#i will make my required reading into a hannibal tumblr post

[cringeworms]

Sara Ahmed's A KillJoy Survival Kit Item 10: Bodies. From "Living a Feminist Life"

[sloowoorants]

Thoughts After Watching Hannibal

About two months ago, I saw some Hannibal fan art on Twitter. It looked pretty cool, and I just so happened to have some free time, so I thought: why not watch the show? It's just a normal crime thriller, right?

I expected the type of show that's relatively light yet still intriguing, filled with sarcastic humor, starring a typical grumpy-but-genius protagonist. (This is vaguely the type of show that I’m generally into: Inside Job, Sherlock, House, Suits, Mr. Robot….)

I was so, so wrong.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the bat-shit crazy fever dream of a show that Hannibal is: bizarrely artistic gore, incessant cannibalism puns, completely unpredictable romantic subplots, torturous sex scenes that feel like angry acid trips, a multitude of absolutely unhinged psychiatric conduct, esoteric cryptic dialogue which require five google searches and a whole thesaurus to understand, two lesbian murderers "milking" a guy for his sperm to inherent his family heirloom, long scenes of intense and unabashed eye-sex, clumps of dog fur sticking to sweaty bed sheets…and a literal fucking social worker crawling out of a horse, alive and breathing and everything, covered in whatever acrid substances come from a horse uterus.

I ended up watching all of Hannibal in a week, hastily devouring it in just a few sittings.

In no way am I a professional film analyst or critic, but after having stayed up for nights on end, every single one of them spent under my blanket binging episodes until devilish hours of dawn (and barely comprehending the plot from the sheer speed I was consuming the show at, but also from sleep deprivation), I have cultivated a skull full of thoughts on this blessed masterpiece, and I need to rant about it. Which is exactly what this post is.

I am going to separate this ranty-meta-ish thing (I think a “meta” is what it’s called? I’m not sure, I don’t use Tumblr a lot) into two parts: one, about the representation of morality in the show, and two, about the intimacy between Will and Hannibal. It’s not super well written, my grammar is a bit iffy, but I hope you still enjoy reading this, and remember to take everything I say with a grain of salt. After all, I am just some guy with unrestricted internet access, a keyboard, and a little too much passion for the media I love :)

Part One: Hannibal Lecter’s Morality

Hannibal loves art. There is no episode in the entire show where he doesn’t reference some artistic thing—He plays the piano, he plays the theremin, he frequents the opera, he draws, and he finds peace at the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence. His love for art is why he kills, he transforms people he considers to be “inferior” and “ugly” and elevates them into art. He is acting out his own sense of justice, creating meaning from the meaningless.

In a way, he must have a certain degree of respect for his victims to do what he does. He could have just killed people and disposed of their body in a dumpster, but that’s not his style. Even if he doesn’t “care” about his victims in a traditional sense, there’s this unique honesty and attentive in his murders. Hannibal cares enough about his victims to make them art. And I’m not just talking about the way he displays their bodies, I’m also talking about his cooking, because a big part of art is also cuisine.

He follows a strict code of his own ethics, it’s almost like he’s acting out his “duty” to kill, to eradicate and transform the lesser “scum” of the world. To be killed by Hannibal is almost an honor, like being killed by God personally, skin to skin. Wouldn’t you feel a sense of divinity and fulfillment if God killed you with his own hands, knowing that he respects you enough to choke you himself, then turn you into an elegant display? Every kill of Hannibal’s is filled with passion – Which poses the question, does he kill out of hatred or not? When I think of violence fueled by hate, I think of sex or race based violence. But that’s not Hannibal. He kills victims he considers to be rude, yes, but is it a humiliation? Is it degradation?

This whole "elevate-swine-into-art" thing is also shown through the way that gore is generally portrayed throughout the show, and not just Hannibal’s murderers. It’s very interesting the way gore pretty in Hannibal. It’s often meticulous. It’s meaningful.

These murders are all aesthetically pleasing. For me, it creates a cognitive dissonance: on one hand, I know that these are painful, brutal murders, one the other, they’re kind of nice to look at, which makes me think—Have I ever for a second, while watching Hannibal, considered the crime scene to be beautiful? Have I ever viewed one of those scenes as art rather than gore? As an artist myself, do I understand Hannibal’s obsession with beauty? And if so, what type of person does that make me?

And I love the way this show makes us really think in Hannibal’s shoes, because of how unconventionally it portrays him as a villain. Usually, shows will provide villains with a backstory, but that doesn’t extend beyond just creating sympathy. In Hannibal, the villain is humanized. We understand him. We empathize. And what does that make of us?

Have I ever, in all seriousness, rooted for Hannibal instead of Jack Crawford? Have I ever thought someone deserved to die in the show? Have I ever looked at what Hannibal was cooking, and thought it looked delicious, despite knowing that its human flesh? Have I ever been annoyed at innocent patients of Hannibal, like Franklyn, because I viewed them from Hannibal’s perspective?

On top of that, Hannibal’s philosophy makes sense. I find myself agreeing to a lot of the things he says.

For example, this dialogue from S2e12 "Tome-Wan", when Will finds Mason Verger and Hannibal in his house, and Hannibal asks Will if he should kill or spare Mason Verger:

HANNIBAL: Murder or mercy?

WILL: There is no mercy. We make mercy, manufacture it in parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain.

HANNIBAL: Then there is no murder. We make murder, too, it matters only to us. You know too well that you possess all the elements to make murder. Perhaps mercy, too. But murder you understand uncomfortably well.

Does Will only have the capacity for mercy because he has the capacity for murder? Does mercy only have meaning in the context of murder? Is our own compassion a reflection of our violence?

With that said, are the things that I believe to be evil still evil when I throw away my moral believes? Is morality only meaningful in my own perception? And if so, how much am I contributing to evil if I am the one judging it? Do I create the evil that I so adamantly detest? Does deciding what is murder and isn’t not murder require the ability to, and intrinsic understanding of, murder? Can the morality of life and death be so clear cut, separated into different categories?

These are the types of questions that the show makes me ask, which is part of the reason I love the show so much.

I also love how the show puts a dark turn on empathy. Empathy is way too often portrayed as one of the best traits of all time, many claim it to be the most important aspect of mankind, but Will’s empathy is what ends up making him go on a downwards spiral: He is drawn to the darkness because he can understand it. He chose to teach at the FBI academy because he gets to feel like a killer without actually killing.

It made Will miserable, being able to understand killers. It gave him all sorts of guilt and self-hatred and confliction, which was why he was so damn miserable at the start of the show. And on top of that, no one really cared about him, Alana only had a whole “professional curiosity” thing going on (yes, I know that Alana’s character is one-dimensional because Hannibal’s female characters are poorly written, but even with that in mind, I still think that a huge part of Alana’s affection towards Will was in fact just curiosity), Jack was constantly pushing Will past his limits, so the poor dude didn’t have any connections to anyone until he met Hannibal.

And after Hannibal clocks him immediately when they first meet with the whole “your  values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations” situation, Will experiences his first kill: Shooting Garet Jacob Hobbs. Ten. Times. Then he confesses to Hannibal that he liked the feeling of killing him.

But Will can’t let go of his morality, it’s the only thing he’s been able to hold on to this entire time. It’s his lifeline. He holds onto it so dearly because he needs to convince himself that he’s a good person, that he’s not a killer, and that he’s doing the right thing. Yet, he knows that letting that morality go would be so freeing. He wants to. Hannibal helps him let go of it, and we as viewers can’t help but be on Hannibal’s side, because Will’s corruption arc is so gratifying. We like it, deep down we root for it. And what does that say about our relationship with our own morality? Does our morality tie us down? Do we crave to be free?

Will’s killing style is different from Hannibal’s, though. He’s passionate, reactive, and he doesn’t care about the process of killing, or the display body (before you say “the firefly man”, I believe he was imitating Hannibal’s style instead of curating his own), as long as the person is dead. He kills them from a sense of righteousness, like a vigilante justice. Was it wrong for him to find a sense of pleasure in killing Garett Jacob Hobbs? Does finding pleasure in killing corrupt his righteousness? Is it worse to kill out of passion, or kill meticulously? Is Hannibal’s style of killing more respectful? Is Will brutal? Just because Will kills out of a more conventional moral judgement and Hannibal doesn’t, does that make him better than Hannibal?

Another way the show convolutes the concepts of good and evil is using religious symbolism.

For example, from S1e02, “Amuse-Bouche”:

HANNIBAL: Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in His image?

WILL: Did God feel good about killing?

HANNIBAL: He felt powerful.

(Shocking that this line was from the literal second episode. This show got intense so fast.)

And Will’s quote from S3e02, “Primavera”:

WILL: God can't save any of us because it's...inelegant. Elegance is more important than suffering. That's his design.

