I read the last Will as a dad post you made, and I got some thoughts I'd like to share if that's okay ^^"
So we can uselessly say that the child will grow up in a condition of incredible instability, but she/he can't know it both because of her/his age, and because Will is very careful to keep it "hidden". Maybe filling it all with sweet attentions after having outburst and getting violent. So, once the child is a bit older, like going into the teenager years, insecurities begin to crop up suddenly...As if an unexpected reality were hitting her/him with force. (As if a phase in the line of 'who am i?' which I think it's common among teenagers).
Some example of insecurities would be the child not being able to express what they feel, fear to speak up/defend themself and more, but I think the most brutal would be the feeling of not feeling real...I'll try to explain better, a victim of manipulation tends to not see reality cleary because the manipulator have done a good job by making the victim depending on them and bulding up a reality between white lies, as if putting them in a bubble where everything seems stranger and not their. And this would lead the child of feeling an immense fear of abandonment/not being listened to, that people won't care about their opinion.
And so I also think, the child now teenager, would rebel to their father, for what he made them be and for all the things he has done to them but they can't explain cleary. But because of Will's tactics, the child would shush and think there was no point for their outburst and their sudden hate to their loved father.
Oops, so sorry this is longer than I expected ^^" you can tell I had fun writing this and I hope my thoughts have sense! Keep in mind I am not in the field of psychology and only expressing my thoughts build from my experiences. I hope this wasn't a burden to read :(
Of course it wasn’t a burden, it delights me when you guys send long asks with your takes and insights, it’s the best!
And I see what you mean, I think you’re right. I imagine Will’s daughter being very patient with him but also too permissive. She would let him get away with weird behavior, without much questioning because she is so afraid of being replaced. If Molly happened in this universe, it would devastate her. The boy would be much like Dean Winchester, I think. Devoted, but with a lot of resentment boiling up. If he had a girl and a boy then uh oh, that would be a lot of trouble. The kids would not get along and the boy would resent his sister for having a more tender aspect of their father.
I love exploring this universe, always send me any asks you have on this, it’s so fun to talk about it!
sooo I really really really want to understand why Will has that oedipus type of dynamic with his daughter but Hannibal doesn't? kiss kiss milky
Good question! I think Hannibal actually would have the same type of lack of boundaries with his daughter or even son that Will does but it’s not tainted with perversion. It’s genuinely pure affection and intimacy while Will, because he represses so much, it ends up manifesting as a complex, you know? Hannibal has no shame, he doesn’t think of himself as evil and bad and dark and twisted, but Will does, he struggles with his self perception, and this ends up affecting the way his intimacy with a daughter is perceived and taken.
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.
The mornings start the same. Always the same.
Will wakes early, before the sun stretches over the trees, before the world is fully awake. The house is quiet, still heavy with sleep. He showers quickly, lets the hot water burn the stiffness from his muscles, then pulls on his uniform—belt heavy on his hips, badge clipped in place.
In the kitchen, he makes breakfast. Simple, but good. Scrambled eggs, toast, some fruit. Black coffee for himself. Juice for her. The smell fills the house, warm and familiar.
He steps back into the room, where she is a tangle of limbs and blankets, face buried in her pillow. She doesn’t stir when he calls her name, doesn’t move when he nudges her shoulder. A sigh, then he lifts her, warm and boneless with sleep, and carries her to the kitchen. She curls up in his lap, head against his chest, eyes still closed as she blindly reaches for her fork.
She eats like that—half-asleep, slow.
After breakfast, the routine continues. She brushes her teeth, sat on the sink, eyes barely open, and he stands behind her, working a brush through her long, dark hair, gentle but efficient. She checks her bag like always: blankie, teddy, book, notebook, pencils, juice, fruit in a small plastic container. Everything in its place. Everything accounted for.
Then it’s time to go.
They leave the house as the sky softens to morning blue. The drive to the station is quiet. She watches the world through the window, half-lost in whatever stories live in her head.
At the station, she stays with Shayla—the woman in the copying machine room, who has a soft spot for Mia and an endless supply of lollipops. Will checks in, grabs his assignments. The day unfolds in shifts—patrols, reports, long hours of waiting broken by moments of chaos.
Mia naps around four, curled in one of the worn chairs in Shayla’s office, and if Will is there—caught up in paperwork, his eyes burning from too many hours in front of a screen—he pulls her into his arms. She sleeps against his chest, small, warm, the weight of her a reminder that the world isn’t all bad.
By seven, maybe eight, the day is done. He carries her to the car, her arms wrapped around his neck, breath soft against his shoulder.
At home, she doesn’t wake when he sets her in bed, doesn’t stir when he tucks the blanket around her. He watches her for a moment, something heavy settling in his chest, then changes, sits on the edge of the bed.
Tomorrow, they’ll do it all again.
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.