Can we hear more about Savannah please?
Yes! The chapter I posted now has some of her povs :) you’ll be hearing a lot from her soon.
I'm super excited to read Rotten Meat as soon as possible, thank you so much for taking your time writing it. I do really enjoy your blog and headcanons, I'm so happy to be able to express my thoughts here and to discuss, it's like I've found my people.<3
A little thing I did enjoy about the series Hannibal Lecter, apart the whole plot and characters, I'd say would be the clothing choice. I know it sounds so random, but I think they play an important role and speaks about the characters if this makes sense. I also just personally love people who have taste in fashion ahaha.
So I was wondering if Amara needs to have that elegance in clothing like her fathers? I feel like with Hannibal there's no doubts. But with Will? I don't know, it wouldn't be the same. But it would be curious to know if Mia have a 'dress code' as well or it's just pure casual. I do feel like I'm asking a nosense but I hope this somewhat made sense.😅
-🐛
Ahhh thank you so much for providing me with an excuse to just:
Amara:
Mia:
Savannah (you didn’t ask about her but I might as well include her):
Amara’s fashion sense is a careful, calculated game. She’s a mini Hannibal: elegant, poised, but still young enough to care about how others perceive her. She dresses with intention, blending classical style with youthful edges, always aiming to present herself as both alluring and unapproachable. For her, fashion is a weapon, an extension of her will to manipulate those around her. If she wants to gain something from Hannibal, she’ll wear pigtails or braids, and the color yellow, knowing it will invoke memories of his younger sister or of when she was more innocent. Each outfit is a silent negotiation, and Amara knows how to dress to reach her goals.
Mia, on the other hand, is a more unconscious force when it comes to fashion. Her style reflects the practical, nature-driven life she lives, but it is also, in its own way, a weapon, though one she doesn’t fully understand. She has been cast into the roles of maiden, mother, and wife by Will’s unspoken expectations, and her wardrobe echoes these pressures. Her clothes are cutesy and feminine, with pieces that have an innocent charm but often reveal more than she intends, reflecting the subtle imbalance in her relationship with Will. She’s rarely seen in pants, adhering to a stereotype of femininity that she didn’t choose but was shaped into. Her body, which she’s come to see as something used against her, has become her tool, her weapon of self-assertion, though she may never fully grasp how much power she’s wielding with it.
Savannah is the antithesis of both Amara and Mia. Reserved, introverted, and deeply self-conscious, she hides in loose, neutral-toned clothing that serves as armor against the world. Like Dolarhyde, Savannah prefers to not be noticed, and her style reflects this need for invisibility. She rarely shows skin on purpose and makes no attempt to stand out. Her clothes are her shield, keeping her hidden from the gaze of others, allowing her to exist without being noticed. In her world, being seen is a risk, one she’s not willing to take.
Mia's sense of fashion looks like she's trying to draw attention to herself..🤔 Either from Will or from the people around her
You’re very right! Mia has a lot of complexities around her femininity, her role in her dynamic with Will, and with men in general. She grew up without a mother, so that also plays a big factor in her sense of self. She tries to fulfill every single gap in Will’s life, which comes from a deep set fear of abandonment.
I think I already have a fave between the girls! What are their astrological placements?
What a fun question! I’d say Amara Lecter is very Air. Likely big Gemini or Libra influence. Mia Graham is very fiery, she could have major Aries or Sagittarius influences, and Sav is certainly Earthy, most likely a Virgo or Taurus.
I'm really interested in the three girls, can you tell us more about their upbringing or is that going to be explored in the fic?
Not every single detail will be explored there, since this could lead to big info dumping paragraphs haha. I’ll tell you some things that might not be on the fic, then:
- Mia was raised by Will as a single dad. He says her mom didn’t want her, and left. We’re unsure how true this is.
- Amara is the daughter of a college friend Hannibal had. Hannibal made Amara believe she had to kill her mom at some point, because…well because Hannibal.
- Savannah likes girls.
hello milk, will you keep the fic here or move it to ao3?
I might move it to ao3, because there’s a surprise collab coming so perhaps I can post there soon (since I haven’t applied for the login invitation to publish and those take awhile).
It's so satisfying to read a fic when the author has psychological knowledge and frames the characters accordingly and accurately and everything ties perfectly together. Chefs kiss for Rotten meat, can't wait to read the rest!
Thank you, this is a very kind comment. It’s almost inevitable for me to write it without taking into consideration the psychological implications haha.
