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marley-manson · 2 years

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Hannibal (the show) for 1!

Thank you very much!

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character:

Hannibal! Love that stupidly in love cannibal.

Least Favorite character:

Honestly, and this is probably a very unpopular opinion, but I think I might have to say Abigail. Like first of all I love every single character on this show so I do still like her, but I'm not into the murder family dynamic, and I was never all that invested in her as anything more than a plot device. She served the story best by dying imo.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

hannigram, marlana, freddie/wendy (freddie's gf in the book) lol, uhhh price/zeller... chiyoh/bedelia.

Character I find most attractive:

Chiyoh probably. Maybe Margot. Tough call.

Character I would marry:

I'd say Margot for the fortune but there are so many hoops to jump through before I could marry her what with murdering Mason and all. Maybe I'll say Molly since she seems cool and down to earth and possibly makes a lot of money since it didn't seem like Will had much of a job while he was with her.

Character I would be best friends with:

Bev. There are so few characters in this show I could handle even having a conversation with lol, but Bev's one of them.

a random thought:

I like the "music" on the show lol, I think it works. Actually in general I love everything about the tone.

An unpopular opinion:

Will's personality doesn't change when he interacts with people bc of his super empathy or mirror neurons or whatever. That was an early character concept that got dropped (thank god tbh), and something Hannibal says to Jack while specifically trying to frame him and convince Jack he became a murderer by getting into the heads of murderers (he didn't).

My Canon OTP:

Hannigram!

My Non-canon OTP:

Idk lol, this is a show where I can somewhat ship almost any two randos and find something interesting about it, but I'm only invested in Hannigram. I'm gonna say Freddie/Wendy because I really wanted Freddie to get a girlfriend and so did the actress.

Most Badass Character:

Bedelia. Yeah Hannibal murders a bunch of people and has a couple cool fight scenes, Will manipulates Hannibal and is cool about it and also fights Dolarhyde with him, Jack kicks Hannibal's ass that one awesome time, Chiyoh is like a cool sniper, etc etc, but Bedelia telling Hannibal his crush on Will is stupid and manipulating him into trying to kill Will because she's sick of his pining and then waltzing off to get a book deal out of it and then charging Will to tell him his crush on Hannibal is stupid? That fucking incredible scene in Dolce where she get high and lies her ass off and it works? Amazing

Most Epic Villain:

yk season 1/first half of season 2 Hannibal was pretty epic. Even moreso bc it's not so much intricate schemes, aside from his back-up emergency Chilton frame up he'd clearly been planning for a couple years lol, it's mostly improvisation and dicking around to see what happens without getting caught.

Pairing I am not a fan of:

Any alternative to Hannigram. Not interested in shipping either of them with anyone else.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

Noooone of them. If anything each character just got better and better and better as the show went on imo, like Chilton lol. Well, Bev's death did suck a little, I think that could've been done better, so let's go with her.

Favourite Friendship:

Cheap answer here lol but Hannibal and Will specifically in Sorbet. Hannibal being paralleled to Franklyn, Hannibal pining to sad Mozart when Will misses his appointment, Hannibal clearly a little drunk when Will comes for his session and trying to confirm his friendship with him after Bedelia refused to call them friends during their earlier appointment... just wall to wall delightful commentary on Hannibal wanting a friend. Incredible episode.

Character I most identify with:

Literally no one on this show is relatable at all imo.

Character I wish I could be:

Hannibal. Dude was living the fucking life and I sure wouldn't throw it all away over some guy who smells like wet dog. I wish I had a tenth of his joie de vivre.

meme

#marley on hannibal #text post

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laufire · 4 years

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001 black sails

Favorite character: Max. Season two has made me love other characters that I already liked in s1 (they might even get their own sections when I write my post! LOL), but Max still reigns in my heart :P

Least Favorite character: Ashe. I SEETHE with hate for that man. I was definitely rooting for Flint to pull a Daenerys in the finale LMFAO.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Flint/Miranda, Anne/Jack/Max, Flint/Silver, and Eleanor/Max*. I’m pretty sure Madi/Silver (and potentially Flint/Madi/Silver LOL. What does this show have with ot3s xD) will raise above some of those, because I liked them in their first episode, the last one I saw, and how lowkey ~atunned to each other they are.

*I don’t ship it, but I like the relationship as it’s presented in the show: with a Max that’s not above low blows against Eleanor xDD

Character I find most attractive: Max. JPK is just a gorgeous woman. Miranda is really attractive too.

