lives in the mirrors and crevices of the world: the water-smoothed caves underfoot, where you can still hear the slow, unescapable tinkling noise of water dripping; the burrows under the roots of elder trees; the back of a man’s mind; the hollow heart of the moon.

In the stories, the fairies, nominally, look humanoid. But they’re wrong: their limbs are too long, their fingers too tapered, their faces too pointy, too smooth. They’re imitating us, but they always get it just a little bit wrong. It clearly inspired this line in particular:

[...] its smooth white face, a triangular imitation of humanity, human skin threaded over a lion’s skull.

Kaguya - and, by extension, the concept of godhood in the story - resembles the folktales’ fairies as well in the sense that she is unchanging. If you fall into Fairyland, you are surrounded with creatures that incomprehensibly older and more powerful than you are. To them, you are, at best, a toy, at worst, vermin. But the fairies have one weakness: they do not change. They’re immortal. They cannot. But you, mortal, you have this thing they cannot name and yet so desperately crave: a heart.

This is how you outwit the fairies, in the stories: you endure. You are vermin, and like vermin you can be stamped down, but never for long. This is what the stories tell you: be patient, be watchful, be clever. Be strong, for you must endure; be cunning, for you must learn. Do the one thing they cannot do: adapt.

Sasuke’s story is pretty much a retelling of that one.

I realize now that this is getting horribly long; I apologize. (Though I did warn you: once you get me talking...) I’ve probably missed a lot of influences that i’ll feel stupid for not recalling later, but that’s life, I suppose. I hope this was helpful to you in any way, and, if not, then at least entertaining. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them, I think I’ve made it obvious that I would be delighted to answer. And if you ever want to share what you wrote with me, I would be absolutely honored to read it! (Though I perfectly understand if you cannot or would rather not share it, I just want you to know the option is open if you so choose.) Have a wonderful day!

#ask

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rcntlydcccased · 3 years ago

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Thoughts on the ending of the novel ‘Hannibal’

I feel like I’m the only person in the world who’d only just read the Hannibal Lecter series but here we are. I finally got around to it and loved it. I’ve always liked the movies and now I realise how inferior they are. I know the whole world has decided whether they love or hate the ending of the series but I need to get my own thoughts in order lol. When I first finished it I had a major “what the actual fuck” moment but now I’ve given myself a day to construct an opinion and here it is:

(TLDR: I don’t think the end was out of character and it was inevitable from the start)

I think it was inevitable that Clarice starling and Hannibal lecter would end up together in some capacity and I feel like everyone knew that, even if they didn’t envision it happening in the exact way it did in the final novel. I’m gonna make a quick callback to the classic gothic literary technique of doubling for context: “Doubling refers to a multiplication by two, such as when two or more characters parallel each other in action or personality. It can also mean internal doubling, or division within the self to exhibit a duality of character.” Generally, there is an good and evil side. Jekyll and Hyde is an example. Lecter is the dark side of the double and Clarice is the good, moral side. It is clear in the novel that neither characters can live without the other. They truly are doubles; extensions of one another: both are orphans, both have suffered trauma in their childhoods, both are haunted by memories of their past (mischa and lambs) and both are considered outcasts (Clarice being a “white trash” female with an ill reputation in the FBI and Hannibal being… well, Hannibal). I think from the moment Clarice firsts meets Hannibal Lecter in Baltimore state hospital, that concept of doubling kicks into motion and they’re immediately intertwined by fate. Remember, this is a BOOK, not real life, and so the characters don’t have to stick to the guideline of what is realistic. From that point of the initial meeting onwards, they both drive each other. Clarice is driven by Lecter in the sense that he’s the only one capable of helping her complete the investigation which she believes will silence the lambs. He’s the ONLY one who knows about clarice’s struggles and I think she realises that he understands her more than anyone ever has. Each time she visits him she learns something about herself and I think anyone would find that exhilarating. Hannibal Lecter is driven by Clarice because he has nothing else that mentally challenges him in the present. He loves challenge and he loves fun, as is emphasised many times, and deconstructing Clarice is the only real fun he’s had in years. He’s found somebody to converse with who he realises is just as smart as him, and becomes oddly obsessed with her. Anyone who argues he isnt obsessed didn’t read the same novel as me: he spends his free time writing to her and drawing her and talking about her to Barney. Additionally, from that point early on I think he subconsciously makes that link between her and mischa which drives his obsession. When Clarice successfully concludes the Jame Gumb case and lecter escapes, you get the idea that both of these characters have achieved their ultimate goals. Harris could’ve wrapped it up there and had the two characters split ways but that would never have been believable because they’d become so dependent on one another over the course of the novel and also trauma does not resolve that easy. The lambs don’t stop screaming and lecter is unable to simply forget about someone who’s influenced him so much. In the Hannibal novel, we see that Clarice’s reputation is taking a major hit and her only motivation to continue working so hard for FBI is researching Hannibal Lecter and concluding his case. Lecter himself is free in Italy, living his best life, yet he still cannot shake Agent Starling from his head. Every motivation he has in the novel somehow links back to Clarice and you get the sense that his character will never be at peace until he can get closure with Clarice. Whether he wants to simply have a conversation with her a final time, kill and eat her or run away with her, we do not know yet at this point. All we do know is he is undeniably is attracted to her in some inescapable, perverse way. Oh, and to all the people who think it would’ve been more in character for him to eat her? Fuck off. He had nothing but respect for Clarice’s forwardness and courtesy and we all know he only eats those he finds rude. As for Starling in that novel, we get the sense she’ll never be at peace until she can wrap up her business with Lecter. He is her driving force even eight years on, as we can see in her obsession with him and the setting up of “Hannibal’s house”. It’s borderline a shrine to Lecter and Harris writes it that way deliberately. Think of the many, many chapters in which she dedicated to finding out about his tastes? In doing so she learned more about Lecter as a person than anyone had ever done. And so, the novel establishes itself as a very strange sort of slow burn(?) in which the climax is destined to be these two characters coming back together in some way shape or form. Skipping over the middle stuff and right to the end, it makes perfect sense that Clarice would independently seek out Hannibal at Verger’s farm. At this point she is working against Krendler and Verger and so, in a strange way, she is working for Lecter. She can’t just let them kill him because then she would really have nothing left and she’d get no closure about his intentions, about why he’s been keeping such a close eye on her in his own time. Her goal at this point is to capture him and incarcerate him. She treats him with upmost respect when she finds him tied up but still has that fiery spark that makes her such a good fucking character. She’s not afraid of him at all. Lecter loves this. He shows that it in the way he cheerfully and sarcastically translates her orders to his captors. This is all a game to him and Hannibal Lecter lives for fun. Then, of course, she is shot and the sequence that turned so many away from the novel begins. A lot of people think the ending of Hannibal is out of character for starling and I agree. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Of course she was out of character, she was under the influence of some major drugging and attempted brainwashing. People seem to be mad since they think that Clarice would never willingly stoop to the level of the man she’s sought to capture, they say she’d never eat brains with him and converse casually, but it wasn’t really her who did that, was it?

The whole end section feels like a dream sequence and… I’d be lying if I said I loved it. It was the only time I was ever disappointed with the novel because everything had been so richly described up until that point. I wish Harris had gone more into depth with the whole therapy brainwashing shit because I think, if he’d taken the time to better explain it, people would have been more inclined to enjoy it and accept it as feasible.

Hannibal Lacter is evil. He eats people. Of course he’d do something as insane as trying to turn the woman he’s obsessed with into a puppet unto which he can insert his long lost sister to deal with his unresolved trauma. It’s so unbelievably in character because he is insane. Sure, hes also an absolute genius but this genius is what makes him insane and, by extension, truly terrifying. I find it fitting that he’d try to do something as far fetched as brainwashing Clarice. People forget that he’s just as out of his mind as Starling is at this point. He realises eventually, though, that Clarice will never give herself up to his warped fantasy of becoming a vessel for Mischa. Starling herself is still in there somewhere and this is shown when she suddenly recalls the conversation Lecter had with the senator in regards to her breastfeeding Catherine. In that moment, she seems nearly in control of herself as she recollects what she knows about Lecter’s childhood and relationship with his family and uses it against him. She almost mocks him in that scene as she asks if he felt deprived when he had to share his mother with his sister, and then… that scene happens.

