#hannibal lecter . ( prose )

[bebx]

inspired by this post

[becomingvecna]

[speedymiraclebeard]

Don't ignore me, listen to our sad story💔🥹🍉

Where did the situation in Gaza reach?

You made us look for flour, you slanderers. The price of a bag of flour has doubled and there is no cash for us to buy it...

The height of oppression, I swear we will die of hunger, people

We are dying of hunger, Arabs

God is sufficient for us, and He is the best Disposer of affairs

We even started eating with a spoon because there was no flour.

May God take revenge on those who caused us such famine

God is sufficient for us, and He is the best Disposer of affairs.

Gaza, the land of goodness, is dying of hunger, cold, and fear.

We miss the days of peace, God, end the war

https://gofund.me/be63258b

Voices from Gaza.. Where are our rights?

In Gaza, we live every day a struggle not only for survival, but for our basic right to a dignified life.

My rights as a human being:

To live safely, away from the sounds of bombing and the fear that haunts me and my children every night.

Eat healthy food, not the crumbs provided by harsh conditions that lack the minimum requirements for health.

Get treatment when my kids get sick, without having to wait under the risk of explosions or lack of medication.

I wish I didn't have to ask for this, but circumstances leave me no choice. Please donate or highlight my campaign so I can buy a $100 bag of flour and basic food supplies so my family can eat healthy instead of spoiled food 🙏💔

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #338 )✅️

[trap-str]

[sapphoetics]

‘  i’m always pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to kill you in my mind  ’ — will for hannibal

meme response——— long lost prompts

There was no moment where Hannibal wasn’t acutely aware of Will’s location, even as he shied toward the edges of the room, avoiding as much small talk as he could. Unfortunately, the mask of a new identity had done little to alleviate his anxieties, leaving Will to fend on his own while Hannibal glad-handed under a new pseudonym about a life that wasn’t his. Antiquities and art had always been a personal passion, leaving Hannibal to speak on the subject like he’d been working in the field his entire life, fabricating a professional background in 16th century Eastern European architecture that had lead them to Niasvizh. It felt enough like home that there was a rind of sentimentality to Belarus, despite only traveled to Minsk for a day or two at a time. In opposition to the biting weather, the people had been kind, outgoing even, as far as Slavs were concerned. Hannibal had taken little time to assimilate, folding in with his new coworkers as easily as ever, allowing both he and Will the time and space to socialize.

The pair had hopped from one country to the next over several years, lingering longer and growing roots in cities where they couldn’t be extradited back to Washington when paranoia took hold. Until the chatter following Francis Dolarhyde died down, they stayed largely under the radar, leaving Hannibal to find amusement in his art and his books like he was back in prison, entertaining himself for months on end. The key difference being that the only thing that kept him afloat then was the chance of seeing Will again and now—--

The air shifted as Will approached Hannibal from behind, prompting a half turn to regard the approach in his periphery. His breath was warm against the shell of Hannibal’s ear, prickling gooseflesh along his neck as he tilted fractionally closer. 

“I’m always pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to kill you in my mind.”

Hannibal made no outward tell to how the confession affected him, his expression stoic save the twitching of the corners of his mouth toward a smile. In the subtle language they’d developed in silence, it was Hannibal blushing in delighted arousal. He caught Will’s eyes he righted himself, making known his approval for the gesture, however underhanded. Hannibal enjoyed Will’s manipulation of him, invited it even, where it had improved and delighted him more and more as time went on. This was a ploy for abandoning the function early, baiting him back home with the promise of implied carnality.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you,” he replied tenderly, hoping that when the time did come, it would be Will’s hands around his neck. For a brief moment, he turned back to his conversation, smiling in the polite way that he did when he would be bearing unfortunate news. “Doctors, forgive me, but there’s an emergency at home that cannot wait. Let me make it up to you next week.”

[hydropyro]

Writer Interview Tag

Thanks for the tag @tavyliasin! I just finished reading yours and @redroomroaving's entries <3 I feel mine will also be quite heavy, though I don't struggle with the kinds of things you two beasts /pos do.

I will tag @dude-wheres-my-ankheg, @insanefan, @firlionemoontav, and @dark-and-kawaii,

Questions and answers below the cut -- potential mention of SA

When did you start writing?

I started writing before I could actually write. I would scribble lines onto paper or type nonsense into my grandma's computer and then 'read' it to her.

I was (am?) hyperlexic, and by second grade I had a high school reading level. In school we would do AR tests, and I had to check out books from the public library, as the in-school library did not have books that were challenging enough. This is also when I began to carry around a pen and paper and write my own stories.

The first I remember distinctly was a story about a butterfly who was lost. I don't remember the plot at all. I also wrote, and still have, a spiral bound 'book' that I wrote as a second grade project where we researched a topic (owls) and then wrote a non-fiction story about it.

As far as Fan Fiction goes -- last year! I did rewrite the ending of 'Lucifer' when that came out because they did it wrong -- but last year after playing Baldur's Gate 3 is when I first wrote a piece of fan fiction. And I am deep in these trenches.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I really enjoy crime and psychological horror. The 'Hannibal Lecter' series by Thomas Harris is a particular favorite of mine.

I also was enthralled with 'Animorphs' in third through fifth grade, and had read any and all that I could get my hands on. I was not a huge fan of science-fiction, though there were a few individual stories that I enjoyed. I also read the 'Warriors' series by Erin Hunter. Another beloved series was 'Inkheart/Inkspell/Inkdeath' by Cornelia Funke, the 'Eragon' series by Christopher Paolini, and the 'Purple Emperor' series by Herbie Brennan. Fantasy/(low-fantasy might be the genre) was a particular favorite of mine.

My favorite book, though, which I read in fifth grade -- originally because none of my personal choices were deemed challenging enough -- was 'The Iliad' by Homer. I don't remember which translation was used, but it was not in prose format, so that may narrow it down.

