#doesn't feel like it's literally eating itself alive as often or intensely as it's felt here the last couple of weeks))

[m-eltdown]

[k-s-morgan]

Why did Will reject Hannibal after Muskrat farm? I see a few justifications saying that Will was tired after Hannibal almost eats his brain and is fucked up by Mason, but that doesn’t seem reason enough.

Will also talks about the rejection when he visits Hannibal in TWOTL, saying Hannibal would only turn himself in if Will rejected him. What was Will’s intent here?

Hi! So, this is a very complex arc that has many interpretations. This is how I see it - and I'll start from the start of S3 because it's important to keep track of the change of Will's attitudes.

In the first several episodes, Will is operating under the knowledge that Hannibal loves him, and his emotions come to the surface more openly. He can't and doesn't want to move on: the first thing he does upon waking up is voicing his pain at Hannibal leaving him to die, then berating himself for lying to him, then realizing Hannibal left him alive deliberately and that he wants to be found. Will begins to analyze their conversations and quickly figures out where he should go to look for him. After being released from the hospital, he starts building a boat to travel to Hannibal by sea. The nature of this action is romantic by itself - also, this scene is intercut with his Mizumono memories, namely, with Hannibal's face that emerges every time he moves yet another part of the engine. This is a vivid demonstration of Will trying to repair what is now broken. He openly admits to Jack that he wanted to run away with Hannibal.

Similarly, Will spends some time sitting in Hannibal's empty house. He is pining hard, his feelings are so intense that he no longer even bothers to hide them from Alana and Jack. The whole E2 is Will's love letter to Hannibal - he's reverent about him, he thinks about him non-stop, and he tries to find him very hard, even literally chasing him down. He even lies at the place where Hannibal left him his "broken heart," as if needing closer physical contact.

Things begin to shift as Will meets Chiyoh. I feel like Will starts drawing comparisons between them and comes to a conclusion that Hannibal doesn't love him after all. That if he abandoned Chiyoh, whom he was supposed to love, so easily, for so many years, without bothering to return to her, then maybe he's just not capable of love. Will's torn now, wondering if he was mistaken about Hannibal's feelings as well as about his and Abigail's importance because if Hannibal left his family so easily once, who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again? Will is insecure by nature, he often doubts himself, and textually, that's the first time when he starts considering killing Hannibal again. Seeing Bedelia as his replacement just reinforced this idea, so Will returned to his bitter and vengeful state, hence his half-attempt with a knife in Dolce.

After Hannibal reacts to this attempt by trying to (half-heartedly) saw Will's head open, and then the whole disaster with Mason happens, it all becomes a breaking point for Will. The initial excitement and determination he felt have passed. He has grown disillusioned, bitter, hurt and hurtful once again. He's tired, he's no longer certain of anything, and he needs to re-retreat. It's similar to how people often feel a boost of energy to do something daring, but at some point, they lose this spark. They stop feeling like they could move the mountains, and Will feels it, too.

He rejects Hannibal because of this, as I see it. He doesn't know what he wants again, he isn't sure Hannibal loves him, and he's no longer willing to break the fragile, shattered semblance of normalcy he has been cultivating for decades. He's clinging to what he's used to instead of jumping head on into something new and mysterious, even if it's much more exciting. Will has no strength for excitement and passion right now.

I never quite bought that Will knew for sure that Hannibal would give himself up if he rejected him. Yes, Will was probably lying when saying he wanted everything to be over, and maybe on a subconscious level, he hoped for some grand proof of love, but I don't think he could be actually sure that something like this would happen. For one thing, Hannibal's response is genuinely unexpected - just in Mizumono, he gutted Will after his betrayal; in Dolce, he attempted to kill him after Will betrayed him again. Giving himself up is something new - Hannibal has grown a lot during these months and days, but Will doesn't know it. Also, I don't think Will is nearly confident enough about his place in Hannibal's life to predict that Hannibal would give up his freedom for him. In addition, he just strikes me as surprised and pained when he sees Hannibal's surrender.

So, maybe Will was thinking about it a lot afterward, and during that moment in prison, he wanted to hurt Hannibal, so he exaggerated the depth of his manipulation.