Is God an artist? Does that justify what He does? Are we only creating taboo out of His works to comfort ourselves? What does it mean to view the world with a purely aesthetic vision?

It’s these quotes that really allow me to see from Hannibal’s perspective: To him, there is no ultimate purpose of the world, there is no end goal to achieve, just the creation of beauty, and that’s terrifying to think about. Even as an atheist, it’s hard to digest the belief that there is no purpose to anything. We spend our entire human lives looking for meaning. But Hannibal doesn’t see it that way. Life and death are just futile processes to create art, and there’s no bigger point behind it. The cycle of life is supposed to be art. In a way, he’s like the God (sounding like Hannibal here), giving people meaning by making them into art, just like how God designates meaning onto every creature he makes.

And the show has a lot of art parallels, not just with Hannibal’s murders. Here are some that I’ve noticed:

(Parallels, in order from left to right, top to bottom: Nude From Back by Picabia compared to a shot of Bedelia from the back, The Persistence of Memory by Dali compared to Will’s clock drawing, Le Double Secret by Magritte compared to how Will saw Hannibal after visual overload from light therapy, Ophelia by Millais compared to Bedelia sinking into the bathtub, Portrait of Pablo Picasso by Juan Gris compared to Will’s hallucination of himself falling apart in a mirror, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan by Ilya Repin compared to the cliff scene.)

I’m not the only one that has noticed these. Here is cool blog that focuses on artistic references in Hannibal, they’ve also noticed some of the ones I noticed: The Art of Hannibal.

Bryan Fuller probably didn’t do these on purpose while directing. But it still unintentionally solidified this theme artistic divinity. So I think Bryan must, to some extent, understand Hannibal’s obsession with making art out of death, because of the way art is subconsciously woven into the show. I don’t know though, just food for thought.

Anyways. Will, at the end of the show, while being cradled in Hannibal’s arms, both of them covered in blood that appears black in the moonlight, says to Hannibal: “It’s beautiful.”

And all that morality fleets and becomes insignificant in the face of aesthetics.

To Hannibal, beauty is moral. To Will, morality is beautiful. Have the lines begun to blur?

Part Two: Hannibal and Wills intimacy

“For [Hannibal and Will], two people who have been wandering their whole lives through a world in which they have not really experienced any viable form of connection with another human being—because they’re two extremely unusual people—and then they meet.”

-Hugh Dancy quote from SDCC 2013

Hannibal loves will. He drew him and Will as Patroclus and Achilles. He was ready to run away with Will in S2. He surrendered himself in S3 just because Will rejected him. And lets not forget the little twitch in his face when Francis attacks will. And when this dialogue happened (S3e12, “The Number of the Beast is 666”):

WILL: Is Hannibal in love with me?

BEDELIA : Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you... ache for him?

It is my belief that Will also loves Hannibal, although I understand that it’s not as agreed upon in the fandom as Hannibal’s love is. I think Will is just a little bit more reserved with affection, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Hannibal.

But one thing is for sure—there is a lot of homoeroticism in the show:

So, whether you think the love is reciprocal or not, the show is still, to put it lightly, really gay.

Hannibal’s love for Will is dark, possessive, powerful. Will is the only one that is capable of understanding Hannibal, and Hannibal was willing to risk literally everything just for Will to connect with him. He goes to extraordinary lengths just to make Will a murderer.

But even throughout Hannibal’s ruthless manipulation, which Will eventually becomes aware of, Will still stays for Hannibal. Because deep down, Will was willing to give up his own innocence to have that connection. Because Hannibal was the only person that could really understand Will too, no one else would be able to accept his dark tendencies.

S2e02, “Sakizuke”:

WILL: I don’t know which is worse. Believing I did it, or believing that you did it and did this to me.

(I remember reading a really good post by endlessly fascinated on how Will was actually being manipulative by saying this quote. I can’t find it though. If someone finds it, please tag me!)

Will eventually grows just as obsessed with Hannibal, as Hannibal is obsessed with him. Proof: telling Jack that he wanted to run away with Hannibal, telling Hannibal that he can’t get him out of his head, and that his inner voice is starting to sound like him him, and the “where would I go?” when Hannibal tells him not to leave his side, and the “one could argue, intimately” when Chiyoh asks him how he knows Hannibal, and the “before you and after you” when Hannibal asked him where the difference between the past and the future come from…I could go on forever. Will has never felt so grounded before, not in the way when he’s with Hannibal, with him, Will can see his own reflection, and he’s never been able to see that before.

And oh, the love language between them is violence. Will tries to kill Hannibal (someone tell me how many times, I forgot), and Hannibal tries to eat Will and a plethora of other fucked up shit. But in my eyes, none of those were out of hatred. Both of them trying to murder each other is out of love, out of acceptance, and out of forgiveness.

S3e06, “Dolce”:

HANNIBAL: You dropped your forgiveness, Will.

HANNIBAL: You forgive how God forgives.

And, S3e03, “Secondo”:

BEDELIA: Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something akin to falling in love.

HANNIBAL: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.

No one can control who they love, or who they forgive, which is why Hannibal forgives Will and stabs him in the same breath. He is forgiving, not letting go.

Will forgives Hannibal too. He forgives Hannibal way too many times, throughout all the manipulation of Hannibal. Think about just how much insanity he’s endured: drugged, gutted, encephalitis abused, hypnotized, framed for murder, a serial killer was sent after his family, had his brain literally almost eaten, and despite all that, Will still forgives Hannibal—it was not a conscious decision. We cannot control who we forgive.

If Hannibal is a fallen angel, then Will is God to him. And God is indifferent, sometimes even cruel. Like Hannibal said himself, good and evil has nothing to do with God. Will forgives Hannibal, but that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t want to hurt Hannibal; just like how Hannibal forgave Will, but still gutted him. In that moment, Will forgave indifferently, so he could get back to revenge. They both forgive like blades, they both forgive with pain.

Doesn’t God forgive through punishment? God will forgive you for your sins but you still have to go to hell, right?

Violence is a pillar of stability in their relationship, it’s how they understand each other, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the smile on Will’s gut a permanent reminder of Hannibal’s hurt, and all of Hannibal’s scars a reminder of Will’s hurt.

I see all of their trying to kill each other is affection. Hannibal doesn’t try to eat Will because he hates Will, he tries to eat to immortalize him, to keep Will as part of him forever.

And through that violence, Hannibal helped Will let go of his morality. Will had spent forever trying to repress himself—Molly was a failed attempt to escape into normalcy. Will definitely thought about Hannibal those years Hannibal was in prison.

S3e13, “The Wrath of the Lamb”:

HANNIBAL: When life becomes maddeningly police, think about me. Think about me, Will.

Will definitely missed the hunger, the violence. We can see this though the passionate way he killed the Red Dragon. He probably held Molly’s gentle hands and desperately wanted to feel something more. To feel something dangerous. Something that could simultaneously revive and ruin him. Molly never understood him the way Hannibal did, and he will never love her the way he loves Hannibal.

He did think about Hannibal when life became maddeningly polite. He probably fantasized about what they’ve done, what they could’ve done, and the feeling of freedom when he’s with Hannibal.

And Hannibal waited for him patiently, staying exactly where he was three years ago. And when Will eventually pushed them off a cliff together, Hannibal showed no sign of resistance, and just let them fall.

“I think [Hannibal]’s feeling that embrace and that’s the first thing that he’s feeling, and even as he’s plunging into the Atlantic, he’s first and foremost thinking about the man he’s holding onto and the man who’s holding onto him.”

–Mads Mikkelsen on Hannibal’s thoughts during the final scene

Their violence is something that we as viewers may never comprehend, but we can all understand their intimacy. Isn’t it what we all want, after all, to be seen?

Anyways...

Hannibal is a great show! 10/10, would recommend. Although, the lighting kind of sucks. Bryan, if there is a season four, please make the show brighter, for the love of God.

Thanks for reading this! :)

[namjjuice]

I've never made a post like this, so please bare with me 😭😭

Introduction

Hello, I'm JJ. I'm 18 (will be 19 soon) and I've been doing literate roleplay for about a decade. I've had a couple of different roleplay partners over the years, but for the most part, I've had a singular consistent partner this entire time (my now boyfriend). I'm in my first year of uni for a medical degree, as well as working a job, but I usually roleplay 5+ times per day, even more if we're both actively typing and I'm really into it lol. I'm in EST, and I tend to go to bed around midnight, but again, I often force myself to stay up to get a few more responses in if the plot is really good ^_^.

Requirements

I do request that you be at least 18, as I do like nsfw plots! I understand that if you're under that age, you may also like that (as i did), but I just personally don't feel comfortable role-playing that with someone underage.

