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Reblog if you’re 30 or older

This is an experiment to see if there really are as few of us as people think.You can also use this to freak out your followers who think you’re 25 or something. Yay!

#i was 25 once #barely lasted a year

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My favorite part is when you realize that Mrs. Thirsty has a hollow leg and Mr. Clear was obtuse.

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#the first #tumblrs big bang

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Just felt the need to add, as a former but official volunteer for a position on AO3's team known as "Tag Wranglers" (with a very lengthy How To and Rules for Wrangling), that there is constant, continuous work done by people who love fanfiction and want to offer their assistance in the site they never needed to pay to use.

What's a tag wrangler? Oh well, you know how tags are the pinnacle of awesomeness when it comes to utilizing AO3 to find fic you want to read and also excluding fic you don't want to read (that is, trope wise and if tagged)? So, every day, a lot of people log in and open up fandoms and look at "unwrangled" tags. You ever click on a tag and it comes back with a page saying "This tag belongs to the Additional Tags Category." and "This tag has not been marked common and can't be filtered on (yet)."?

That's because not enough people use it yet. And by enough, rule of thumb is 3 authors or more. Once enough people use it, a decision made by a human being and not some algorithm, it gets sorted.

That means that someone is (supposed to be, they have shortages for their teams a lot because it's almost solely volunteer work, all of it, I don't actually know of any paid positions I just assume lawyers are paid but I don't even know that for sure) going into a fandom every/every few days, looking at unwrangled tags, determining "is this popular enough to be sorted?" and then sorting it.

Are you a "protective Spock" fan? Guess what, there's more than 3 of you! You can sort solely on the basis that a fic contains (and is tagged with) protective Spock. Which as of this moment has 11 tags someone has determined as synonymous with the tag "protective Spock" and means even though some people word things differently, tags of the same meaning can still find what you want.

Without these invisible volunteers doing jobs most people don't even know exists, putting in a lot of work hours to help make AO3 what it is, the site would be just like every other list of fics that is only mildly searchable.

Being a writer is hard. So is creating something as crowd sourced as AO3, maintaining it's integrity, and not placating everyone who calls out some complaint and end up disenfranchizing a huge host of authors and readers (the right here isn't a legal one, it's a promised one, that the archive will host us and not censor us). Especially since most of the people who help with the work are ficcers, being readers or both writers and readers.

New bad anti-AO3 take I heard today: "The gift economy perpetuates class divide and inequality". Is this... about not being able to monetize shit? Does anyone know? Do I want to know? God.

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"I'm poor and have no skills, so I should be allowed to co-opt other people's labor to advertise my fic patreon."

That's always what it is.

#AO3 #ao3 tags

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I was Scary Sary and Sarah Sunshine to my dad and mom respectively so they didn't say anything if a wild nickname appeared. Although when we moved to a new school district and they got calls for "Cat," they were like wrong number until one evening they said, "do with of you know a Cat?" at dinner.

Although they didn't have time to worry about my nicknames because my older sister was nicknamed "Spanky," which slightly concerned them.

One of the funniest online parenting rabbitholes I’ve fallen into is parents being irate and hysterical that their children are referred to by nicknames by their friends and family. And the kid doesn’t care or actively asks to be called the nickname. It would be slightly different if the name was something with a deep cultural meaning to the parent but usually it’s white women breaking down about their kid asking to be referred to as ‘bug’ instead of *insert white bread top 100 trendy American baby name*. They’ll get so upset about it too. They’re like “I NAMED HER MACKINGSLEIGH FOR A REASON.” not realizing that their child is not an accessory but a living, thinking, sentient being capable of choosing how they would prefer to be called. And kids so often outgrow their nickname.

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I mentioned ADHDers because I and half my family are such. Seeing a follow up of OPs post by OP, I now know that I read into it wrong, which I did preface I might be doing. But considering enough people have read it wrong, I think my reply should stand. It's not nonsensical, it's contextually missing the original point, but it is still valid. It also goes over when not carrying the load becomes viable without being manipulative - my original reading was due to the insta inspirational "see who stays in your life when you stop reaching out 💖 those are your true friends!" posts, which is the sort of toxicity that turns this behavior into a manipulation.

