#it's not terrible to believe otherwise is it?

[qussymagnet]

Yes!!!! Starting with a statement that you can actually believe is so powerful.

Fun fact, I used to be suicidal. I didn't want to live. And it made sense, I was in a terribly abusive situation, and having no frame of reference otherwise, life seemed pointless and hollow. There really didn't seem to be any chance for it to get better.

I waited until I was home alone. I took a knife and put it to my wrist. I pressed it in a little, not breaking skin but feeling the pinch of the metal. It terrified me. I couldn't act. I was too scared that it would hurt, and too considerate about the idea of someone - even someone terrible - needing to find me that way. So, I stood there by myself for a while staring out of the sink window at my bleak life, just thinking.

First, I thought about how cowardly I felt for not being able to even kill myself. Which, yes, I recognize is not a healthy thought lol. But, eventually I thought, Well... if I want to kill myself, it certainly can't get worse, right? Maybe I should stick around and see if something cool happens. I could always kill myself later if it turns out I was wrong.

And yes, thinking to yourself, I could always kill myself later is not in any way a positive thought lol, but it was something. It was a step away from I want to end my life right now. It was a willingness to hope and just wait and see what happened. It was, yes, leaving the door open. And leaving the door open meant that I was alive long enough to have things happen that made me happy to be alive.

At first it was small things, like an especially pretty soft rain, a sunrise, or seeing a cute animal. Then, it was other things, like pursuing an art degree, making friends, falling in love. Then, it became things like, learning boundaries, separating myself from abusive people, going to trauma therapy, and learning to respect my needs.

The road was messy and painful. These things are not easy to unlearn. And the demon called suicide ideation does still occasionally lurk outside my window when I'm having an especially bad time. But, finally, I loved myself. I cherish my life and the people in it. And I want to stick around as long as possible.

Please, start with what you can honestly believe in. You don't have to perform positivity for anyone. But, keep the door open. Tomorrow may show you something better than today.

one of the best ways i’ve found to combat that inherent depressive pessimism without veering into toxic positivity territory is simply the phrase “i’m open to the possibility”

this particularly works with anything negative i’ve forecasted. “i woke up feeling like shit today, so my day is gonna suck” isn’t a particularly helpful thought, but “it’s a great day to be alive!!!!!” feels hollow and insincere when i have a pounding headache & am running on three hours of sleep

instead i’ll tell myself, “i really don’t feel good right now, but i’m open to the possibility that coffee and breakfast might perk me up a bit.” or “i’m in a lot of pain today, but i’m open to the possibility that my workday might still have fun parts despite that”

sometimes, when your impulse is to slam the door on anything good, but you’re not exactly up to going out & hunting it down yourself, leaving the door open just a crack makes all the difference

[tiredandoptimistic]

I am forever haunted by Nate and Tessa's fucked up and terrible sibling dynamic. Maybe it's just because I related to Tessa too hard when I was twelve and heard "this is her older sibling who's the coolest person in the world and reuniting with him is her number one priority" and went "yup, makes sense!" but his betrayal is genuinely one of the defining aspects of TID to me.

Sibling relationships are such an underexplored way to fuck somebody up in fiction, in my opinion. Nate has been the one constant in Tessa's life, and no matter how aware she was of his flaws that could never overrule the fact that he's her person. She trusts him on a fundamental level that she just can't experience with anyone else, and part of it is because of how fleeting all her other relationships have been, but a lot of it is just the fact that he's her brother and she's loved him for as long as she's been alive. More than that, she idolizes him. Her entire life crumbles around her when Aunt Harriet dies and she ends up held hostage by the Dark Sisters, but Nate is still there and perfect in her mind. He's her anchor when everything else goes insane; if she can just find her brother then things will be okay again. She's more able to handle her world being shattered by learning about the supernatural because all that magic shit is secondary to the fact that she needs to save Nate.

And then of course she does save him and he turns around to betray her. And again, it hits harder than any other betrayal possibly could because he's more important to her than anyone else could possibly be. By this point she's built up bonds with Will and Jem and the other people at the Institute, and eventually they all become woven into her being, but not when she's sixteen and has known them for a week.

