Steve After Seeing A Lonely Child:

The bit where Hannibal tells Abigail that being able to live with what she did (killing Nicolas Boyle) doesn’t make her a sociopath, but rather a survivor.

I wonder if that’s, to some degree, how he sees himself sometimes. Like, on one level, he knows and enjoys that he’s obviously a predator; but on the other hand, I am not hostile to the idea that his pathology was, at least in part, born from the crucible of extreme violence and desperation.

(I don’t always think that evil characters need to have a “dalmatians ate my family” / “Uncle Noah blamed me for my sister’s polio”-type exculpatory backstory; I actually think that can be really invalidating to victims of abuse. But Hannibal is more interesting to me as a character when reads as a more nuanced type of evildoer - sympathetic victim and horrifying perpetrator in one.)

There is something so joyous about the the Labyrinth movie. Something feral within me begins frothing at the mouth. The costumes, the aesthetic the puppetry.

I feel like Gollum and the One Ring, I want to cradle it close to my chest and keep it with me always, live in a soggy cave and only focus on it forever. But also show it off to everyone because “Look! Look at how wonderful and beautiful it is!”. I want to embed it into my soul and consume it fully. Tear into its flesh and feast on it for eternity.

Watercolour painting of Duck

eating out

You don’t think Mary knew what it was to sacrifice?

Don’t think she spent every day of her son’s life wondering if it would be his last?

Don’t think she asked herself if his first steps would be his last?

Which of the times he told her goodbye would be the final one?

Which of the miracles he preformed would paint the target on his back?

Which of the gods he opposed would be gifted his head, Mary’s heart resting aside it?

You don’t think she grew to resent her God?

The man who gifted her the most precious of things, for the sole purpose of taking him away?

You don’t think she warred with herself for questioning God’s will?

Don’t think she ever wondered why it had to be her?

Did she ever look at the people amongst her and wonder why they deserved salvation?

Ever question why they should live while her child should not?

Ever pray to take his place?

Ever blame herself for what was to come?

For it was not simply God who made her child, she accepted him. She agreed.

Is she not as guilty and morally objectionable as those she scorns?

Is she not as blood coated as those who hammers the nails?

Mary, who knew the fate that beheld the lamb once it reached the wooden alter, cradled it in her arms.

The lamb felt warmth. The lamb felt love. The lamb looked upon his mother and saw the good in humanity. So what was the lamb to do but step upon the alter himself?

What could he have done but lay his head before the knife, in reverence to the woman who carried him there?

How was the lamb to repay his mother’s kindness with damnation? When she above all deserved absolution.

Mary raised her son with love, kindness and faith. Praying what she knew would occurs never came to pass. What else was she to do?

Her son felt the love and kindness she gave with no ask of repayment, saw her faith. Believing the good in humanity flowed and shined from her. What else was he to do?

I love how Hannibal has a hateful little side character to represent each system that fails Will. Chilton for psychiatry, Sutcliffe for medicine, Prurnell for justice, Freddie for journalism, Pazzi for law.

A pantheon of institutional failure.

Helium = Float

No helium = No float

Hannibal's "dear Will" on that letter was so bitchy it was the equivalent of "dearest motherfucker who left me for dead"