I know people say the sequence where Clarice exposes herself to Lecter is out of character and I did initially too, but after consideration I think me and all of those other people were still imagining Jodie foster’s version of Clarice and not the original, book-canon Clarice. The scene with her exposing herself to him reminds me of the earlier scene where she flashes Krendler. In both instances, I interpreted it as almost empowering. She’s not afraid to reveal herself like that, she understands her power as a woman, and I don’t see this as her character’s consistent strength and grit being tossed out the window by Harris. I see it as the very opposite, really. She takes power back in a way even though she is still under the influence of hypnosis. I mean, Dr Lecter gets to his knees before her which is terribly symbolic in itself. Remember all the past biblical refences he’d made in regards to her until this point. There’s a big three year jump right after this and the next thing we see is Clarice living happily with Lecter and indulging in a fine, high-society life which is very different to her upbringing. A lot of people hated this and I did at first but then I thought about it a little more. I think the reason it felt so sour at first was only because of how abrupt it was. Again, if Harris had taken more time to explain the intricacies of the relationship and how things had gone between them when Lecter finally stopped giving her the drugs, I think it would’ve made perfect sense. I imagined it this way: Clarice starling had very few options. It’s stated that Hannibal stopped drugging her up pretty swiftly and once he did that I think Clarice realised how limited she was. She had nothing back home except for Ardelia. John Brigham was dead, Jack Crawford was dead, Paul Krendler was dead. She had nobody to cheer her on, nobody to look up to and nobody to work hard for out of spite. She could’ve always taken Lecter into custody or killed him but I think she knew that she’d never be able to go back to her normal life without him. If he was in prison she’d never be able to visit him or converse the way she had before and if he was dead she’d never be able to see him. That scared her, I imagine. He’d been her driving force for 8 years and to lose that so suddenly would leave her pretty helpless. Plus, it was very clear that the FBI had completely abandoned its respect for her. She hadn’t been considered as a kidnap victim by them but as a missing person / potential fugitive and rumours of her and Lecter being together romantically had been ruminating in the tabloids long before he took her away. And it was the same for Hannibal: his driving force had always been Mischa up until that point and it had now shifted onto Clarice. He’d simply be dysfunctional without her. I believe Clarice Starling running off with Hannibal Lecter was overwhelmingly in character for her at the time. If you’d put it at the end of the previous book it would’ve been genuinely absurd, but in this case it really wasn’t all that crazy. It’s just a shame we’d seen the jump from her wanting to arrest Dr Lecter to her becoming his enthusiastic, willing lover so abruptly. If Harris had inserted a sort of middle section or even just extended the end portion by thirty or fourth pages, it would have made a lot more sense. Opposites attract and they were undoubtedly doubles of each other: unable to exist peacefully without the other. That’s where I think a lot of readers went wrong. They spent too much time imagining Clarice and Hannibal as completely separate characters when in reality, they were written for each other. People who say Thomas Harris didn’t understand his own characters seem to forget it took him thirteen something years to construct that book and I think he knew exactly what he was doing. I do have to agree with anyone who says he rushed it or compacted the end too much. Do I think Hannibal and Clarice running off with each other is morally right? No, not at all. It’s all sorts of fucked up for many, many reasons.

Do I love the ending of the book? YES, a thousand times!! It’s horrible and morally wrong and perverse… but this is a horror novel I think it would’ve been so disappointing if Harris had done the boring, predictable thing and had either killed Lecter, killed Clarice or had Clarice capture him and live happy ever after as an agent. There were only two options: either they both died together trying to destroy eachother or they both lived together trying to destroy everyone else, and Harris chose the latter because it was the most morally disturbing and thus fit the overall feel of the book. “We can only learn so much and live.”

This is all just an opinion and interpretation, I might have read it completely wrong but it makes sense to me and I’d rather have a positive outlook on the series than let myself feel dissapointed. Even if the ending sucks, you can’t deny it’s a really, really good series.

#silence of the lambs #hannibal #hannibal lecter #clarice starling #clannibal #thomas harris #red dragon #book rant #this was longer than i intended lol #it went from a short opinion to a full blown essay

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kirschface · 4 years ago

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A rant

Hi! I’ve never posted anything about NBC’s Hannibal but I figured in honor of the trailer for Clarice coming out, and the god awful comments coming with it, I decided to speak up on how much I hate the toxicity. Also, no, I don’t have screenshots. I usually don’t think to get them in these situations.

A. Hating the new show purely because you want season 4

I like Hannibal just as much as the next fannibal, but guys. Clarice JUST RELEASED the trailer. CBS isn’t connected to NBC, complaining that it’s not Hannibal won’t get you a season 4. They aren’t even directed by the same person.

B. Hating on/bullying people for kinning Clarice

Jesus Fucking Christ, where do I start. I’ve joined multiple Hannibal servers lately so I can make more friends in the fandom. I’ve left all but one because I was harassed for kinning Clarice Starling, mainly by Will kins. Seeing as she’s one of my highest kins, I can’t hide the fact I kin her just to be accepted by a fandom.

C. Ship wars up the wazoo

Yeah, this is probably the worst case of hypocrisy I’ve ever seen in a fandom. First off, I’m gonna state that I ship Clannibal. You can hate me all you want, but it’s one of my biggest comfort ships. You also literally can’t deny canon just because you think a ship is more pure. Read the books, they literally get married. I used to ship Hannigram and Clannibal at the same time, so I don’t see why the two ships can’t coexist in peace, they’re both the same level of bad. I know why both are bad, it’s an argument for another day. (Also, can someone DM me and explain wtf ‘rainbow meat’ is? I saw some stuff on insta about the discourse, but I don’t interact with Twitter)

D. Gatekeeping

I know the fandom is mainly LGBT guys, but it doesn’t mean that straight people (specifically straight women) can’t enjoy it. I have a few friends who got harassed over shipping Hannigram and watching the show, despite not in the slightest being what y’all call fujoshis.

And before you try to pin any of my hot takes as me being homophobic:

I’m a non-binary, bisexual, sappho-romantic person. LGBT people can enjoy straight ships too, chill out with labeling people (especially women) as homophobic or straight because of it.

ANYWAYS, please don’t argue in the comments, tags, etc. I’m okay with CIVIL debate over this. I don’t block people, so go ahead and block me if you don’t agree.

#Hannibal #nbc hannibal #silence of the lambs #clannibal #hannigram #fannibals #discourse

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brave-clarice · 4 years ago

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“Clarice” Liveblog: Episodes 5 & 6

Since these are extraordinarily late, I tried to keep them more concise/focused than before. I’m sorry for how long it’s taken me to (almost) catch up. And to the handful of you who’ve enjoyed these and encouraged me to do them: thank you!

Episode 5, “Get Right With God”

the music at the beginning of this episode might just be in the maintenance guy’s headphones(!) but it was still a…Choice.

there’s something so tragic about watching Clarice be unable to use her legs… :’(

this whole scenario feels like a twisted parallel universe version of the end of Hannibal.

glad to see Ardelia finally has her priorities straight and is going to fight for her best friend! let’s forget her Episode 4 subplot ever happened.

good: the warrior finding a weapon even in the direst of circumstances!

bad: those damn moths are back. at least this time they might be drug-induced.

“she worked Bill alone” no, she didn’t. not really. (Hannibal: I’m right here.)

stop trying to make Likable Paul happen, it’s never going to happen!!!

I HATE the “Reesey” nickname, y’all. HATE. IT.

plus, we know that her dad called her “Baby”?

her father’s appearance doubles down on the end-of-Hannibal vibes...Not Sure If Want.

wow, Clarice is being literally tortured? thanks, I hate it!!!

really doubt that Clarice’s Pinto used to belong to her father (who drives a truck in the books??)... weird flex.

and how would she even have gotten it? her mother would either have driven that car into the ground out of necessity or else have sold it for the money the Starlings needed so desperately.

Pintos also weren’t super high-quality cars and were definitely not built to last ~20 years.

Clarice already being able to chat with her father whenever she needs to really undermines the therapy Hannibal will eventually give her, but…I guess they’ve already accepted they’ll never make it that far?

“you’re trying to get in my head” yeah, and she’s doing it, too–’cause she learned from the best!

“you get an answer, I get an answer, Felker.” she’s Hannibal’s girl all right.

this episode’s had flashes of brilliance before diving back into…whatever tf watching one of your favorite characters of all time being tortured is.

I really wanted Ardelia to say that no, but Clarice was like a sister to her.

it took FIVE episodes to get some lamb imagery, but we’ve been looking at moths for the entire season?!

oof, Clarice voicing her own insecurities about her childhood abandonment and using them to twist Felker’s arm...painful but smart.

HANNAH!!!

I would die 4 baby Clarice

after all that, Clarice is going to apologize to Ardelia about last week? this episode SUCKS.

Good: Clarice playing mind games with Felker like Hannibal did to her; Ardelia going to bat for her bestie, lamb flashbacks, baby Clarice, and HANNAH!

Bad: So much. Clarice being medically tortured multiple times, moth hallucinations, the several-years-premature (imo) Daddy-as-Guardian-Angel plot device, “Reesey”...did I mention Clarice getting repeatedly tortured?!

Ugly: Krendler backstory + making out with his wife. Ew.

Wow, this episode was a hot mess, and I kind of hated it. I loved Clarice’s really Hannibalesque approach to Felker, and I’m so thrilled that Hannah got mentioned at all (tho...did they need to be so heavy-handed with the helmet and gun and everything?) Also nice to see Ardelia behaving much more in-character. That said, it was sickening and imo totally unnecessary to further traumatize Clarice the way they did. To make her almost helpless.

Clarice, and by extension Rebecca Breeds (who is fantastic and deserves better), has been given very little range so far. She’s frequently been shown as miserable, afraid, desperate, traumatized, angry, resentful, but I also want to see her joyful, laughing, silly, relaxed...something else that will give her depth. Her life wasn’t miserable 24/7, 365. It was just unfulfilling. We got glimpses of this in the first two episodes. PLEASE bring it back!