I used to read a lot. These days, I don't read much. By seventh grade when I started my first 'real novel' I was afraid of being too heavily influenced by things that I read. In eighth grade I stopped reading fiction entirely for this reason, after a teacher (vice principal) confiscated my work and viciously accused me of plagiarism as the things I was writing was 'too mature for someone my age to even know about' (Take the hint, mandatory reporter). From that point on, I only read Biographies/Historical reports. 'Operation Valkyrie' by Pierre Galante is thrilling.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

Other than my 8th Grade vice-principal, teachers were always very encouraging of my writing. The school librarians, especially. I have had my work compared to 'The Hunger Games' specifically (though I don't agree with) and I was asked to take a test that would analyze a piece of work and tell you what well-known author it was most like. I had Hemingway.

I don't try to emulate anyone, and actively avoid being 'inspired' by any works, as I previously said. As an adult, I think I could better use other work as 'inspiration', where as a child it was more 'copying', which didn't sit right.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

From second grade, all through high school and into college, I carried around a spiral ring notebook (always college/narrow ruled! Never wide ruled!) and pen everywhere I went. When I say everywhere, I mean it quite literally. Over the years I have had hundreds of notebooks full of dozens of stories. Most of them have fallen into obscurity, but a precious few are near and dear to my heart.

I write, and have always written, where I am currently sitting. In school I would write during lectures rather than take notes (some teachers had a small problem with this, though I explained that I need to do that in order to focus. I guess ADHD wasn't as well-known back in the early 00s) and my grades were excellent, so I was allowed to continue. By middle school my father had purchased a metal clipboard case for me to carry, so I could write during sport events when I wasn't competing.

These days I write mostly at my kitchen table, where my laptop is set up, or in bed with one of my spiral-ring notebooks -- though if inspiration strikes while I am out and about I have Word and Google Docs on my phone. I prefer to handwrite and then type it out, rather than write directly on a computer.

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

i wish I knew how to answer this question. I have been asked many times over the years.

The best way that I know how to explain my 'process' is that -- I don't write. (Obviously I do just follow me for a moment). I don't 'build' characters. The only time I use baby name generators or the like is when I have an inconsequential side character that needs a name for a paragraph. My characters are 'born', and they tell me their stories. I just record them.

As a child I spent a lot of time daydreaming -- called Maladaptive Day Dreaming by my psych professionals. While doing chores I would be living in my stories, and these experiences would inspire scenes. Walking through the forest while camping -- scene.

Though, I will note, that the hearing of my characters is not a hallucination. It is more like -- a memory of a conversation or experience and I am recalling it.

My hallucinations are very different.

Things that I have found are more likely to get my characters talking is TV shows with strong character development. I wrote a great deal during my 'Supernatural' and 'Lucifer' days. Baldur's Gate 3 has also helped get the creative juices flowing -- though my fan fic is, obviously, directly derived from that source material.

What is your reason for writing?

A sweet and simple answer is -- they make me. The characters and the story make me. My mind is never quiet, and there is a catharsis in allowing the story to flow from my brain and out through my fingertips.

The reason my therapist may ask me to give is more -- intense -- and one I had not realized was the likely case. Feel free to skip to the next question.

Stories -- my characters, the worlds I build, the relationships they form -- are my safe place. There were times in my childhood that I would have eagerly left my home to go to 'Abser' -- lightyears away.

They are the friends I could never have because we moved every year -- they could never leave me. They are the safe, strong, and capable adults I never knew.

They were my punching bags. I was a quiet and sweet child -- straight A student because school was safe. Star athlete because I was admired and loved there. Even when I went to church to a god I didn't believe in because it got me out of the house, I was the best worshipper -- i knew all the trivia at Sunday school. And so torturing my characters once I was forced home was cathartic.

They were my avatars. They could love and live and hate and die -- when they were raped as children they could grow up into successful, happy adults -- not damaged at all. They could have loving parents who would move Heaven and Earth for them.

And, they could live out the -- more mature -- fantasies that I had and hid away out of (appropriately placed, I later found) fear that making them known and -- god forbid acting on them -- would lead to ridicule and abandonment.

In seventh grade I created a character named Kacie. She looked like me. Protagonist. Loving family. Strong woman. There was another character I didn't like much, called Leon. He was mean. Aloof.

As the story developed -- Kacie didn't, so much. But Leon told me his story. Raised without a mother by a man who hated, abused, and neglected him and his little sister -- doing anything and everything he could to protect his little sister, even if it put him in danger -- hiding behind his art trying to white knuckle his way through life -- addict -- hedonist -- angry at life itself -- and utterly alone in the world.

Of course, it is art so his experience is much more extreme than mine -- (sorry, Leon).

ha, ha, fan fic though!

Still the above -- they make me -- but playing with these little dolls that I didn't make, but that I made my own -- is just fun. Sure, I'm probably expressing more yet-to-be-discovered trauma as well, but man do I love to justify my favorite devil and make Alakvyr and Abdirak kiss.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

For my personal work -- when I graduated high school my librarian gave me a notebook and wrote on the inside cover 'Never Stop Writing'. I have yet to use that notebook. When I finished the first draft of my complete novel I was brave and sent it to my family to read. They had never read my work before. My step-dad, who is my hero, said he 'couldn't put it down'.

For my fan fiction work, I love that other people also love them! As I said, I don't percolate on ideas, and for my fan-fiction I hardly even edit. I word vomit -- try to fix some grammatical issues -- and throw it out into the world. When writing fan fiction I wanted it to be solely for the passion of writing -- not perfect.

I love to hear when people catch the little references I put in (think 'call it a ninth sense' that Raphael says in game) and when people tell me that I 'captured' an established character well. Especially Raphael and Abdirak.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Firstly -- awe

Secondly -- I don't know if I want to necessarily be 'thought about' by my readers.

