Bacon-Bitz

I can't remember where my spine went. If you're looking for anything consistent, this is not the place to be. I will hop from fandom to fandom like a frog leaping from stone to stone. A spineless frog, that is.

[cloudabserk]

before i watched project hail mary i knew exactly 2 things about ryan gosling:

[froxyfroggo]

happy ten year anniversary to this article !

[cloudabserk]

??? 10 years? i had initially assumed this was during the barbie press tour or something. why would they ask him this in 2016…

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Thinking about Jack Harkness in the context of queer history and the AIDS crisis and Russell T. Davies being from that queer generation and the tragedy of survival. Yes, you survived, as living the same life as you swallowed up the people around you, and it was worth it, because they got to live life honestly, because they got to live life bravely, as themselves, because they got to wonder at the universe, because they got to experience the heights of human experience, but also they died. They died, and it was horrible, and it was brutal, and they shouldn't have died, but they did, and you outlived them. You survived. You endured past the point of enduring, you went to every funeral, you saw them go out burning brighter than everyone around them, and you survived. You survived, and it wore you down, and you saw the hope and the destruction and every time you wonder at another person, every time you fall in love, you remember that they're all gonna die, but you can't stop, can you? You have to fall in love again, have to fall in love with life again, knowing that it will always end the same way, with your heart broken, because it was worth it. Because they were worth it every single time and death cannot take that away.

They died, and you lived. And with each death, it feels more and more like you are the tragic one, but you can't stop living, can you? Because you have to do it. For them. For all that you all lost.

[mshfar2a]

I don't like to admit it, but sometimes I actually miss John Green.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Sometimes I can almost hear him.

[myshangel]

truly i think it gets to a point where everyone around them accepts that hollanov codependency is the healthiest theyre gna get for each other and just have to learn to live with it #TheirFreaksOfNature

[unfortunate-eggs]

My thoughts on Metamodernism

as someone new to the concept

Are we still in the postmodern era of literature? Well, a famous article from Philosophy Now, 2006, says not. But, with the so-called ‘death’ of postmodernism that leaves modernism lying freezing cold in its grave, there is the question of where our literary world is going to ‘move’ next?

Well, from the ashes of these two movements, there is a phoenix rising: metamodernism. 

It’s hard to say whether metamodernism is postmodernism’s true successor. After all, the satirical cynicism of postmodernism still exists in our society today, as do the remnants of modernism’s scientific idealism. We, in this era, are perhaps not defined by a single literary movement. Instead, we exist in an intermediate state between postmodernism and what is to come next, whether metamodernism or something else entirely. 

What appeals about metamodernism, however, is the ‘meta’, self-awareness of the movement’s construction. For the first time, the authors of the literary period are consciously creating the movement they are a part of. As Hanzi Freinacht described it in his 2017 piece The Difference Between Post- and Meta-modernism, “So the metamodern cultural phase somehow brings with it a bird’s eye on modern life and it begins to reflect more deliberately upon it, to try to shape it.” With the overwhelming complexity of our current world, we have grown tired of simply following the cyclical, reactionary cycle of literary periods. Where before, we followed the pattern of establishing a movement, then falling disenchanted with that movement, and then establishing a movement antithetical to that prior movement; now, with metamodernism, we’re taking a more reflective approach. We try, consciously, to reconcile the ideas of these different periods of literature, to take the best of them and integrate it into one cultural moment, we revive the long-dead ideas of the past to combine them with the present.

Metamodernism isn’t simply reacting, it’s reactivating, reinventing, reintegrating. In it, we realise the “[protosyntheses] of modernism and postmodernism” (Freinacht, 2017). We can be “both a modern believer in science and progress, and a skeptical, ironic critic of your own naive belief.” (Freinacht, 2017). We can hold “the tension, no the double-bind, of a modern desire for sense and a post-modern doubt about the sense of it all” (Notes on Metamodernism, Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, 2010) simultaneously. In metamodernism, you are allowed to acknowledge contradictions, accept them as truth, and move beyond them. 

However, this contradictory nature isn’t necessarily a good thing. By integrating the opposing ideas of the modern and the postmodern, we create a movement that doesn’t just contradict itself, but opposes itself. Metamodernism, therefore, is not a peaceful, balanced harmonization of its ideas. Instead, it’s a collective of frantic, reactionary microcosms of the modern-to-postmodern transition that appeared in real life. As described by Luke Turner in his 2015 piece Metamodernism: A Brief Introduction, “We see this manifest as a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism, a moderate fanaticism, oscillating between sincerity and irony, deconstruction and construction, apathy and affect, attempting to attain some sort of transcendent position, as if such a thing were within our grasp.”

The metamodern is extremely polarising; a cultural movement built entirely on oxymorons. While perhaps contentious in its contradictory nature, I find that metamodernism reflects the society that shaped it, such that it is the most appropriate literary movement to define our time. In a world where we are constantly constructing temporary and inconsistent tales, to appear more organised and professional at work, or more picture perfect and idyllic on social media, it seems fitting that the cultural movement at the helm is one where “it acknowledges that whatever story we tell ourselves, it must be inconsistent and temporary.” (Hanzi Freinacht, 2017) 

For a society more aware of itself than ever, a movement that embodies that too: metamodernism.