Looking at it from Nate's perspective, the thing that's always fucks me up is the way he tries to convince himself that he sees Tessa as a monster. He's genuinely just a shitty enough person that he set his sister up to be a child bride for a mass murderer because of the payout, but he can't handle thinking of it that way so he clings to this idea that Tessa isn't really his sister, isn't really human. And while yes, that's biologically true (they're not even technically related to each other), it doesn't change the fact that they're siblings in every way that matters. She'll always be his little Tessie, even if he doesn't want to admit it, doesn't want to let himself be the villain in this situation. He does the same thing with Harriet, arguing that she deserved to die because of all her lies because otherwise he would need to admit that he killed his mother out of pure selfishness.

Nate isn't the most evil guy in the world, but he is greedy and allergic to principles. It's so much worse than if he never loved Tessa, because he does love her till the very end and that love just isn't enough to override the allure of wealth and power. That's always the most painful type of relationship to me; the one where a person has just enough good to make it impossible to unequivicobly hate them.

Maybe Will could just write Nate off as a terrible person, but Tessa will always know every detail of his best and kindest moments. I have to believe that he haunts Tessa for the rest of her immortal existence, this knowledge that the person who made her life worth living for the first sixteen years was the one to sell her out. All the pain in the world isn't enough to erase that bond; she'll always have to live with the memory of him dying in her arms, the knowledge that his goodness and love was just as genuine as his duplicity.

Yeah this ended up being a lot longer than I intended, I just have a lot of feelings about the Gray siblings. Nate wasn't a part of the world where Tessa eventually found a home, she'll never have anyone else who understands the knot of emotions surrounding him. She can get sympathy but never empathy. Yes the rest of the TID crew are aware of him, but they barely met him and she outlived all of them too. Nate's so lost in her past, I bet that most people don't even realize that she used to have a brother, that she grew up as a sister, as half of a set. She carries the Gray name forward through her immortal life, and nobody else knows about the family that used to share it. She's still got Jem and Magnus who have been her friends since she was a teenager, who keep the memory of Will and the others alive; but no one else was there for her childhood.

I'm not quite sure how to end this, I'm just feeling emotions about Tessa Gray on this fine Tuesday and felt like sharing them.

[tales-of-wocdes]

How would Grandpa Sheo and Adopted parents Havard and Lexia react to MC wearing elbow lenght gloves with belts which they tighten to crush their lumpy flesh and swollen fingers into place to make it look like their arms are normal.

Bonus reaction: their cleaning the blood from MC's arms due to the lumpy and swollen flesh popping due to the pressure and MC just tells them they wish thier hands where normal.

I am not sure that with bandages, their arms look that off when completely covered. But for the ask, let's go with it.

-------------LEXIA-------------

"Kid, you ok?" Lexia asked much softer than usual. "Those look painful. Sure you don't just want to wear longer sleeves?"

You shake you head, but the sound of blood dripping from your hands on the floor draws both your gazes downwards.

"Oh... well that's not good." Lexia says and kneel before you. She takes your arms into hers and inspects them. "Sorry, kid. I can't let you wear these if they hurt you." She sounds apologetic but firm.

"I... I just wanted...." You start, squirming under her blue gaze. "I just wanted normal arms." You whisper.

"I know, kid." She says as she undoes the belts. "But we don't always get what we want. But we'll work on it. There has to be some way to help." She cleans away the blood.

Her smile makes you feel a bit better.

---------------HAVARD-----------------

"MC?" Havard asked, worried. His gaze was locked onto your arms, the belts you managed to tighten around them.

He seems to be fighting with something. Is he going to make you take them off?

The sound of blood dripping from your hands on the floor draws both your gazes downwards. You are bleeding...

Havard is kneeling before you. "You are hurt." He says softly and reaches for your arms. "The belts are hurting you." He starts unbuckling them. He does not ask, but you think he understands.

"I... I just wanted...." You start, squirming under those hazel eyes. "I just wanted normal arms." You whisper.

Havard stops and looks at you, his eyes meeting yours. "I promise we will work on it. Find some solution." He starts cleaning the blood. "But I cannot allow you to harm yourself. There has to be something we can do."

His smile is soft and reassuring.

You do feel better.

--------Grandpa Sheo----------

"You are free to wear what you want, but I must insist on something that does not actively make things worse." The Ancient said, leaning in to inspect your arms. "I do not believe this qualifies. You are bleeding."

"I... I just wanted...." You start, squirming under that ancient gaze. "I just wanted normal arms." You whisper.