My second requirement is that you are at least somewhat literate. I usually roleplay on Instagram, but I'm definitely more open to discord until we develop more of a friendship due to it offering more anonymity. I usually write ~600 words per response, but it can and will vary based on your responses. What I will not do is a 10+ paragraph response. I just personally feel that a lot of the aspects of role-playing that I enjoy, like playing off of one another, gets lost really easily like that.

My RP Interests

NSFW (we can talk more specifically in private 💔)

Horror themes (gore, horror movie killers, body horror)

OCs

Fandom

Any opportunity to include medical terminology :3

I usually do MxM, but I'm trans, so my characters often also end up being trans. I'm also willing to do FxM and FxF if the plot is good, but I think it's important to keep in mind that I AM a gay man, so take that as you will.

Some Fandoms I'm personally in include:

Valorant

BTS

Hannibal NBC

DSMP (literally only pumpkinduo I got into it this year)

Hazbin

I will say that I have gotten into fandoms specifically because someone wanted to roleplay it T_T so even if it's not here, it may just be something that I don't rp in as much or something you could suggest if you're really wanting it.

Feel free to message me on here and we can talk to see if we're a good match! I don't check Tumblr that often, but I'll be on the lookout :)

And in case you didn't read it before, IM A MAN. I know some people aren't comfortable with that, so I'm making sure it's absolutely seen. That is all.

[franklinsti3n]

"Introduction post? Sure."

Hello!

Call me Frank/Francis

He/him/his

My blog is just random posting, art and writing

!!1!!11!1!1!1!!1!11!1!1!1!!1!1

Important things!;

- I am a Minor.

- I occasionally use tone tags but I don't require them if you're talking to me

- I don't intend to do to much with tumblr, just here to have fun ^^

(not much else to say.)

Interests/Fandom list;

Heathers, Falsettos, Hannibal NBC, Dhmis, The Walten Files, COD, Legend of Avantris, Any media with Christian Slater in is :3, Theatre, Thomas Harris, D&D

DNI;

- Mostly basic dni (Racist, homo/transphobes, zoos, pro life, etc etc)

- 🌽 link blogs.. Y'all make me HIGH-key uncomfy

- Highly NSFW stuff

!!!1!!1!1!11!!!1!!!!!!1!

Thank you for reading!

[novaugarit]

I want to talk about the symbolism in the Hannibal Alternative Ending, but my BOYFRIEND hasn’t finished the series yet. God bless his sweet heart for being able to put up with my ramblings.

Last week, I could not stop talking about the ending of Frankenstein to him. I was, and still am, practically obsessed with the entire story. Mary Shelley is such a wonderful author. I could compile my annotations and post them to Tumblr at some point.

I started reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness recently. I thought that this book could help me broaden my palate to the viewpoints of authors around that time. I will not be reading his Other Work of similar subject matter for reasons most clear.

I find the book to be very interesting so far. It requires a fair bit of historical context to understand the allusions Marlow makes towards certain images, and I rather enjoy it. I am to Page 43 as it stands, and I am excited to see how it ends.

Sometime in the future, I plan to draft a rhetorical analysis of either Heart of Darkness or Hannibal. I will make sure to post it when I do.

[motsimages]

It is sad that not many people in tumblr seem to have read China Mieville's books, but regarding the Murder Boy fandom, I think he is too old, too big and too subtle for really catching on. Or at least, that's how I picture him. What tumblr fandoms like more than anything are cute white boys, and every once in a while, a man (and sometimes, a cute Asian boy). Astarion is a cute white boy. In any case, fandom tends to err always on the side of "twink". The way I picture Uther Doul would never make the rounds on Tumblr, even if he has that ex-boyfriend relationship with the Brucolac that has all the homoerotism and toxicity people seem to enjoy. He is not a twink and he is not young (in that his appeareance is not that of a 20 year old and his behaviour is that of a person who has lived many things for many years). I think it would become a similar thing to Hannibal: he would be there because of the relationship with another character, more than on his own (based on what I see that a couple of blogs I follow post, haven't watched Hannibal).

I don't remember him being frightened of taking power, I just remember him not wanting to be in power. Visible power puts you in the spotlight and if you fuck up, you pay for it. The way he handles power, it's not his fault if he fails, and if he succeeds, he is free from the charge. What he wants is freedom of movement. I think he even speaks about it too (but I haven't read the book in some time now). I personally think that he learnt about that after whatever it is he did with the Brucolac (other than having wild sex) (now that I think of it, in part it is that weird sexual relationship the Lovers have that kind of fuck them up in their plan, so maybe a similar thing happened with Uther and the Brucolac). I think he and the Brucolac forgot about the city and wanted to follow their own ambition, just like the lovers, and that is something Armada doesn't allow. (but what exactly, I do agree, it requires its own book).

My personal headcanon, based on what he says, is that in High Cromlech he was a nobody, and he starved and didn't have a good time at all. He misses it because it's home but he left for a reason. The disdain he shows to the Brucolac when he says "I know you're actually nothing but a junkie" (other words) shows that he grew to severely hate and dismiss all the undead around him. He is proud that he didn't become undead, he knows the limitations of the various types of being undead and he is proud that he isn't bound by them. And he already was when he was barely living in High Cromlech. He may have also been the kind that at some point, had a death wish but death never came so he overcame it to a point. The way he fights and learnt to fight shows confidence, but maybe overconfidence to a point. Maybe when he was in High Cromlech he fought to see if it killed him and when it didn't, he decided to move away, learn to do better and become a professional in it.

So it's an actual crime that there isn't more Uther Doul fan art/fan fiction because I'm FERAL for him, and the whole of The Scar is criminally neglected anyway, but genuine question: why isn't he more popular?

My partner and I talk about 'pale murder boys' and their absolute strangle hold over many fandoms (think Astarion from BG3, Fenris from DA2) and I think Uther Doul is by far one of the most complex and interesting of this trope, and yet??

I wanna know what he did before Armada. What was he like back in High Cromlech? What did him and the Brucolac do for the city? Why is he (possibly) so frightened of taking power that he (possibly) would rather bend the laws of reality so other people do it for him than just do it himself?

[unethicallly]

Well friends, the vaccine mandate has finally reached my college...

For those of you who may not know, I am a 24 year old graduate student at a prominent university here in the South. I also happen to teach college students as part of my graduate teaching assistant (GTA) stipend.

As of 3:30 on October 22nd, I was told I must receive the vaccine before December 8th or I would be fired. This is quite distressing to me.

I do not tend to make original posts here on Tumblr, but this one might be the most important one I make. The battle is here, and Hannibal is at the gates.

First, I plan to file for religious exemption from this mandate. I do not know if I will receive such an exemption, but I truly believe this mandate affects my sincerely held religious beliefs. I also believe it affects my pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. If we do not object to the vaccine now nobody will be able to object to anything in the near future.

Second, I ask for my followers assistance. If you have links and resources to guides that might benefit me in the upcoming days, I invite you to send them to me.

I have been reading up on America's Frontline Doctor's information as well as the Title VII rights to which I am entitled.

I will post links to these sites below, so that those who may need it can share in the resources:

https://firstliberty.org/vaccine-protection-kit/

https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964

https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org

I will continue to send updates about my ongoing issues with the vaccine requirements.

May God bless you all.

[fandoms-ruin-life]

Adding onto all this ao3 discourse, because I know that this is one of the main sticklers for people’s gripes about fandom in general, not just ao3- RPF. Now, you can have your own opinion on this or whatever, but it’s always going to be out there and ao3 is amazing for this. The main argument against it that I’ve seen, is that the real people feel uncomfortable about it. (Again, this is a case-by-case basis and jfc I’m not about to get into *that* argument here), but with ao3 that doesn’t matter.

For the person to even see it, they would have to be actively searching for it, and in my opinion, whatever they feel about it after that is entirely on them. With Tumblr, for instance, the fics find themselves in the main tags and it’s very easy for them to see it, even if they don’t want to, so the RPF argument holds much more weight. But Ao3 is a safe haven where it allows people to express themselves and write what they want but also protects the original people in the process.

You can have this ‘purity culture’ and argue about what people should or shouldn’t write until the end of time, but the thing is... people will always just write what they want to. And to be honest, telling them *not* to will more than likely just make them double down on their decision to do so and make them find sneakier ways of putting their fics out there.This just means no content warnings, aka how the hell are you meant to avoid it???

Instead of this weird crusade against ao3′s policies of not interfering, shouldn’t we rather be pushing the need for good tagging practice?

Tags are amazing, and ao3 have given us all the tools required to block anything that simply annoys us, let alone something that actively triggers us. The main reason ao3 will always be superior to me over sites that regulate work like ff.net is *because* of the tags.

