#arterycut

[abandonhopeshlottman-blog]

@arterycut liked.

                  ❛     i -–––      ❜

                  hope turns the cup to show the name that is definitely not hers to the stranger. her smile is guilty and she shrugs her shoulders. coming to a not-starbucks coffeeshop has its perks, and she tries to patch over quickly her blunder of taking a stranger’s coffee accidentally.

                  ❛     i may have already taken a sip of                   your coffee before i realized it wasn’t                   mine. you have uh, good taste. sorry,                   i’m -– i’ll pay for your coffee. and also                    get you a new one !      ❜

[cruelonlytobekindarchived]

@arterycut (x)

“You can come over absolutely anytime you’d like. I’ll have a spare key made for you to hang onto. My home is yours, as it always has been, Abby.”

A hand brushes hair from Abigail’s forehead and smoothly, softly presses a kiss to cool skin carefully. It’s probably a stomach bug-- a bad day, something throwing her off. Regardless, Alana knows. She has a lot of days like that, though mostly she just feels that incessant nausea that stretches on for miles and miles, an endless sea of remote tummy discomfort. There’s nothing worse, most of the time.

“Do you have any toast, and maybe seltzer, chere?”

[xvates]

“Aren’t you a little young to be holding that in your hand?” Antony nodded towards the champagne flute held between delicate fingers.

[saltons]

@arterycut

   “No, I’m like, I’ve never been more serious in my shortass life, I’m trying to give you advice and you’re just like totally not even listening to me.”

   “You, me, hair clippers, undercut, you’re gonna ♫rock iiit!♫”

[puellaphagus]

5, 13, 28 !

Character solidifying!

this got long again so under a cut it goes

(5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered?)

As a whole, no. He learned early to be quite independent, mostly by necessity, and always had a reasonable amount of freedom. Even once his stepfather was in the picture, he wasn’t too restricted in what he was and wasn’t allowed to do, aside from being mostly expected to adhere to his mother and stepfather’s general values. Wild partying or underage drinking or drugs or sex before marriage were all considered unacceptable, but he was pretty withdrawn even in his teens and didn’t feel terribly restricted by those rules. (And, though he’d never admit it to Abigail, he did get away with occasionally breaking one.)

(13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates?)

He definitely wasn’t fond of school overall. He was never very good at academics and struggled quite a bit in school, especially in middle school onwards. This turned it into a source of major anxiety, which only made his struggles with it worse into high school, and if not for the fear of disappointing his mother, support from a few sympathetic teachers, and help from his much more studious girlfriend (and future wife) Louise, he likely would have dropped out or failed to graduate. His stepfather, unfortunately, blamed Garret’s constantly lackluster academic performance on laziness and felt a bad test score was something that warranted punishment rather than concern. This didn’t help.

As mentioned, though, he did have a few good teachers who tried their best to help him, and he did appreciate them quite a bit. Aside from shop class and P.E., which he quite well in, his best grades in high school were in history, thanks to a teacher who was actually willing to spend a lot of time with him personally and help him understand the material better. He spent a lot of time in her classroom after school working on homework, and he actually kept in touch with her for a little while after he graduated, before she retired.

As for schoolmates, he wasn’t exactly popular. Some of his schoolmates considered him somewhat “weird” on account of him being quiet and increasingly neurotic, and this occasionally put him on the receiving end of some bullying. That said, he wasn’t totally disliked, and he did have a few friends.

(28. Who is your character’s mate? How do they relate to him or her? How did they make their choice?)

In the sense I’d take “mate”, it would be his wife, Louise.

He loves his wife greatly and more or less has since he met her back in high school; their bond initially flourished based on the fact that they were both somewhat outcast in the grand social game of high school interactions, and they were supportive of one another in a way that neither got elsewhere. Having never had someone to rely on emotionally to that degree, Garret somewhat idolized Louise and fell for her hard and fast. They started going out over the summer between junior and senior year and stayed together since.