I also responded as someone who has in the past year been ghosted by their best friend with zero warning despite our relationship being very transparent and is discussing every pitfall and toxic thing to crop up. That makes 4 best friends who went from daily contact to unreachable almost overnight and I dont understand why. Who is Left on Read by their cousins and sister, the only people still technically in my life. My horrible experiences colored my reading and while it isn't what OP meant, I know some people need to see this point as well and since I already made it, I'm leaving it unless OP asks me to remove it. I would respect OPs wishes.

I dont reply to argue which point has validity, obviously both do and I know now I saw some reflection of the point and went from there, not the actual point.

I also know the utter defeat you can feel as the perpetual initiator. OPs actual point is one I need to hear but just can't deal with atm. Which is a me thing.

I hate social interaction. 💀 it's so overly complicated. And I can't read social subtext for the life of me. Case in point ⬆️

i’ve heard a lot of people say “don’t reach out to your friends first and see how many people will remain in your life. those are your true friends” and i get it. it sucks and it’s tiring constantly being the one to message first, to initiate hang outs but don’t take this so literally. some friendships require initiation. i have lost touch with so many people who genuinely cared about me and wanted me in their life because i stopped reaching out. it’s a hard pill to swallow but honestly some people just suck at it and it doesn’t mean they don’t love and value you. i’ve reconnected with some people over the past few months and it’s crazy how genuinely happy they are to see me and how engaged they are in the conversation. i just think sometimes we’re too harsh on each other & too quick to emphasize other peoples flaws and remove them from our lives but then we’ll all be alone and what’s the point of life then!!!!

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This idea that fanfic isn't real literature has pissed me off so much. You know who wrote fanfic? Virgil, who authored the Aeneid, a continuation of Homer's works. Dante, who included real people in his self insert fiction wherein Virgil - you mean who authored the Aeneid? Yea, him - guides him through hell and purgatory and Beatrice, who was also a real woman, guided him through heaven. He wrote a mash up of Judeo-Christian themes (heavier on the Christian) as well as figures, same as mythological figures from Greco-Roman pantheon and lore. He wrote a self insert, rpf cross over fic. About religion. And Mary Sued the heaven into a real woman's facade.

Know who else? Margaret Atwood. She's famous for a lot of YA books but in this theme, she's also known and renowned in circles for the Penelopiad, retelling the Odyssey from Penelope's perspective. Rewrites from another perspective, that isn't at all a staple of fanfic collections /sarcasm.

Let's stay on this same vein, wherein things come from Homer who, regardless if it was one man or several persons, penned the oral lore and traditions of the Hellenes. O' Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) starring George Clooney is just a complete rewrite of the Odyssey in an alt universe.

How about Rick Riordan's works? Just modern set "post story" fic, arguable whether it's alt uni or not.

How can we forget Ulysses? Which is the Odyssey. Ulysses is Odysseus.

That's just a very small amount of applauded media/fiction/content/great literature that is based off the Iliad and or Odyssey. I could continue on with Shakespeare who was himself just rewriting other stories in new settings for the most part. There's probably thousands of examples of that. And Disney princesses? All based on other people's stories (some fiction, some real life stories).

Fanfiction is naturally occurring. It's fish tales, a legacy of telephone, scribes practicing their writing on clay tablets and leaning heavy on certain relationships in their copy that accidentally gets immortalized because they set the hole of clay slabs on fire (cough epic of gilgamesh cough). It's natural to retell stories. It's natural to want to change things in them. Fanfiction is normal and not lesser.

This guy has a meltdown every time he sees anyone so much as mention fanfic on his dash.  Seriously, he’s reblogged people’s personal fic links with only a handful of notes screaming about how it’s “fair game” for him “to shit all over”

So what’s his fucking problem?  Oh, apparently he wrote a book that no one was interested in, and he decided this is the fault of fic authors.  Somehow.

Yikes.

The funny part is, he’s written fanfic!