And rn I’m questioning how Clarice’s career can possibly drag on for another six years after this. Her apparent PTSD is already interfering with her job performance as it is--this experience is only going to make it worse. Her “body count” in Hannibal was around five, iirc, and that was enough to slap her with the “Death Angel” moniker. In the show at least four people have died in close proximity to Clarice in the space of like...a week. How does she come back from that, even as the savior of Catherine Martin? It’s a PR nightmare for obth Clarice and the FBI.

They’ve also sort of forgotten that the Martins existed while continuing to flesh out Krendler’s (?!) character? It’s weird.

I almost don’t even want to watch Episode 6 after that. But here goes...

Episode 6, “How Does It Feel to Be So Beautiful?”

the freaking MOTHS again, I hate them!

frankly, yeah, Clarice should be on leave.

Clarice’s nondescript monochrome suits and constant ponytail are just so boring. in the book she’s described as never having to put effort into making her hair look good--so why is it always pulled back in this show?

I’m not sure it’s very in-character for Clarice, at this point in her career, to go over her boss’s head to get out of admin leave (one she really needs to take tbh) even for the sake of solving a case

lol what the actual hell @ AG Martin guilt-tripping Clarice, who was very recently tortured and almost died, for not calling Catherine back? Clarice is not Catherine’s therapist!

THIS is what my Vogue-reading heroine with burgeoning great taste wears for a night out? so disappointing.

never in my life did I think I’d be sitting through Krendler’s personal drama in a show ABOUT CLARICE STARLING.

her costume sucks and her hairstyle’s from years in the future, but dang does Clarice look gorgeous.

and I love thinking of her getting a taste of the luxury she’ll enjoy with Hannibal. :)

you know what? I think I was actually fine with them forgetting that the Martins were in this show.

whyyy is Krendler being made so sympathetic?!

now Catherine Martin “loved to sew” just like Frederica Bimmel? hmm. (tbf, maybe this is in the novel, and I’ve just forgotten.)

her gift for Clarice is sweet, though.

so beautiful, indeed

Christ on a cracker, that confrontation between the Martins was painful to watch (not a criticism). this show’s AG and her daughter are very much two of a kind in terms of emotional manipulation.

I stan one (1) doofus

now either Catherine’s gaslighting Clarice...or Clarice’s trauma (over BILL! again with this!) is so pervasive that it’s twisted her memories. either way, I hate it.

so Krendler’s lawyer is dirty and that’s why he’ll (probably) turn against Clarice? but WHY? why can’t Krendler just suck?

Good: Clarice looking gorgeous, Ardelia continuing to fight for Clarice, female characters in positions of authority everywhere

Bad: Clarice’s underwhelming costumes, Clarice’s primary/worst trauma apparently STILL being Buffalo Bill & having Clarice break down crying again (and NOT over what happened last week, which would tbh make a lot more sense).

Sad: Shaan’s backstory about his wife, everything involving Catherine

Ugly: Krendler subplot. Ugh.

I just don’t know how I feel about this installment. Wish I cared more about the overarching conspiracy plot, but I’m really only here for Clarice and Ardelia. And while no show can stand on the shoulders of a single character, for a show about Clarice, there seems to be quite a bit of screentime devoted to her bosses, Martin and Krendler, and even to her team members. And all without Clarice herself getting much character development. They don’t seem to be exploring much of her character other than her traumatic backstories, and I’m no longer very hopeful that she’ll be much more fleshed out in the last four episodes, either. It’s a bummer. I really think Rebecca could shine like Jodie did if she were given a chance.

Most of the scenes with the Martins were visceral and felt so real that it was hard to watch. That said...the AG Martin/Catherine content all strikes me as being somewhat detached from the rest of the show, as if the writers are making it up as they go along with no real end goal in mind.

Man...these two were rough going. Very little humor or warmth and absolutely no joy. Of course the source material is dark, so a somewhat dark crime drama is to be expected, but I really think the show needs a slightly less intense, bleak and (dare I say it?) unpleasant episode. But they writers have really dug themselves into a hole by zeroing in on Clarice’s PTSD. And unlike in Hannibal, there’s no love interest with whom she (and by extension, the audience) can flee her misery and pain.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the rest of the season. A lot of the ingredients are there, and despite my many criticisms, it’s been great to spend time with a character I love. Fingers crossed that they finish strong!

#Clarice Starling #cbs clarice #clarice #rebecca breeds #spoiler warning #bc I know a few of you haven't quite caught up either #long post for ts #media [cbs show]#actor [rebecca breeds]#char [clarice starling]#char [the night watchman]#char [paul krendler]#char [ardelia mapp]

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themissinggenius · 4 years ago

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Part 2/2

Another conversation was coming, but it was avoided for the time being. Clarice showered in the guest bathroom; earlier, she had tried peering around the house—still mad but a bit embarrassed by the outburst. The door had been put back into place since she showered, and the water had been cleaned off of the floor. Hannibal was nowhere to be found. I really did it this time, she thought. Her body relaxed, and her face softened. She didn’t think it was appropriate to laugh, but the thought still surfaced, prompting a sad smile. I pushed around the violent centerpiece of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. And he just cried. Shithouse mouse. The smirk dissipated as she ruminated further... She had hit him. Being a domestic abuser wasn’t just rude; it was boringly common.

She moved the thoughts about violence to the side and shifted her attention to the cause of the scuffle. I don’t know what he expected. Hannibal knows the depth of my old relationship with Jack, as much as he hated him. He told me to say goodbye to my father, so why not Jack?

Your daddy and Jackie Boy aren’t the same, she reminded herself. At this moment, she was both grateful and resentful that her internal voice of reason was that of her husband. At least it was helping her see his view. Okay, so the relationship isn’t necessarily comparable. But why would he think I wouldn’t come home? Did he really read my intentions so incorrectly?

Clarice laid awake in the guest bedroom for hours.

Hannibal Lecter relies on his intuition; it may just be his most famous attribute. On rare occasion, though, his cunning will fail him. On the day that Jack Crawford died, it most certainly did.

However, he doesn’t know that yet. Instead, he is reclined in repose at the seat of his harpsichord which he does not play. As he is off in one of the ill-visited quarters of the home, Clarice would be unable to hear the notes carrying from her position in the guest room; even so, he does not play. Hannibal gleaned a look of disgust and frustration from her earlier, and thus, he was certain his Starling would take flight by the morning for reasons known but difficult to accept. There is no reason for him to play.

Poised on the bench, he disappeared to his memory palace without struggle. The difficulty came when he walked down the halls, closing each door that had belonged to her. Hannibal contemplated as he walked: There is a certain symmetry to this—an appreciable one. Clarice’s hotheadedness had been a defining feature of hers, whereas he relied on coolness. He chastised himself for his own emotional outburst; it was unlike him to breakdown, and though he had allowed himself to become vulnerable to his wife, with her likely departure, he had to withdraw from all this fragility. He had to shut down. He had to be the ice to meet her violent fire.

Thus, he closed her doors, sealing the emotional ties within each.

Hannibal emerged at the sound of her voice. He had not heard her approaching in nor had he smelled her.

A few paces away from the harpsichord, Clarice stood. Hannibal had been contemplating whether to address her as Clarice (Perhaps too informal at this point...), Agent Starling (But even when she goes back, she won’t be an agent...), or Miss Starling (Ummmm, I don’t like this one very much...) when she interrupted.

“Hannibal,” she started.

“Ah.” He paused but spoke again before she could continue. “I see you’ve finally decided to join me. Had enough tossing and turning up there, or did you come down to use me as your personal punching bag again?”

“No, no. I just think-”

He cut her off again. “You know what I think, Ex-Special Agent Starling?” Oooh. That works, he thought. “Well, actually I wonder. I wonder if that was how Daddy took care o’ Mommy when she wouldn’t shut ‘er yap.” His imitation of her accent—which she had long abandoned—made her flinch. “If Ma didn’t have dinner on the table at five-o-clock, yes siree, she’d be in some kinda trouble. And boy, does Clarice still wanna be like her Daddy! No matter what,” he emphasized with a drawl, “she’s gonna stand by him. It sure do seem that way tuh me!” Hannibal smirked, and his face betrayed no warmth.

The room had felt colder to Clarice when she had walked in. She had expected him to be upset, but she hadn’t expected this. The woman paused and considered the implications: her musings were correct. He really did misread her, and now he was trying to drive her away. Well fuck that.

In their years of marriage, the couple had picked up on a few of each other’s traits. For one, Clarice was not going to allow a bit of intimidation break her. He came close to doing so in Baltimore, but he would not again. She steeled herself, adopting a bit of his icy demeanor.

“No, Hannibal. My father did not hit my mother. I think I would’ve told you by now, don’t you?”

He didn’t answer right away; rather, he just pursed his lips and smiled.