Character I would marry: I just met her but I think Madi would be my first choice (Silver remains a lucky bastard xD). Jack would be a good option too.

Character I would be best friends with: also Jack. And Flint. Though he’d probably resist any attempts of friendship xD

a random thought: why did Flint’s actor not invite his mom to the show. I want to see Maggie Smith as a pirate, dammit. Also, I'm so sad Flint cut his hair lol. I loved the longer ponytail he wore on flashbacks too.

An unpopular opinion: dude. Flint/Miranda is my otp xDD. I like Flint/Thomas and Flint/Hamiltons too, but it’s more about what they represent, and how Flint being queer and having a romance with a man transform the story. But to me Thomas is closer to a plot device, even if I like him; Miranda is a character. And I adore her and Flint and her together. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALL THREE OF THEM AT THE END DAMMIT. I want the fix-it fic :((

My Canon OTP: Flint/Miranda. I AM IN PAIN, GUYS. Especially after seeing a little of the fallout in s3. How is this pairing so dismissed when Flint did ALL THAT, man.

My Non-canon OTP: Flint/Silver, which is the only fanon ship I dig and that I like more with each episode (I’m ready to get my heart broken by the end lmfao). Normally the popular slash ships baffle me not because I don’t understand the ~mechanisms behind shipping them... but because I look at them and I can’t understand why they raise ~passions LOL. But this one I dig. I mean. We’re talking about Captain Flint and Long John Silver. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of their relationship since the book.

Most Badass Character: all of them are badass in their own way but Silver just gets more and more impressive LOL.

Most Epic Villain: eh. Unless you do consider one of the mains a villain, which so far I don’t, the show doesn’t really do that? I guess Vane works well as an antagonist when he needs to.

Pairing I am not a fan of: Eleanor/Max. I CONTAIN MULTITUDES. Mostly I don’t like how I see it perceived sometimes? AKA with a vulnerable Max. Also, Eleanor & Mr. Scott as a platonic pair. Kill that shit. I was so happy when we discovered he had a whole life he kept a secret (& so protected) from her (that Madi was his daughter was one of the few major spoilers I somehow avoided LMAO).

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): so far none, I think. Not even Miranda, because I don’t think her character was screwed over or outdone by her death, iykwim?

Favourite Friendship: Anne & Jack & Max just warms my heart. Flint and Silver too, though there’s a sense of forebonding with those two, for obvious reasons xDD

Character I most identify with: I sometimes see some parts of myself in Silver and I don’t care for that shit at all xDD. Though the one I’m in ~intense emotional wavelength with is Flint. s2 was a lot of suffering for that xD

Character I wish I could be: none tbh xD. Forced to choose... IDEK. Abigail? She has a markedly less miserable life than most of the others LOL.

#black sails #flintmiranda #bsmax #silverflint #black sails thoughts #talking to the void #my thoughts #replies #Anonymous #mr. scott #maxanor #john silver #james flint #miranda barlow

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sixth-light · 7 years

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Yuletide 2017 letter

You know the drill...

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read this! Yuletide is one of my fannish highlights of the year and I’m really looking forward to whatever you write for me. If you’re interested in personalizing things a bit more, which I assume you are if you’re reading this :P, below are some comments on general tropes I like, tropes I really don’t like, and some fandom-specific prompts and preferences.

General preferences:

Stuff I really like in fic includes: people being kind to each other, science (and SCIENCE!), mystery plots/casefic, found family, loyalty, women bonding, humour, happy endings, the exploration of worldbuilding and its implications (including via AUs), the use of minor canon details, and cracky premises treated with some seriousness (but not made dark).

Stuff I would really prefer not to see in a Yuletide fic includes: dark interpretations of characters (darker than canon), brooding, angst, endings that feel hopeless, infidelity, noncon/dubcon, explicit or detailed violence, people being humiliated, embarrassment humour, and canon being changed or rewritten Just Because. That said, in general adult elements of all sorts (sex, violence, swearing, discussion of mortgage tax) are fine, especially if appropriate to the canon.

I hope this gives you some ideas! If you’re still here, some fandom-specific thoughts/requests:

Rivers of London (Abigail, Mamusu “Rose” Grant, Molly)

I’m interested in what all of these characters get up to outside of Peter’s attention/understanding. I’d be happy with a story that focused on any of them individually, any two of them, or all of them together. A few suggestions: Mamusu teaches Molly some West African recipes; Mamusu introduces Abigail to Elsie Winstanley from A Rare Book of Cunning Device; Abigail and Molly bond over technology; Mamusu meets Mama Thames or any of the other Rivers; Molly has tea with the surviving members of the Folly’s typing pool; Abigail persuades the teacher at her school to help her with Latin. I’m basically looking for gen but if you were interested in writing future-fic Olivia/Abigail (they’re only two years apart in age it could be a thing and imagine everybody’s faces) then I would not be displeased. Please no Abigail with any currently adult characters or Nightingale/Molly. I’m up-to-date with all the canon for this fandom, any and all spoilers are fine.