The Ancient nods. "Understandable. Yet, your hands are not normal. Wishing does not make it otherwise." The Ancient's voice is calm and neutral. It is not a comforting voice, but neither is it cruel. Just honest, stating a truth.

It still hurt.

Upon seeing your expression the Ancient went on. "Life is cruel and unfair. Even someone like I cannot change this. Your arms being injured does not make you lesser. It shows you have survived a terrible ordeal but you are still here." Ancient eyes stare into yours. "Your arms do not define you, or your potential." The Ancient opened the belts and let them drop. His voice was calm and clear. "It will not be easy." He cleans away the blood. "But life never is. It does not mean it is not worth trying."

But... what if you don't want to try... You don't say it out loud but the Ancient somehow knows.

"Remember, you are not alone. Havard and Lexia will help you."

You do feel a bit better.

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: HARE

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, Daddy kink, cannibalism mentions, death (including of a young person), violence, blood

Read after the cut

---

You wake in the cold. A coffin colourlessness— beneath you a floor, tiled like the belly of an alligator, and above you like foul jungle fruit a roof of human torsos, each sheathed in plastic and reduced almost to featureless meat: heads, skin, limbs all absent, burned, or stored elsewhere, or eaten.

For a moment you are taken with the belief that you must be amongst those murdered to lie bare beneath the earth with them. Then through the midden smog of thought you remember being carried, half-sleeping, down into this room in the night, that you have lain here under the belly of the storm for many hours, unknowing.

You scream out, attempting to writhe away from the canopy of the dead. In your struggle you find your ankle held fast to a loop in the wall, its chain like a strand of beautiful jewellery, yet still too strong to break.

A shape unfolds from the murk of some corner, taciturn beneath the queer light of that place.

“Good morning, Little One.”

“Daddy,” you cry, crawling forth in desperate hunger for consolation even from the maker of this charnel hell. “Please, please, take me out of here. I can’t be down here with them. Please, I’ll be good—"

“No,” says Hannibal. “I don’t believe you will.”

He stands like some grave and terrible seabird upon a dune of the drowned, unmoved by his work, or by your tears.

“Your unrelenting impudence wearies me. It seems that you’re unable to grasp the magnitude of your good fortune. I could have kept you as a pig liberated from the slaughterhouse, a domestic creature regarded, still, as less than human. You would have lived on slops, in straw, and drank from a trough, and like any pet you would have learned to be grateful for your keep.

“But I do not see you as an animal, Little One, and so I’ve housed you better than I would a daughter of my own blood. It vexes me that you’re still unsatisfied with the luxuries of this existence. Even the threat of death doesn’t curb your desire to spite me.”

You hang your head, baring your neck to this cruel swordsman and his words.

“Will has proven himself to be as I am in all but the act of choosing to kill,” Hannibal continues, stepping neatly out of reach of fingers that would otherwise have snatched his navy trouser leg to you. “But until you behold his appetite first-hand in bowers of blood you’ll turn your face away from it. You are falling in love with only half of what Will is; that is a chosen blindness, and it has led you far astray, dear Little One.”

Such talk of romance under the willows of the perished— you shift about in your unease of it, and the manacle about your foot cuts in like the gauntlet of a covetous and lusting king.

“I’m not in love with Will,” you say. “I’m not, I could never—"

“It wasn’t your intent to love him, but nevertheless you do. You long for him even when he takes you in anger, or speaks harsh words to you, for he’s so like the cruel protector of your oldest fantasies that you feel a natural inclination to accede to him. How cruelly must I handle you for you to submit to me?”

Hannibal’s disappointment is like another body in the room in the weight of its cool presence.

You have been mad, surely, to snub him, this vampire amongst men; snivelling, you kneel at his feet, unsure whether to present yourself as his submissive or his child to beg for grace.

“Will wouldn’t do this,” you say, gesturing to the sheathes of the dead. “Even if he did murder someone he’d— he’d pick someone bad. These people weren’t. I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I’m so scared—”

“You think Will wouldn’t succumb to kill as I do, in the end?

Hannibal is not nearly so handsome in this charnel pit under the house. His face is built of blades and vellum, his eyes like spider's backs, darkly resentful and incredulous.

“In the beginning he would select those unarguably deserving, then after that those that merely irritated his sensibilities. Will is quick to rise to jealousy or irritation. There will come a day that he will take a life for the bitter pleasure of removing that which offends him. I believe you know this to be true.”