Then, he began: “As you know, I don’t try to predict you because it often proves fruitless.” He looked off before setting his gaze squarely on her. “However, considering these... outbursts of yours and the contempt plain on your face, I have bought you a ticket back to Arlington in time for dear Mr. Crawford’s funeral. For my safety, I will also be leaving, but not to Virginia. I know how much you must miss Jackie; please, give him my regards when you go. Maybe if you scream and pound on his grave hard enough, someone will hear and they’ll finally find you... Three years after you were reported as a missing person.” Lecter’s eyebrows shot up, and he shrugged. “Though I doubt you’ll be reinstated, as you haven’t kept your resume up to date. It will be no problem for you, though, Clarice.” He gave her a kind, patronizing look. “You’re a very smart girl. When you rediscover that the FBI has no use for your intelligence, try showing off your trophies from the firing range. Maybe even tell them about your skills in hand-to-hand combat... I could write you a glowing reference!”

Hannibal was perfectly still in his seat with his wife just beyond him. He waited patiently for her to break. He wanted no end to be left untied when she left. Your turn.

“I see you still try and lick tears after you’ve tired of tasting your own.” Clarice took a slow step toward him. She needed to crack his facade quickly. “Fortunately or unfortunately, I have no intention of moving back to the States. I find that I’m quite happy right here.”

Only she could have noticed the slight twitch of the doctor’s right eye upon this admission. And she did.

Starling inched closer. “Now, about this ‘contempt plain on my face’...” She mirrored his voice and flat expression; her imitation was even better than his had been. “Did ya happen to consider that it’s because you just tried to tear me apart—unsuccessfully, I might add? Let me tell you what I know, Doctor.” She hammed up the formality in her tone. “I know you’re not comfortable feeling worried about another person. I know that you felt vulnerable when I was gone, and I know you didn’t like that.”

She paused, remaining collected. She raised her voice a tad for this last bit. “Lastly, I know that you ASSUMED. And if there is one—just one!—good thing that goddamned Jack Crawford taught me over the years,” she laughed, “it’s that, when you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME. Trust me, baby, you did just that. And despite what your intuition told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

She did it. The true stoic’s face had broken, and Hannibal the Cannibal sat, dumbfounded. He opened his mouth and then closed it. She continued.

“I’m sorry that you misread my motivations. I spent yesterday reflecting on how I had gotten to this point, and I had come home feeling glad. I was planning on going upstairs to find you, drawing a bath for the both of us, and then dancing later on in the evening. Your assumption got us a bit sidetracked, though.” Looking down at her watch, it was 2am. Holy crap. She focused back on him and noted that he was still unmoving but appeared less rigid than before. The room felt like it had finally warmed up.

Clarice took a last step towards her husband. Now above him, looking down, she said, “I am sincerely sorry for hitting you, Hannibal.”

Finally, he stirred. “Clarice, I have not once so much as laid a finger on you in anger...”

“I know. Ironic, right?”

“I don’t think so.”

His wife smirked at that, and he returned the favor. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. Anyway, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. You know what else won’t happen again?” She held his chin and spoke softly. “You doubting us. I’m with you for the long haul. Where the hell did you even think I was going?”

“Ummmm. To be candid, I’m unsure of what I thought your plan was. I assumeddddd,” he looked up at her teasingly, “that you were leaving because of a change in heart.”

“My, Dr. Lecter, you didn’t have every one of my steps planned out before I could even think of them? What have I done to you?”

“I can now definitively say that you bring out the worst in me.”

Clarice laughed and sat down next to him. “Crying? And worrying?” She was feeling more relaxed, placing her hand on his leg as she started laughing harder. “Why am I not surprised that you consider that to be Hannibal Lecter at his worst?”

Her husband just smiled back at her. She saw his cheeks blush almost imperceptibly, which then prompted a further fit. It wasn’t long before they were both laughing.

“You had better... go back... into that memory palace of yours... and open up my doors ASAP,” Clarice ordered while catching her breath.

“And how did you—?”

“You were sitting on that bench for quite a while before I called out to ya. Try not to forget about me so soon, huh?”

“I wouldn’t even think of it.” Never again, he added silently. “But I must ask... Would I be incorrect in assuming you still want to dance?”

Clarice smiled widely. Hannibal shifted in his seat and began to play.

#fluff+angst=whatever the fuck this is #THE FLUFF IS UNREAL OMG #it went from 100 to 0 so quick #clannibal #Clarice #clarice starling #hannibal #hannibal lecter

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laembless-moved · 4 years ago

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[DABS] so i’ve FINALLY finished hannibal (the book, still working on the show fdgsfdg) and while i DO enjoy the end and hannibal and clarice running off together idk exactly how i feel? about her characterization and some bits? i can understand people feeling it’s rushed/out of nowhere now. i DO think them being together is well set up from silence and earlier in the book but especially given the context of how their relationship starts off w/ the free therapy/attempt at mischa-ing + titty time all under the influence n shit like....idk feels like a cheat to me.

i do enjoy the idea of him trying to remake her in an image of his choosing and failing and only just you know... given her some very good therapy and helping her with a lotta shit and ironically making her identity/sanity MORE cohesive and i will keep that. but frankly once you hit the tiddy ( the breastfeeding shit just.... so unsexy..... the mood....... it’s killed for me..... ) and then the epilogue i just.... aite imma do some WORK THERE.

for my own canon in this blog I prefer tiddy time to.... idk i need to brood on exactly what my issues are here but like...maybe it’s just pacing but it just doesn’t gel with me atm. i need to brood on it before I set out with a final decision on what to do here. i’d hate to cut it but like.... it’s just EH to me. Maybe it’s the drugs thing. i think it’s the drugs thing. let 100% totally uninfluenced clarice Release The Titty and then i’m all for it bc that’s absolutely FERAL. there’s also an implication in the epilogue about “it’s not clear how much starling remembers of the old life” and some similar shit about the changes in clarice and is it really her? but that DUMB, LAME AND BORING.

my clarice is still at her core very much the exact same clarice we knew from day 1, looked at the world around her, and made a conscious choice to go with him. she doesn’t regret that even if she regrets elements of it, she’s not totally purged of her psychological issues/the imprints they’ve made on her. her desires to help people, do good etc are all fairly intact, it’s just that her perspective and view on things have changed. she’s more likely to give in to fits of vigilantism than likely in canon. i think something integral to the whole thing was that clarice is well, clarice... epilogue clarice just.... isn’t clarice to me. i don’t even see the logical progression steps of how we got here. except for her pointing out that misha as a place forever in hannibal basically from a few days in to her being awake to the end of the book just.... doesn’t super read as her?

and like yeah big shock she’s on drugs n shit. but some of that still gels! the stuff about her father! yeah that totally tracks. but like.... there’s just something that never sits right when for once thing a woman is remade to seemingly fit the man and like... idk the whole opera thing and the implication she might not be fully her/there just... Ugh. I grow Weary of this. especially when just before the whole thing was that it was her STRENGTH OF SELF that won out. i do love and enjoy that being with hannibal allows her to be her and explore that and like... try on parts of life she never would have before to see how they feel.

but i just..... things like the opera and that specific kind of lux, with the servants and the italian over dinner and shit is so distinctly HANNIBAL’S thing i’m just like..... so?????? what’s she getting here??????? where’s the Clarice Energy???? and that’s what bothers me. you can give me clarice in gucci, she deserves nice shit anyway and she HAS GOOD TASTE but like... i wanna see more of her. less of him. it’s a partneship and it’s still clarice and it’s still her life.

tl;dr: the end of hannibal wasn’t a great dismount imo and the banjo stays on during sex.

#headcanons / ooc.#meta / ooc.#you can claw that banjo outta my cold dead hands i don't fucking stand for this classist bullshit #i think that's what gets me the sense of a loss of autonomy and that she's been stripped of her identity #wHICH IS LIKE ???? BC THAT'S THE SHIT HE EVEN LIKED ABOUT HER SO????????#I can EASILY credit that tho to how WOOF i feel that pacing is #i gotta rewatch the movie and probably use somma that ending to help fix this shit dksghdfskg

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frumfrumfroo · 5 years ago

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What are your favorite movies and TV shows outside of SW? I’m looking for new things to watch since SW was so disappointing

My tastes are pretty eclectic, so I will stick to just things that are either similar to sw or are in the reylo-esque romance wheelhouse and have happy endings:

Chuck. It is a goofy, light-hearted action-adventure show with extremely endearing characters and a very prominent central romance (seriously, heavy romance and there is a lot of payoff for it, you will be FED- it's kind of slow burn but also shockingly NOT slow burn, they are deep into it pretty much immediately). The main couple is the classic Stoic Badass gradually softened by an innocent they have to protect who is a liability in battle but full of the Power of Heart. Chuck is The Heart btw. He is of that vanishingly rare male Beauty (of B&tB) type. He's incredibly generous and open, Sarah is prickly and closed-off. It is Quality. Very much a gender-swap of your typical cliche anime couple lol. I would recommend stopping at the mid-season finale in season 4, because it's downhill from there. The beginning of season 3 is very rough, but it's definitely worth it to stay for the back half, imo. There are several great endings to choose from before things go to shit, so we don't need to talk about the finale. Probably the most tonally similar to SW thing possible without being high/space fantasy. More humour, more silly, but definitely has a spiritual kinship. Has the best THE BEST 'secret revealed' scenes I have ever seen in anything. If you're into that and were hoping for that in ep IX, you need to watch Chuck.