My original work has very few readers -- and though those who have read it have given raving reviews except @summerwarlock who beta read my work and gave an incredibly helpful and extensive review (still raving, but also helpful tips and critiques) no one has asked me questions or wanted to 'better understand' me, my story, or characters. So, as far as fan fic

Think of me as a fan! A fan with gremlins in my head and gloriously agonizing brainrot -- but a fan.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Original Work: hahaha hahahahahaahhahahaha who knows? Probably the same as fan fiction, though.

Fan fiction: probably character development/character study. I love to pull characters apart to deeply understand who they are and why they do, say, think, and feel as they do. One of my favorite things to write is Raphael justifying himself -- and I feel especially successful when people read it and say 'holy shit, he's right'.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

Original work -- I was held back by fear of being judged for writing the story the way it needed to be written. I have a character who is a power-mad king. An absolutely shit-pile of a person -- but I wrote him fairly bland. Other characters would tell you 'oh he's awful' but I never showed him being awful because 'what if people judge me for thinking this'.

Fan fic has helped me a lot with this, as well as Summerwarlock's tips. And so, the hedonistic, rapist, abusive king will do those things because it is in character. Sorry -- all the other characters.

For fan fic -- yes and no. I write for myself. I write because I enjoy it and fan fic is my passion project. I don't even edit my work, remember. I just passion all over the page (muhahah) and throw it into the ether. I love that other people enjoy my little weirdos as much as I do.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Original work -- oh, pure shit. Let's move on.

Fan fiction -- I'm a gods damned genius. No, that's a joke. There are some lines that I write that I think 'fuck yea, that came out of me?' but other than that, they're just silly little dolls I'm squishing together, so I'm not too concerned.

I do enjoy sharing it, though, especially with those who write similar things as I do. The Abdirak group I'm in are full of great, loving people who -- as writers themselves -- aren't afraid to give helpful criticism or ask questions that may make you think differently about your work. And they are also wonderful cheerleaders, as I hope I am for them.

I am a passionate person, but I am a very reserved person, so I worry sometimes that the depths of my adoration don't come across -- but I truly do adore you all, and I am so grateful to have found and been accepted into this community.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

One thing I love about Hannibal is that I really like (especially visual) media that - for lack of better terminology - blends "high" and "low" culture.

That's an element present in one of my favourite films, Seven Samurai, which has the mass-audience appeal in its action and fight scenes while also displaying a high level of artistry in its visual composition. It's also one reason I love film noir - most of those films are adapted from pulpy, hardboiled crime stories, but elevate the material through the visuals and cinematography, in ways that often imbue it with a contemplative, existential weight.

Hannibal is similar in being adapted from a book series with some killer turns of phrase in the prose (it's a surprise to me how many great and iconic lines in the show are lifted from the books), but are ultimately pretty basic crime-thriller novels. The show takes the premise and plot points and characters from the novels and applies the sensibility of high art to them. It's in the highly stylized visuals and editing (Fuller's famous "pretentious art house cinema" approach), but also the poetic register of the dialogue, and the fact that the plots unfold according to emotional and aesthetic guidelines, rather than being bound to gritty realism.

And the really brilliant thing is that this thematically aligns perfectly with the actual premise of the show, which is about transforming the gross into the beautiful. The killers on the show deliberately turn the corpses of their victims into art, and the fulcrum of the main relationship is the fact that they both possess the ability to see murder, violence, gore, etc as aesthetically pleasurable. The physical corpses, which on a more conventional crime drama would be disposable, with only the mystery surrounding them important, are central here, because Will's gaze transforms their grisly, fleshy presence into something beautiful and fueled by artistic intent. (The actual crimes are generally of secondary importance at best - the point is the gaze.) The world of the show is so governed by this alternate artistic sensibility that's only understood by a select few, and the moral system is so entirely based on aesthetics, that it bears a lot of relation to camp (part of why not only Will and Hannibal, but also villains like Dolarhyde feel sooo queercoded), but it's far more solemn and self-serious than most camp.

Anyway, I just appreciate the creative vision involved in adapting a series of popular and widely adapted crime novels, but doing it particularly in this way. (And also seeing the Lecter/Graham potential in Red Dragon and deciding to lean waaaay into it.)

[ohbutwheresyourheart]

tagged by the wonderful @redrrriott <3

Last song: Vampire Weekend - Ya Hey

Favorite color: Blood red (at risk of sounding like an edgy teen lmao), and other dark jewel tones - deep blue, purple, emerald green.

Last movie / Tv show: Last show I watched to completion was The Haunting of Hill House, which I loved and want to re-watch at some point because I only found out about the background ghost easter eggs about halfway through and I want to catch 'em all. Right now I'm watching Hannibal season 3 a mere 9 years late to the party.

Sweet/spicy/savory: SWEET. I would die without my little treats and pastries and flavoured lattes and such. But also I love savoury and spicy. And the crossover of sweet/spicy and sweet/savoury.

Relationship status: Spinster seeking cat(s).

Last thing I googled: 'garlic cream cheese pasta' because I had garlic cream cheese and I wanted to. You guessed it. Make some pasta.

Current obsession: Bedelia Du Maurier and how badly she deserves to murder Hannibal Lecter. @n0isy-gh0st's incredible novel Staying Aloft and her Wonka/OC fanfic Absinthe & Chocolate. Teetering on the edge of a full-blown Batman obsession -- by which I mean, an obsession with the Robins, in particular Jason and Damian.

Last book: re-reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel for the one billionth time, and I shall re-read it a billion more. I want to eat that woman's prose, with its descriptions as vivid as a freshly-painted fresco, and its winding, tangible melancholy.