Daniel Blackland trilogy (Gabriel, Max)

I love the worldbuilding for this universe and the relationship between Gabriel and Max hits all of my loyalty kinks SO HARD, as well as my people-trying-to-fix-a-fucked-up-world-via-good-government kinks. If you want to write straight-up Gabriel/Max that would be amazing, but I’m also here for gen friendship or queerplatonic romance (at the level we get in canon, basically). I would love to see other characters, particularly Cassandra or Em, but they’re not essential. I know this is a bit of a weird canon to request after specifying I like happy funny things, but, you know, people being as happy as they can be despite the fucked-up-ness of their world, that’s good too.

Time-period wise, anything goes, but if you’re looking for inspiration I’m kinda curious about the decade in between California Bones and Pacific Fire that Gabriel spent taking over Southern California. How did that go down? What about all those times Max got offered a better job? If you want to take a stab at worldbuilding outside California and send them on a trip (or just have visitors from other countries!) that would also be amazing.

The Laundry Files (Dominique “Mo” O’Brien, Agent First of Spies and Liars)

First off: my list of ‘dislikes’ comes with a ‘or at least no worse than canon’ caveat for this fandom, considering that it deals with the Lovecraftian Singularity. I really enjoyed the way The Annihilation Score focused on Mo and her relationships with other people than Bob, particularly women, and I loved Cassie’s PoV in The Nightmare Stacks but, for obvious reasons, it mostly focused on her relationship with Alex. So I’d love to see Mo and Cassie interact more – especially under the New Management post-The Delirium Brief, when Mo is…well, we’re not sure what she is. Appearances by Mhari, Ramona, and/or Persephone would be very welcome.

A few plot ideas - Cassie and Mo could go on another spying adventure; analyse Earth storytelling tropes; fight undead evil; Mo could teach Cassie how to drive. I’m a fan of both canon ships here – why let being undead creatures of netherwordly evil get in the way of your relationships – so please no breaking up of Mo/Bob and Cassie/Alex, although if you choose to have Mo and Bob semi-separated, as per current canon, that’s fine.

#/#//#///#////#yuletide 2017 #yuletide

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davantagedenuit · 7 years

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Black Thoughts

So, sometimes, I think thoughts and I will put them here in case they are entertaining, or may rouse thoughts in others, or happen to be cool, or kittens.

So, also, I watched Black Sails. (And Hannibal is still the flaming spear in my heart, please don’t you all worry.) I read meta about the historical setting and the characters’ deep thoughts and deep feels, and the GAYtude. And, in response to all this greatness, I decided I would have some arid narratology-centric thoughts. (They turn out to be cool, though.)

So. Question: Who is the narrator in Black Sails?

Ah. Not as easy as it seems, right?

I have two answers.

Answer 1: A part of me thinks this whole thing is in fact the story of Eleanor Guthrie trying to narrate the hypothetical story in which she is the only protagonist. (For simplicity and future reference: the narrator is someone who (1) produces the tale, while not necessarily being a character in it, (2) controls or influences, in some way, the events in them, (3) knows more than the characters of the story.) Eleanor wants this. She would like to have a say and the mechanics and the OCCASION to tell the tale. She would like to control SOME EVENTS about her life, SOME OF THE TIME. She also desperately, soul-eatingly would like to know more than the main protagonists of the Pirate Show AND she would like to know more than herself, possibly to tell herself, on at least SOME occasions, ‘This dude will screw you. All these dudes have always screwed you.’ But, she says it herself, there are “Too many fucking men on this island.”

Answer 2: If we want to focus on the Pirate Show rather than on the peripherical storylines, we need to go season by season. (And season 4 is special, because season 4 is war, and some characters think they are narrators, are self-aware narrators, and blood and slicing ensues.)