Having been told of Will’s dream you can no longer deny this reality, knowing the hunt a call to his very soul.

You say, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Accept me as you have Will,” says Hannibal. “And as you must accept yourself, for you haven’t been entirely without pleasure in the thought of killing. Ten years ago you wrote of the urge to plunge a kitchen knife into your mother’s heart on an online message board after an altercation with her. You described that imagined act of revenge with relish, and she had only struck the back of your hand to earn it.”

You stare at Hannibal, aghast that he has uncovered what you, through time and guilt, have long forgotten.

“I didn’t mean it,” you insist. “I was mad at her, that’s all. It’s not wrong to be mad. I never would have done it. I love my mom.”

“Had you not feared the consequences of taking up the knife you would have done so, and I wouldn’t have blamed you for that. The urge to kill is not unusual, Little One, though it’s curious that it was the lesser of your abusers that inspired a dream of murder. One might take it as evidence that even so-called petty grievances are a just cause to act.”

That this man presents monstrosity as a legitimate dogma should suggest some flaw in the brain, yet he possesses none, is sane to the point that it is the alternative thought that seems a madness.

“I don’t want to be a bad person,” you croak. “And I’m scared that I already am. You want me to be bad. Us, me and Will. Both of us evil.”

“I’m no great believer in good and evil,” says Hannibal. “Nor should you be. You have suffered under benevolence and thrived through brutality. What use is good if it fails to serve you?”

As Hannibal bends to unlock the manacle with a key from his jacket pocket he glances up at you, the talons of his gaze holding yours.

“I trust that you’ll abandon your attempts to force distance between Will and I.”

“Yes,” you say, nodding vigorously. “Yes, yes, please let me out of here—”

“Very well,” says Hannibal, and setting the chain aside he aids you, on wavering legs, to stand.

You cry out as a chrysalis of flesh brushes against you, and as you glimpse the curve of what was once a waist you muse what mild trespass this woman had made to deserve her hanging here.

It’s this thought that reminds you of where you are, and of the nightmare logic that orders your life with Dr Lecter.

In a burst of panicked horror you twist past Hannibal and up the staircase to the room above. Unclad, barefoot, you run for the front door, aware even as you pelt through the gorgeous and echoing rooms that you cannot get out, or away from your keeper.

You fold against the locked exit, defeated and hysterical, raining blows upon the unyielding wood until your arms swing numb at your sides.

Hannibal approaches in unhurried steps, and you detect the sexual urge in him like the early sting of smoke.

What is it that makes him want you now? Your naked beauty, perhaps, the abjection of a Rossetti whore, draped, heaving, in an almond strip of shadow.

Then again it may be that he thinks you require his correction, that like some surgical enhancement it will align your will with his. You don’t look at him as he comes after you, this devourer of men, as though to peer into the curse of his face would be to sign yourself over to his damnation.

“Where would you have run to, bare in the street?” he asks, coolly amused. “I or someone else would have brought you home again, and you would have gained nothing in your bid for freedom but embarrassment.”

You endure his touch on your back, crossing the soft fields of skin. You hear the rustle of an opening made in your captor’s clothing, the tone of your own tortured breath through your nostrils.

You feel Hannibal lift your leg by the knee, guiding you into a contorted form that burns in the ribboning of the muscle, and up into you he fucks in stabbing strokes, a dance of violence such as the entry of some balletic villain in its style.

His left hand pushes your shoulder flat to the rattling door, its palm still cool from the basement’s subterranean climate; you feel less a girl now under his hold than a sow shot through at the end of its use.

Hannibal forgives you as he did Mischa: through consumption, this time in the form of sex. He turns his fork up in you, carving an ambrosia of tender excruciation— you let out a string of barking cries, aware of the intent of this hurt.

Hannibal takes no more pity on you than a wolf does the ewe it kills.

“If you hadn’t been such a difficult girl yesterday then you would have lain easily with Will and I,” he tells you. “Such sweet pleasures we would have taken together, for there would have been no cause to hurt you. How you spoil things for yourself, Little One.”

“I know,” you whimper. “I know. I can’t help it.”

“You most certainly can,” Hannibal insists, and closing his mouth upon your shoulder he bites.

You are so thrown by the sudden nip of fore teeth that you’re not immediately sure that it is real; only the slender tie of blood that falls between your breasts is proof of it, of his claiming of you.