Looking forward to: I'M GONNA BE A PROPERTY OWNER SOON. Exciting and terrifying. Also I and two of my best friends are all turning 30 this year so that should be three very fun events.

Tagging: @junkheaded, @sarrie, @gaywarrren, @the-dragonborn-cums, @justacatdude, @ahlivianne, double tagging @n0isy-gh0st (bc you already got tagged)

[nitemarebf]

— i’m LOW. 25, he, 🌈🦯

— main blog is @abductin …

— my boyfriend is @bloodshortage

appalachian deep south socialist faggot cannibal freak reddit atheist canine on the internet. i’m evil for real life. bpd + ocd are my particular breed of brainworms. im blind and use a white cane irl.

read dni + more below ⬎

the tags you will find on this blog include: ( note i’ve been told none of these even fucking work so who knows with tumblr.hell )

- #m for everything i post or write here.

- #🐻‍❄️ is my husband’s tag. he is everything to me. i use the #us tag for things that remind me of us.

- #horrors for things relating to or talking about my trauma and abuse history or family, etc. the horrors in my life.

- #maybe for hopefulness or positivity. “maybe things will get better.”

- #lit is my writing, and #prose is prose and #poetry is poetry.

i don’t content/trigger warning tag on tumblr. blog contains: (usually light) blood/gore, triggering content in general. this is a personal blog. it will allude to abuse i’ve suffered and the “horrors” tag related to that. maybe don’t follow if you’re sensitive to these things.

dni: minors (-18), terfs/racists/republicans/fascists/ableists, or the super religious (especially regarding christianity).

- find me on vent.app with the username cannibal

- find me on tiktok + twt with the username @nitemarebf

- only kin that matters is hannibal lecter.

[bebx]

[becomingvecna]

don’t be confused by the cannibalism. I am actually a very sweet angel 🥰🫶🏻

[ultraviviolet]

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Salah satu bagian dari film ini yang sering dibahas, dan termasuk bagian yang sering dipuji adalah diangkatnya topik seksisme di dunia kerja yang dihadapi perempuan. For fuck’s sake, Starling bekerja untuk menangkap seorang Pembunuh Berantai dengan menggali informasi lewat pembunuh lainnya yang sedang dipenjara: Hannibal Lecter. Korban-korban dari pembunuh berantai yang menjadi kasusnya, adalah perempuan.

Film ini berhasil menyoroti seksisme, dan perempuan sebagai karakter yang utuh. Bentuk-bentuk seksisme ini dijelaskan di sepanjang film tanpa membuatnya jadi keseluruhan cerita tapi menjadi bagian terpenting. Ia terselip rapi, namun jelas terlihat.

Pembunuh berantai yang memfokuskan “kerja” mereka pada perempuan, adalah sebusuk-busuknya objektifikasi. Bayangkan membunuhi perempuan sebagai self-expression di dunia yang mengobjektifikasi perempuan setiap detiknya lewat berbagai cara. Detektif Starling yang bekerja di FBI ditugaskan untuk menangkap pembunuh berantai ini, dan dia melakukannya dengan sangat baik. Karakter yang diperankan oleh Jodie Foster ini mendapatkan banyak pujian, karena karakter Starling dibentuk dengan tekanan dan latar belakang yang tidak satu dimensi. Doi bukan perempuan yang lemah saja, atau kuat saja, doi berlapis-lapis dan seharusnya begitu.

Selain bagaimana Starling dinarasikan, tema film ini right up my alley, jadi suka film ini adalah proses yang natural. Saya otomatis fokus di sepuluh menit pertama, dan benar-benar menikmati film ini sampai akhir. Tetapi, setelah mengetahui tentang pembunuh berantainya, ada sesuatu yang sedikit mengganggu. Saya harus membocoran sedikit bagian cerita, karena ini menyangkut identitas Si Pembunuh Berantai yang dikejar oleh Detektif Starling: dia bisa jadi seorang Transeksual.

Berangkat dari situ, maka, jika film ini berhasil menggambarkan karakter perempuan yang tidak payah, dengan pengalaman-pengalaman seputar ketimpangan gender, keputusan untuk membuat seorang Trans sebagai Pembunuh Berantai ini bermasalah. Saya lalu mencoba mencari percakapan seputar topik yang bersangkutan dan menemukan artikel ini. Singkatnya, artikel ini menjelaskan bagaimana Trans dalam film ini digambarkan sebagai seorang monster. Walaupun film ini berhasil menyoroti, kurang lebih apa yang saya tuliskan di tiga paragraf di atas, ditambah kemampuan Jodie Foster memerankan Clarice Starling, namun pada saat yang bersamaan menggambarkan Trans sebagai sesuatu yang buruk — well, dia Pembunuh Berantai, di film ini.

Dari artikel lain, saya menemukan kutipan dari Sang Sutradara,

“We knew it was tremendously important to not have Gumb misinterpreted by the audience as being homosexual. That would be a complete betrayal of the themes of the movie. And a disservice to gay people.” Jonathan Demme

Jonathan Demme menjelaskan bahwa sangat penting untuk Gumb (Si Pembunuh Berantai) tidak disalah artikan sebagai homoseksual. Itu akan menjadi pengkhiatan terhadap tema film. Dan merugikan kaum gay. Di artikel yang sama juga dijelaskan bahwa Gumb bukanlah seorang trans, melainkan seseorang yang benar-benar takut akan diri sendiri, dan dalam keputuasaan untuk menjadi sesuatu selain dirinya diwujudkan lewat upaya yang salah terhadap transvestism*, dan tingkah laku dan sikap diri yang bisa diartikan sebagai gay.

“… someone who is so completely, completely horrified by who he is that his desperation to become someone completely other is manifested in his ill-guided attempts at transvestism, and behavior and mannerisms that can be interpreted as gay.”