Is there any sweet/memorable moments Amara or Mia had when they were young kids? after all of these headcanons we need to hear a little of sweetness 😭
Aww of course! We will be hearing some during the fic, but here’s a bit for you now:
- Will gave Mia a piano and they would play together in the evenings when she was a toddler. She’d sit on his lap and watch as his fingers moved across the keys, trying to follow with her little hands. The piano’s still there, dusting away but she plays every time she feels sad.
- Hannibal used to create elaborate plays for Amara during bath time, with all kinds of characters and plots, teaching her about mythology in a fun way. She still remembers the scent of chamomile from her shampoo, and how she’d fall asleep between foam and bubbles.
Is it okay to ask if one of the girls experienced cs or csa? no need to answer if it's intrusive
We were discussing these topics so it’s natural to ask about it. But it will be touched on subtly on the plot.
Does Amara struggle with ed or was that specific to the bad food from the hospital?
You’ll find out haha
Can you explain how Mia was born? How did it happen, was it an accident?
The voice in his head sounds like his father. It always has.
“Will, you’re just like me.”
No. He isn’t. He wasn’t. He refused.
But there are things that creep in at the edges of refusal. Thoughts that slide in between the cracks, thick and oil-slick. No one ever tells you that running from something means dragging it behind you.
He remembers his father’s eyes—dull, wet, calculating. The way his voice would flatten out when he wanted Will to obey, to understand the weight of his disappointment. The way it could shift, too, when it needed to. When coaxing was more useful than control. There was a slow-burn seduction to his father’s affection, a give-and-take that made Will hungry in ways he didn’t know how to name. That hunger stretched out inside him like something cavernous, growing in the dark.
And then Joseph happened.
Joseph, who saw that hunger and fed it, but only when it suited him. Joseph, whose hands were steady and instructive, whose praise felt like a baptism—warm and thick and staining. Joseph, who made Will feel wanted. Special. Who could make pain feel like proof of something holy.
It taught him, in quiet, shattering ways, that love was not a soft thing. That love was a wound you tended to, that bled beneath your hands. That love was something to earn.
So he would build it. He would craft it from the ground up. A child. A child would love him as he had never been loved. A child would tether him, make him whole. But not a son. Oh no, no, no.
A son would be a mirror, and Will could not bear to look at himself.
A daughter, then. A daughter would see him as something perfect, untouchable, godlike. She would never look at him with the kind of eyes he had once had—the ones that searched for weakness, for an opening, for the moment love would be revoked.
Lilly. Pretty, ruined Lilly. The kind of woman that moved through life like a ghost, waiting to disappear. She had only daughters in her family, she had said, and once, a long time ago, she had had one too. A girl. She died as a baby. Not enough care.
That was the moment something clicked. Something old and starving and deeply, deeply quiet.
He laid his claim in sweat and tangled sheets and the way Lilly looked at him when he bought her drinks—like she couldn’t decide if he was salvation or damnation. And when the test turned positive, it was never a question of if the child would be his. Only when.
Lilly didn’t fight him. She was too tired, too lost, too far away even in her own body. The grief of loss had already hollowed her out. One shot away from overdose. When she left—faded away before Mia could even form memories of her—Will felt something settle inside him.
She was his. His perfect little girl.
And when she looked at him, wide-eyed, worshipful, with the kind of trust he had never been allowed to have, something in him sang. Something fit.
But there were questions, sometimes. Late at night, in the too-quiet hours, when the voice in his head got louder. When his father spoke, or Joseph, or someone else entirely.
“Why does it feel like this?”
He knows exactly why he empathized with Garret Jacob Hobbs.
Can we know more about Amara's and Mia's apparence? really curious to know😆
I kind of imagine Mia having her father's curls for some reasons😅
-🐛
Will had tried so hard not to have a son, to not have to stare into a mirror and see himself staring back. But Mia, is him but a girl.
Who has his face softened, refined, twisted into something impossible to look away from. The big blue eyes, the thick lashes that cast shadows. Rosy cheeks that bloom too easily, cherry lips that glisten wet. Plump. She is always plump. Soft, thick thighs, a body that welcomes the world instead of shielding itself from it. She does not harden herself, she cultivates her flesh, keeps it lush, keeps it something to be touched.
Her nails are always long, red or black, curling delicately when she gestures. Her hair, thick and dark, moves like silk in water, gleaming under light as if it has been spun from something richer than keratin. She smells too much, sickly sweet, sugared rot, something that burns in the back of the throat. Incense, old wood, something acrid beneath it all.