Over the years I’ve personally seen a few fics that I rather wouldn’t have seen because the person didn’t tag properly, and yes it sucked, but it also didn’t come close to the amount of times it happened when I still used ff.net regularly.

Also, go to any library or bookstore in existance, do you see many (if any) content warnings? Surely this means ao3 goes above and beyond in this instance? I have a much better idea of what I’m getting myself into when I sit down to read something from this site than I do in any other place that I know about.

It is very easy to just avoid anything that would affect us personally, for whatever reason you may hold. In my opinion, *that* is a far better way of running a site than having someone use their personal morals to decide what is right or wrong.

Think of it this way. People in other posts have mentioned Nazi apologism as an example, and this actually works really well for my argument so I’m going to continue in that vein. It’s simple isn’t it? Nazi = bad ---> Nazi in good light therefore also bad.

But how do you draw the line between an actual Nazi and someone just writing a horrible character/making a satirical piece?

There’s a musical on youtube called Spies Are Forever by the Tin Can Brothers, and there is a song in it called ‘Not So Bad’. Pretty standard, right? Except no, because the main line in the song is “Nazi’s are not so bad”... so judging by the earlier standards, this show should be removed, right?

Except also no. Because when watching it, it is clearly satirical in design and the actor who sings it is Jewish. But on paper, or just by looking at a tag and seeing ‘Nazi’, how would you be able to tell that this is something that shouldn’t be deleted had it been on ao3 and ao3 deleted fics based on an algorithm or similar?

So once again, I ask, where do you draw the line? You may say, ‘well satire is clearly different than Nazi apoligism’ and I would say yes, of course it is. But also, why aren’t people allowed to write/explore dark media in a dark manner?

Hannibal is a relatively popular show, with a pretty strong following on here, but no one is saying that anything that is portrayed in that show is *right*. Murder and cannibalism are quite clearly bad, after all, but it is also portrayed as a beautiful thing because we are seeing how the characters view it.

And honestly, I think my entire ramble can just come under this point: Characters do not equal the author’s thoughts on the subject.

Let people explore the dark and depraved, they’re going to anyway, no posts talking about how it’s “so bad” will stop them, because newsflash- they already know the subject is bad. Ao3 allows you to curate your experience of the site to your taste, and if you choose not to take them up on that opportunity, then that is not on them.

TL:DR- Tags are good and we should be pushing the importance of good tagging practice over ao3′s content policies

[idontfindyouthatinteresting]

Each year, us Fannibals exchange presents with one another, it’s cute, fun, and an opportunity to get something Hannibal themed for christmas when your family won’t get you anything Hannibal related because they think you “have too much Hannibal stuff.”

However, because this is a physical exchange there are lots of rules, 

You MUST adhere to deadlines, these deadlines are below, they’re fixed and non-negotiable. If you can’t adhere to them please do not sign up for my sanity’s sake more than anything, but mostly to be fair on the exchange to your partner!

You MUST stick to the budget, your gift must be at least worth $20.00. You’re more than welcome to go over but you cannot go under.

Your package MUST be tracked, and I must have the ability to track this package, and you MUST send this information to me by the requested date.

You MUST be able to adhere to any allergy/dietary requirements of your partner. (Please do not buy your gift until you’re matched just in case!)

You MUST have online archived proof which I can access of at least 6 months of Fannibal activity (that’s reblogging posts, interacting with the community etc.) I will check. Please don’t be disheartened if I cannot accept you for this reason, try again next year.

Your gift MUST be Hannibal related in some sense, if your partner doesn’t want NSFW gifts, you MUST adhere to this.

If you have not been prompt with your gift dispatch in prev. exchanges, I’m afraid you cannot take part in the exchange now.

Here are the IMPORTANT DATES! A MUST READ!

Sign Ups: Between now and November 3rd (ending midnight GMT) or earlier if spaces fill, there are only 100 spaces available across the whole world, patreons get priority.

Pairing Emails: Between November 3rd and ASAP

Gift Buying/Dispatching: Between ASAP and December 2nd! THIS MEANS YOUR GIFTS MUST BE IN THE MAIL AND PROOFS SENT TO ME BEFORE DECEMBER 3RD! THIS IS A MUST!

Opening Gifts and Photo Posting: December 25th!

Extra Info + How to Sign Up!

To sign up, please send me an email to IDFYTI@gmail.com - you must use an email you check regularly. 

Username (tumblr/twitter only!)

FULL NAME and address, including country!

SFW or NSFW?

Do you have any allergies?

Anything else I or your partner should know?

Misc. Bits

You will be paired with someone in the same continent as you, that means that I need at least 2 people in each continent to swap gifts.

On that note, it will be a straight swap, the person you get a gift from will be giving a gift to you.

Signing up means you give permission for your Gift Exchange Partner to know your address, full name, and the username you supply.

If you can no longer take part in the exchange, please let me know before Nov 3rd if pos, and before Dec 2nd latest, because I will try and stop the parcel being sent.

Keep up to date with the exchange on tumblr/twitter and use #FGE2019

If you have ANY questions at any point please let me know. Particularly before you sign up.

This event is VERY stressful for me, every year I say that I won’t run it again because of the stress, but I do love it on the day. Please try and make the event less stressful for me by adhering to the rules as closely as possible and making sure everyone gets a gift. Thanks in advance! 

The rules are strict, and a must, but they’re there for a reason, I want everyone taking part to get a gift on the day.

[corpus-chorus]

AO3 Writing Review Raffle

So, like pretty much any content creator, I absolutely adore when people make heartfelt, well-thought-out comments on my writing. And it’s something I’d really like to encourage the culture of. So I thought I’d do a raffle.

Why: A lot of people consume fan fiction and really enjoy it without taking the time to leave feedback for the authors. Which I totally get, and it’s certainly not something that’s required, but it goes a long way towards encouraging the creators, and just brightening up their days in general. So I’m hoping to start a little chain of people leaving thoughtful reviews that might just help out a struggling author somewhere.

What you’ll win: I’ll pick one entry randomly using random.org to win a 2-3k fan fiction of their choice (within characters/fandoms I know, unfortunately) to be posted on AO3.

How to enter: You can be entered once for reblogging (multiple rebloggings won’t get you extra entries) and you will also be entered for every thoughtful review you leave on any fan fiction of your choice (submitted to this form) starting from today.

You can find rules, instructions for entering, fandoms I’ll write for, and examples of my work under the cut. You can enter anonymously with a throwaway email if you’d prefer to keep your tumblr private.

The raffle will run until October 1st at 10pm EST.

If you’re a content creator and you’d like to use this format to encourage thoughtful comments on other art forms with your own rewards, please feel free!! I’d love to see more of this kind of thing.

Rules

Reviews must have been made after September 20th, 2019

Reviews must contain “WRR” somewhere in them so I know they were made for the raffle

You cannot submit reviews on my works - I love comments, but I’d like to keep this unbiased, please

You can submit reviews for any work on any platform (AO3, tumblr, wattpad, etc)

If the review is not on AO3 or tumblr, I must be able to see the review without an account

Reviews must be thoughtful. You don’t need to write a novel, but they should be more than “I love this”, and should include things you liked or disliked about the story.

Reviews made on multiple chapters of the same story will still be considered individual entries as long as each one is customized for that chapter

You will be entered for every review you write within the raffle period, so write as many as you want!

Instructions for entering:

All you gotta do is write a review (as a comment, reblog, or whatever’s appropriate for the platform) and then fill out this short form for each review, and that’s it!

Fandoms I can write for:

Markiplier and Jacksepticeye egos

Detroit: Become Human

Star Trek (TOS/AOS)

Hannibal

Good Omens

BBC’s Sherlock

Rise of the Guardians

BNHA

MCU

If it’s not listed, but you still really want it, feel free to ask - I may still be able to do it~

I will write anything at any rating from General Audiences to Explicit. I will not write pedophilia (slightly underage is okay depending on the context), but I’m otherwise open.

You can find examples of my work here.

The winner will receive their work within a month of being announced.

Thank you for reading! I’d love if you’d spread the word, or use this idea yourself to encourage more writing and art reviews!

[radiantseraphina]

Do you have any advice for writers who just. Don't have an experiance with important things? Like, if I wrote a story with a plot that followed conflicts I personally deal with, it would be whiny and dull. But I worry if I try to branch out to issues other people face, my lack of experiance on the topic will come across as plastic, or worse that im trying to profit off of other people's problems. But every story needs a conflict of some kind,,, and you get the picture

Hmm… If you feel comfortable with it, send me an ask with maybe some examples of what you’re thinking of, so I can give you some more specific advice. Because, like, writing about racism is quite different from writing, about, say child abuse? Also, I would argue that you shouldn’t so easily discount your own experiences and that there are, well, still plots you can write that wouldn’t fall into these, but that’s another post entirely. But here are my general thoughts in loose categories.