It is a clever bite of controlled pressure, just as an animal would correct its child; it will leave no scar, nor will bruise for longer than a week. He kisses you upon the cut after he makes it, one hand ascending between you and the door to cup your breast and the heartbeat behind the orb of fat that protects its maker.

Without much thought he could gouge it out and eat like an exotic delicacy the smoking organ. You consider if Hannibal has dreamt of that, what you would taste like. Whether he has thought of Will likewise and resisted only to preserve the life of his companion.

Hannibal fucks you now as he once took to you his belt, each blow of hips against you measured to make you sorrier than the last. Yet violence to him is paired with sex like wine with a delicious meal, complimenting the flavour; it goes on and on, extending beyond the point of punishment into a Dionysian indulgence of his resentment.

That he will still love you afterwards you do not doubt. Abusers see no contradiction in such acts, and Hannibal, for all his pride, is of their ilk, a mortal man, and through the mires of torment you must remember this of him.

The pain of his orgasm within you is like the hinge of a jewellery box broken backwards, snapping you up against the door without any like joy of your own. That you’re so bereft is by intent, of course, to strip you further of your dignity. To grant you orgasm after you have so hurt him would be his failure, and that he won’t allow.

In an abrupt motion Hannibal withdraws from you and spins you by the unbitten shoulder to face him.

“No more tears,” he says, though your shock has dried them to air within their ducts. “I’d like you to be at your most delightful when Will arrives tonight.”

In other words his friend is not to know what he has done to you, or the others under this house.

“Yes, Daddy,” you say, weakly. “Whatever you want.”

Satisfied by your answer, Hannibal takes a bottle of pills from his pocket, the label having been meticulously removed so as to render the contents unknowable. Xanax, you imagine, or some such thing, the carrier of dulling sleep.

You think of being hefted away into that lower room in your drugged stupor and shake your head.

“I’ll be nice,” you say. “I don’t need them.”

“As your doctor,” says Hannibal, “I assure you that it is not in your best interest to contest my decisions as to your care. And as your guardian, I won’t allow you to argue. Little girls are best seen, and not heard.”

*

In the afternoon you’re served Jugged Hare that, within a well of artificial calm, you near forget to be afraid to eat.

“Who were they?” you ask, as Hannibal dabs the silk of saliva from your chin with a serviette. “The ‘hare’. What were they called, Daddy?”

“Would it help you to know?” asks your captor, and you turn your fork slowly, skewering a clod of brown meat on its tines.

“Yes,” you say. “No. I’m not sure. Were they a nice person? Did they have a nice name?”

After guiding the hare into your mouth Hannibal eases the fork from your slack hand to take away.

“It was only an animal,” he tells you. “And wild animals have no names.”

Hannibal carries you to bed, kissing you chastely above the eyebrow as your head rolls aside, near insensible. He turns to put on a recording of the opera Bluebeard, glancing back to notice you grasping fruitlessly at a patch of air below your pillow.

Dissatisfied, you tug a cushion down to fill the emptiness of your arm.

Hannibal says, “Was there a favoured toy you used to take to bed with you as a child, Little One?”

“Yes,” you mumble. “A frog, Philippe, only I used to call him Flip. Uncle Lee got him for me.”

“I see. And where is Flip now?”

“I don’t have him anymore. I hid him away after— everything.”

You’re asleep before Hannibal leaves the room, a thought flying the dusk of his eyes.

*

You stir, still somewhat drunk on Hannibal’s pills, to the sound of tense conversation on some nether floor of the building. Recalling Will’s unsettling confession of killing dreams you are unsure what you feel for him now, or what you must do in his absence of aid.

Yet when the agent arrives at the top of the stairs he finds you waiting for him in your bedroom doorway, trailing a blanket behind you like a child gotten up in the night.

Will takes one look at your flared pupils and laughs aloud.

“Okay. Let’s get you back into bed.”

He pulls the blanket around your shoulders and leads you through your room by the hand, the work toughened skin of his palm a sensory delight. As you sit cross-legged under your quilt you’re loathe to let him go, irrationally certain that to do so is to find yourself alone.

Will seems much recovered from the previous night, his gaze hard and clear. The rift between him and Hannibal has strengthened him, you acknowledge, revealing to Will the other man’s reckless desire to possess and to exploit his company.

What use he’ll make of that knowledge you cannot guess of him.