She looks like dessert filled with poison.
Amara is a thing sculpted rather than born, a composition rather than a coincidence. Where others stumble into beauty, she wears it like a garment tailored to her form. She moves with intention, with grace. When she enters a room, heads turn without command, breath catches without permission. She does not demand attention, she simply exists, and the world bows accordingly.
She is delicate but not fragile, tall but slight, something elongated and refined. Her hair, pale as light itself, spills down her back like silk thread, each strand impossibly smooth. Her eyes honeyed, are set beneath perfectly carved brows, her cheekbones high, hollowed, pronounced. There is an elegance in her structure, an artistry in her form. A porcelain doll, but alive.
She is Hannibal’s perfect creation.
And she knows it.
oh mia hates alana doesn't she? lol
Mia thinks Alana is irrelevant but is susced out that Will likes a woman who has the same coloring as her.
I love the way you answer with narrative, I feel like I'm reading tiny fics!😩 Can I ask about Mia's first relationship or kiss and if Will knew that and he reacted? -🪿
Mia learned about love the way she learned everything else…through Will.
She was six the first time she saw him kiss someone. A redhead, the neighbor. Just a passing moment on the front porch, nothing serious, nothing deep. But Mia had stood there, frozen, eyes wide with fury, demanding an explanation like he had just betrayed something sacred.
Will had laughed. She was so dramatic. He told her that’s how adults kiss.
That seemed to satisfy her, until she saw a pair of teenagers tangled together in a park, mouths locked, hands wandering.
“You said that was for adults.”
He glanced at her, unimpressed. “They’re criminals.”
And she believed him.
For years after, she would point at couples making out in public and declare them outlaws, sometimes even scolding them outright. Will thought it was hilarious. Until she came home one day, around eleven.
She had seen a teacher kissing a student. Mia confronted the student, trying to make sense of it, and the girl told her that’s just what people do when they love each other.
So Mia had come home and told Will, with complete conviction, “You don’t love me.”
The absurdity of it made him laugh. But beneath the amusement, something curdled. What teacher? He had her tell him everything. What she said, what she saw, who it was. He handled it. It turned into a mess. The man was arrested. It should have ended there. But it stuck with her. The way she held herself afterward. The way she looked at people. The way guilt gnawed at her.
She never talked about it.
At thirteen, she kissed a girl friend. She told Will, and he told her not to do that in public because people were cruel. Then she kissed a boy, and he yelled at her.
She was confused.
He never answered. Just apologized, like that could undo it. He pulled her from school soon after.
She learned to hide things from him.
The first time she was with a man, she came home shaking, bile rising in her throat. She locked herself in the bathroom, threw up, cried until her face was raw. Then she found him and spat the words like they were poison—this is your fault.
He didn’t understand. Couldn’t. She wouldn’t explain. Just curled into herself like something had broken inside her.
Years passed before he found out.
When he did, it unraveled something in him so violently that Mia locked herself in her room for two days.
wow that description of the last ask...why did she blame Will and what exactly did he do that freaked her out so much?
The letters. The drawings. The picture of them.
It was all laid out in front of him like something profane. It should not exist. It should never have existed. His vision blurred at the edges, nausea climbing his throat in thick, wet waves. His body rejected it before his mind could. He turned, heaved, emptied himself onto the floor.
Then he found him. Ended the man.
But he let him live. That was the worst part. The cruelest part. He let him live so he could feel it, could know, every second, that Will Graham had peeled back his skin and poured something dark inside him that would rot him from the inside out.
Then he came home. Blood dried stiff on his shirt. He tore it from his body and threw it at her.
She flinched.
He had been drinking.
Way too much.
His hands found her hair. Her back hit the wall.
She gasped, but he wasn’t looking at her. Not really. He was looking at something inside her, something that was made because of him, because of all of it, and he understood now. Why she said it was his fault. Why she came home shaking. Why she hated herself.
His hands found her face.
He could barely see her through the static in his brain.
He would never know of anything she did anymore.
Does young Mia collects toys? Like asking Will, sometimes, to buy some specific toys because they are appealing to her? she seems a kid who observes a lot
I accidentally entered Will’s mind too much and thought about other types of toys my oh my. Anyhow,
It started with a gas station bear. Cheap, small, stiff-furred, with a red bow tied around its neck like a promise. He had been late, too late, and she had been curled on the couch, silent in that way that wasn’t silence at all. He placed the bear in her lap, awkward, guilty. Sorry, baby.