He’s just claiming it’s not fanfic for “reasons.”  Totally obvious and not-at-all bullshit reasons, and if you don’t get it you must be illiterate!  Duh.  (The reason is “I hate fanfic, so therefore anything I write cannot possibly be fanfic!”)

#fanfiction #fanfic

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I wonder if they meant the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery for all but imprisoned persons. People conflate 13-15 as they're a triad that was voted into place under Reconstruction. Which would mean they're claiming a right to earn money for their work, without taking into account the nuance of being forced into labor without compensation vs volunteering it, which is what fanfic is. A voluntary labor of writing a story to offer to the fandom at large.

There are ways to profit from copy written material but that's detailed in laws not the Constitution.

Just had a truly BIZARRE AO3 experience which I feel like you might get a kick out of: I left a comment on a work with a ko-fi link, gently pointing out that ko-fi links weren't allowed, and suggesting that they remove it since many people feel pretty strongly about this and will report fics with ko-fi links on sight. The author responded with a - I kid you not - 1,713 word long rant, where they (among other things) claimed that the noncommercial rule of AO3's TOS violated the 14th Amendment

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Facepalming so hard right now.

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I will go down with The Ship. I refuse to let people appropriate a term that was coined to be a simple way to state that you either can see chemistry or wish to explore how two or more characters fit together. It has never been a ideal thing. It has never been a corrupt thing. It just Is. And while it has changed - platonic shipping (such as BroTPs), crack shipping, etc - it changed to be more inclusive.

Can it mean you support something? Only if you intend for it to. People like to make jokes like "I ship (woobie) and (some form of comfort)" or "I ship (character) with self esteem/etc" or 3ven "I ship (myself) with (sleeping/etc)." Which is awesome. And people who get shipping understand these statements for what they are, putting high concept thoughts into "low" concept terminology. Shipping a character with self esteem is stating that you like and or are interested in exploring the character with that mindset.

Shipping is so fundamental in fandom. Playing off all sorts of relationships, even platonic (character+character or character&character are distinct from character/character), is the majority of fic, of fandom. We explore the feelings, psyche, curtain conversations that the content typically avoids.

I'm not just proship. I'm pro Ship. The concept of The Ship is how so many of us travel from strict content/canon. May no one every sink Her.

It's time to retire the fandom term "ship".

People on both sides of the argument on censorship and harassment of fan creators have put forth the idea that we should retire the word "proship".

I don't think that goes far enough.

I think we should retire the word "ship" from our fandom vocabulary entirely.

This post is a joke… mostly. But hear me out.

The argument for retiring the word "proship" is that it has become so widely misunderstood and misused that using the term actually causes confusion instead of meaningful communication.

The argument is that "proship" has drifted so far from its original meaning in common understanding that it is no longer understood at all.

"Proship" means "in favor of shipping" but it has been misused to mean "problematic ships" so often that many people believe that to be the correct meaning. Some people even believe that "proship" is a synonym for child molester, despite originally being coined as a simple word for the fandom stance of "ship and let ship."

But what does "ship" even mean in a fandom context?

I argue that there is simply no term in all of fandom, perhaps no term in all of English vocabulary, as misunderstood as the term "ship".

I argue that using the term "ship" without spelling out exactly what you mean is as likely to cause confusion as using the term "proship."

I argue that the misuse and misunderstanding of the word "ship" is why we needed the term "proship" at all in the first place.

What does "ship" mean in a fandom context?

Originally it was simply a short form of the term "relationship". 

Originally "ship" simply meant taking an interest of some kind in what it would look like for two characters to have a romantic or sexual relationship. It was a value neutral term.

Now, in 2023, we have people who genuinely and earnestly hear the word "ship" and the baggage they bring to it is that the shipper supports a relationship between the two characters as a healthy and ideal relationship, and believes it should be canon.

The term is obscure in it's use.

If I "ship" something, am I merely interested in it in a morally neutral way?

Or am I advocating for it as a healthy and ideal aspirational relationship model?

The term is so unclear in its usage as to be meaningless, and to cause nothing but misunderstandings and fights.