Apakah pernyataan Jonathan Demme adalah sebenar-benarnya kenyataan pra-produksi, ketika naskah film dibahas pertama kali dan Demme mulai membayangkan film ini dalam kepalanya, atau pernyataan itu dilontarkan setelah adanya keberatan dari kaum LGBTQ? Jika kita kembali ke film, dan merujuk pada beberapa pernyataan dari Lecter tentang Gump, maka pernyataan Demme adalah benar. Gump bukanlah seorang Trans.

“Billy is not a real transexual. But he thinks he is. He tries to be. He’s tried to be a lot of things, I expect.” Hannibal Lecter

Namun, lagi, pernyataan di atas ambigu. Garis bawahi “but he thinks he is”, dan “Billy is not a real transexual.” Keduanya adalah pernyataan dari Lecter, bukan dari Gump, dan mengingat Gump adalah seorang pembunuh berantai, jadi sudah jelas dia terganggu sejak dalam pikiran, maka apakah Lecter sebagai seorang psikiater bisa menentukan apakah Gump transeksual atau tidak, atau apakah itu sepenuhnya otoritas Gump terhadap dirinya untuk menyatakan itu?

Ditambah, di dalam film ada adegan Gump berdansa di rumahnya, telanjang dan hanya mengenakan jubah, dan ia menjepit penisnya dengan kedua kaki, jadi terlihat bahwa dia memiliki vagina, bukan penis.

“Our Billy wasn’t born a criminal, Clarice, he was made one through systematic years of abuse. Billy hates his own identity you see, and he thinks that makes him a transexual but his pathology is thousand times more savage and more terrifying.” Hannibal Lecter

Mungkin itu terlalu kemana-mana dan pada dasarnya, keberatan kaum LGBTQ dan sesuatu yang menggangu saya bukanlah diagnosa Lecter atau otoritas Gump atas identitas gendernya. Permasalahannya adalah, menjadikan Pembunuh Berantai dalam cerita sebagai seorang transeksual. Menggambarkannya sebagai seseorang yang kejam dan menyedihkan. Representasi di media adalah penting, dan kita sudah melihat bagaimana seluruh ras, gender, atau kelas masyarakat mengalami diskriminasi karena bagaimana mereka digambarkan di media. Dan ini membawa kita pada salah satu masalah buruk dunia: penindasan terhadap kaum marjinal. Menjadikan seorang transeksual sebagai pembunuh berantai, tidak akan menolong siapa-siapa.

Sekarang mari keluar dari lingkaran Gump, untuk membahas bagian lain dari tema ini. Ada bagian dari feminisme, yang mengecualikan perempuan trans dalam perjuangannya. Saya tidak pernah terlalu dalam memahami ini, tapi sejauh yang mampu saya tangkap, TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) adalah orang-orang yang beranggapan bahwa kelaminlah yang menentukan seseorang perempuan. Jadi hanya mereka yang terlahir sebagai perempuan adalah perempuan, maka perempuan trans tidak bisa dikatakan perempuan. Dasar argumen mereka tentu saja biologi, lelaki dan perempuan, penis dan vagina.

“All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.… Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive.” Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire

Dan kembali ke The Silence of the Lambs, karakter Gump ini melakukan apa yang secara harfiah menjadi alasan mengapa bagian feminist ini tidak mengakui identitas perempuan trans: ia menculik, menyiksa, dan menguliti korban-korbannya untuk kemudian menggunakan kulit-kulit itu pada dirinya sendiri. Seperti kutipan di atas, hal ini apa yang dilakukan Gump pada korban-korbannya adalah merampas hidup perempuan untuk kemudian “dipakainya” untuk dirinya sendiri.

Topik ini penting untuk diseret pada pembahan ini karena apa yang dikatakan Lecter tentang Gump, “He’s tried to be a lot of things, I expect.”. Kembali lagi pada kebutuhan cerita. Jika Gump adalah orang-orang yang membenci diri sendiri kemudian merasa perlu menjadi seseorang yang lain, karena let’s say, dia nyaman dengan karakter yang entah dia temukan dalam dirinya atau dia bentuk sendiri sebagai coping mechanism dari — yang menurut Lecter — perlakukan kejam menahun terhadapnya. Dan kemudian dia menjadi pembunuh berantai.

Saya mengkonsumsi banyak konten true-crime, dan kisah-kisah pembunuh berantai, dan tidak bisa dipungkiri, banyak pelaku sakit jiwa di kisah-kisah kejam ini adalah lelaki gay. Bukan berarti para lelaki gay sakit jiwa, pernyataan saya bukan itu. Tetapi, pelaku kejahatan yang adalah seorang gay, itu ada — seperti adanya pelaku-pelaku kejahatan sakit jiwa yang heteroseksual.

Maka gangguan yang saya rasakan pertama kali ketika mengetahui identitas Gump, berubah menjadi pertanyaan: adakah pilihan menjadikan Gump seorang Transeksual adalah ketidak-adilan representasi kaum transeksual, atau apakah, atas nama kebutuhan cerita, ia menjadi sah-sah saja?

Jika harus menyimpulkan apapun di akhir tulisan, here’s my two cents: saya tidak merasa Gump membawa representasi buruk bagi komunitas Trans, dan tidak sependapat dengan Lecter bahwa Gump tidak benar-benar Transeksual. Yang saya pahami, Gump — yang dijuluki Buffalo Billy — adalah Transeksual. Saya tidak melihat apa yang dilakukannya terhadap korban-korban dalam cerita sebagai sesuatu yang diakibatkan oleh identitas gendernya. Dia jahat, kejam, dan keji karena dia adalah Pembunuh Berantai, bukan karena dia seorang Transeksual.