The Shop Around the Corner. 1940 romance/drama film. You've Got Mail is a remake of it. Jimmy Stewart being profoundly adorable, Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard of Oz), various amusing side characters, and an absolutely deathless double blind 'secretly in love with the workplace nemesis' plot that can and probably has been a great reylo AU.

Mirromask. Fantasy/coming-of-age film. Touted as a 'spiritual successor' to Labyrinth by the filmmakers (one of whom is Neil Gaiman) and let me tell you, that is extremely apt. Beautiful, magical, laden with symbolism and Mask Discourse, and has a great ship. I quote it regularly.

Speaking of which, I'm sure you've seen Labyrinth? If you haven't seen Labyrinth, drop everything and watch Labyrinth.

Legend (the Ridley Scott director's cut, not the theatrical cut). Sumptuous fairy tale, runs on proper fairy tale logic, stunning to look at and overall captivating. Tim Curry. Tim Curry as a lonely tragic lord of darkness who tries to seduce the heroine and has drippingly overwrought monologues.

Howl's Moving Castle. Fairy tale adventure/romance film. Beautifully animated, has the ending you want.

The Silence of the Lambs. Thriller/drama film. Actual masterpiece. Use it as a gateway drug to read the books and rejoice that Clannibal is canon and it is spectacular. Just SotL and Hannibal, you don't need to read the other two. Stan Clarice Starling and revel in that ending. Most triumphant 'villain'/heroine ship of all time (he is not technically a villain but for shorthand's sake).

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Terry Gilliam 1988 fantasy/adventure film. THE TRIUMPH OF IDEALISM OVER CYNICS I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW HEALING IT WAS TO WATCH AFTER THE TROS BULLSHIT HIT. Jonathan Pryce's spiritual villain is basically Chris Terrio and it is cathartic to see imagination and sentiment conquer him.

Sabrina. 1995 romance film. Modern fairy tale with Harrison Ford. Rejecting what you thought you wanted all your life for the thing you actually need, growing up but still believing in magic, beautiful character development across all the leads. Could be (and is irrc) a fantastic reylo AU.

The Scarlet Pimpernel. 1934 adventure film. High romance, secret identities, play-acting, people who aren't at all what they appear to be, falling in love with your own spouse, Big Heroism, guile and wit and audacity. It makes me do little kicks like a happy baby. This is one of the 3-5 films constantly tied for my favourite film of all time. There is a good quality rip free on youtube. Watch it and fall in love with Leslie Howard (this is possibly my favourite acting performance of all time).

Oh, related note. Pygmalion 1938 or My Fair Lady. (The musical is based on this film and borrows from it heavily, including its much more romantic ending compared to the original play.)

The Mummy. 1999 action/adventure/romance film. Very tonally similar to sw. A fucking great time, A+ characters.

EVER AFTER. 1998 romance film. The flawless and perfect and best ever Cinderella adaptation. This is the most satisfying film in history, maybe, the ending is so good it is amazing it exists. Also, it has Richard O'Brien being slimy. Huge selling point. Grapples with identity and stewardship, is brilliant.

Fruits Basket. drama/romance anime. I haven't watched the new version yet, but it's following the manga so I know the story. The original anime didn't do the whole plot (because they caught up with the source material) but it's wonderful and I still recommend it. The central ship is (spoiler.........) a B&tB type where we eventually discover the main love interest both feels like a figurative monster and turns into a literal monster. He has an incredible speech about his relationship with people's fear, it makes me weep. I called the endgame from the first episode and always thought it was obvious, but there is a red herring love triangle dynamic. It's really not annoying, though, because it is a red herring. (I hate love triangles)

I am Dragon. Russian monster romance film. Beautiful, simple fable with a really great heroine.

Jane Eyre. 1943 Gothic Romance film. It's Jane Eyre, byronic hero x sensible heroine love story with much atmosphere and Gothic drama. I stan this version because I am an Orson Welles fangirl and I'm also not convinced it can be improved upon. Elizabeth Taylor's film debut btw.

Hellboy. 2004 action/adventure/romance film. Defying destiny, reconciling identity, monster romance. The complete package and a great time. Tonally similar to SW and probably thematically closest to it out of this whole list. Don't watch the sequel.

Beauty and the Beast 1987 tv series. Exactly what it says on the tin. Deals with the classic B&tB themes, but in a different way. He's not cursed and will never transform into an ordinary man. The first season is very episodic and 'case of the week', but the second season gets more into character drama. It's dated, but if you give it a chance you can get past some of the cheese factor and it's really a unique experience. Its concerns are SO atypical that it feels like something fandom would make rather than a mainstream network show. It was so massively, insanely popular with women at the time that a record of Vincent (the beast) reading poetry topped the album charts. Also Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Stop at season two. Point of interest: George RR Martin wrote for this show.

Stargate (the movie not the series) sci-fi fantasy about a nerdy guy who accidentally a hero.

Possession. 2009... mystery/supernatural/romance. Okay. This is a whole thing. Lee Pace and Sarah Michelle Gellar. It's based on a Korean film I've never been able to find for some reason, but being Hollywood they ruined the romanticism and nuance of the original in the theatrical cut to make a shitty punative ending. However. If you buy it on dvd and go to the alternate ending (which follows the original story) with around 20 minutes left (scene after Lee Pace's character wakes from a bad dream-go to deleted scenes and select the alternate ending), you will get a very, very interesting character study/thriller/redemption about sincerity within deception, compassion, and a major question about second chances with a positive answer. It's kind of dark and kind of astonishingly idealistic at the same time. The heroine makes a very powerful choice, twice over. It's fascinating. If you're into the conflicted and uncertain period in reylo, the part where he is most ambiguous, and you wanted more of that and much darker shades to it, you might be really into this. Also, it should be noted, there is a MASSIVE height difference and they show it off. The film is flawed (and the seams show on the Hollywood rewrite) but idk, it's fascinating. Shocking to me that they even got to shoot the original ending. It is pretty balls to the wall with its themes on forgiveness.

I would recommend getting into kdramas because there is a wealth of female-gaze tropey amazing content, but always check the ending before getting invested. My all-time fave is the 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, but it's not sw related at all lmao. It has a happy ending with all the elements you'd want, but it's not satisfying in execution, so that's it's major flaw and I find that pretty common with kdramas. One that is maybe more relevant is My Love from Another Star, which has a hero who is a little bit like Ben in personality. The heroine isn't my favourite, though. It does have a decent ending.

Oh yeah- brain fart. Kurosawa films and classic westerns were both very influential on SW. Or you can combine both and watch The Magnificent Seven.

#this somehow ended up a wall of text??? I'm so embarrassed #anyway it should be fixed now #recs #anyway 40s movies are fantastic they used to CHURN OUT rom coms and even the bad ones are entertaining #and they were not in the romance ghetto they had prestige actors and directors #I don't know what happened and why this isn't done now because that shit was profitable #another edit:#I messed up my directions on Possession bc I first saw the alt ending on YouTube from the fridge point #but actually the full thing starts way earlier and covers more of the loose ends than I remembered #so I've fixed that now as well #(because I just rewatched it after writing this rec) and serious SERIOUSLY someone watch this movie and scream about it with me #I can't stress enough how important it is you switch to the alt ending and watch that INSTEAD of the theatrical cut but but but #If you do - OMG the ending is incredible #the coded conversation the subtle optimism #it is a meeting place where we Soft Reylos and the edgier villain/heroine stans can meet in the middle

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caligobeltrao · 4 years ago

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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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bowlegsandbiceps · 4 years ago

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Top 10 Favourite Characters

I was tagged by @not-a-natural-born-idjit and then flailed because they’re one of my absolute fave writers! (Seriously go to AO3 and read everything right now)

Rules: list your favorite character from 10 different fandoms and tag 10 people

1. Castiel | Supernatural I know I flail a lot about Dean and I love Dean’s face but Castiel is my #1. He’s fierce and brave and impatient and selfless. I don’t know how a being that’s been around for millenia can be innocent but he is. I like how messy he is, and he can be such an effective antagonist without being the big bad. Any friction he has with The Winchesters is from disagreeing on the right course of action and as viewers we can decide who to side with because both are inherently good. It’s their decisions that cause problems and that is a much more compelling narrative than “this thing is just evil.” I ship him with Dean (duh) but also Sam occasionally and I’d honestly love to see some Cas/Rowena action.