“Aren’t you going to tell Jack and Alana about Daddy?” you ask, with a tentative curiosity.

“About him tampering with the food?” Will asks. “No. They already think that I’m irrational. Better not add anything else to that particular soup.”

He walks a lazy circuit of the room, touching objects at random.

“But the killings—” you begin, and fall silent, gnawing your tongue in frustration.

You cannot speak of the basement, would suffer more for that revelation than any thus far.

“But, like, when you have proof of the Copycat Murders,” you say. “When you know for sure, will you turn him in?”

Will’s back is towards you, a slim, clothed wall.

“I don’t know.”

“But you help people like me. I know how much you care. How come Hannibal’s more important than those girls? Do you really like him that much?”

Snorting, Will comments, “I wouldn’t say I like him right now.”

“But you can’t stay away from him. Do you think he’s right about you? All that stuff he said about how you need to be a killer to be happy?”

At this Will swivels back towards the bed again, his brows drawn together.

“What do you want from me, Little One? Didn’t you already tell me that I’m just like him?”

You wince at the retort, and Will casts you a look of quick regret.

“I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t exactly fair.”

He takes your hand again, running a thumb over the icy knuckles. How odd that it brings you comfort, this evil limb that longs to kill. Will would receive as much pleasure from wrapping it about your throat as this caress, hardening between the legs as the air ran from your lungs.

That he wants you warm, living, beside him is like the favour of Olympus, a burdened gift you cannot return.

“I know this isn’t easy for you,” says Will. “But I don’t have all the answers, and the ones I do know aren’t the ones you’re looking for. All you should be focusing on is getting better without distractions.”

You cannot alter his strange path towards Hannibal Lecter, cannot extract one man from the other, being that, by the dark, they may as well be one.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” you say. “How’s the case going? Any news?”

Will coughs, spun by the tactless change in subject, yet he engages if only to diffuse the awkwardness of the moment.

“Jack’s already found a previous victim in Kentucky. In the next few days we should have the names of other women killed under the same circumstances. There was a previous case known as the Mask Murders that has undeniable similarities to the Lover’s. I have pictures from two separate crime scenes for comparison, but—”

Here Will pauses with the abrupt and discomforted realisation of having said perhaps too much.

“They’re not overly graphic,” he says, at last. “But it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to show you.”

“Did you show them to Hannibal?” you ask, rather shrilly.

In this drugged and childish space you feel a wrench of anger to think of the men shoulder to shoulder as equals and intellects even in this time of discord, involved as you will never be, by their reckoning.

You have seen death, known horrors, have felt the thrum of them across a web of dreams before their entry; no image could be more terrible than that in which by morning you’d awoken.

“Let me see them,” you demand. “I want to. I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll notice something you don’t.”

Will pauses, on the cusp of delivering a stern and fatherly denial. But then you see a flicker in his expression, the recollection of how colleagues, superiors, and his closest friends have held his own mental faculties against him.

He takes an envelope from his pocket and sets the contents down on the bedcovers. You study them gravely, too detached from yourself to re-experience the nauseous terror of the basement room.

“This is one of the early Lover killings,” says Will, gesturing to the image on the left. “He strangled Violet Roth into unconsciousness before cutting flesh off her bones in an attempt to fit her into a silicone doll. When that didn’t work her skull and pelvis were shattered with a hammer; she was only identified by her remaining teeth.”

The doll in the photograph you’d expected to appear cruelly comical, the fare of joke shops and sex district windows. You are surprised to find that it looks quite real, so akin to a beautiful corpse that only the flawlessness of its artificial flesh and flirting eyes betrays its nature.

It—she—lies on a matt of dead grass beside the black rope of a river, its hair like a ruff of twilight shadow on its neck, the painted hands crossed upon its navel. A stitched slit runs from groin to temple, dried clods of blood stoning the thread.

“Then we have the Kentucky victim,” says Will, as you glance across to the picture on the right. “Anaïs Foreau. She was only seventeen years old when she was strangled and beaten to death by the Mask Murderer. She’s the youngest victim we currently have on record.”

In this image lies the body of a girl in a dress of frilled corsetry and lace, the head—staved in on one side—encased in a porcelain mask. Glass eyes stare benignly from under a fringe of mink lashes, their blind pupils capturing the flare of the camera.