Catatan: transvestism adalah praktik berpakaian sebagai lawan jenis. Lawan jenis yang dimaksud adalah dalam pengertian sederhana: lelaki berpakaian perempuan atau sebaliknya. Di beberapa budaya, transvestism ini digunakan untuk kebutuhan agama, tradisi, atau upacara-upacara adat.

[notmuchtoconceal]

When I was 17 and first read Red Dragon, there was a part of me that considered it my first piece of "real" literature.

It was manly and straight.

A part of me didn't consider my formative love Clive Barker to be "real" literature, not only because he was gay, but because he was fanciful and florid. (Though also -- because his prose was middling when it wasn't phantasmagorical, and I wondered if he was leaning on subject and style to compensate for weaknesses in form. If my love of his torrid romantic grotesques was peak escapism, and I needed to learn to empathize with the professional men I never understood to live a fuller and more real life?)

Of course, now I'm smart enough to realize "straight" really isn't the best way to describe Thomas Harris. He isn't only Will Graham and Jack Crawford, he's also Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling, Buffalo Bill, and Mason and Margot Verger.

[nicklloydnow]

“Yet beyond content, there was always the faintly snobbish suggestion that if a book had to be good to be ‘literature’, then it had to be intellectually worthless to be downgraded to the zone of cheap ‘thrillers’, fit only for producing cheap thrills. Ten minutes reading such books usually proves such snobbery right, and we are reminded of Graham Greene’s famous division of his own works into ‘novels’ and ‘entertainments’. Yet good things can be found in unexpected places, and a particular series of books that are typically found in the ‘thriller’ section, when they are found at all, are on closer examination one of the great fairytales of our time, hinging on their creation of our great fairytale monster: Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. The monster? Hannibal Lecter, M. D.

(…) Yet it is here that the trilogy radically diverges from the established ‘thriller’ formula—Lecter isn’t the hero, but he isn’t the most obvious villain either, and indeed he at least appears to help speed justice along with his psychiatric profiling skills. This is the first step in elevating Harris’s trilogy—as well as Lecter’s character, who with his positions as an archival researcher in Florence and on the board of the Baltimore Philharmonic must make him one of the only fictional serial killers for whom killing isn’t their main ambition in life. Meanwhile, we find that Harris has stylistic skill well beyond that of the average thriller writer—unlike most, he avoids the howling errors of grammar, syntax and decency that give the modern genre such a bad name, and more importantly allows the prose to hold value in its own right, rather than simply as an inconvenient means for getting a cheaply pulse-raising plot across as quickly as possible. Especially with the middle book of the trilogy, it’s obvious to an alert reader that they are dealing with something far more eloquent and profound than a typical thriller.

(…)

Across the series, the spiritual unfulfillment and grubby reality of late-twentieth century Beltway America—the world of Watergate—is portrayed with a constant dark sense of humour and an inventive eye for detail, with both the author and Lecter’s distaste for modern American life (one of many parallels between Harris and Vladimir Nabokov) something of a running joke.

Split city is a bleak place the wind blows through. Like the Sunday divorce flight from La Guardia to Juarez, it is a service industry to the mindless Brownian movement in our population.

Aside from the surprising quality of the writing, a good barometer is the attitude of the books to death. As Elvis Costello knew, there’s something distinctly chic and even sexy about fictional detective work (‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take/She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake…’). Yet unlike most thrillers or their ‘film noir’ predecessors, Harris never trivialises death as a colourful accessory to a ‘penny dreadful’ storyline but treats it with the maturity one would expect from a serious novel. We are given heart wrenching descriptions of the psychological damage Graham, the protagonist of the first novel, has suffered from his FBI career, and of the tragic futility of more mundane, realistic demise as Crawford’s wife wastes away from cancer. As the Doctor himself says, in an updated yet essentially repeated version of that old theological conundrum, famously described by David Hume as the ‘problem of evil’:

“I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvellous! The facade fell on sixty-five grandmothers at a special mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If he’s up there, he just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans—it all comes from the same place.”

Religion, which along with class is one of the trilogy’s unexpected yet most salient themes, is thus expressed in a distinctly twentieth-century, post-War way: a refusal to square the idea of a benevolent God with the horrors of man, let alone the cosmic indifference of the universe. It can hardly escape our notice that Mason Verger, the hideously disfigured and utterly repulsive—indeed, probably excessively so—antagonist in the third novel, murmurs to Starling of the wonders of Christian forgiveness, even as he boasts of his predation on the innocent. The contrast could hardly be stronger with the insistently religious morality in other generation-defining works of horror: see Marlowe’s Faustus, with the titular character dragged to hell as his guardian angel laments his renouncement of God, or Stoker’s Dracula, in which the naive Englishman Jonathan Harker foolishly scorns offers of crucifixes from the local peasantry and finds himself defenceless against the vampiric Count. (…)

Indeed, the appropriately chilling ‘Chiltern’ is a good example of how Harris has an almost Dickensian ability to play with names: most obviously we have ‘Starling’, with avian connotations of weakness and vulnerability, yet also shrewdness and subtlety (‘I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze/I cannot get out, said the starling’, writes Nabokov’s most famous protagonist). ‘Dolorhyde’ gives us ‘dolorous’ (latin dolor) and ‘formaldehyde’, along with ‘-hyde’’s resonance with Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 Jekyll and Hyde, also about transformative evil. Then we have Krendler, almost onomatopoeically impling ‘rake’, ‘rend’ or perhaps Grendel. ‘Hannibal’ gives us Hannibal Barca, the terror of the Roman Republic, and the obvious rhyme with ‘cannibal’, providing a ready-made nickname for Harris’s sleazy journalists to use. Most interestingly, ‘Lecter’ (which Harris smartly chooses over the more blatant ‘Lektor’) gives ‘leer’ and ‘spectre’, but also ‘lecture’/’lectern’/’proctor’ (Latin lector), hinting at how the doctor’s main role in the series is not as a killer, but as a teacher.