Firstly, do your research, preferably from people who have experienced whatever you want to write about. That’s crucial to approaching experiences that you don’t have. Aside from things like slaying dragons. Literal ones, of course. Metaphorical ones may still require research. But here’s the thing. Simply put, most problems are complicated. So how do you keep, for example, your story about racism/homophobia/sexism/ableist/etc. from sounding like a Very Special Episode™?

Keep in mind that most people know these things are bad. That’s why people always deny being them. Bob the Bigot isn’t homophobic; Bob the Bigot is ‘I don’t have a problem with gay people, BUT–’ So you need to go beyond X is Bad. And I’ll admit that’s something I struggle with. Incidentally, that’s why in DLU Alera’s racism stems from her insecurities (and her desire for money, which comes up later); Alera is constantly afraid of giving up her power, so she tries to make sure she has all of it and constantly tries to claim it’s what Bikaia would have wanted. Do I succeed? I don’t know. Maybe. She’s also loosely based off a certain president, but we won’t go there. So I suppose this boils down to ‘don’t just make someone racist/sexist/homophobic; give them reasons for being racist.’

And I don’t mean, ‘this person hates gay people because a bisexual woman named Seraphina murdered their wife.’ Your readers aren’t going to be fooled by such an obvious ploy for sympathy. Like, I do think you can have a character be whatever because they don’t think they are, and that tells us something other than Don’t Be Racist, Zelda. But do the extra work beyond X Is Bad.

(That being said, if you are looking at writing about racism/ableism/transphobia you would definitely want to ask someone besides me. As much as I’ve learned about these from academia and other places, I am still an able-bodied cisgender white lady.)

So now, you’ve made your plot something besides a Very Special Episode™. At this point, you need to look at your characters. Why? Because characters drive plot. So if you’re writing about sexism/racism/homophobia/ableism, you’re probably going to have characters who are very diverse. You might have a hard time writing about biphobia if you don’t have an bisexual people in your story. So at this point (assuming I’d already done my research about these complicated issues), I would look at TVTropes. I’m not even kidding. It’s a great source for finding all the negative stereotypes associated with any given group of people.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. Some tropes you very obviously should not use. But you also need to use some judgment here. For example, just because the Dashing Hispanic is a trope…doesn’t mean you should simply go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and never write a Hispanic swordsman, even when the setting would call for it, and make all your Hispanic characters as un-dashing and unattractive as possible. And really, a lot of things (but definitely not all!) can be fixed if you humanize your characters really well. So keep in mind that your Hispanic swordsman isn’t just a swordsman or defined solely by his swordsmanship. Just like you aren’t also just a student/writer/whatever. Or maybe you take away the dashing bit and turn him into a flustered mess anytime a man/woman/nonbinary pal pops into the room. 

Incidentally, some tropes can also be a good starting point if you notice there is a lack of diversity in them. I’ve been wanting to, for example, write a female Swashbuckler character (and well as a lady Hannibal Lecter) for ages and just haven’t gotten around to it.

(I personally also look up sporkings (chapter by chapter critiques) and/or reviews of relevant books for tips. Right now, I’m following a sporking of Mists of Avalon, once considered the feminist Arthurian adaptation before it was revealed what a horrific person Bradley was. Do I like Mists of Avalon or Marion Zimmerman Bradley? No. But if I want to write a bestselling feminist version of the Arthurian legend revolving around Sir Gawaine, I’m damn sure going to learn all the historical, feminist, homophobic, etc., missteps Bradley made. And I’ll happily recommend some sporkings if you’re trying to avoid certain things.)

So let’s say you don’t want to write about any of that. Let’s say you’re wanting to write about trauma. Depending on what you write, you want to be careful not to romanticize certain things. I’m not going to lie. As someone who was sexually abused as a kid, that is the absolute minimum standard for me. I cannot stand to read massive swaths of the romance and YA genres simply because of the way the Broody, Threatening Love Interest™ is romanticized. And as with anything else, do your research and ask questions. (Incidentally, the National Novel Writing Month forums are great for inquiries like this). Above all, be respectful.

If you can find them, beta readers are always a good option, especially if you can find people who have experienced the things you’re writing about. Or if you just have a couple of questions, you can always anon someone on Tumblr. Yes, some people may blow you off, but some of them won’t, especially if you’re polite and can show that you’ve already put forth effort to research that matter. (And not even kidding, I would answer EVERY bigoted question about the people of Appalachia if I NEVER had to read another nursing paper talking about how we’re “too stupid” to breastfeed and “feed all our babies Mountain Dew” ever again.)

Now, as for this profiting off others business. Let’s say you write your story, and it does actually bring you profit. Then, you use your platform to promote the voices of people who do have those experiences, and you acknowledge the great debt that you owe that community for sharing their experiences with you. And you acknowledge the luck and privilege that got you where you are. Support people working in the same area! You wrote a novel about a man in a terribly abusive relationship, and it becomes a bestseller? Great! Use your spotlight to share resources for abuse victims. You wrote a novel about a young person transitioning, and it garnered some success? Fantastic! Why don’t you point people to that underappreciated transgender writer? 

And sometimes? You’re going to make mistakes, and sometimes, being told that you’ve made mistakes will really hurt because you’ve worked so hard not to make them. I know. I’ve been there a couple of times. When I wrote DLU, I knew I could get some things right. I knew I could write about child abuse and being mistreated by someone you loved and still loving and fearing that person because I’ve been there. And I knew I could write about depression and loneliness and struggling to trust people because I’d been there. I could even say I knew a little bit about classism because I grew up dirt-poor in rural Appalachia, babysitting my brother since I was nine because both of my parents worked multiple jobs.

But I also knew that when I wanted to make Meta Knight a Hispanic man that I was opening myself up to criticism about race. And when I wanted to make Bandanna Dee a trans man, I knew I was opening myself up to criticism about transphobia. And I knew that when I wanted to make one of the primary villains a really racist, evil queen that I was treading on ground that I had no personal experience with. And we haven’t even gotten to Nightmare’s backstory, which basically features the first-hand colonization of Traumwald. So guess what? Sometimes, I’ve gotten it really right. And sometimes, I’ve really screwed it up and had people send me messages saying, ‘Sera, no.’ 

(And this is crucial; what I haven’t gotten is ‘don’t try to write this type of character.’ Generally, people like seeing different characters with different problems, and if you treat those characters and your readers with respect, your readers will treat you with respect).

But if you’re going to take any one thing away from this post, let it be this: do your best and learn to accept criticism with grace. Don’t let your fear of messing up keep you from ever trying. It is far better to try and write an experience, having approached it with respect and nuance, than it is not to. And sometimes, you will mess up, and that’s okay. You apologize, you learn, and you do better. I, personally, would rather see a writer fail, learn, and do better than to never try at all. Because that’s what writing is. It’s a process of continually working to improve yourself.

[foundcarcosa]

ccc.

1. Favorite childhood book? >> (Three hundred surveys posted to this blog, wow. --I mean, over the course of nearly a decade I’ve probably filled out at least ten thousand, but.) I think that distinction would have to go to The Phantom Tollbooth. It’s one of the only books I remember owning, probably because I’d paged through it so many times. I also modified all the illustrations with pen so that Milo looked like a woman. 2. What are you reading right now? >> Condensed Chaos by Phil Hine -- more like limping through it, because I stopped setting aside time specifically for reading so I just end up grabbing a half a chapter here and there. I’ll have to do something about that. I’d started The Poisonwood Bible a while ago, too, but I keep forgetting to continue it. 3. What books do you have on request at the library? >> I rarely borrow books from the library unless they’re e-books because of my tendency to have to repeatedly renew and eventually take it back before I’m finished because I ran out of renews. 4. Bad book habit? >> Not reading. 5. What do you currently have checked out at the library? >> I don’t, for the reasons stated above. But for all the shit I talk about Grand Rapids, it has a lovely main branch, so I’ll probably end up stopping in again soon, maybe spending a few hours there for a change of scenery.