2. Hannibal Lecter | NBC Hannibal/Hannibal-verse Long before NBC decided to grace us with the absolute masterpiece that is Hannibal, I have loved this character. I think I was 14 or 15 when I fell down the Thomas Harris rabbit hole and I’ve yet to find a more perfectly crafted psychopath. He’s so refined that you really can believe that no one would suspect him of being the Chesapeake Ripper. His crimes are heinous and many without feeling sensationalized. Harris was originally a crime reporter which I think gave him the ability to ground Hannibal in reality. I really liked how the TV show fleshed out the main points that in the books Clarice Starling and Will Graham continually have to remind people of which is that he does these things to amuse himself. It was really amazing to watch him set up the dominos and then stand back to let everyone else knock them all down. I ship him with Clarice or Alaina mainly but I LOVE me some murder!husbands. It’s the slowest of burns and I will bask in those flames forever.

3. Malcolm Bright | Prodigal Son First of all Tom Payne okay. Second of all, poor, sweet damaged Malcolm. I really like that he has that rich kid air about him but it’s super subtle. He’s obviously very damaged by his father (Martin Whitley is a good example of one of those over the top “legendary” killer characters, though Michael Sheen’s performance REALLY goes a long way to making that believable) and the show doesn’t make his mental illness the forefront of his character. Malcolm works and visits his family and occasionally dates very similarly to any other main character but he’s doing all these things with severe PTSD, anxiety and depression. He’s always portrayed as upbeat and determined to push through any handicaps his mental health issues might cause. There are also times when he can’t and those are shown not by concerned family and friends banding together to throw him in a treatment center but it’s usually him, white-knuckling through it or attempting to work it out on his own which is another extremely realistic portrayal of how people deal with trauma and depression. I ship him with OFC because he and Dani have ZERO chemistry (I’m sorry Brightwell people). I like the IDEA of him and Edrissa but no one is writing it and I can’t even really get MY head around how to write it so I feel this serious urge to PUT HIM WITH SOMEBODY but there’s not been anyone on the show I’ve seen him have real chemistry with yet.

4. Tyrion Lannister | Game of Thrones I love Tyrion so much. I love him so much I named my cat after him. I loved him so much that I lived in CONSTANT. FEAR. that GRRM was going to kill him off at any moment. I like that despite everyone always thinking the worst of him he still does his best and not even with any intention of proving anyone wrong. He plays into their expectations with the booze and women but deep down he’s got a drive to be fair and especially kind to anyone who’s on the receiving end of pain and humiliation that are undeserved. He’s also fierce and clever enough to deliver crushing judgement and justice when deserved whether its through setting the wheels in motion or wielding the crossbow himself. I ship him with Sansa, shut up I know I just love the idea of them growing to love each other despite the rocky start.

5. Hermione Granger | Harry Potter HP was my first real brush with fandom. Like I’d been a Justin Timberlake fangirl since I was 12 and despite his level of fame the fandom was very small. When I started the series at 17 the breadth of content available was staggering. You could literally find ANY combination of ships you could fathom and it all ran the gamut from fluffy to downright depraved. I also find it interesting that while I like Hermione as a character in the books/movies she is far from my favorite character but she’s literally the only character I stan in the fanfic world of HP. I mainly shipped Hermione with Draco or Snape (forgive me I know it was a simpler time where we ignored everything problematic with certain kinks and narratives) and sometimes Harry. She’s such a strong female character that no matter who you pair her with the dynamic is going to be different and complex.

6. Peeta Mellark | The Hunger Games While I relate to Katniss on a very personal level, the boy with the bread absolutely fuels my little fangirl heart. The pining from a young age. The complete disregard for his own safety or survival in the games. Selfless and just good to the core, his subsequent torture by the Capitol and Katniss’ carelessness with his feelings is like taking blow after blow. And when they strip his loyalty to Katniss and his district away it’s even more tragic because he was just this sweet kid who had a crush. UGH feels. I ship him with Katniss. I just really can’t see him with anyone else.

7. Alexander Hamilton | Hamilton THIS was one where i just identify SO. HARD. with Hamilton. While I definitely didn’t endure a childhood like his, I did end up transitioning from a blue collar upbringing to a white collar career and experience the same chip on my shoulder and drive to prove myself. And I too write like I am running out of time. I ship him with his wife or maybe Angelica a little.

8. Persephone | Greek Mythology Not sure if there’s a “fandom” for this persay but Tumblr went through a phase in the early 10s where there was a ton of meta about Persephone and how her narrative as a damsel stolen by Hades didn’t do her justice. The flipped the script and made her Queen of Hell, powerful enough to sway the God of Death and terrifying enough to keep him in line unlike all the other Gods that were sticking their dick in anyone and anything. It’s such an empowering narrative, a girl taken from everything she’s ever known seizes the opportunity to become a force to be reckoned with. I love it.

9. Gregory House | House M.D. I was going to say Sherlock here but I never really went hard for Sherlock either the movies or the BBC show. I loved the show but really more for the canon and meta which is only half the fandom life. With House, I just love that he is so unapologetically hateful to anyone he deems stupid. But he’s also earnest and good too with a heavy dollop of man pain... you know... my favorite *cough*Dean Winchester*cough* I ship him pretty exclusively with Cameron beacuse I really like the dynamic. Her hero worship/white knight complex his emotional constipation but fondness of her optimism and ideals. Great dynamic.

10. Edward Cullen | Twilight This is my favorite Trash Monkey character in my favorite trash monkey series. The books are horribly written, the movies are better but not by much. But goddammit something about his level of obsessive fuckery speaks to my girl lizard brain and I am just rooting for this sparkly idiot and his clumsy human jar of mayonnaise. I ship him and Bella because apparently the universe didn’t find the fact that he’s my favorite character in this series humiliating enough.

Tagging (please don’t feel obligated to participate if you don’t want to): @navajolovesdestiel @chevrolangels @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you @castielific @rauko-is-a-free-elf @astral-almighty @only4myfandoms @ charlie-bradburi @notfunnydean @blowthatpieceofjunk

#GUYS SOMEONE ACTUALLY TAGGED ME!!!#GUYS!!!#about me

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fivour · 4 years ago

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7, 8, 9 for the Writer Asks

hi :)

7. favorite writers? have they influenced you at all?

I’ve liked everything I’ve read from Stephen King and Donna Tartt (which frankly isn’t much, I just read whatever I can get my grubby little paws on). I have a love-hate relationship with David Baldacci. I would make a reach and say I have learned from them, at the very least, whether that’s techniques, styles, phrases, etc.

Baldacci and King have definitely influenced what genres I prefer to write. Reading Tartt’s work (and King’s, sort of) has made me embrace my wordiness more than I would have without it.

And Pet Sematary has just set the standard for everything I write, which I’ll never met in a million years.

8. if one cliche could be eradicated from writing, which one would you pick?

Woof. I don’t know. I’m a cynic and a critic, but cliches are one thing I just don’t see the point in getting your knickers in a twist over.

Except for one.

If your main character is desired by everyone, I’m actually going to come to your place of residence and reprimand you in the most psychologically damaging way possible. And it’s always a male MC (aka the author’s reader insert) being thirsted after by a female sidekick, because clearly women love being preyed upon by their male co-workers.

I just vomited in my mouth typing that. Next question.

9. favorite cliche or trope?

So many... mostly character tropes. I definitely have a type when it comes to characters lol.

Smug villain. Why are they smug? Because fuck you. (Dio Brando; Crowley from SPN)

Cheeky cowboy. (Hol Horse)

Loyal as a dog. (Vanilla Ice; Castiel from SPN, for a while, at least)

Dumb villain is endearingly stupid and dumb. (Steely Dan)

Badass woman is badass. (Clarice Starling)

Quirky mentor. (Will Zeppeli)

Morally ambiguous man is morally ambiguous.

#ask #writers on tumblr #writeblr

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parlesloups · 4 years ago

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@metuere | meme!

1, 14, 15, 16, 17

What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

backstory / general aesthetic! i grew up back and forth between west virginia and the nc mountains and dealt with a lot of loneliness and trauma, so i think this idea of a character with a dark backstory in rural wv started as a kind of cathartic story really comforted me. it still does. i’ve also been reading crime drama and true crime since like. middle school, especially thomas harris’s books! clarice starling is a favorite character of mine because i relate to her and her wv upbringing a lot.

If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

THIS is a hard one!! probably what i think about most while writing celine is the distance she puts between herself and others socially–– that is, that kind of straight-faced neutrality she so often keeps up. i’m totally the opposite, so that can be hard to remember sometimes, and uhh her education / qualifications!! all the training and information she approaches every situation with.

What is something about your OC can make you laugh?

the way that she knows and recognizes some of her own flaws (i mean she’s got a degree in psychology) while pushing them aside to address ‘later’ aka never lmao. like,,, girl. listen to ur therapist lmao

What is something about your OC can make you cry?

her struggle to want to love her father. they were incredibly close before the arrest and she knows that it wouldn’t be right to say she loves him despite what his actions. it was hard, especially at such a young age, for her to wrap her head around that huge shift in her life, to find out that so much of what she learned about right and wrong was. . . wrong. she knows, too, that any public display of love / kind feelings towards him would be seen negatively, especially in her career path. so she doesn’t talk to anyone about it, even Silas, because he loathes Charlie. she still visits him in prison a few times a year (a point of contention between Silas and her) and receives frequent letters. she can’t Not love her dad, so she keeps it to herself, and struggles with a lot of guilt. she wishes she could hate him, but she can’t.

Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

not necessarily regret, but on some level i’m always worried that the whole thing is too far fetched? which i feel with a lot of my OCs bc i love writing OCs w cool / crazy / dark backstories so ??? idk i just be worrying LOL

#;; ooc.#;; celine. (ABOUT)#!!! this was FUN thanks!!

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writinggeisha · 5 years ago

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How to write dialogue in fiction

Dialogue in the novel: tricks, tools and examples

Speech gives life to stories. It breaks up long pages of action and description.

Getting speech right is an art but, fortunately, there are a few easy rules to follow. Those rules will turn your dialogue from something that might feel static, heavy and unlifelike into something that shines off the page.

Better still, dialogue should be fun to write, so don’t worry if we talk about ‘rules’. We’re not here to kill the fun. We’re here to increase it.

“Ready?” she asked.

“You bet. Let’s dive right in.”

Dialogue rule 1: keep it tight

One of the biggest rules in dialogue is: no spare parts. No unnecessary words. Nothing to excess.

That’s true in all writing, of course, but it has a particular acuteness (I don’t know why) when it comes to dialogue.

If you include an unnecessary sentence or two in a passage of description – well, it’s best to avoid that, of course, but, aside from registering a minor and temporary slowing, most readers won’t notice or care.

Do the same in a block of dialogue, and your characters will seem to be speechifying rather than speaking. It’ll feel to a modern reader like you want to turn the clock back to Victorian England.

So don’t do it!

Keep it spare. Allow gaps in the communication and let the readers fill in the blanks. It’s like you’re not even giving the readers 100% of what they want. You’re giving them 80% and letting them figure out the rest.

Take this, for instance, from Ian Rankin’s fourteenth Rebus crime novel, A Question of Blood. The detective, John Rebus, is phoned up at night by his colleague:

… “Your friend, the one you were visiting that night you bumped into me …” She was on her mobile, sounded like she was outdoors.

“Andy?” he said. ‘Andy Callis?”

“Can you describe him?”

Rebus froze. “What’s happened?”

“Look, it might not be him …”

“Where are you?”

“Describe him for me … that way you’re not headed all the way out here for nothing.”

That’s great isn’t it? Immediate. Vivid. Edgy. Communicative.

But look at what isn’t said. Here’s the same passage again, but with my comments in square brackets alongside the text:

… “Your friend, the one you were visiting that night you bumped into me …” She was on her mobile, sounded like she was outdoors.

[Your friend: she doesn’t even give a name or give anything but the baresr little hint of who she’s speaking about. And ‘on her mobile, sounded like she was outdoors’. That’s two sentences rammed together with a comma. It’s so clipped you’ve even lost the period and the second ‘she’.]

“Andy?” he said. ‘Andy Callis?”

[Notice that this is exactly the way we speak. He could just have said “Andy Callis”, but in fact we often take two bites at getting the full name, like this. That broken, repetitive quality mimics exactly the way we speak . . . or at least the way we think we speak!]

“Can you describe him?”

[Uh-oh. The way she jumps straight from getting the name to this request indicates that something bad has happened. A lesser writer would have this character say, ‘Look, something bad has happened and I’m worried. So can you describe him?’ This clipped, ultra-brief way of writing the dialogue achieves the same effect, but (a) shows the speaker’s urgency and anxiety – she’s just rushing straight to the thing on her mind, (b) uses the gap to indicate the same thing as would have been (less well) achieved by a wordier, more direct approach, and (c) by forcing the reader to fill in that gap, you’re actually making the reader engage with intensity. This is the reader as co-writer – and that means super-engaged.]

Rebus froze. “What’s happened?”

[Again: you can’t convey the same thing with fewer words. Again, the shimmering anxiety about what has still not been said has extra force precisely because of the clipped style.]

“Look, it might not be him …”

[A brilliantly oblique way of indicating, “But I’m frigging terrified that it is.” Oblique is good. Clipped is good.]

“Where are you?”

[A non-sequitur, but totally consistent with the way people think and talk.]

“Describe him for me … that way you’re not headed all the way out here for nothing.”

Just as he hasn’t responded to what she had just said, now it’s her turn to ignore him. Again, it’s the absences that make this bit of dialogue live. Just imagine how flaccid this same bit would be if she had said, “Let’s not get into where I am right now. Look, it’s important that you describe him for me . . .”]

In short:

Gaps are good. They make the reader work, and a ton of emotion and inference swirls in the gaps.

Want to achieve the same effect? Copy Rankin. Keep it tight.

Dialogue rule 2: Watch those beats

Oftener than not, great story moments hinge on character exchanges,that have dialogue at their heart. Even very short dialogue can help drive a plot, showing more about your characters and what’s happening than longer descriptions can.

(How come? It’s the thing we just talked about: how very spare dialogue makes the reader work hard to figure out what’s going on, and there’s an intensity of energy released as a result.)

But right now, I want to focus on the way that dialogue needs to create its own emotional beats. So that the action of the scene and the dialogue being spoken becomes the one same thing.

Here’s how screenwriting guru Robert McKee puts it:

Dialogue is not [real-life] conversation. … Dialogue [in writing] … must have direction. Each exchange of dialogue must turn the beats of the scene … yet it must sound like talk.

This excerpt from Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs is a beautiful example of exactly that. It’s short as heck, but just see what happens.

As before, I’ll give you the dialogue itself, then the same thing again with my notes on it:

“The significance of the chrysalis is change. Worm into butterfly, or moth. Billy thinks he wants to change. … You’re very close, Clarice, to the way you’re going to catch him, do you realize that?”

“No, Dr Lecter.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind telling me what happened to you after your father’s death.”

Starling looked at the scarred top of the school desk.

“I don’t imagine the answer’s in your papers, Clarice.”

Here Hannibal holds power, despite being behind bars. He establishes control, and Clarice can’t push back, even as he pushes her. We see her hesitancy, Hannibal’s power. (And in such few words! Can you even imagine trying to do as much as this without the power of dialogue to aid you? I seriously doubt if you could.)

But again, here’s what’s happening in detail

[Beat 1: Invoking the chrysalis and moth here is almost magical language. it’s like Hannibal is the magician, the Prospero figure. Look too at the switch of tack in the middle of this snippet. First he’s talking about Billy wanting to change – then about Clarice’s ability to find him. Even that change of tack emphasises his power: he’s the one calling the shots here; she’s always running to keep up.]

“No, Dr Lecter.”

[Beat 2: Clarice sounds controlled, formal. That’s not so interesting yet . . . but it helps define her starting point in this conversation, so we can see the gap between this and where she ends up.]

“Good. Then you won’t mind telling me what happened to you after your father’s death.”

[Beat 3: Another whole jump in the dialogue. We weren’t expecting this, and we’re already feeling the electricity in the question. How will Clarice react? Will she stay formal and controlled?]

Starling looked at the scarred top of the school desk.

[Beat 4: Nope! She’s still controlled, just about, but we can see this question has duanted her. She can’t even answer it! Can’t even look at the person she’s talking to.]

“I don’t imagine the answer’s in your papers, Clarice.”

[Beat 5: And Lecter immediately calls attention to her reaction, thereby emphasising that he’s observed at and knows what it means.]

Overall, you can see that not one single element of this dialogue leaves the emotional balance unaltered. Every line of dialogue alters the emotional landscape in some way. That’s why it feels so intense & engaging.

Want to achieve the same effect? Just check your own dialogue, line by line. Do you feel that emotional movement there all the time? If not, just delete anything unecessary until you feel the intensity and emotional movement increase.

Dialogue Rule 3: Keep it oblique

One more point, which sits kind of parallel to the bits we’ve talked about already.

It’s this.

If you want to create some terrible dialogue, you’d probably come up with something like this:

“Hey Judy.”

“Hey, Brett.”

“You OK?”

“Yeah, not bad. What do you say? Maybe play some tennis later?”

“Tennis? I’m not sure about that. I think it’s going to rain.”

Tell me honestly: were you not just about ready to scream there? If that dialogue had continued like that for much longer, you probably would have done.

And the reason is simple. It was direct, not oblique.

So direct dialogue is where person X says something or asks a question, and person Y answers in the most logical, direct way.

We hate that! As readers, we hate it.

Oblique dialogue is where people never quite answer each other in a straight way. Where a question doesn’t get a straightforward response. Where random connections are made. Where we never quite know where things are going.

As readers, we love that. It’s dialogue to die for.

And if you want to see oblique dialogue in action, here’s a snippet from Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network. (We don’t usually reference films so much on this blog, but there’s an obvious exception when it comes to talking about dialogue.) So here goes. This is the young Mark Zuckerberg talking with a lawyer:

Lawyer: “Let me re-phrase this. You sent my clients sixteen emails. In the first fifteen, you didn’t raise any concerns.”

MZ: ‘Was that a question?’

L: “In the sixteenth email you raised concerns about the site’s functionality. Were you leading them on for 6 weeks?”

MZ: ‘No.’

L: “Then why didn’t you raise any of these concerns before?”

MZ: ‘It’s raining.’