Some people genuinely believe that if you "Ship" a toxic relationship you are an IRL dangerous abuser, or a person who is likely to be harmed by an abusive relationship.

It's time to retire the word "ship."

#shipping #proship #fandom

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I hope that I always express this alongside my other explanations of aro/ace issues. I myself am self-sex repulsed (is that now what is called non-favorable?) and non-partnering, at least I believe myself to be at this point in my life. Then again, I once thought I was cisgender and completely hetero. In ten years I might change or learn new things about myself.

Anyway, the main reason I'm reblogging with commentary is that I know I've explained the various ways asexuals can be in sexual relationships and aromatics can be in romantic partnerships, but I hope I always remember to inform that they can also not be. They, we, can never want any of that. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with never wanting those relationships or those experiences. Not wanting is just as important to recognize and validate as wanting is. Dislike is just as important as like or indifference.

Some of us fit stereotype and cliche a lot more than others and that's just as good and valid as everyone else. Alienation isn't and as a joint community of broad spectrum aros and aces and aroaces, we should know better than to further alienate our own ranks.

Thank you, OP, for underlining this point. I truly hope I never forget to convey it in my explanations because for some reason people listen to me on this topic.

Taking these phrases away from the Aro and Ace communities until they fucking learn to behave themselves and act normal about Non-partnering, Repulsed, Loveless, and Aplatonic ppl.

Bonus phrases being taken away that I couldn't put on meme without it getting crowded include: "But Aros and aces can still enter QPRs!!!" "Aromantic ppl can still be in relationships!" "Asexuals can still have sex!" "We're not all heartless freaks!" "We can still love our family and friends!" and other phrases that ignore non-favorable and non-partnering groups of ppl.

and I REALLY shouldn't have to put this but y'all really like reading shit that's not there but : NO this is not saying that there isn't a time or place for these phrases. this is saying that this shouldn't be the only response given because it ignores the existence and validity of repulsed, non-partnering, loveless, and aplatonic people! by only defending favorable experiences you are saying "Its ok to still attack the experiences your attacking but just know that not ALL of us are like THAT so WE shouldn't be attacked"

DO NOT DERAIL THIS POST!!!! THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT FAVORABLE, PARTNERING, OR ALLOPLATONICS!!! DO NOT RESPOND WITH "But favorable/partnering people -" or "but platonic love-" THIS POST IS NOT FOR YOU.

#aroace positivity #aplatonic positivity #non partnering #aroace

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@berecovered makes a good point but I'd Iike to address something OP seems to state but isn't flat out with (for those of us bad at subtext) though I may be projecting.

If you stop reaching out to your friends, full stop, you need some situational context to expect anyone to keep reaching out to you. The fact of the matter is relationships take effort FROM BOTH SIDES.

This means that if you stop reaching out, you've let go of your end. Think of a relationship as carrying a couch. Sometimes one of you will have a heavier burden, maybe one or both might need a break even, but the burden only moves forward if both parties work. If only one person tries to move the couch, it becomes tiresome, tedious, and potentially damaging to the person and or their surroundings.

If you stop reaching out, you're dropping your end of the couch with the expectation that the other person will have it covered. That's unfair to them.

What is fair, and touches on bere's comment, is determining how to maintain a relationship in ways non damaging to both parties. For them it was video chatting, that's awesome, they found their niche. For others'... well, when I started down my road to understanding my psychological minefield and neurodivergencies, when I was able to confidently say to people, "I'm autistic," without feeling like a fraud because I'm afab and don't meet the checklist designed around white amab heternormative middle class boys in the ... late '80s? early '90s? I also started to see how damaging, how toxic, some of my relationships, past and present (at the time, which was like 2009), were. I had two conversations with a person who has been dear to me since I was an 11 yo, whose family was my second family. I called his mother 'ama and his father 'apa or somethings "secondary father-like figure" because that amused him. I held relationships with all his brothers, some stronger than others, but it was like they belonged equally to me. And the family welcomed me.

I had one conversation in the dreary Michigan autumn of 2009, waiting at the bus/train station i used to commute to university, walking around and not putting near enough care where I put my feet, despite the slippery, wet foliage that used to mark Octobers here. And I told him, "I love you, you will always be special to me, your family will never be strangers, but if you can't help me carry this relationship, I can't bear this burden any longer."