6. Do you have an e-reader? >> I have a phone, which functions as my e-reader. I also have a Kindle, but between its wack amount of storage space and its quick-draining battery, it’s been relegated to the position of glorified mousepad at this point. (It’s too bad, because I like the screen size.) 7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once? >> Two or three at once. I think it’s interesting to see if/how they subconsciously weave themselves together in my imagination, even if -- especially if -- they’re about completely unrelated things. 8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? >> It’s the internet in general that interferes with my reading habits, not just tumblr, but tumblr obviously plays a part. 9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?) >> I quit on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road like 10 pages in, and I don’t usually do that but for some reason I got bored really quickly and couldn’t see the point in pushing through. That’s not a total vote in its disfavour because I didn’t actually form a full opinion. Sometimes I just pick up a book at the wrong time and have to wait until I reach the point in my life when I’ll need it. I’ll probably try again in a couple of years. 10. Favorite book you’ve read this year? >> I really enjoyed Reincarnation Blues, I thought it was an amazing story. I also got a lot out of M. K. Asante Jr’s It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop. When the Stars Are Right by Scott R Jones was fascinating as hell, and then of course there was my long-overdue (or maybe right-on-time, considering...) American Gods reread... 11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone? >> Occasionally. The thing is, there are so many books in my comfort zone that I want to read... 12. What is your reading comfort zone? >> I don’t know if it’s quantifiable. I like a lot of different kinds of books. I usually know within 10-15 pages of a book if I’m going to like it or not -- I try not to judge books by their covers, but I definitely judge them by their first chapter. 13. Can you read on the bus? >> Sometimes, but I generally prefer to listen to music and look out the window.

14. Favorite place to read? >> In bed. 15. What is your policy on book lending? >> I’ll give books away. Just take it, read it. Pay it forward. I don’t like to hoard books. 16. Do you ever dog-ear books? >> Hell yes, I do. They’re not a sacred object to me; their contents may well be sacred, but their contents already exist in me because I ate them.  17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books? >> Nah. 18. Not even with text books? >> I don’t use textbooks. 19. What is your favorite language to read in? >> I can only read in English. 20. What makes you love a book? >> It’s a very visceral and subconscious thing, and it’s not dependent on genre or the politics of the author or any of that as much as it’s dependent on who I am at that moment in time, what story I need to hear, and how lovingly the author told it. That sounds like it only applies to fiction books, but it really doesn’t.  21. What will inspire you to recommend a book? >> Some level of understanding of the person I’m recommending it to. 22. Favorite genre? >> I don’t know, honestly. 23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?) >> I wish I read more science fiction. The thing is, most of the scifi stories I love I kind of stumbled into accidentally. Whenever I go looking for scifi specifically, I run into a lot of duds (not that they’re badly written or anything, just that they’re bad for me). I’m going to try Philip K Dick soon and I hope that works out okay. 24. Favorite biography? >> I don’t have one. 25. Have you ever read a self-help book? >> Sure, but I don’t make a habit of it.

26. Favorite cookbook? >> I don’t have one. Well, okay, Feeding Hannibal is pretty cool, ngl, but mostly for the information rather than the actual recipes. We can’t afford to (or don’t have the room/appliances to) make most of that stuff. 27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)? >> Definitely American Gods, but that’s a hard-to-explain thing, lol. The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are is a good runner-up, because as far as inspiration is concerned, Alan Watts probably had more than his fair share of it. (Do comic books count, because if so I’d like to also add in Promethea.) 28. Favorite reading snack? >> Alcohol. (But also anything I can eat with one hand, or doesn’t require a lot of, like, attention.) 29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience. >> I don’t think that’s ever happened. 30. How often do you agree with critics about a book? >> I don’t read critic reviews often enough to know what the ratio of agreement to disagreement would even be like. 31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews? >> A negative review is just as valuable as a positive review. I’d prefer people not be nasty in their negative reviews, but like... I also don’t have to read their review if I don’t like it. It’s not that big of a deal to me. 32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose? >> Russian, probably. I imagine untranslated Russian lit would be amazing to read. 33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read? >> And actually finished? Ha! Let’s see... as far as length, I’d probably pick whatever the longest Stephen King book that I’ve read is. (He meanders, man. He fucking meanders. It’s great, but dear god.) As far as content, I’m probably gonna go with Atlas Shrugged. For, I mean, obvious reasons, really. 34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin? >> That doesn’t really happen to me. If I want to read something, I’ll start reading it. If it proves prohibitive to my limited ability to understand shit, then I’ll put it down and move on. 35. Favorite poet? >> I don’t have one. 36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time? >> Zero. When I do check out from the library, I stick to three books max. 37. How often have you returned book to the library unread? >> Quite often. Usually because I ran out of time. 38. Favorite fictional character? >> YEAH, OKAY. 39. Favorite fictional villain? >> Actually that is almost impossible for me to determine because I don’t even put the “villain” flag on characters unless it’s super fucking obvious (like in a comic book) that they’re supposed to be the Token Bad Guy. I just don’t even think in those terms. -- Now that I say that, though, I remembered that Stephen King characters are written very polarised despite my personal interpretations of them, so I suppose my favourite villain is Walter O’Dim. 40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation? >> I don’t know, I don’t usually have time to read on vacation. Unless it’s on the plane or something, in which case I just bring whatever I happen to be reading at the time. It’s usually on my phone, anyway. 41. The longest I’ve gone without reading. >> I mean, I don’t go a day without reading something, even if it’s just articles I saw on my facebook feed. 42. Name a book that you could/would not finish. >> Fifty Shades of Grey. (I did try. I wrote detailed posts about my thoughts during my attempt to read it. They’re still on my old blog.) 43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading? >> Everything. It’s just hard for me to turn the “noise” (literal and figurative noise) of the world off in general, which is why I like it quiet when I’m trying to focus. 44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel? >> Well, LOTR. I was going to say Predestination but All You Zombies isn’t a novel. Uhh.... :/ 45. Most disappointing film adaptation? >> Good god, so many. 46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time? >> Around $100, I guess. I don’t have much money in general so I try to just... avoid bookstores. 47. How often do you skim a book before reading it? >> I don’t. The first-chapter test usually works just fine. 48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through? >> Boredom. 49. Do you like to keep your books organized? >> Well, we don’t own enough for a complex system to be required. 50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them? >> I really prefer to give them away. It’s just... I’m not a hoarder (I don’t even mean that in the negative sense, I just mean I don’t like hanging onto stuff I’m not actively using). I spent just about all of my adult life up until 2 years ago homeless or some version of transient and having to be ruthlessly exacting about how many belongings I had at any given time really changed the way my brain works regarding material items. I love being able to own things now, but it’s... hard to enjoy having too many objects. I get tetchy. It feels inorganic. Maybe that’ll change in the future (these things often do), but for now owning more than 20 or so books feels like an overindulgence. 51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding? >> I don’t think so. 52. Name a book that made you angry. >> I can’t think of one right now. 53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did? >> The Fountainhead. Any Rand book, actually, because Vlad couldn’t stand her and we had such similar tastes in media that I figured I wouldn’t either. But the immense amount of annoying peer pressure from Sigma eventually got me to pick it up just to get them off my back, and..... well, the rest is hilarious “I’m in love with a crazy Russian woman who makes me want to yell at her constantly” history. 54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t? >> I don’t know. That doesn’t happen very often. 55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading? >> All of it? I don’t feel guilty about anything I read.

[pearlnecklaced]

I HAVE EXTENDED THE DEADLINE OF MY GIVE AWAY! (SEE BELOW!) I have NO IDEA how this happened (HEY PORNBOTS THANK YOU AND DON’T YOU DARE TO UNFOLLOW NOW) but as an expression of my neverending gratitude I’d like to celebrate with a give away. 

So I have good news and bad news.

The good news is: the giveaway is a fic.

The bad news is: the giveaway is a fic. Sorry. I’m broke. I have nothing else to give.

I write in following fandoms:

HARRY POTTER:

Pairings:

Snape/Harry

Snape/Sirius Black

Snape/Lucius Malfoy

THE AVENGERS:

Pairings:

Loki/Clint Barton

Hiddlesworth

Tom Hiddleston/Jeremy Renner

HANNIBAL:

HANNIBAL

Pairings:

Hannigram

Chillywilly

Madancy

Spacedogs

Basic Chickens

Toberto

Royale Instinct

Tempo Royale (I made that one up!)

RULES:

1. You must be following me.

2. Please reblog this entry.

3. I will determine winners on FRIDAY, 7 APRIL 2017.

I will message the winner on Tumblr. If I cannot reach you I must select another winner, so please make sure I can contact you.

4. International entries are allowed.

5. There will be three winners:

8000 — 10000 words

6000 — 8000 words

4000 — 6000 words

6. I won’t write any of the following:

Character bashing, scat, domestic fluff.

Apologies: I’m just very bad at it.

7. I will not upload my fic. I will send it to you via e-mail like the Gen X granny I am. Should you upload it, feel free to post it on your AO3, LJ or tumblr account. I require no credit.

Lastly, thank you very much for following me on here, for talking to me, for reading my incoherent posts and for not unfollowing me for my cat gifs and nude beaus. I will strive to further post & reblog excellent content.

CETERUM CENSEO HANNIBAL MUST BE SAVED.