If this is the case, then why did Will want to hurt Hannibal at all later? In my opinion, it's for several reasons. Will is feeling extremely petty. He's hurting Hannibal just because he can - he now fully realized the power he holds over him, and he's enjoying it. He's paying him back for everything he's still angry and hurt over. It's possible that he's also playing it up for the cameras, making Jack and Alana believe that he's leaving for good and wants nothing to do with Hannibal. That would make his break out plan easier. He lies not just to Hannibal here, he lies to everyone who's watching. He claims he had nothing to do with setting up Chilton, even though he took the responsibility for him with Bedelia; he claims he's going back to Molly, even though they broke up.

[frstbiitten]

Before, the world didn't offer a notion about the future, every day was different and nothing was planned beforehand, there’s no preparation for what could come next. Now, it was different, she had found a good source of interest and source of money, it was arguably a possible source of income, it was very risky by how brutal and insane it sounded. Beating each other for money, who could do such a thing to have some coins in their pockets? Well, it's unthinkable in a way, but despair is what moves one to do something they never thought possible. There were more people sharing the same shoe and none of them felt lucky to be breathing, it was an obligation to be able to breathe properly. Living, that's what everyone wants, to be able to see the lights of dawn.

She was no exception. If she is alive now it was for something, now there is a reason to not die from hunger or the weather, for she had more will in her spirit. Although, without lying, there were days that preferred to be consumed by worms, to turn into dust in the most painless way possible, that could be considered a gift from fate. Thinking about the death terrified her, knew that one day death will come for her, the indicated day when her body would collapse imminently, her bones, every artery, her own blood, everything will become useless objects without any use. She didn't want that for her, though she doesn't feel exactly alive at all either.

For now, her body was still functional, she could do what almost anyone else could do, but after the first night at "The Box" as some people called it, her muscles begged to rest. The first thing she did with the money she had gotten the first night was to buy a cheeseburger, although what she had won was not too much and she left the rest to manage it in the upcoming days -she had some hope that could get out of this situation in the future, one day-. It has been years since the last time she ate a cheeseburger, something that could placate with the hunger she was constantly feeling, maybe it wasn't the best food or the most nutritious, but at least it felt like a reason to go on long enough until she could continue and rebuild her life from scratch -but had no idea how.

This time she had some company, Lewis accompanied her and worked as a good moment for her sister Clarissa to meet the new girl, they were almost identical, almost the same light skin and they had the same mole under the left eye, although her features were softer. She was almost as tall as him, something that led her to think that they might be twins. Something that she could notice about Clarissa was her muscles, they were firm and accompanied the rest of her anatomy in balance with the rest of her body, she had slightly thicker arms and wide shoulders, she felt some intimidation from such anatomical structure. Such was the intimidation that she later saw in a broken portion of a mirror she had kept in her 'place’. The girl barely had enough muscles to look menacing and the skin on her face seemed too thin as well as pale, as if it were going to break.

"Mmm... I can't believe that a girl like this could have beaten a veteran like she did, can you explain well what happened?" The sister hadn't finished her glass of soda yet and kept insisting with the straw, watching the girl eat the burger somewhat uncomfortable with her presence itself, as if she was from another world and didn’t even know how to look like a human being.

"Well, she, Snowflake, not only struck her skull, but she literally froze her arms out of nowhere and broke them into a thousand pieces, it was like seeing a wild wolf with rabies attacking a moose." yes, that's how it happened, even though the girl still hasn’t reached for the memories of that night, beyond all the blood that had to be removed and the wounds she had to clean, there still are bruises on her stomach and legs.

"Well... I find it hard to believe, she hasn’t reached adulthood yet  and she’s so short, maybe it was just beginner's luck."

"I owe.. nothing... to luck." She mentioned between bites and with a full mouth, observed both before finishing with her burger. Well no, it wasn't beginner's luck at all, and it never would be, she didn't believe in such a thing as luck as it could never prove that it was on her side. In any case, luck owes her more than one could think.

"Okay, valid, let's forget beginner's luck for now."

Lewis' real intentions were that his sister could train Snowflake as soon as she could and have her ready for the next encounter, which gods know when it was going to be but it wasn’t going to be soon. Neither Clarissa nor Snowflake were excited about the idea of receiving such orders, Clarissa wasn’t aware of her brother's decisions. They decided to start as soon as possible with the training so they could have some notion as to how much she could hold, Clarissa seemed to have mastered the concept of throwing someone down, made a demonstration with Lewis - which was surprising and almost leaves him very confused-, she flexed her knees and advanced as fast as she could to wrap his brother's waist with her own arms, she then  proceeded with lifting him a few inches above the ground and pushing him down to the hard ground.