Season 1: Hal Gates. Yes. Take a moment to think about it. He is Flint’s Friend (the only one for a while that Flint calls by his first name, Silver does not get that, but Silver is special (aka he’s the friend who’s aware of the Friends of Flint Curse - but still WANTS the friendship)), he knows about some (all?) of Flint’s past, he does (preemptive - Billy’s FACE when Gates asks him to restrain Flint) damage control with the Richard Guthrie meeting at the very beginning, he removes his trust in Flint (because he knows more than Flint about what’s coming), he dies. - In short, Silver may have memorized one page of the book, Gates has read it, knows it by heart, made it a best-seller. (Did anyone, at any point, ship Flint/Gates? No, because Gates is, eh, not as aesthetically pleasant as someone else? But I go astray.)

Season 2: Miranda Barlow-Hamilton. This is subtle, and beautiful, and perfect, and by 2x02 I knew where it was going, but the Kiss Reveal was still fantastic in 2x05. Season 2 starts off with us thinking that Mrs. Barlow IS Flint’s origin story. It turns out that she is not (Thomas Hamilton is), but she is the narrator of it. This was, admittedly, foreshadowed by 1x04′s AWKWARDEST casually not-that-sexual sex scene (and for a moment, I swear, when I watched it, I thought I was watching some independent 80′s European film, and not Shiny New TV), later mirrored with Anne and Jack. She knows more than Flint about, well, so much everything, it’s a wonder he seems to know anything. She knows about what happened with Thomas, she knows about his feelings BETTER THAN HE DOES (because he’s all busy feeeeeeeling them), she knows about Abigail Ashe, she comes up with the Magic Peaceful Solution/Final Plotpoint that will turn to be her Tragic Violent Death. The Magic Peaceful Solution becomes the Tragic Violent Death when she realizes someone knew things that she didn’t know. (At which point ABIGAIL ASHE becomes ‘Acting Miranda’ because she writes all the good things in her journal.) -- During the first half of the season, she even seems to direct the flashbacks, casting them onto the viewer from her little house inland (aka heart of heart of Flint) like the witch she is supposed to be.

Then we get the Great Split of seasons 1-2 v. seasons 3-4. Flint loses his loves. Silver loses his leg. Given that Black Sails asks the ever-lasting Reform or Revolution question, seasons 1 and 2 are clear candidates for the reform-minded solution. (Recall Flint, in season one, walking in Eleanor’s office saying he would settle for “a friendly British governor and some universal pardons shenanigans”.) (Also flashforward to Mr Oglethorpe being described as the reform-minded man.) Seasons 3 and 4 are the revolution. Tempest, torture at maroon island, all for the cause and nothing but the cause, ”Madi, would I be enough for you?”, Long John Silver’s propaganda, culminating with the Berringer Terreur. (Another one of my crazy ideas is to try and fit Black Sails in the historiographic/quasi-mythical frame of the French Revolution. One more argument for this: the French revolution abolished the monarchy in favor of a (short-lived) constitutional democracy, which was followed by the Terror, then returned to an Emperor. Similarly, the seasons 3 and 4 are about Kings and Queens coexisting with some (short-lived) democratic pirate alliances.)

Which gives us:

Season 3: John Silver. YES. So. He is on his way to becoming Flint’s Friend, but not there yet. He still focuses on Speaking For the Men, with the downside being that speaking is now the only thing he can do. He is, and somewhat remains in season 4, the Official Oracle of what’s going on in Flint’s head. Season 3 is the story of him trying to get BETTER at his narrative. Early season 3 has him revealing to Flint how much more than him he knows (about the Urca gold) in order to assert his power as narrator. But he still knows, he realizes, relatively little about Flint himself and, unlike the other narrators, he does not already possess that knowledge but he WANTS IT. To acquire that knowledge and become full-blown narrator, he will have to, well, become so close to his character that they will become indistinguishable IN THE WOODS AT NIGHT AROUND A BOTTLE OF RUM AND A CACHE OF GEMS. He organizes the events, he produces the tale. But the tale has changed - it is not a story about a series of events any longer (Chronicles of a Revolution), but a story about a character (Tragic Idealist Biopic). At the point where it becomes obvious that this is not the story of the Pirate revolution of Nassau, but the story of Captain Flint (in the woods, with the rum and the cache), Silver stops being the narrator. He (PSEUDO) dies at the end of the season and his fate is left unknown. And, in the land of narratologic explosion that is season 4, he becomes the CHARACTER OF THE NARRATOR IN-STORY (aka Long). Come on. This is magnificient.