[indispensible-pencil]

Tag Thingy

“I was tagged by @belongtohufflepuff thanks lovely!

rules: answer all the questions, add one of your own and tag as many people as there are questions (I can’t tag like 55 people I’m sure that was great at the beginning haha)

1. coke or pepsi? Mmm I’ll go with pepsi only because I drink coke with whiskey so much I can taste it in any coke which, when hungover, is not a good. 

2. disney or dreamworks? I’ll say disney but dreamworks has some rad 2D movies spirit owned my ass. 

3. coffee or tea? I’m from yorkshire tea is my lifeblood.

4. books or movies? Both tbh

5. windows or mac? Windows I have never touched a mac. 

6. dc or marvel? Marvel

7. xbox or playstation? Playstation (I switched from xbox 360 to ps4 cos I’m a traitor)

8. dragon age or mass effect? I’ll say mass effect I love the overall world and story more. 

9. night owl or early riser? Night owl what is the sun. 

10. cards or chess? Cards, it’s difficult (but not impossible) to play drinking games with chess.

11. chocolate or vanilla? I dislike strong vanilla scents and flavours (especially vanilla vodka omg). 

12. vans or converse? I...don’t wear either? 

13. Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash or Adaar? Took me a second to realise these are DA heroes. I’m an elvish rogue in any fantasy RPG so Lavellan. 

14. fluff or angst? Angst. Feed. Me. Pain. Fiction

15. beach or forest? I love the forest aesthetically but am allergic to many kinds of vegetation so beach

16. dogs or cats? Cats (I love dogs too but omg cats)

17. clear skies or rain? Rain unless I am going out somewhere that requires nice hair. 

18. cooking or eating out? Cooking I am a starving student that cannot afford to go out :(

19. spicy food or mild food? Spicy but like not painful 

20. halloween/samhain or solstice/yule/christmas? 2fast2spooky

21. would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot? Cold. There’s only so many layers you can take off before it’s illegal. 

22. if you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Invisibility. if people could sometimes stop perceiving me physically that would be grand.

23. animation or live action? Both. Unless we’re talking live action disney remakes those can burn

24. paragon or renegade? Paragon like I could never do a renegade run. You expect me to be mean to video game characters and hurt their feelings?!

25. baths or showers? Showers mostly but catch me in a coma bath when mistress cramps hit

26. team cap or team ironman? Team cap

27. fantasy or sci-fi? Ooooh you can’t make me. I love fantasy but the Tolkien ‘standard fantasy’ format is wearing a bit thin. Dark/supernatural/urban fantasy and mythology though sign me the fuck up. 

28. do you have three or four favourite quotes, if so, what are they? "I would rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me."

“Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission and placing them on the table in the guise of candles?”

“Revolutions are not born of chance but of necessity.”

29. youtube or netflix? Netflix 

30. harry potter or percy jackson? harry potter

31. when do you feel accomplished? Accomplishment machine broke

32. star wars or star trek? Star Trek

33. paperback or hardback books? Whichever is prettier to be honest but paperbacks are cheaper...

34. horror or rom-com? Horror but I’m very VERY picky about them. 

35. tv shows or movies? Good stories can exist in any format.

36. favourite animal? Oh wow anything that’s in front of me. Sharks, cats, snakes, cute things that can kill me. 

37. favourite genre of music?

This is the part where I sound like an arsehole. New wave/post-punk/gothic rock/ punk 

38. least favourite book? The road or martyn pig are the worst I’ve ever read. 

39. favourite season? Winter

40. song that’s currently stuck in your head? Be prepaaaaaaaaaaaared.

41. what kind of pyjama’s do you wear? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

42. how many existential crises do you have on an average day? Constant and neverending.

43. if you can only choose one song to be played at your funeral, what would it be? Highway to Hell (no honestly that’s been my choice since I was 9). 

44. favourite theme song to a TV show? Hannibal.

45. harry potter movies or books? books

46. you can make your OTP become canon but you’ll forget that tumblr exists. will you do it? Two birds one stone 

47. do you play an instrument and if so, what is it? The hearts of men. Just kidding! The violin, heartstrings don’t produce great noise. 

48. what is the worst way to die? Suffocating alone in the vacuum of space (the opening of mass effect 2 fucked me up.)

49. if you could be entirely invisible for a day, what would you do?

Stand in the middle of northumberland street holding a python. 

50. If you could have personally witnessed anything in history what would it be? Storming of the bastille off the top of my head.

51. If you could understand animals but you could never understand humans again, would you? Probably not my cat licks his arsehole in front of me a lot I really don’t need his personal input on life.

52. What is your most favourite album currently? I’ve been listening to Green Day: Revolution Radio a lot lately that’s very good (lots of dissing donald trump). Also Disintegration by the cure because listening to that while dissociating launches your into the shadow realm where you can fight your mirror self. 

53. What is your favourite TV show character? Currently Rosa Diaz is the top of my list I think. Mylene Cruz from the get down owns my gay ass also. 

54. What is something you were obsessed with as a child? I was completely obsessed with the ocean and everything in it. I do marine zoology at university now so follow your dreams kids and you too can voluntarily do a dissertation on seaweed. 

55. Do you have any tattoos/piercings and if not would you like any? 

I have a few piercings and there are so many tattoos I want like for someone scared of injections I sure want needles in a lot of places. 

@shiremaiden, @anemonestarfish, @ochsespatz, @drunkswan, @vikingsandrevolutions, @arorevan, Hello naughty children it’s question time. (many many questions only if you want to)

[freshmeatfriday]

FMF: January 2017 Roundup

Hello dear Fannibals, and welcome to Fresh Meat Friday’s Roundup!. The roundup posts will gather all the recs posted on Tumblr under the #Fresh Meat Friday tag, and link them in one easy to find post.

ARTIST

@postmortemdesign rec’ed by @amngell “I couldn’t choose a single art piece that I believed stood out the most because Oliver is an AMAZING artist.”

@chiyo-lecter rec’ed by @slashyrogue

@carrioncrowned rec’ed by @hotsauce418 “Not only are they just plain awesome, but the art…the art!!…”

@amngell rec’ed by @hannigramsolace “Not only are they a talented artist, but also a lovely person who contributes greatly to this fandom !”

@amngell rec’ed by @super-queer-hannibal-obsession “Their art is adorable, sometimes super sexy, and they are always willing to experiment and make new art! Lots of Hannigram and Hannibal among other things!”

WRITER

@fataldrum rec’ed by @blind-inviting-alleys for Variations on a Theme “It’s one of the most beautiful hannigram stories i’ve ever read. brilliantly conceived, rich with poesy, and experimental in structure, with eloquent shifts in POV and storytelling devices that make it a must-read.”

@thehoyden rec’ed by @eonblueinmay for The Fox’s Wedding “I need to rec this amazing fic. Sassy!will and Hannibal being Hannibal.”

@inameitlater rec’ed by @rosekay2016 for We Killed A Dragon Last Night “Ah-Mazing!!”

Moonstruckidiot rec’ed by @rosekay2016 for Ribbons “Seriously good.”

@nanoochka rec’ed by @rcmclachlan for A Flood In Our Hearts “Prepare to have your mind blown by the hottest shaving scene ever written, blowjobs, rimming (oh my god, the rimming), gorgeeeeeeeous prose…”

@captainnightflyer rec’ed by @littlethingwithfeathers for Bear My Mark Upon Your Soul “I found this one in the #HannibalOdyssey sci-fi/fantasy challenge being put on this week and I was just blown away.”

@t-pock rec’ed by @thesilverqueenlady for Pi’s Lullaby  “@t-pock just took the somewhat campy idea of “kid matchmakes parents” and takes it to a whole new gorgeous level. I love this fic, and I unreservedly rec it for anyone who is curious about it. I promise it will be well worth your time.”

@cavaleira rec’ed by @damnslippyplanet for By Any Other Name “Seriously. I don’t rec coffee shop AUs lightly, they’re not often my thing, but this was the cutest and I love it and wish to hug it”

@itscoldrust rec’ed by @redfivewritingby for Kawalan “It’s an intriguing SF with a familiar premise (plague gets loose onboard a colony ship) that doesn’t require a PHD in math. I can’t recall too many Hannigram scifis, which is what drew me in.”

@fancybedelia rec’ed by @matildaparacosm for To Fuel Your Radiance “This fic is my favorite philosophical,sexy,blood opera.”

@hannigramsolace rec’ed by @yggdrastiles for Call Me Daddy “...she’s a frankly fantastic writer and everyone needs to know!”

@slashyrogue rec’ed by @szazyel213 “I want @slashyrogue to have more people seeing and recognising their awesome work. :>”

@murdersymphony rec’ed by @evertonem for Intimate Instinct

@zacharybosch rec’ed by @planetstarclaw for Dreams of a Lie “Spacedogs for me is usually defined as fluffy and smutty goodness with the occasional dash of angst. This story definitely hits on all of those points but then sideswipes you with the unexpected…or is it.”

