#it gives me a chance to natter on about my blorbos and gives me joy

[plain-as-pandemonium]

Questions and statements: what did draw you to bedannibal in the first place? At which point of watching the show did you go “yes these two!”? Is there anything else you particularly enjoyed about the show?

QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS!!!!! 🥰🤩🖤😁

(thank you, darling, and so sorry it took a minute 😘)

*ahem*

short answer: it wasn't until my second (close, considered) watch of the entire show that i passed The Point of No Return™️, following which these two took up remuneration-free residence in my braincase without the possibility of removal

long answer, which requires centrifuging my psychic cocktail shaker to separate a number of ingredients and their relative contributions to the severity of my brainrot, to-wit:

the importance of thomas harris's written works to adolescent!me

the all-consuming crush i had on gillian anderson whilst at uni

my documented predisposition in adulthood to Fannish Thoughts and Feelings about clever, self-contained, calculating female characters who could kill you and might decide to do it

particularly when said female characters have partners who will stop at nothing to protect and care for them

now, combine all of those ingredients and you will have what amounts to Fannish TNT.

however, the fuse on said TNT remained unlit during my first watch of nbc hannibal, which i picked up as a dvd box set in the sale sometime in 2018, i think? i enjoyed it, of course, but i didn't feel the need to go looking for fic about it, let alone start writing any of my own.

it was maybe a year or two later when i chanced to reconnect with @galacticcoyote, a friend from my previous fandom, who mentioned she was working on a longfic involving some characters from this show hannibal, had i seen it? i had, i said. because we had previously beta read each other's works, she asked if i'd be willing to look this one over, maybe help work out where to go with it? absolutely, i said.

it was an immense privilege to read that work, which i still hope dex will one day post because it is amazing. i was probably not much help in reviewing it, sadly. however, as part of my beta-reading due diligence i rewatched the show with a more ... let's say ... analytical/storytelling eye.

that's where they got me.

the match was struck, the fuse burned down and BOOM. my hyperfixation fixed itself good.

on that second watch, it was the vulnerability and trust of hannibal's therapeutic relationship with bedelia that really got me. for therapy to work, you have to be willing to reenter dark and painful places in your mind, places you locked up for a reason, and then you have to examine what you find there. and you have to know that the person who is guiding this examination can a) handle whatever comes out and b) help you handle whatever comes out. hannibal may be a monster, but he's also a person with a greater-than-average amount of trauma. their early sessions must have convinced him to trust her, that she was worthy of his trust, and they must have helped him somehow because he tried to bind her to him with the whole neal frank thing and then he refused to accept her retirement. thinking about how they got to that point, as well as filling in gaps in the canon timeline of their relationship, has provided me many happy hours.

that's what drew me to them as a pairing, and what keeps me thinking and writing about them: vulnerability and trust. because no matter what they're doing--sitting in therapy, covering for each other when the fbi asks questions, getting on a plane together, kissing each other goodbye in florence--you have two powerful, amoral people who nevertheless look to each other when they need help. who place their soft, unmasked, unveiled, unarmoured essence in each other's hands and say, "this is where i am weak, please don't hurt me." for an imagination like mine, that is a line of magic powder to be inhaled over and over.

as for what else i liked about the show? i loved the fact that the creators went all in with the cerebral/visceral pretentiousness of it all. i love all the symbolism, all the layers. i love the fact that they didn't dumb anything down, which is so often the case in modern media where films and tv are meant to appeal to the widest possible audience. i love that it's like literature you can watch. is it perfect? no. there's plenty to criticise. but i appreciate a tv show that doesn't talk down to its audience. that's rare.