“This girl, Anaïs,” you say. “The way the Lover dressed her and all that stuff. She looks... I mean, it feels wrong to say it, but it’s prettier, the way he presented her, like, compared to the other girl. Violet.”

“The Lover didn’t start mutilating his victims in earnest until the second wave of killings,” says Will. “Part of the reason is likely due to the impracticality of switching mediums from porcelain to silicone.”

“So why did he go from just the masks to the dolls?”

“The Lover’s jaded from his previous heartbreak. A cynical and jilted man. The porcelain represented innocence: he was honouring his first muse as well as protecting her by working out his urges elsewhere.

“But though he’s found love again the killer no longer believes in purity the way he did before. Whether directly or subconsciously he’s taunting his new muse with what she is: a woman. Just a doll for him to play with.”

Shivering, you turn the photographs on their faces, relieved by the white oblongs of their backs.

“If he hates women, and this woman especially,” you say, “then why is he even in love with her at all?”

Will puts the images away into their envelope, and you reach out to dust your bedcovers with one hand as though from death’s residue.

“Because of what he is, the Lover is a lonely man,” says Will. “He can’t give up on romance even if it ultimately disappoints him. And it will. Chasing nostalgia is always a doomed pursuit. Not even a doll maker can manufacture a reality absent of the inevitability of change.”

You look at him, disturbed by the echo of Hannibal in his phrasing.

“What’ll happen when the Lover figures that out?” you ask.

“He’ll just begin the cycle all over again, convinced that he’s found the real deal until the illusion breaks into pieces.”

You wonder to whom Hannibal would turn as Will’s substitute if he left him, and whether through love he’d allow him to live or consume him to solder his heartbreak.

Better not to know; that knowledge you suspect might be fatal to you all.

[nymdraws]

geordi and data read a 21st century visual novel

[crimeronan]

been thinking about the rabies condition in writing lately, which is a GREAT post about stakes and characterization. basically exploring how if there's a 100% chance a character is doomed, then they can and will do extremely dangerous/damaging/contraindicated things for the slimmest hope of survival. which is one of my Favorite narrative devices

but while we're using health metaphors, i've been thinking about another somewhat complicated means of introducing character stakes, which i'm tentatively calling 'the autoimmune condition' for reasons that are. obvious

the premise itself is simple: the character has Something that they need to survive. they either can't live without this thing or they will lose something vital about themselves if they lose this thing. there is no replacement or alternative for the thing. what's most important are that the consequences for losing it are Extreme, rabies-condition-style

in the real life allegory, this is the immune system. which is great for being alive!

then the problem is introduced when this thing starts killing the character.

the character still needs it to live.

so: there is a 100% chance that you will die if you destroy the thing killing you. if you impair it through other means, there is a 100% chance of consequences, though the severity of those consequences is up to the author. (these are medication side effects in the real life allegory.)

if you do everything you're supposed to then you'll PROBABLY survive, but you're gonna have to play lifelong tug-of-war to balance everything, and you are often going to have to choose between two shitty options. bc there is no alternative.

this is a counterpart to the rabies condition in terms of stakes; with this condition, your character has to make complicated and difficult decisions about what they're sacrificing for their future. it's not the immediate life-and-death stakes of rabies, it's a slow decay instead.

what side effect consequences are they willing to take on?? and what are they NOT willing to take on?? where do their priorities lie in terms of symptom management?? what other solutions are they looking for?? what are they willing to sacrifice??

and perhaps most importantly: what exactly do they need to lose before they'll Accept the side effects / sacrifices that used to terrify them?? how high do the stakes need to be??

at what point is this character going to look back at the choices they've made up to this point, and realize that they no longer recognize themselves??

[lifes-pinata]

No you don't understand an ASM sickfic would be so good.

Picture this. We have:

1) The Neuchwansteins, who have genuine, canonical trauma relating to illness.

2) Nora von Nuremberg, whose mother is chronically ill, and even with the servants likely has some experience taking care of her.

3) Shuri von Neuchwanstein, who has built her entire concept of self worth based on how useful she is to others. Shuri, who is terrified of being abandoned should people no longer have need of her. Who, also canonically, never had anyone to look after her when she was sick. Shuri, who has only ever truly been able to rely on herself .

It's the perfect storm.

Imagine the shenanigans, the humor, the angst.

[dashiellqvverty]

insane that there is finally an actually good and interesting and believable straight couple in an avatar-verse story and they’re not even actually together

[jentlemahae]

-

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Hello!