L: “I’m sorry?”

MZ: ‘It just started raining.’

L: “Mr. Zuckerberg do I have your full attention?”

MZ: ‘No.’

L: “Do you think I deserve it?”

MZ: ‘What?’

L: “Do you think I deserve your full attention?”

I won’t discuss that in any detail, because the technique really leaps out at you. It’s particularly visible here, because the lawyer wants and expects to have a direct conversation. (I ask a question about X, you give me a reply that deals with X. I ask a question about Y, and …) Zuckerberg here is playing a totally different game, and it keeps throwing the lawyer off track – and entertaining the viewer/reader too.

Want to achieve the same effect? Just keep your dialogue not quite joined up. People should drop in random things, go off at tangents, talk in non-sequiturs, respond to an emotional implication not the thing that’s directly on the page – or anything. Just keep it broken. Keep it exciting!

Dialogue rule 4: reveal character dynamics and emotion

Let’s take a look here at Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower as another example.

Protagonist Charlie, a high school freshman, learns his long-time crush, Sam, may like him back, after all. Here’s how that dialogue goes:

“Okay, Charlie … I’ll make this easy. When that whole thing with Craig was over, what did you think?”

… “Well, I thought a lot of things. But mostly, I thought your being sad was much more important to me than Craig not being your boyfriend anymore. And if it meant that I would never get to think of you that way, as long as you were happy, it was okay.” …

… “I can’t feel that. It’s sweet and everything, but it’s like you’re not even there sometimes. It’s great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn’t need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can’t. You have to do things.”

“Like what?” …

“I don’t know. Like take their hands when the slow song comes up for a change. Or be the one who asks someone for a date.”

The words sound human.

Sam and Charlie are tentative, exploratory – and whilst words do the job of ‘turning’ a scene, both receiving new information, driving action on – we also see their dynamic.

And so we connect to them.

We see Charlie’s reactive nature, checking with Sam what she wants him to do. Sam throws out ideas, but it’s clear she wants him to be doing this thinking, not her, subverting Charlie’s idea of passive selflessness as love.

The dialogue shows us the characters, as clearly as anything else in the whole book. Shows us their differences, their tentativeness, their longing.

Want to achieve the same effect? Understand your characters as fully as you can. The more you can do this, the more naturally you’ll write dialogue that’s right for them. You can get tips on knowing your characters here.

A few last dialogue rules

If you struggle with writing dialogue, read plays or screenplays for inspiration. Read Tennessee Williams or Henrik Ibsen. Anything by Elmore Leonard is great. Ditto Raymond Chandler or Donna Tartt.

Some last tips:

Keep speeches short. If a speech runs for more than three sentences or so, it (usually) risks being too long.

Ensure characters speak in their own voice. And make sure your characters don’t sound the same as each other.

Add intrigue. Add slang and banter. Lace character chats with foreshadowing. You needn’t be writing a thriller to do this.

Get in late and out early. Don’t bother with small talk. Decide the point of each interaction, begin with it as late as possible, ending as soon as your point is made.

Interruption is good. So are characters pursuing their own thought processes and not quite engaging with the other.

#links #advice #tools

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crimsongodss · 5 years ago

Photo

BASIC INFORMATION

Full name: Cassius Vasile

Age: 31

Gender: Cismale, he/him

Sexual orientation: ???? all over the fucking place, let’s be real

Birthday: February 14 ( a cosmic joke, surely )

Zodiac: Aquarius

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Personality type: INFJ - The Advocate

Affiliation: Vasile Media

Occupation: Private Investigator at Vasile & Vasile

current residence: Studio apartment on the north side of Chicago. Lives alone.

financial status: Too Rich

education level: Undergraduate Degree in Psychology. Graduate Degree in Forensic Science. PHD in Criminology, Law, and Justice.

familial connections of note: ummm he thinks his family is full of packing peanuts other than his siblings.

pets: n/a

PLAYLIST

The Passenger - Iggy Pop

All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

Flickers - Son Lux

Mama's Gun - Glass Animals

Bad Ritual - Timber Timbre

Lose Your Soul - Dead Man's Bones

The Chain - Fleetwood Mac

TRIGGERS: depiction of suicide, violence, drug abuse. Please, you've been warned.

OVERVIEW

Oldest of the Vasile children. Part of the Vasile media empire. Has a PHD. Yada, yada, yada -

Cassius finds humanity draining. He’s what some might call a ‘pure empath’ and he’s not in the least bit thrilled about it. He lives for the three following things: a good case (which is, really, just a good puzzle,) his twin ( possibly the only one that silences the frenetic chaos of his mind,) and the latest object of his interest ( one Dexter O’Shea.) Oh, and here’s one thing we might as well call out too: Cassius is a serial killer posing as an investigative journalist. Considering how much blood flows through the streets of Chicago thanks to the gangs though, that’s not too hard to cover up.

BACKSTORY

Cassius feels more like the prodigal son than a prodigy, but that's what he's called growing up - a prodigy. He's got a mind for science they say. Biology, physics, chemistry and sociology come easily to him.

He’s a good kid growing up. He’s the envy of the other parents for being ‘so quiet and well-behaved.’ A reputation he carries even now.

He’s prone to fainting spells all throughout his childhood. This causes him to stay indoors with his books.

Earning his degrees are a blur. He skates through each academic challenge with boredom.

As the oldest, it is expected he'd take some sort of interest in his parent's media ventures. He does. Sort of. Cassius starts off writing for and then eventually editing one of Vasile Media's peer reviewed publications.

He gets bored.

He moves on to investigative journalism and this manages to hold his attention for a while longer.

One doesn't need an abusive household or tragic backstory to be sad. Some are born sadder than others.

Cassius is sad, this is a truth. More than that, his time as a investigative journalist reveals a part of him he hasn’t really understood until that point.

Cassius feels the pain of the living deeply. The dead are no different. He’s what they call a pure empath and the feelings of others flow through him, whether he likes it or not. As a private investigator, one who’s witnessed just a few too many deaths up close in this crimson town, he knows how death feels when it slips inside his skin or lurks near him. He’s been born and reborn, he’s died and died again - hundreds of times. The visions he has while investigating crimes scenes cycle through him. Sometimes he dreams through their eyes - gets so close to cases that he remembers lives that aren’t his, mourns loves he’s never felt. Where death ends and he begins he often can’t discern.

He hates it.

Depression runs deep in this one. It flows like a river. He tries to get rid of his own body more than once.

One winter night he slits his wrists and the blood flows and flows and flows, till it runs rivers down his body, fills the bathtub he’s in like chalice. It should kill him and yet it doesn’t. He’s saved, by his sister. Anyone else and he would have resented them for it forever, maybe even killed them over it. She is different.

She forces him to live and so he makes peace with the idea of life.

They become team of investigative journalists for one of Vasile Media’s publications, but what starts off as a little stint leads to them starting a private investigation firm together.

They don’t do half bad. They get enough cases to call themselves a business, and earn enough enemies to know that they’re doing something right.

One of his cases leads him to Dexter O’Shea. He meets the other in jail and it’s intrigue at first sight. The Hannibal Lector to his own Clarice Starling if you will.

Except in this verse, Clarice Starling is definitely buying what Hannibal Lector is selling. What start off as consulting visits turn a bit more conjugal.

When Dexter is released, Cassius begins tagging along on his night time adventures.

( And finally, finally, amidst the bloodiness of it all, Cassius finally feels like he’s doing something worth living for. )

Cassius does his best to keep playing the part of the oldest son for the watching eyes of the world. He does his best to turn away the questioning glances of his sister.

When Camille’s questioning glances became too insistent, he begins slipping things into her drink to help her forget.

The questioning glances stop.

Their investigations together continue.

One of those enemies crawls out of the woodwork. Cassius’ sister Camille, is subject to an attack - in which she lost her tongue. 'Speak No Evil" is the message left behind. The attacker is never caught, and their identity and affiliation remains a mystery to the family. Whomever it is, Cassius just knows there will be hell to pay when he finds them.

PRESENT DAY

Still runs a private investigation firm with his sister.

Still kills with Dexter.

Still is sad.

Pretends to be the perfect son.

OTHER

Basically the personification of that Scar gif “I’m surrounded by idiots”

Quiet. Which, trust me, is better than him speaking. When he speaks its all venom.

Keep his interest and you’ve earned his respect.

He believes in manners.

Loves a good cashmere sweater.

A ‘pure empath.’ As such, can’t speak while around his sister, a woman who’s been rendered mute by a recent attack.

Still hunting down the killer that took his sister’s tongue from her.

Did I just make Will Graham with Harley Quinn’s educational history? I mean look, I won’t tell if you won’t.

WANTED

god, why would you want anything to do with this man? but alright, give me exes ( going to be picky about these cause Cassius is picky AF ), give me people he’s investigating, give me people who hire him and his sister, give me enemies. give me people who suspect him. give me someone dating any of his sisters so he can STAB them.

#I AM SO TIRED i will edit this in the morning i love you all folks goodnight #crimson.intro #suicide tw #gore tw #blood tw #( cassius vasile )

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