Season 4: Yep. Yep. My first thoughts about season 4 were that it was all over the place, that the writers were stuck trying to tie together the twelve millions storylines they had going, that everyone was changing side because The Plot demanded it. My later thoughts were that it became an artful study in fragmentation. The storylines that seemed peripherical at first became central (the Max/Anne/Jack trio fills in for the Miranda/Flint/Thomas trio, commerce (and reform) fills in for idealism). The cause exploded. The Island of Pirates has no leader and is locally managed by some, picking the pieces. So there are many narrator candidates. It can’t be Silver: he’s become the character of the narrator in-story (written in exactly this way by Billy Bones who KNOWS what Flint may not explicitly know - that the narrator is more powerful than the main protagonist, indeed that he is the only one with ANY POWER over the story). It can’t be Billy: he does have some knowledge, but it’s local and brief, and with Silver as a character of narrator, he’s got competition. (Billy is probably the postmodern salty writer who thinks he’s smart as all hell writing the writer in his own story. And turns out he’s not that smart.)

I wanted it to be Eleanor, but she’s at her most powerless, and cruelly self-aware. I wanted it to be Madi, and I think she IS the narrator of the Series of Events that hopefully leads to a revolution (but have at that point already begun to fail). But, concerning Flint’s story, the only one with the modicum of distance required to have both power over the events, more knowledge than the characters (through Weirdly Prophetic Insight) and who is not involved in the tale enough so that he’s able to tell it - is Israel Hands, CHRONICLER OF ALL-HAS-GONE-TO-HELL. He correctly identifies Silver as Long John Silver after his quasi-death. (Silver’s quasi-death, in the transformative narrative, being the threshold after which he is Long John Silver.) He sits right between him and Flint, and, big happy bear of a meta-narrative device that he is, keeps reminding Silver that the narrator is not the character, that John isn’t Long and vice versa. (He also reminds reminds Silver that Silver isn’t Flint, and Silver has a problem with that more than he has a problem not being Long.) As a bonus, he can tell the story properly because he doesn’t like the story much. (The story being Flint.) (He’s probably the grumpy editor being snarky at repetitive plotting. ‘He’s turned you around again’.)

Conclusion things: (1) Flint is not a narrator in this story. He’s a character, who has a dim awareness that his tale will be told by others, and who, at some point, chooses purposefully to surround himself with people who will tell it. (I think Flint didn’t choose Silver as a friend, he chose him as a narrator for his Glorious Fight (ALL THE ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIES WHERE GREAT KINGS HAVE SECRETARIES WITH THEM ON THE BATTLEFIELD SO THEIR TRIUMPHS CAN BE TOLD FOREVER). Silver, because he wanted accurate documentation, became very close to the main protagonist of the tale. And Flint was, once more, possibly the first time since Thomas, SURPRISED BY FRIENDSHIP/LOVE he hadn’t seen coming. Conversely, Silver paints such a feared character that he realizes, he’ll be the only one liking him. Recall the woods/rum/cache nightly conversation, and Silver being like ‘To be feared is ok, but to be feared and liked is cooler (so everyone will fear you, Captain, via my tale, while I will like you’) and Flint being like ‘*the trademark wolfish grin of death* Sounds awesome’.) -- This strengthens my idea of the Flint/Eleanor parallel. Eleanor is trying to tell her story. Flint is trying, subtle difference, but also subtle similitude, to have his story told.

(2) If Flint is a character whose origin story is Thomas, Silver is NARRATING to Madi that he IN-STORY returned the character to his origin story (the “anterior state of being” - there is a WHOLE another post for the creeping use of abstract vocabulary in this show - I think these occurrences are meta-narrative remarks, but well).

(3) The narrator is always more powerful than the character. Flint knows that (eventually). Which is why seeking out Silver as a narrator is really his first, but not last move as Deathwish Flint.

(4) I started watching Black Sails like ‘oh, a ‘historically accurate’ show with 18th century pirates who have bleached-white teeth and well-toned abs and incorrect period swearing, and, oh look, an explicit lesbian sex scene waving wildly at an intended male audience’ and I finished like ‘GAY HAPPY ENDING IN THE LAND OF NARRATOLOGIC WONDERS’ and ‘YES, JAMES, WE SHOULD ILLUMINATE OUR DARKNESSES’, and ‘ALL THE THINGS WE WRITE IN BOOKS AND THE CAPTAIN LIKES HIS BOOKS’.

(5) Re: feelings about the ending and the thwarting of revolutions. This ending is a happy ending, by all means, for Flint and Thomas and for Silver and Madi, but it’s not a good ending (unless you are, like Mr Oglethorpe, reform-minded).

#black sails meta #I'm sorry about all the capitals this has never happened before

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