He's one of the best people - nice, genuine kindness, generous - that I've known. But that winter I made another call to tell him I can't hold up my end anymore. Unless he was prepared to hold the burden himself long enough for me to trust he wouldn't drop it on me again and again and again, I was setting my side of the couch down.

It's about balance, boundaries, and respecting both yourself and those you have relationships with. I had a similar conversation with another friend and he lifted his end and held it strong when shortly thereafter my parents separated, devastating me - I still live in my father's home, but with my mother, they began cohabitation 10 years later until his death 2 years ago, which still has me shattered.

I found out a few years later, when he called that day that that happened and said he was in town for the weekend, did I want to stay with him for the night? ... he hadn't been in town. He had begged his grandmother or mother to come get him and bring him home, a 3hr round trip, so he could be there for me as my sister, in another state, had texted him saying I might need him. After holding up relationships one sided most of my life, which is what the initial suggestion of stop reaching out and see who stays is - it's dumping the full weight of the relationship on the other - , he had lifted his side and I was so relieved I never even realized how special it was. How easy.

I know a lot of NDs struggle with this, especially ADHDrs. I think the statistic is 80% of ADHDrs will have trouble maintaining friendships by 2nd grade. This is what that looks like. Not one person dropping 3-12 couches. But one person holding that many and praying, hoping, maybe even deluding themselves that the other end is held too.

I've let go of a lot of couches only to watch them fall, completely unsupported.

i’ve heard a lot of people say “don’t reach out to your friends first and see how many people will remain in your life. those are your true friends” and i get it. it sucks and it’s tiring constantly being the one to message first, to initiate hang outs but don’t take this so literally. some friendships require initiation. i have lost touch with so many people who genuinely cared about me and wanted me in their life because i stopped reaching out. it’s a hard pill to swallow but honestly some people just suck at it and it doesn’t mean they don’t love and value you. i’ve reconnected with some people over the past few months and it’s crazy how genuinely happy they are to see me and how engaged they are in the conversation. i just think sometimes we’re too harsh on each other & too quick to emphasize other peoples flaws and remove them from our lives but then we’ll all be alone and what’s the point of life then!!!!

#relationships #toxic relationships #healthy relationships #neurodivergency #actually adhd #actually autistic #your relationships are couches #don't drop your end #unless you're prepared for the repercussions

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It'd be cool - instead of arguing - to discuss why there's so much overlap between lesbian and aroace headcanons for female characters.

This might sound crazy, but perhaps there is a real, existing overlap in the way aroace women and the way lesbian women experience heteronormativity.

For example:

The pressure to engage in heterosexual relationships and/or marriage.

The pressure to produce children in a heterosexual marriage.

The pressure to be sexually and romantically available to men.

The pressure to cast aside personal desires for the sake of a male partner.

The devaluation of their relationships with other women.

etc.

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I couldn't get the pic to load but it was $450 and I got the name. The only dif is the lengths. Thank you for that.

I guess Hannibal has to work up to the 26 thousand dollar jewelry :p

Beautiful story. Hannibal has zero chill. Very in character.

Taken for Rubies, ch. 7/20

Will woke before Hannibal the next morning. He looked at the slack mouth, the closed eyes, the momentary absence of Hannibal’s terrifying intellect, and wanted to kiss him. Instead, he slid out of bed and went to shower. And to shave.

(This is the necklace Hannibal buys him.)

#hannibal #will graham #hannigram #taken for rubies

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@emungere did you happen to save a pic of the necklace or the name? Or can you put the link so I can see if waybackmachine has it? Mobile won't let me copy link address and when I click i get https://www.tiffany.com/jewelry/?fallback=true so that's not helpful. I just really want to know what it looks like and how much it cost. The Bone collection bracelet was I think 26 grand? Hannibal would totally drop that cash to bring Will closer.