Idyllic as their relationship seems on the surface, Garret’s relationship with his wife naturally isn’t without issues. His fear of being left by his loved ones affected it from the beginning, and he was constantly worried he wouldn’t be good enough for her and she’d abandon him for another man. Any change in their relationship caused a peak in this sort of anxiety, such as her going to college after high school (and medical school after that,) or even their marriage when it was approaching. He often struggled with impulses to do quite drastic things to prevent that, usually in the form of a desire to leave himself before she’d have the chance to. However, as this also manifested in him being immensely jealous and possessive when it came to her having other men in her life in any capacity, there were plenty of times where he’d be fighting back the impulse to kill her so she wouldn’t leave him. (If he ever truly believed she’d been unfaithful, he almost definitely would have.) 

The death of their second child put a bit of distance between them, as well, which they were never able to completely recover from. They didn’t fight much, and it was always fairly low-key when they did, but they opened up to each other less and less after that. As his paranoia and obsessiveness worsened after that tragedy, he began to internalize his feelings completely. Already worried she’d blame him for not somehow saving the baby, he feared rejection from her more than ever. While she suspected he wasn’t doing as well as he wanted her to believe, and often suggested he try getting professional help again as he had after Abigail’s birth, she never knew how bad he got or even had the slightest suspicion of what he was doing as the Minnesota Shrike.

After receiving Hannibal’s “courtesy call”, his decision to kill Louise before Abigail was motivated by the fact that, knowing he was about to get caught, he’d have to face her rejection upon her realization of what he’d done.

[puellaphagus]

arterycut replied to your post “do i reblog the nsfw ask meme here so everyone can be immensely...”

I GOT THE HEEBS AND JEEBS JUST FROM THIS TEXT POST

i cringe at the thought of having to answer anything serious honestly. just. shields abigail’s eyes

[shcblindedmewithscience]

@arterycut (x)

Tears and grieving were a part of her training history, yet when asked to check in with Abigail Hobbs, it had been a different instinct entirely that had taken over. Beverly had come from a large family. And as was expected of large families, there was always one sheep that strayed from the flock -- her baby sister, to be exact. She had gotten away with murder, and the incident had pushed Beverly toward the profession she had today.

Did she think Abigail Hobbs was a murderer? Not necessarily. All she saw in that moment was a girl in pain...a girl so very much like her sister.

Still sitting across from the girl, she paused a moment before digging into her vending machine purchase. The wrapper crinkled noisily, and she lifted one of the cupcakes, mindful of Abigail before offering her the other one. 

“No problem,” she said. “And I’ll be the first to admit that anyone who tells you ‘things will get better’ doesn’t know shit. Things do get better, absolutely, but it’s more like you just get numb to it all.” She shrugged, popping a bit of cupcake into her mouth. “It’s why we as humans try and distract ourselves. You do anything for fun?”

Clumsy as it was, it was Beverly’s roundabout way of offering to take her someplace grounding. A hospital was no place for a girl to recover. The nursing staff could mend her head, sure, but certainly not her heart.

[empathicdesign]

(xx) @arterycut

Had he considered it? Yes. Countless times. But Abigail not wanting him there didn’t coincide with the warm, idealistic little images he painted in his mind. In his thoughts, Abigail wanted his help -- needed it, in fact -- and Dr. Lecter’s suggestions did little to curb this desire. Hannibal knew of his yearnings for a family, and found ways to allude to Abigail in their conversations. Will was no fool, and yet he played into this with little to no provocation. 

“I’m just trying to help, Abigail.” His tone was tired, soft -- resigned. He didn’t know why he felt this painful, burdensome responsibility toward her, and better yet, didn’t know how to tell her the crushing ache it brought just to be near her.

As if remembering their distance, Will moved away from Abigail and toward one of the large, curtained windows overlooking the hospital grounds. Helplessly, he pretended to take interest in the bland fabric, his hand lifting in order to roll the cotton once, twice, three times before abandoning the curtain in masked annoyance. “I didn’t come here to replace your father,” he softly said.

Liar. He had horned in on all of her medical decisions -- adopted her when there was no one left to care for her -- and above all, had found himself wanting to be whatever she needed. 

Still not turning away from the window, Will felt his shoulders sag. “I can’t believe you want to be alone in this hospital... That you don’t want a friend.” Finally he regarded her, allowing his eyes to scan her face, if only for a moment. “Tell me I’m right. Tell me what I can do to fix this. I want to be here for you, Abigail, but only if you’ll let me.”