One Of The Biggest Moods Of All Time.

I'm no more guilty of what you've accused me of than you are of what I've accused you of.... Bitch. I just don't like to point out my virtues 💁🏼‍♀️😘💅🏼💅🏼😘💁🏼‍♀️

Thinking about Stede, and how I've always thought of him as a character who deals a lot with self-loathing, and now I'm not so sure, because if Stede really hated himself, like if that were a core part of his character/personality, we wouldn't have this show.

Because throwing your entire life away for a shot at happiness isn't self-loathing behavior. There's another post going around about Stede thinking about himself as a child when Nigel says "and you cried all the time and liked to pick flowers" and Stede just looks a bit rueful and says "yeah, little bit." You can tell Stede loves that little boy, and really, what is buying a pirate ship and filling it with fancy clothes and chandeliers and odd characters if not trying to give that kid a life where he might have had a chance to fit in, a life he might have liked?

So Stede hates his life, not himself. He loves pageantry but not the people who would shun you for using the wrong spoon. He loves fine fabric, and knows anyone can appreciate them if given the opportunity. He knows there's a life for him out there, if he can just find the right people in the right place at the right time.

...but then, at the academy, while he is the midst of self-recrimination and guilt, finally having realized that he might have caused his family some real problems by leaving without a word in the night, and knowing that Blackbeard would still be the fiercest pirate in the Caribbean if he had never met Stede (debatable, since Ed was looking for an out anyway), Chauncey takes him into the woods, tells him that Stede Bonnet is not human, that he is a plague, that he defiles beautiful things.

And after 40-odd years of thinking 'I know I don't fit here, but that doesn't mean i can't fit somewhere,' Stede says, "I think you're right. In fact, I completely agree." Stede is the problem. He is wrong and the world is right. He could fit in if he weren't deficient. He could do all the things he is supposed to do if he weren't broken.

So he goes back to the life he hated, because it's what he deserves.

Just one of my favourite Will lines

As I previously stated, I loved 01x05. It was fantastic. It was real. It brought my emotions to the forefront, and I don't get to experience that with much of anything, these days. But, this little misfit family... I feel for all three of these characters, in my own way. (They're fictional, so, yes, I can do that, thanks). Possibly because I have been in each of their positions, in one form or another, throughout my life.

I'm going to get mighty personal with this one, so be warned.

01x05 hit home for me, in a big way. This is a legitimate breakdown of a forced family unit, and that's something I personally feel for. Children have been the Bad Marriage Band-Aid for generations, and I am grateful to the writers for acknowledging it. (Some of us get a little tired of seeing cookie-cutter families, when ours look more like the aftermath of an oven fire, y'know what I mean?). We're getting to see it from all three sides, too, which I find absolutely refreshing. One parent thinks the child will settle the relationship. The other goes along with it, and ends up so blinded by jealousy, there is no middle ground left.

Claudia, though. This girl... She has my heart. Claudia is not to blame for what she was brought into, the absolutely fucked-up relationship that her guardians share. Is she a little shit? Yes. Is she hard-headed? Yes. Unstable, in terms of coming into her own? Yes. But, she is not the cause of her parents' issues. That's a hard thing to overcome as a child brought up under such circumstances, especially when the household arguments are about you. Because, sure, they may be about you, but you did not cause them. Claudia isn't the origin of Louis and Lestat's tensions. She is the excuse to pick a semi-fresh fight. She is the mirror held up in front of the two of them to show them that, "Hey, this isn't right." The product of their unstable union. The best and worst of one another in one person. (Speaking of her vampiric years, not her humanity). That isn't to say that there isn't genuine concern for her, particularly on the part of Louis. Claudia just got caught up in a toxic situation, and it's no wonder she took the hell off. I'm not surprised which parent's side she took, either. (Then again, are any of us?).

Louis and Lestat are... Well, I feel less for the two of them. Some years ago, I was in a relationship with similar features, so I think what I am experiencing is that mirror (minus the children). I will first say that nothing - nothing - excuses abuse. I've seen it. I've experienced it. Hell, I'm guilty of it. I also acknowledge that abuse takes many forms. I see it in Lestat's constant manipulations. I see it in Louis' repeated threats to leave. Louis withholding intimacies (not just sexual). Lestat playing his little one-sided What's Good for the Goose game, in terms of monogamy. They both know what they are doing to one another, they know the reactions they will trigger, yet they keep doing it. It's an ugly, ugly cycle, and it won't end until one of them cuts the damned cord. Breaks the chain. (I don't exactly advocate that they do so through violence, but). Walking away isn't easy, fuck knows it isn't. There's truth to the notion that things need to hit rock bottom before they can get better.

No one is asking to be abused. That isn't what I'm getting at. My point is that these two are so completely caught up in trying to hurt one another, blame one another, and sabotage the other from the inside out, they ignore what it is doing to their charge. They know she can hear them fighting, and they carry on. Falling victim to The Pattern is part of the cycle, and it is likely to be passed on to Claudia. This whole situation is toxic. This is abuse. This is co-dependent. Everybody sucks, here. (Sorry, I had to). And, by golly, I will be here for it until the bitter end.

Y'know. God-willing.

P.S. I'll happily clarify anything that sounds shitty, if need be. I'm rattling this off at work, between what I should be doing, so. Y'know.

Good morning, Hanni-Nation! I wanted to show my nails that my 18 year old daughter did for me for C2E2! I'm so excited to see my fellow cheese folk! (Ignore the condition of my hands otherwise. I'm a dog groomer so they're always dry and beaten up 😬)

posting this separately so it gets more attention idk

stede braiding ed’s hair while ed reads one of stede’s books

our flag means death

I heard this song on tiktok today and decided it should be a hannigram edit :)

Promise - Nick de la Hoyde

Something the Hannibal television show does phenomenally, that the books and movies don’t really do at all, is showcase how well he actually blends in.

In the Thomas Harris works, every scene that Doctor Lecter is in manages to make it very clear that he’s dangerous, and everyone else is basically Damocles without being aware of the blade. He’s unsettling even when he’s charming, and the audience is always aware that he is the lion in the room. We can see the swords dangling by the hair over every other character.

But in the show, Hannibal is just a guy, maybe pretentious and nerdy, but charming and kind for the most part. We are taken in with him, just like the other characters. Then, when he does lash out, moving like the predator he is, we’re left absolutely shook, almost ashamed that for a moment we forgot who he is. In the next scene, he’s as soft and charming as ever, and the deception begins again. We slowly fall under the spell again, because he’s just that good. We experience what the characters do, even though we’re granted the behind the scenes knowledge that he’s the villain of the story.

i too would risk it all just for him to look at me for even a microsecond

In a way, as painful as it is, it’s great seeing who the legendary Blackbeard really is (Not Ed, not just Blackbeard, the Legendary Blackbeard)

From the beginning of the show they tell us about this terrifying, monstrous pirate, Blackbeard. Then we meet him and see he’s just a dork who is bored and really likes Stede’s lifestyle. Our thoughts are just, “Oh, he must be just a dork with a bad reputation”

And when Izzy or Calico Jack say things like “You’ve changed” or “The Blackbeard I knew would have killed them in a heartbeat”, and our reaction is like Stede’s. “That is absurd” “Maybe these people don’t know Ed” “Our Ed, doing that, being a monster, let me laugh”

So when Ed then throws Lucius off-board with a cold, disturbing expression and cuts Izzy’s finger off and makes him eat it we are shocked.

We didn’t think Blackbeard was this. Izzy and Calico tried to warn us, their characters told us, but we didn’t listen. Because we are so in love with Ed as Stede is, and we know Ed, but we didn’t know Blackbeard