Btw found the perfect necklace to symbolize their relationship

Taken for Rubies, ch. 7/20

Will woke before Hannibal the next morning. He looked at the slack mouth, the closed eyes, the momentary absence of Hannibal’s terrifying intellect, and wanted to kiss him. Instead, he slid out of bed and went to shower. And to shave.

(This is the necklace Hannibal buys him.)

#hannibal #hannigram #taken for rubies

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Everytime I get into arguments with people about clothing and what men should and shouldn't be allowed to wear (imo? Everything, conformity is sooooooo boring), i bring up the Greeks and them looking at Persian man in pants and calling him thulakos (literally a sack usually for meats... they called them slang for scrotum).

Then there's the invention of heels... for noblemen.

People tend to not bring up gender topics sound me. I have too many examples that if I climb them, their little reasoning can't survive the fall. Pants, shoes, leggings, stockings, makeup, jewelry...got historical receipts. The only consistent conformity is the ever changing nature and geeze does that make people mad too point out.

I love when baby gays are clearly still unlearning a lot of biases and like every couple of months try to find a progressive reason to explain why men wearing dresses makes them uncomfortable. Like obviously transmisogynistic caricatures are Bad but if it's just a guy irl who wants to do drag or something that's literally fine. This has been a thing longer than you've been alive

#drag #gnc #clothing is literally manufactured #only natural clothes are made of leaves and grasses #and those are still manufactured #gender is a social construct

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Let's not forget the range of queer expression in the series. None have clean hands but who tf does on the show? Every main character except for the least (or most, she's polarizing) liked character has legitimate blood on their hands (and she arguably has blood once removed).

Hannibal - We have I'm literally the Devil in an Ugly Suit That I Look Sexy af in But You'd Look Like a Couch. The original villain of the show, and like Satan, he tempts, he twists truths, and he does not make those horses drink even if he led them to the water. He finds what can be corrupted and plucks that string like he's playing his harpsichord (or therimen omg the nerd). He puts people into situations just to see what happens. He sends Will after a serial killer (arguably to punish him, and if so for A: rudely interrupting his dinner, B: kissing Alana Bloom, or C: all of the above including the see what happens bit) then mourns his possible loss, pettily killing his patient to punish the serial killer who wanted to kill him (no one liked poor Franklin) before openly killing the sk and calling in the FBI as a victim who fought for his life. He has tears in his eyes when he sees Will didn’t die. He's a complex character that Mads' plays as legitimately Satan in a person suit, pansexual (with a description attached that sounds demi but is not explicitly stated so is imo atm), and genuinely in love with and attracted to Will Graham. If you take Word of God (WoG from here on) then you also have to accept into canon that between Will turning him away in season 3 and the hours he spent outside Will's house in the cold, he was crying. Mads and Hugh also wanted to kiss pre swan dive and Bryan had to be the "reasonable one" and say I think it's overkill (pun intended). Because to the cast and crew, it was officially out in the world in season 3, Will just had to accept it. (Also tangentially connected: because Hannibal is played as a fallen angel, Mads also played him as not being a cannibal. He is the inverted Tantalus, a demigod feeding men to men. He is a hunter and farmer, feeding his carefully chosen prized hogs with feral swine he himself hunted and took down. Hence all the pig comments.)