"AAAHHHH SHIIIT, FUUUUCK!!!" Lewis's screams frightened the girl, asked if he would be okay after taking such an intense blow directly the spine, he could only turn on his body and keep screaming in pain, there were even tears in his eyes and began to cry.

"He’s going to be okay, when you least expect it, he’s going to be doing his thing again like nothing has happened."

"Good, because I don't want to kill him with a movement like that."

Between those weeks of training, sometimes she felt that her body could not bear it and they had to stop, the level of sugar in her blood could lower suddenly, feel dizzy or not feel physically strong enough. Years of poor nutrition were doing its effect when she least needed it, from now on she wouldn't have to look into disgusting places for some food. Clarissa was stronger than one could tell at first, was able to lift her brother who was somehow slightly heavier than her, and she had no issue with lifting him off the ground. She was careful when it came to teaching the girl a few new moves, a way to make the opponent lose access to the air stream, such as making the other fall on their back and other techniques as well. The place they chose was what was once a warehouse a few decades ago, this part of the city is suffering from the decline that the country was going through, there were many conditioning factors for such an increase in poverty, even if she did not understand them completely.

The good news is that she could live in a small abandoned apartment, and won’t be too far from the siblings at least, although this one lacked many things. Obviously, the paint was flaunted and there was debris on the ground, the smell of isolation and dead was the first thing that made her regret leaving her lair between the rocks, but it was better to have a roof than have nothing. There were rules: whatever she earned every night, both Lewis and Clarissa would get 15% each, meaning that 30% would be for both of them, while 'Snowflake' would get the rest. There weren't many guidelines to follow, just that she didn't die in the middle of the fight for her own obvious good, and she couldn't try or dare to do business with anyone else who volunteered to help her.

"Good... So ... this is where I'm going to stay?" She looked around, at least the bathroom was still working, it was something, and she would have to search for the exact spot from where such a hideous smell came from.

"Yes, I know it's not a 5-stars hotel, but it's what we could afford." Clarissa mentioned without paying much attention to the girl's discomfort, usually, she didn't often care about anyone but herself.

"Also, if you need anything, we have a phone to give you, it's not the big deal but it was cheap and is  supposedly very resistant to falls and all that." From inside a paper bag, Lewis pulled out a small cardboard box, had no image or inscription that could catch the attention, could it be stolen or a  smuggled product? The girl preferred not to ask questions on the subject, maybe it could have some connection to the mob or something. "You have our numbers if you need something from us, we'll also let you know when we come to pick you up."

Inside the box was a phone which model was a hit a few years ago, the first models that went on sale after those that looked like portable bricks were smaller, the screen had only two colors - gray and black or blue and black-, and this was one of them. With the press of a single button the small device came to life and lit a light gray color, the keys were not divided between each other but were joined by a soft-touch material and easy to press. Better than nothing, she had to remember that everything she would have from now, even though it was almost useless, old or in bad shape, was better than having nothing. She appreciated it.

"Do you think you can fight again tonight? Some people are talking about you since the first night." The girl had not paid much attention to Lewis' voice for being more interested in the new phone, he sighed exhaustively and placed both hands on his hips, while his sister kept her arms crossed and turned her eyes.

"What? Fight tonight?... I think I could do it, although I don't know how it's going to end." Despite the training she received, she still had doubts about whether she could use her powers in the midst of the fight, at some point the ice would come to the rescue from the depths of her cells, it would not be long before the adrenaline took effect and she becomes a real threat t the other rival.

It had been almost two months since the first fight, she would lie if she said that had confidence in her own strength now that her body has begun to change in respect to the muscles, it was an almost imperceptible change to the naked eye, but her arms began to harden and the grip of her hands became firmer than before. She could win, she had the strength necessary and the power to win. That night there was tension in the air, the atmosphere was different, as Clarissa's presence there alerted several spectators, her name is already a well-known one among them, and just by seeing her, memories and rumors came out afloat without saying a single word.