She stared at it. Then at him. Then at it again.
And then she smiled.
That was all it took.
So the next time, there was another bear. Same stiff fur, same glassy eyes, but this one had a blue bow. Then green. Then pink. He bought every color the gas station had. Then, when he ran out, he bought cat bows from craft stores, from pet shops, little satin ribbons in plaid, in polka dots, in floral prints. Late nights, missed dinners, words left unsaid, he tied apologies around their tiny necks.
By the time she was sixteen, her room was full of them. Shelves stacked with tiny bear bodies, soft soldiers lined up in silent devotion.
He still does it. Even now. When he misses her being small enough to fit in his arms. He still finds them, the little bears, still ties the bows, still places them in corners of her room like offerings.
She never says anything about them. But she never throws them away.
What does Savannah look like?
Are there any other fankids showing up or is it just the trio?
She is small. Delicate. Fragile. She knows it, in the way she folds into herself, in the way she draped fabric over skin like a shield, in the way her hands curled inward as if to protect something soft, something breakable.
Her eyes are green, muted, secretive. Her skin was soft, pale in the right light. Thin, bony wrists disappeared into sleeves that were always too long, fingers twitching, grasping at nothing. Her hair is dark, long, hung like a curtain, veiling her, keeping her just out of reach.
She moves like someone who had learned not to take up space. And yet, she did. Even when she tried to disappear. Francis saw the trembling thing beneath the fabric, beneath the careful concealment. She could hide beneath all the layers in the world, but he would always see.
_
I think they will be the only ones showing up, but who knows haha.
do you have a diagnosis for Rotten Meat Will?
RM Will has DID.
will we get Hannibal and Francis pov in rotten or just the girls?
We’ll get them, very soon :).
do you think will in rotten meat is very different than canon will?
He has canon Will’s personality and essence, but in Rotten we have his background and he also has a huge life changing difference which is Mia, who shaped a lot of who he currently is in the fic, so there’s that. And he has DID which canon Will plays into sometimes but doesn’t meet all the criteria for. But in general he’s very close to canon Will.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the vibes I get are: Will has Mia sleeping in his bed, and Hannibal had a fancy bassinet for Amara next to his bed. Will wakes up with tiny hands and lots of hair in his face, Hannibal falls asleep listening to baby Mozart
Hahahaha baby Mozart is funny. I will not correct you, the vibes are exactly that!
cannot stop thinking about single dads hannigram🙈 Will struggling to manage a baby and college/police academy, spilling milk all over his shirt, feeding mia in one hand, shaving in the other. And Hannibal chilling with four nannies and a nurse
This flashed in my head like a little montage hahaha.
Will was a mess. A complete, absolute disaster of a man.
The morning had started as it always did—Mia wailing at an ungodly hour, Will bolting upright in bed, disoriented, hair standing up like he’d been electrocuted. He barely had time to grab her bottle before she started making noises that could only be described as prelude to destruction. He held her in one arm, rocking her, while his other hand fumbled to pour milk into the bottle. His half-asleep brain miscalculated. The milk missed. Spilled down his uniform.
“Goddammit—”
Mia blinked up at him.
He sighed. “Yeah, yeah, watch the language.”
Still holding her, he shoved a spoonful of baby food into her mouth while gripping his razor in his other hand. He tilted his head, trying to shave without slicing his throat open, but Mia decided now was the perfect time to smack the spoon, sending mushy sweet potato onto his already ruined shirt.
“Great. Fantastic. Just wonderful.”
By the time he got to the academy, he looked like a man who had lost a fight with a blender. His shirt was wrinkled and vaguely orange. He had one spot on his chin that he’d completely forgotten to shave. His bag was barely hanging onto his shoulder as he lugged Mia inside, balancing his textbooks while muttering under his breath about how people shouldn’t have to choose between passing an exam and keeping a small human alive.
Meanwhile, across the country, Hannibal Lecter was having tea.
He sat in his pristine, art-filled home, dressed immaculately, a soft classical piece humming in the background. Mia was babbling nonsense to herself in Will’s arms, but here—here was Amara, quietly nibbling on a perfectly cut fruit arrangement prepared by one of the four nannies standing by in case she so much as coughed. A nurse stood nearby, making sure her little cardigan was perfectly buttoned.
Hannibal sipped his tea.
