Rival gangs Hannigram AU where Hannibal is his age and Will is in his early 20s, grew up sheltered, well-educated, and rich. His dad who’s the head of the gang has a complicated relationship with Will’s “eccentricities” and “sensitivities” and realizes early on to keep that life separate from him. Still, Will has body guards, dresses in custom tailored fits, seems solemn and unsociable. He has no friends, and very much likes and excels at science. At first glance, Hannibal thinks Will is intelligent. He walks up to Will one day to have a chat. It’s dangerous and precarious and Will’s bodyguards have disappeared and they’re in a cafe filled with people when Hannibal just plops down across from him. It’s interesting because the more Hannibal corners him and makes him powerless, the more Will resembles a rabid stray animal. This mimosa-like young man dressed in smooth slacks and a beautiful sweater has cold eyes, a displeased mouth, and strong hands. Hannibal wonders how far Will’s animosity can make him go.
Pink pony club would have been such a Will Graham song if he was a little more optimistic
Re: Hannibal smiling in the courtroom during Will’s trial when the lawyer calls him “the smartest person in the room”; I really think it is a point of pride for Hannibal for besting someone as keenly intelligent as Will. Will fucking Graham with his brain on fire still pointed his finger in the right direction. How insane is that? Imagine being out of your fucking mind, being manipulated by the invigilator, and still scribbling out the right answer on the answer sheet. While Hannibal is manipulating Will like a new toy, I also imagine him putting Will under a microscope, face covered, eyes protected, gloves on, as he coldly looks at his specimen with considerable (especially for him) wariness.
Opening my asks for a bit; talk Hannibal with me!!
do you think Abigail expected to die that way, someday? Maybe not that night or that soon. But that she felt someday she'd be someone's tool the way she was her father's tool? Do you think she expected that her second father would be the same as the first?
I think Abigail was always in survivor mode. I think from the moment she helped Hobbs murder the first girl she realised she was living on borrowed time. I think this is why when she first wakes up in the hospital, she immediately asks what happened to her house; can she sell it? That’s desperation.
As for being someone’s tool, I don’t think she perceived herself that way. I’d think she was intimate with her own powerlessness and vulnerability and never trusted anyone. Even when she confessed to Hannibal about being an accomplice, she does it out of compulsion and guilt, not because she thinks Hannibal’s safe. So, I’d say she was gambling with whoever was in charge at any time.
Finally, I really do not think Hannibal was a father figure to her. Well, he was, kind of, but it’s very perverted wasn’t it? It was Hannibal controlling her life completely and Abigail complying to survive. I think in season 3, there was even a scene where she challenges him. Implication of “oh you think YOU replace my father?” Something like that? Hannibal doesn’t love her, she is intimidated by him. It’s very clear I think, that what they have is not a relationship but a captor-hostage situation where the captor is occasionally kind. I do think Hannibal cared about her recovery, and attempted to give her back her power, but always under the condition that he is her god. Her fate is decided by him. It’s unfortunate that her worst fears did come true.
do you think will loved hannibal? when do you think he started and what signs do you see of it?
This is difficult to answer because I think everybody has their own definition of love. In my case, I find relationship escalators a flawed concept and I don’t think romantic love is cut above the rest. To me love is love and I don’t think sex is necessary in romantic love either. So keeping in mind all of this, I don’t think I can give a satisfactory (to you) answer to this. Do I believe he loves Hannibal? Yes. I believe Will loves Hannibal by my standards. Fundamentally, Hannibal is the most intimate person to Will in his life. And this is someone he can’t get out of his head.
I mean, Will would cry in grief if Hannibal ever died. That’s insane. Who would cry over Hannibal? He would. I think this is because he has compassion for Hannibal. Compassion is love. “When”? I like to think he started to like him in season 2b. Those therapy sessions were a double edged sword. He looked into the darkness and understood what he saw. This is why I like Will; normal people would have high tailed out of there but Will is angry, reckless, and bold, so he goes hunting instead.
Will being so traumatized after looking at Hannibal’s murder of Cassie Boyle that he’s haunted by it in the form of the stag and then in S2, him dreaming of being birthed by it as wendigo Hannibal watches over is so insane insane insane
Thinking about Will having to shave off parts of himself to fit into polite society and why not having to do that with Hannibal is so addictive to him. What if the thing that knows you best is the devil? What do you do when the devil loves you?
What gets me the most is the fact that Will isn’t like Hannibal. They’re different people, different personalities. But they’re so drawn to the way they each think and that’s such a terrifying force. What I’m saying is they are what soulmates look like.