Thanks for everyone’s participation! The next FMF will be on March 3rd!

[condensed-theorem-shop]

Hi, you seem to have lots of opinions on fics (esp. Glowfics) and I'm reading radiance right now. So I was wondering if you have any good fanfic recommendations for when I finish c:

Ooooh okay I can do this :D I’m not sure if you want recs for glowfic or fanfic or both or what, so I’m gonna err on the side of Everything.

Cut for Much Length.

Part 1: Glowfic Collections

If you’d like another big reading project to start on, boy do I have recommendations for you.

Effulgence. I’d describe Effulgence as the paradigmatic glowfic. (Don’t be daunted to the fact that the link is to a ‘how to read’; it is not in fact tricky to read. There’s a series of links on an index page, and you can just read through each in order.) The basic conceit is that Alicorn writes AU versions of Bella-from-Luminosity into tons of different fanfic universes, and then all of them meet up and take over the universe and also cuddle a lot. The exciting other half is Kappa(/Pyth/@shitifindon), Alicorn’s cowriter for Effulgence; Kappa writes various AU versions of the Joker (yes, from Batman) who are fantastic adorable masochists and fall madly in love with the AU-Bellas (“Bells”). The shipping is so adorable. I cannot recommend it enough.

Silmaril. Probably the biggest glowfic continuity (“story spanning a bunch of worlds that meet up”) aside from Effulgence, and (unlike Effulgence) currently updating, so it’s talked about a lot in the community right now. Hence, a good choice if you want to hop right into the discussions. (Please do!!) The writers for this one are Alicorn and Lintamande, the latter of whom writes a fantastic Lord-of-the-Rings setting with a cast of Elves from the Silmarillion who are traumatized and fantastic and huggable.

Particularly Good Threads. Okay, this one is cheating, but it’s worth linking. People on the forum are trying to compile a list of recommended glowfics. Some of them are not necessarily maximally recommended to someone new to glowfic, but people put brief explanations of what they’re reccing them for, so it should hopefully still be helpful.

Part 2: Individual Glowfics

The thing about glowfics is that they tend to spin off each other – Lintamande decides to write her elf characters in space this time, Alicorn has a version of Bella who is male and a demon visit, he ends up interestingly traumatized from that, then Kappa goes “hey can we write about what would happen if that interestingly traumatized Bell met my version of a character from the Vorkosigan Saga who was from a different universe and then met a monument and now travels in a floating canoe,” and you end up with a really fantastic story which no one can make sense of unless they have read, like, a dozen prerequisite threads.

So I can’t just recommend my favorite glowfics, because none of them would make sense; and you can’t really just start browsing through the glowfics on the Constellation unless you’re willing to put up with half of them being nonsensical. Reading through Effulgence will help a lot with that, as will getting familiar with the casts of a few of the more prolific glowficcers (Kappa writes the Joker, Miles Vorkosigan, Tony Stark, and Sherlock Holmes a lot; Pedro writes Sadde, who’s original to him; Lintamande has her various Elves). For the moment, though, here’s some glowfics that require relatively little context.

blood sweat tear: A fairy Bell meets Miles Vorkosigan. Works well without much context because Miles is figuring out what’s going on, so you can figure it out along with him.

in spite of a nail: An episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if Bella were the Slayer and Kappa’s Sherlock were a vampire.

Lindworm: A classic fairy tale, with Bella as the heroine and a Joker as the dragon.

there’s only so much I can turn into: A good introduction to Sadde, since you’ve read Luminosity already! Getting to know Sadde will make a lot more glowfic accessible. Addy finds a Sadde.

in which a Bell is the second coming of Christ: exactly what it sounds like, and fantastic. No context needed.

Pre-Jump Earth Literature: a good introduction to Miles Vorkosigan, in his canon setting. And you get a gander at the popular Miles/Yvette ship!

Uninvited Guests are Welcome Here: another case where both sets of characters are a bit lost and explaining their worlds to each other, which makes it an excellent introduction to those worlds.

you know what they say about the young: Matilda (yes, from Roald Dahl) appears in Middle-Earth and makes friends with a very tiny Feanor. Excessive adorableness ensues.

A Table for Two: Gregor, the emperor of Barrayar from the Vorkosigan Saga, meets … Hannibal. From Hannibal. It is very satisfying.

More Than One Kind Of Artifact: another characters-explain-their-worlds-to-each-other thread. A Bell from an original world with magic artifacts meets magical-girl Edie and Emily (who are the AU offspring of Magneto and Professor X, but that’s a whole nother thing…)

Part 3: Shameless Plugging

You didn’t think I was going to let you get away without reccing you a couple of my own glowfics, did you? :D

For context: Jean is my spy/revolutionary/actor/bundle of issues/world’s worst planner. Faith is my teenage antichrist who keeps trying to fix the world by taking it over via mind control and otherwise making very bad decisions.

the prettiest song I heard: a Jean in an original universe of Kappa’s gets really, really fucked up, and then falls in love. (So many warnings. So many warnings. I am serious about the warnings. But if you like that sort of thing…)

one for sorrow (two for joy): a Jean attempts to kidnap a prince and accidentally falls in love with him in the process. Hilarity ensues.

don’t let’s ask for the moon: set in an original universe of Alicorn’s, but not much of that actually comes up. (People get magic from eclipses.) Jean rescues Adelene’s character Denice from an institution; there is adorableness.

neither fish nor fowl: Jean and Denice in Star Wars, and this time she is the one rescuing him from himself. Jean does not make a very good Jedi.

Out of the Blue: Faith and Throne’s character Theo explore vampires in an original setting. Mistakes are made. So many of them.

Incipio: Faith and Theo again, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer this time.

Part 4: Fanfic

Taking a break from the glowfic for a while! Here’s some general fanfic recommendations.

At the End of All Things: If you’d like to meet Lintamande’s Elves outside of a glowfic setting, she’s got an enormous (in-progress) story about Elves brought back to life in the modern day! It is fantastic and depressing!

The Stone Gryphon: a serious, historical-fiction take on the Narnia books, and the events in England that happened in between them. Amazing historical tie-ins, and strikes a nice balance in its attitude towards the more spiritual aspects of the Narnia books which I think a lot of fics have trouble with.

The Foodieverse: an astonishingly well-written Avengers AU … in which all the characters are involved in the restaurant industry. Captain America has a food truck. It’s amazing.

Five Places Cinna Came From: a series of Hunger Games AUs, exploring different possible backstories for Cinna and doing a ton of worldbuilding along the way.

Move Fast and Break Things: @ozymandias271’s now-complete Avengers AU, with female!disabled!Tony Stark, adorable!Bucky, and general amazingness.

Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film: a story wrapped around accounts of Captain America movies, good and bad, that might have existed in-universe. I am so delighted by this kind of worldbuilding.

Part 5: Original Fiction

You didn’t ask, but I am sharing some online favorites anyway!

Worm: If you have not read it yet, you should! A gritty-superheroes narrative, distinguished from the million others in the genre by the really awesome thought that’s put into powers. Everyone thinks of inventive ways to use their powers and does it. Warning: super long. And depressing. Read it anyway! There are glowfics set there!

Goldmage: An original novel of Alicorn’s! Delightful worldbuilding, sweet and exciting and depressing, read it read it read it.

Elcenia: An immense work of original fiction by Alicorn. Very glowficcy in some ways (and lots of glowfics are set there, so that’s another reason to read it). In the first book, a woman is accidentally magically transported between worlds, and explored Alicorn’s super-thoroughly-worldbuilt original setting while figuring out exciting ways to leverage the contact. Each subsequent book takes some minor character or characters from previous books and tells their story. This has the delightful effect that you can then reread it, and when Random Dude #12 is being grumpy and unreasonable you know it’s because he’s just had his best friend kidnapped and is having to pretend nothing happened as part of an elaborate plot involving telepathic vampires (no, not a real example).

Cordyceps: Another one popular in the same general circles as Luminosity is. Mystery/horror/post-apocalyptic, and marvelous. And depressing and needs a lot of warnings -- you may be sensing a theme here.

Part 6: Other People

Other glowficcers on tumblr who might have recs for you, off the top of my head: @luminousalicorn @kelsbraintumbler @scientiststhesis @curiosity-discoverer-of-worlds @shitifindon @lintamande @aestrix @trickytalks @throne3d @marrinikari @ansiblelesbian @inquisitivefeminist @mischiefmanaged777twoofus @erinflight and I’m sure I’m still forgetting people. They are all way more approachable than you think! At least if you are like me and decide people are scary and unapproachable for no particular reason!

All y’all I tagged -- any other rec ideas? :D