(…)

One of the trilogy’s other themes is therefore perhaps that of ‘contrast’. At first glance, it seems to be everywhere. Graham’s heroic desire to protect families contrasts with the depredations of the ‘Tooth Fairy’. The grubby, seamy brutality of ‘Buffalo Bill’ contrasts with Lecter’s immaculate appearance and mannerisms, as well as the depth of his psychiatric ability. The youthful, idealistic energy of Starling contrasts with the horror into which she descends to preserve life—quite literally, with her headlong plunges into Bill’s lair, Verger’s pig farm, drug-ravaged D.C. gangland (another nod to contemporary sociopolitics, this time the corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the war on drugs) and of course the Baltimore asylum. As metaphorised by her childhood trauma of trying to save screaming lambs from the slaughter, brought out in one of her interviews with Lecter, she exists as a desperate and determined hero. Yet on closer examination, the trilogy is actually far less Manichean than any thriller, with clearly identifiable ‘good’ and ‘bad guys’. Lecter is at once a supremely cultured intellectual, with even his imprisoned life spent publishing academic papers and sketching Florentine skylines, and a killer whose predilection is the most savage, animalistic act imaginable, as famously discussed in Michael de Montaigne’s 16th century essay ‘des Cannibales’, and as provided an anagrammatic name for Shakespeare’s ‘Caliban’. (When writing this essay I was asked by a friend if I thought the novels would work as well as they do if Lecter were ‘just’ a serial killer. I’m not sure they would). The contrast between this and the Doctor’s refined sensibilities is of course famously summarised in the superb line about liver and Chianti—though in the book, he prefers the grander Amarone. This blend of mirth, high culture, whimsical brutality and a labyrinthine battle of wits is a potent and enthralling mix indeed, which only needed Hopkins’ expression—or, for that matter, Brian Cox’s—to become iconic. Like Shakespeare’s Gloucester, Lecter can ‘smile, and murder whiles I smile’—though a more apt quote would be (amusingly) from Ignatius Loyola in Middleton’s A Game at Chess, who like Lecter, can ‘with my refin’d nostrils taste the footsteps’ of the souls around him. We have the masterfully choreographed escape scene in the Tennessee jailhouse, juxtaposing Lecter’s sadistic, animalistic mutilation of his guards with his polite mannerisms before (‘ready when you are, Sergeant Pembury…’) and after, his bloodstained hands gently moving to the strains of Goldberg’s Bach Variations. More levels of apparent contradiction are present: his jailer, a supposed ‘good guy’, is the sexist, self-serving and incompetent Chiltern, while the FBI are often misogynist creeps bathing in nepotism and mediocrity. In the third novel the true villain is Verger, himself one of the doctor’s victims, while Starling battles not a serial killer but the corrupt, self-serving Bureau hierarchy and the haughty, predatory Department of Justice attorney Paul Krendler, who with his Ivy League sweater and slick Capitol Hill mannerisms embodies the patrician disdain of the American upper classes in a way that faintly reminds us of Gatsby’s Tom Buchanan or Catch-22’s Captain Aardvark. (‘I’m going to Congress’, he groggily boasts to Starling as he propositions her across Lecter’s dinner table.) Indeed, Hans Zimmer saw his wonderful and very underrated score to the film, all dark, rumbling cellos and strains of opera, as written as much about ‘corruption in the American police force’ as ‘a Freudian archetypal beauty and the beast fairy tale’. This links heavily with the theme of class: Starling’s ‘will to power’ is her desire to escape her working-class roots and achieve something more in D.C.

(…)

Yet the reality that Starling reaches the corridors of American federal power to find them stricken by corruption and closed to people like her serves only to make her—and us—more drawn to Lecter, who for all his monstrosities is by far the warmest, most courteous character of the series, albeit perhaps excluding Starling herself. The best indication that this series is far superior to traditional detective ‘thrillers’ is that the world it creates is, as Demme’s brooding cinematography in Silence of the Lambs and Zimmer’s score to the sequel show, not a traditional detective tale at all, but a story for our own, less certain times, a swirling mass of human struggles against adversity and the darkness of the mind.

(…)

As the sardonic Porfiry says in Crime and Punishment, ‘this is a murky, fantastic case, a contemporary one, an incident that belongs to our own age...in which the heart of man has grown dark and muddied’—and the actual plot is merely a part of Harris’ panoramic American vista. But through it all remains Starling as the hero of the story, striving through the horror around her and the corruption above her to save life. Together, the novels are thus reminiscent as much of Dante’s descent into the underworld as Grimm’s fairy tales. As her adversary, teacher, terror and guardian angel stands Lecter, less a ‘movie villain’, still less a human in any recognisable fashion, and more a fairytale monster:

“Is it true what they’re saying, that he’s some kind of vampire?”

“They don’t have a name for what he is”

Yet Harris makes his setting distinctly modern, despite all of the rich symbology of Blake and Dante (‘I forget your generation doesn’t read’, Lecter sneers to Starling in response to her ignorance of Marcus Aurelius, at once a social comment and a generational one). Like Dracula (also a vampiric Eastern European aristocrat) Lecter is a vision of medieval darkness loosed on the modern, western world of the novel: he may stalk patrician Baltimore and nocturnal Florence, but the FBI’s investigations are conducted by fax machine and helicopter, and Starling’s tracking down of Lecter to Italy in the third book must make the Doctor the first great villain to have been located with the help of the internet. Indeed, in contrast to the woods, castles and caves that play host to more traditional gothic monsters (those of Lovecraft or Poe, for example), Lecter and Starling’s saga is written onto a backdrop of dark modernity, with the films’ tremendous cinematography capturing the oppressive stone and brutalist concrete of the FBI’s headquarters with as much aplomb as the decaying towns haunted by Dolorhyde and Gumb, or the Appalachian trauma in Starling’s own subconscious.