Will Graham - he's an odd duck. I've personally heard no word on if he's bisexual or if he'd even identify as anything. Bryan Fuller used queer to describe most of the aspects of the show; as a gay man, he uses queer as the umbrella term for whatever orientation that's non normative. You have to watch unrelated Bryan interviews and speeches to get that much, as he's been fighting to get just one out out gay couple for 20 odd years. I believe ST:D was his first gay kiss on screen, though Hannibal might have had his first official queer couple (and no it's not Hannigram). (I just realized ST:D's initials are std...) Between his on screen attractions/ actions/ known relationships, we have no proof of former mlm relationships. He has romantic feelings for 2 women during the show and sexual attraction for 2 (Alana was confirmed as romantic, Molly was confirmed as both, Margot was presumed a sexual attraction - at the very least, she was a willing hook up on both his and her ends). He probably is sexually attracted to Alana at least in season 1 as well; he called her desirable, but that was also in/during an admitted bid for normalcy. I think he mentioned qn ex girlfriend at one point but I'm not positive. Hannibal is his only confirmed male prospect. All that being said, if you asked Will to label himself, I think he'd get annoyed and leave the conversation. He has a very pronounced dislike of labels, and it feels like it could spread to most hard to define corners of his identity. A much more common identity than many in community give credit too, btw, I know several "Im just me" orientated individuals. A queer Gen X woman I'm friends with defined herself as that but said queet can be used for simplicity. Will is interpreted by a lot of straight viewers as canonically straight and then they get confused and or surprised by season 3. The whole series was a courtship with a lot of weird break ups. Hannibal has a couple retaliatory relationships while genuinely having feelings at the same time (one must never forget he's a hedonist as well). Will's morality is odd, coming and going like the tides. He's autistic by admission, and maybe he's other things as well. He has intrusive thoughts that his job is to dive into. Over time, his distress over his intrusive thoughts recedes and he takes more interest in them. Perhaps this is an expression of Folie a Deux as Hannibal as a concept seems to be the blanket that covers his distress over said thoughts.

Margot Verger - possibly the only on screen verbally confirmed labeled character. She's a lesbian, easy as that. Let's address the accused lesbophobia in the room: yes she has sex with Will Graham. The show and Bryan Fuller received some criticism for this, but the fact is, if a lesbian chooses to have sex with a man, isn't it important to be supportive of that and not police it? She appreciated Will as a friend and thought him a good man (considering her alternatives especially). He used him to get pregnant in a way that wouldn't alert her controlling, abusive, monster of a brother, thinking him off the radar enough. And she almost got what she wanted (Hannibal was determined to take away every child Will ever had, that's a different story). Besides, that entire sexual kaleidoscope scene was pretty much an orgy, crisscrossing relationships between current happenings, past desires, and future outcomes. Her morality is fairly consistent. She wishes to protect innocents, but she's willing to put off doing the "right" thing (in her mind at least) until she is not ruined by the outcome. It isn't even a lack of integrity as she is up front about her motive (except to her brother and occasionally to people she wishes to use, which she is not sorry about because it leads to her greater purpose, such as using Will). She justifies the murder of her brother and frankly so does the audience. However she doesn't turn a blind eye to murder indiscriminately, wanting to save Will. She also helps free Hannibal because he gets her and Alana what they need and want (the means for IUI/IVF - I'd personally guess IVF - and Will's life). Once she has her son, she leaves it all behind an seems to live a normal life aside from her marriage.

Alana Bloom - two on screen relationships, one a tryst with Hannibal that ends in attempted but ever promised murder, one the results in her carrying her wife's nephew and son to term. The Vergers were weird. In the beginning she has unwavering morality and fights tooth and nail for what she believes. This leads to unfortunate blind spots sometimes. She most likely has the most societally acceptable morality and integrity in the first 2 seasons (discounting the lab rats, who I'm not getting into here) and it's only changed by the traumatic experience of near death, brutal rehabilitation, and a deep, twisting betrayal. Her transfigured morality extends to her partner and later wife, Margot and Margot's vendetta against her brother (again, most view this vendetta as completely justified). Her trauma led to her plotting murder, manipulating Mason Verger to utilize his resources - greater than hers and lacking scruples - committing murder, she claims purgering herself to give Hannibal a solid insanity defense (so she could keep an eye on him), and ploting and conspiring to commit/orcastrate premeditated murdering a dangerous bid that endangered law enforcement.

So we have 4 major queer characters that vary morally (as much as the show allows), two with shifting morality. It's limited to a degree but also greatly varied in expression, reaction, and characters.

For a murder show that had to get so aesthetic with murders as to be on prime time network, that's a good chunk of representation. Hopefully abstract more than literal, but still.

i’m so sick of people saying hannibal is bad queer representation because he’s a villain.

#hannibal #queer rep

[palpablenotion]

#will graham #nbc hannibal #is it slut shaming if thats where we wanted him to end up? #tw: slut #tw: word slut #idk the trigger warnings for this term #slut shaming #i guess?