My Hannigram headcanon is that they like to pass time playing mind sports. Chess, memory games, puzzles. I like to think Hannibal is better at mathematics-based games, being so practical, and Will wins intuitively, skipping steps to victory that Hannibal sometimes cannot grasp unless he thinks on it step-by-step to figure out exactly which steps Will skipped over. Hannibal introduces Asian games to him like Go and Mahjong, inadvertently teaching (training) him to read Chinese characters. Post fall, now and then, they will have an abandoned chess board on the table, left halfway, bored or distracted. Will has the “out of sight, out of mind” personality, and while it should bother Hannibal’s sensibilities, and he can never forget it exists in the house, he lets it be.
Another Hannigram headcanon I have is that Will has eidetic memory and can recall anything without active effort, meanwhile Hannibal uses mnemonic memory techniques. This doesn’t have an overall affect on their deductions, but the paths they walk to get from point A to point B are indeed different.
Why was Sutcliff so condescending to Will anyway? He knew he was lying through his rotten teeth–what gives?? “Well MRIs can’t detect…mental disorders” What if Will wasn’t a demure teacher, what if Will had a rock in his messenger bag
I adore, adore, adore that Hannibal’s a shitty patient. He goes to Bedelia and acts like a little brat. Keeps stepping on their boundaries and smiles to himself when she maintains authority in response. He behaves the same way in daily life, behind people’s backs–manipulating them, murdering and feeding people his victims, making puns and smiling to himself when they can’t catch it. I think, because therapy is a space for dissecting and discussion of oneself, Hannibal lays a bit more on the plate than he usually would, and is more openly mischievous. When he’s shed his skin in season 3, he’s more obviously playful and flirty (plain in the way he kills Pazzi in a jolly mood). And after he’s captured, he’s just savage in his humor (re: telling Chilton he made him eat dessert with human blood, eating Chilton’s lip, “Tell him I hope he isn’t very ugly”–now that I think about it, he’s just bullying Chilton), and flirts with Will like he’s a romcom protag and not a convict who just barely missed the death sentence.
I think the reason Hannibal chose “rudeness” as his excuse is because it makes him feel more powerful. Being a psychiatrist he understands more than anyone how flimsy an instance of rudeness is: the person could be having a bad day, maybe they had a bad experience regarding their current conversation and reacted badly, maybe they never had an opportunity to be a different person, maybe this maybe that; it all boils down to compassion and mercy. Hannibal can offer both, but he chooses not to. It’s a flimsy reason and god is unreasonable. I don’t think rudeness is what is important to him; it’s the fact that he can decide when someone lives or dies. It’s absolute, selfish, and indomitable power over people, because you can’t convince him to spare you. Because the reason he’s killing you is built on paper. It doesn’t hold in court and he knows that. Will knows it too— re: free range rude, he taunts Hannibal. Then complains to Jack about how subjective Hannibal’s reasoning is.
Thinking about how Hannibal is just a girl who likes fashion, food, and comedy. In my mind’s eye he’s Cher, Elle, and Jennifer. He’s just like the other girls.
Kicking my feet thinking about Will looking through Hannibal’s patient schedule to check out Margot’s deal and Hannibal just letting him.
When Will says it’s beautiful, he’s not saying that the act of killing is beautiful, rather he finds reclaiming his power beautiful. A motivator to Will in the story is the constant robbery of his power and agency. You see s1, Hannibal meticulously dismantles his world and traps him helplessly. What’s great about Will and is characteristic to him is that he’s attracted to power, and interestingly, when it’s ripped away from him, he turns violent and cunning. What Dolarhyde does to him—firstly the attack on Will’s ideals by attacking families (his sore spot), indulging in a perverse mentorship with Hannibal (another sore spot; not in the jealousy context, but anything in his life with Hannibal in it is a perpetually healing scab), and attempting to murder Molly and Wally (in his perception, innocents). First, he cannot figure out Dolarhyde’s pattern (What about these families make him target them?), Hannibal refuses to help him (Why must he play mind games with an immovable, selfish creature who shakes everything that he is), and he cannot do anything to save Molly and Wally until he gets the call they’re in the hospital. Add to that, dangling Frederick as a bait (desperation making him dangerously violent, again), which spits in his face. In the end the only thing he can do is give in to entropy (release the very volatile Hannibal into the environment) and reclaim as much as he can. He ends up reclaiming his power from one, killing Dolarhyde, and two, killing Hannibal (and himself), and that is such a high and it’s beautiful what he is capable of.