I Know A Lot Of People Are Taking Issue With This Lately, But Personally I Will Always Lean Towards Dark

I know a lot of people are taking issue with this lately, but personally I will always lean towards dark will graham analysis because at its heart, hannibal is a show about self acceptance. while it’s morbid, will’s gradual acceptance of his own violent tendencies is liberating for me to watch. the transition from a man who is vulnerable to influence, to a man who is more “intimate with his instincts”, makes me feel empowered as someone who understands what it feels like to always be underestimated.

yes, will grapples with his own sense of morality. he is righteous, he is empathetic with the weak, and he is trying to be what society perceives as a good person. but his character arc is about coming to terms with his sense of self, and being aware of the darkness inside of him is at the heart of that. when will pulls himself and hannibal from the cliff he leaves behind his last shred of conformity and is reborn as the person he knows he is. so to write about will as someone who is drawn to violence and enjoys violence - even from the start of the show - just makes sense to me.

and to be frank, I don’t think will is a vigilante. does he hunt predators because of his empathy? yes, often he does. but as I’ve written before, his sense of “righteousness” evolves throughout the series. by season 3 he knowingly lets innocent people get hurt. I am allowed to say that will is cruel and manipulative, because he sends chilton to be caught by the dragon and says to bedelia part of him knew what was going to happen. chilton wasn’t a predator, he became the prey. the wrath of the lamb touches everyone, innocent or otherwise.

and yes, will collects strays. he is warm with people he likes. he is trying to be good. yes, he is complex, but I will not excuse him. to me the most enjoyable part about the show is that it allows its characters to go to dark and unpleasant places that they couldn’t go in the real world. and therefore to focus on will’s darkness seems justified to me. I personally believe that even season 1 demonstrates his tendencies for violence and the early signs of his becoming, but that’s just my own opinion.

what I do dislike is this idea that people in the fandom are supposed to be united under one singular headcanon, when the point of analysis is to present your own ideas and take your own meaning from a subject. you can engage with other people’s analysis, that’s the whole point of fandom, and whether you agree or disagree is up to you. but it is not fair or creative to try and conform everyone into a fanon narrative when nbc hannibal is all about ambiguity

No-one can save Ben, but himself.

[百花妖炎 Hyakka Yôen] “a myriad of bewitching flames”, once again an eerily beautiful art piece by Miki Katoh. Hyakka Yôen is also the title of Miki’s artbook.

This title mimics a well known Japanese expression: hyakka lit means “100 flowers”, and is used in famous 百花繚乱 hyakka ryōran, meaning “a gathering of many talented/beautiful women/people; simultaneous emergence of many talents and achievements; hundred flowers blooming in profusion”.

Preview for the @noragamibigbang!

My piece for the @noragamibigbang 2021!

In the hanakotoba, the Language of Flowers…

Red camellias symbolize love and passion. For the samurai, they were a particularly ominous flower due to the fact that the flower falls off the stem all at once instead of petal by petal, resembling the act of being beheaded.

Kuroyuri symbolize both love and curse.

Lotus flowers are an enduring symbol of enlightenment in Buddhism, as they rise out of the mud and bloom above water.

I had the honor and pleasure of working with Sparrow, who wrote a wonderful fic to accompany this piece! As niche as it may be, I hope our viewers and readers will enjoy it none-the-less. :P (It will be linked here once it’s posted!)

Thank you to the mods for holding another successful event!

not to post even more Villains Discourse on main but it really bugs me how people read giving villains tragic backstories as inherently excusing their actions and/or demonizing trauma survivors.

the actual message of Tragic Villains is (almost) always “people who are never taught or given any healthy, constructive outlets for their emotions will often find unhealthy, destructive outlets.” it’s that people who are traumatized and never learn how to cope with that trauma can become a danger to themselves and others. the message isn’t “trauma makes you evil!!!!” or “genocide is okay if you’ve been sad before!!!!” it’s “people need compassion and help to recover from trauma instead of becoming increasingly angry and harming themselves and others in the process.”

this site takes an alarmingly behaviorist and punitive approach to everything and it’s literally the most annoying thing. y’all have this concept that “if we just punish people hard enough, if we just scare them enough, if we just make them feel guilty enough.” that people just Do Bad Things Because They Do Bad Things, I Guess, and Because We Didn’t Threaten Them And Shame Them Enough. but humans are an innately social species. at our very core, we need compassion and kindness. we need healthy relationships with other humans.

you can keep looking at traumatized villains and being like “haha this dumb pathetic sadboi thinks murder is okay because his parents died” but as a survivor myself, unaddressed/untreated trauma absolutely can make you ragey and destructive. i was lucky enough to have support and eventually get the treatment i needed. but it’s not hard at all for me to imagine how, if that hadn’t been the case, that could’ve been me. obviously not on a movie-villain scale like murder or war crimes, but it’s so irritating as someone whose trauma has always manifested as anger to watch people on this site be like “this is just bad writing!!! real survivors/good survivors don’t end up like that the writers just hate survivors and want the audience to condone murder!”