(…)

Of course, what really matters in any fairytale is how it ends, and here I think we can really get to the heart of what makes these novels so good. In this regard, the key theme is transformation. This is established early on: the behavioural analysts of the FBI attempt to understand what transforms a human into a manhunter and unravel Dolorhyde’s fantasies of transformation into the demonic Red Dragon as the end-point of his childhood trauma. In Silence, the transformation of ‘Buffalo Bill’ is mirrored in his fascination with moths emerging from their chrysalis. That being said, I believe Harris should never have elaborated on Lecter’s early life—he appears more unearthly and far more unsettling if he simply is, without an explanation of how he came to be—that ultimately will always be more mundane than no explanation at all. Yet to return to the point, the great transformation of the series is that undergone by Starling herself. She comes to Lecter as a student, both literally and metaphorically, and his role is not that of an antagonist, but of a teacher. In this regard, the old commonplace that film adaptations are worse than the original book is actually true in reverse, because—and if you haven’t seen it, please stop reading here—the film adaptation of Hannibal upholds Starling’s heroism, having her attempt to arrest Lecter instead of eloping with him, as she does in the somewhat flippant book ending. Perhaps that ending has merit—Lecter’s hypnosis of Starling would seem to be the logical conclusion of Harris’ satirisation of psychiatry and poses interesting questions about the borders between love and revenge, right and wrong, pharmacological drugs and biological hormones which are worth thinking about, but I maintain that the more traditionally ‘good’ resolution of Starling’s story is superior. The reason why the trilogy’s film ending works so much better as a fairytale is because as Chesterton famously said, fairytales may bring monsters to life, but they also bring to life the heroes that fight them. Fittingly, in the film’s conclusion, Starling’s journey into heroism is vocalised by the monster with whom she has become inexorably tied:

“Would they have you back, do you think? The FBI? Those people you despise almost as much as they despise you? Would they give you a medal, Clarice, do you think? Would you have it professionally framed and hang it on your wall to look at and remind you of your courage and incorruptibility? All you would need for that, Clarice, is a mirror.”

It is in this moment that we realise—just in case we haven’t already—that their story is one of terror, but also one of a strangely moving beauty, and Lecter’s subsequent escape into Ridley Scott’s firework-strewn night preserves the best aspects of a fairytale: the mystery, and the magic. He has lived to kill another day, but the monster’s decision, unable to hurt Starling, to cut off his own hand rather than hers to get free of her handcuffs implies that he may have transformed her during their time together, but maybe, just maybe, she transformed him too.

Viewed in succession, as they must be, these aren’t simply ‘thrillers’. They’re a fairytale for the modern age, and it’s therefore fitting that their heart is inhabited by a very modern monster indeed. Their story conjures thrills, introspection, sorrow and joy in surprising measures, from Graham’s first, fateful call on Lecter’s opulent Baltimore study, to the gloriously melancholic sunset conclusion of the series, as time ticks inexorably on to the final dinner party and the tantalising end to this deeply amusing parable. It retains the power to leave us truly entranced, and against it, most so-called ‘thrillers’ appear juvenile and insipid. Chianti will never sound the same again.”

[power-chords]

I just put away my copy of Hannibal and am too lazy to get up and retrieve it but there’s a part in there that I think about often — and it’s not the prose itself that’s so memorable in this instance, but the calculated narrative decision that Harris makes in including this information — which is that it’s difficult to get wild pigs to kill a live, distressed human being, even if the pigs are starving, even if the human being is otherwise incapacitated, essentially served up on a silver platter. Mason Verger (who else!) has employed his cronies to breed these wild pigs until they are willing and eager to eat Lecter alive, because this scenario is instrumental to realizing his fantasy of vigilante retribution. (He actually calls it “the theater of Lecter’s death,” a specific fragment of prose I do remember.) It takes seven years of artificial selection and aggressive behavioral conditioning. Getting the pigs to participate in torture, in other words, is equated to a long and arduous process of domestication.

What Lecter initially attempts with Starling is in a sense just as violent, if under the delusional guise of restoration. Starling has to be psychologically intruded and controlled, infiltrated, “to make a place for Mischa,” to gather the teacup together and bring back the dead family member, a prelapsarian state of affairs. The project fails. She transforms, but from the beginning we are being led to understand that she would have to choose transformation, that the alternative for her is a concession to spiritual death. The old symbolic order (Law, Justice, Country, the Father) is an empty, sadistic carnival of violence and hypocrisy that holds nothing sacred except its own institutional authority. Nothing is left for her anymore in the Civilized World. To put any faith in it, to continue to act in accordance with that faith, would be an existential betrayal — and yet she is still a woman of action, not passive resignation. What is there that is left to act on, that she can understand as meaningfully true or real?

And so the book ends with Clarice Starling in pursuit of her own individual, inaccessible desires, with Hannibal Lecter faithfully at heel. What those desires are we have no insight into — it is not possible for us to know them. We want to know them, but she is now beyond us. We can only watch, and wonder, and covet.

To characterize it as a “Fall” is clumsy shorthand on my part — what it really is is a transcendence, an escape velocity, that is achieved by Starling with far greater ease and apparent completion than it ever is for Lecter.

[starplatinumnun]

"just maybe you really were destined to die on your father's kitchen floor."

ABIGAIL HOBBS + FATHERHOOD.

Post by Tumblr user @hvemind // Hannibal S2 E13, Mizumono // Laura Kasischke, "View from Glass Door"// Hannibal S1 E1, Aperitif // Desireé Dellagiacomo, "Origin Story"/ Hannibal S? E? // Simone de Beauvoir, "A Woman Destroyed"// Hannibal S2 E4, Takiawase