Will buying toddler clothes for Mia is something so funny and cute to my, I can't stop thinking about it 🙊
Will Graham had faced a lot of horrors in his life. He’d seen crime scenes that would make a grown man weep. He’d stared into the abyss of the human soul. He had fought sleep deprivation, emotional instability, and his own self-destructive tendencies.
But nothing had prepared him for the absolute nightmare that was shopping for toddler clothes.
He stood in the middle of the baby aisle, surrounded by an explosion of pastel chaos. Pinks, blues, yellows, tiny floral prints, polka dots, ducks. Why were there so many ducks? He rubbed his temples.
Mia was perched in the shopping cart, happily chewing on her own fist, completely unbothered by her father’s impending mental breakdown.
He picked up a tiny pink onesie with a bunny on it. “This is cute, right?” he muttered, showing it to Mia.
Mia blew a raspberry. Not helpful.
He grabbed a dress—frilly, full of lace, something that looked like it belonged to a doll from the 1800s. He held it up. “Nope. She’d kill me,” he muttered, tossing it back.
Then he made the mistake of looking at the sizes.
“12 months, 18 months, 2T… What the hell is 2T?” He squinted at the tag. “Who decided toddler sizing should be like reading ancient runes?”
A woman passing by gave him a sympathetic look. “How old is she?”
Will glanced at Mia, who had now stolen a pack of socks and was trying to eat the packaging. “Uh, almost two.”
“Then 2T should work!” she said cheerfully before disappearing down another aisle, completely oblivious to the existential crisis she had just caused.
He threw a couple of random outfits into the cart—some little overalls, a t-shirt with a weirdly aggressive-looking giraffe on it, a dress with strawberries because that seemed safe—and then he saw a tiny, soft, navy-blue hoodie.
It was the exact shade of his own favorite hoodie, the one he wore on days when he wanted to disappear into himself. It even had a little pocket in the front. She’d look just like him.
Without hesitation, he grabbed it.
Mia clapped her sticky hands together, delighted by absolutely nothing.
Will sighed, shaking his head. “You are the easiest part of this, you know that?”
She giggled. He took that as agreement.
When Mia enters highschool, what are the subjects she likes to study the most and why?
Same question for Amara, and if you want to share, also for Savannah!
-🐛
Mia loves literature, she has a teacher she really likes, he notices her penchant for the analytic. She’s good at understanding the depth of fiction or poetry. Amara loves any excuse to poke things, so she loves biology, she’s extremely competitive so she also enjoys sports, but she’s naturally good at history (great memorization skills) and philosophy (of course). Savannah likes English, she loves writing, and she’s a great artist, too!
Mia liking literature is so real, I love it as well!🙏🏻❣ So is Will expecting her to be good in all subject and to be cultured, like Hannibal expect with Amara?🤔
-🐛
Hi little worm 🐛 anon!
I think Will is less strict about school than Hannibal, but this doesn’t mean he isn’t strict…Just not as much as Hannibal (which is a lot). He makes sure he’s aware of her progress and demands good grades, and oversees her work, but he allows her to flourish naturally in whatever she excels at. She’s nerdy, though. No way she wouldn’t be.
hi Milk!! Huge fan of your essays and narrative writing. You have such a wonderfully unique perspective on everything. Im so fascinated by it, and it resonates very deeply pretty much all the time. Ive been loving Rotten Meat so far too! Im so compelled by the differences and similarities you've drawn between them all so far, as shown in the posts you've made expanding on the three girls.
I was wondering, just so I can sort of mentally gauge my expectations, what kind of story are you hoping to tell with Rotten Meat? Will it be a kind of twisted self-discovery like we see in the show for Will, but independently with each of these girls? Will it be them processing their fatherhood trauma together, messy healing and resisting? Enabling eachother, "getting worse," for a lack of easier terms? Is this more of a character exploration than anything else, letting the story unfold as you go now that you've laid the groundwork?
Thank you!! Keep up your amazing work!! I love checking your acc after a busy week!! You inspire me to write more myself!!
(P.S. - how do you feel about the idea of fan works such as fan art or writing, either loosely or directly, inspired by Rotten Meat?)
Thank you for your wonderful words, it’s so kind of you!
Rotten is a treatise on broken minds and how their shards wound those who hold them close. It’s a testimony of robbed girlhood, a commentary on human bonding, repression of desires, an exploration of the psychological fractures caused by the imposed construct of family, its inherent artificiality and the quiet violence it inflicts on the psyche. It is still a story about love, and how it shapes around trauma.
I'm loving RM!! Nurse Matthew is Matthew Brown, right?
Yep! :)