When I googled ​“veal crate” the same type of enclosure pops up as the pictures of calf hutches that were in your post, so I’m wondering what is the difference between veal crate and calf hutches? Is there a difference?

Hey Anon! You’re right, googling veal crates mostly turns up pictures of dairy calf hutches. A traditional “veal crate” was designed to restrict movement as much as possible, to ensure extra tender meat, and would restrain the calf’s head.

You’ll notice that basically every picture you can find of a true veal crate looks like it was taken on a Polaroid. That’s because they haven’t been in use for years now. Modern veal operations raise calves in group pens.

[magnusmodig]

ovo whispers menacingly abt his grandstanding .

[normalbrothers]

alfie betraying tommy in s3 isn't even so much about betraying tommy he just saw an opportunity and kind of hoped tommy wouldn't notice lol

[wheelie-butch]

I could write a summary or try explain the plot and concepts and why I'm doing this but actually I think my wolfpack x player character fic can essentially be characterised by the line above tbh.

[dogearedheart]

8i've been thinking about the last asks i got today. and i think it's better for me to take a step back from this account. i know the anon didn't mean anything by it, but i still feel like i am being a negative presence on here and weirding people out with who i am is nothing i want. so, i am not deleting or anything. i am just gonna be less present with sharing personal things or leaving tags. I'll probably be more active on my second account where i don't have that many followers :)

[hydrodragons]

i genuinely forget that i have alhaitham’s signature weapon sometimes like tell me why when i was watching sevy’s guide for the bp weapons and it got to wolf fang, i saw her use it on him and thought ‘hmm i should try giving this to haitham’ BITCH YOU HAVE HIS DAMN SWORD????????

[youraveragecatastrophe]

We’ve talked in the past about Julia’s red shirt (in her season 1/season 4 outfit) showing her sympathy towards Carmen. What about other parts of her outfits?

First, to contrast with the red shirt peeking through her dark pantsuit, we have Julia’s ACME suit.

[ID : two cropped screenshots from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. The first one shows Julia Argent on the train in India, in her dark suit with red shirt outfit. The second one shows Julia in Rio de Janeiro, in her ACME suit. End ID]

The ACME suits, being uniforms, are all the same (the biggest difference being skirts for the women vs pants for the men), the same way the agents are asked for uniformity, conformity and following orders.

The suits have no color apart from a navy so dark it’s close to black - in fact, depending on the lighting they look almost black and white. Quite like their way of thinking.

[ID : a screenshot from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. Agent Zari and Random White Agent stand on either side of a door. They are in the shadows and their uniforms look dark and desaturated. End ID]

As I noted on a previous post, at the same time Julia receives her suit and as such lets go of her red shirt, she is asked to renounce her feelings that Carmen is innocent. Season 2, where she almost exclusively wears the ACME uniform, is the one where Julia briefly doubts Carmen and struggles to reconcile following her superior’s orders with her convictions. Ultimately, when she does not manage it, she resigns (season 3) and as such goes back to her red shirt outfit. It is in that outfit that she teams up with Carmen in a substantial way in season 4.

Other agents (and, notably, agent Zari, the most featured ACME agent apart from Julia and Chase) tend to wear black gloves. In line with their behavior, this suggests keeping a distance with their environment, refusing to feel things too deeply. Julia doesn’t wear gloves, however, not even in Stockholm where the weather would definitely justify it. Despite Chief's insistance, Julia keeps paying attention to her feelings.

Then, Julia’s glasses. Her glasses in seasons 2-3 are ACME regulation eyewear : once again, they’re part of the uniform, so the same model as the other ACME agents. Big, bulky, they’re almost rectangle in shape, all sharp angles : this suggests rigidity and an absence of flexibility in ACME’s mentality. Also note the dark lenses : they symbolically obscure the vision.

[ID : a screenshot from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. In Indonesia, Zari and Random White Agent stand against the sky. Their glasses' lenses are noticeably very dark. End ID]

And what about Julia’s original glasses, the ones she wears before joining ACME and those she returns to as she leaves ? They are the exact opposite of the ACME glasses : round and clear, what you need to look at the world as it is.

[ID : a cropped screenshot from the 2019 show Carmen Sandiego. In San Francisco, Julia wears her red shirt outfit with her round glasses. End ID]