[clawfulneutral]

the lengths to which literal evil genius hannibal lecter goes in order to snag a man who is one tender hand on his shoulder away from proposing marriage at all times is truly peak queer culture, you have made a religion of needless complexity and sex chicken, a Cult of Unnecessary Baby Traps

[ilyuca81]

okay hear me out;

the events of hannibal, but hannibal is deaf and comminucates via sign, and will graham is selectively mute/never speaks and so also communicates via sign. i just think that would bring yet another element to their dynamic of 'we understand eachother the way nobody else can' that would be really cool to see

[sirenja-and-stag]

Favourite Scenes - Hannibal Season 3

Why are you looking for him after he left you with a smile?

[asadstatue]

Kept thinking about hammybal lecter and ended up doodling the boi

(Apologies for the silliness, i'm no digital artist, it's almost 3am and I did it with finger on picsart paint thingie-)

[unfortunate-eggs]

Does anyone have any suggestions for episodes that would be good to analyse the Gothic romance of it all in Hannibal? I have some ideas of my own, but it's been a while since I've rewatched the whole series, so if you have any thoughts, please share them

[flock-of-cassowaries]

I’m going to preface this by saying it’s been almost 30 years since I read Jane Eyre; though, in my defence, I have consumed at least three (3) Jane Eyre retreads in the intervening decades (Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca - twice; the Meg/Ben/Maria plot in the first season of the 1997-99 soap opera Sunset Beach - also twice, thank you Internet Archive; and, presently, whatever the hell the 1960s vampire-horror soap opera Dark Shadows is doing with the Maggie/Quentin/Angelique plot - though that show has strayed very far from the source material).

More importantly,

…I’m currently bearing silent witness in to an extremely high-tension work call, to which I have no contribution, and this is a very welcome distraction from that for me.

For the purposes of analysis, I’m going to say that the episode I will focus in is season two, episode 13, “Mizumono”; because I want to focus on how the revelation that Hannibal did not kill Abigail compares to the revelation in Jane Eyre that Mr. Rochester had not killed his first wife.

Wanting the Monster

Will’s perspective on Hannibal (before the episode’s ultimate, and violent, conclusion) is similar to Jane’s on Mr. Rochester,

…in that both experiences significant romantic attraction to men they believe have committed heinous crimes — attraction that persists despite their (Jane / Will’s) moral beliefs, and in direct defiance of the concern they should probably feel about their own safety, being in such proximity to a monster.

As well, in both works, our heroine/hero is implied to be morally compromised by their irresistible attraction to the monster, and their willingness to love him despite of his (unrepented and unremediated sins).

A significant difference between the two works is that while Mr. Rochester is positioned by the narrative as “not as bad” as Jane/the reader may have feared, Hannibal is known — by Will, prior to Mizumono, and also by the audience, from the very outset of the story — to be an unequivocal monster.

The Woman in the (literal) Attic

This one may be more funny than thematically significant, but the degree to which Abigail and Mrs. Rochester’s situations mirror one another — both are held in seclusion by men presumed to have murdered them — is shockingly similar.

(Tangentially, while it is never explicitly stated that Hannibal kept Abigail in the attic, if we assume she was in his primary residence, the attic does seem like the likely setting; had she been in a guest bedroom in the main living area, Hannibal would have risked Alanna stumbling upon her; and while Hannibal is portrayed as exposing Abigail to great horrors (e.g. the s3 flashback in which he exhumes her father’s corpse), it seems unlikely that his pride and his positioning of himself as a benevolent captor would allow him to confine her to the rather grim confines of the (unfinished) Murder Basement. )

A significant difference here, however, is that while the narrative or Jane Eyre gives Mr. Rochester an excuse, of sorts — the first Mrs. Rochester was mad — Hannibal’s captivity of Abigail is more straightforwardly abusive. Also, whereas Mr. Rochester views his first wife as a loathsome burden with which he has been saddled, Hannibal (at least at some points) treats Abigail as a mentee, and a prize — only discarding (murdering) her at the last moment, when it is clear to him that he has lost Will’s affection.

Also, whereas (if I’m recalling this correctly) the first Mrs. Rochester conveniently removes herself from the situation by dying (did she set the house on fire?), allowing Jane and Mr. Rochester their happy ending, Abigail attempts to appeal to Will for aide, and is killed in front of him by Hannibal; Will having previously rejected Hannibal because of his monstrosity.

Will’s valuing of Abigail stands in contrast to Jane’s views on the first Mrs. Rochester — in part, because of Will’s pre- disappearance-and-presumed-murder relationship to Abigail, and in part because she is in no way a rival to him for Hannibal’s affections.

Another difference between Abigail and the first Mrs. Rochester is that Abigail is not “mad” (a defining trait of Mrs. Rochester in Bronte’s narrative). Though she is portrayed to have developed some sort of pseudo-Stockholm Syndrome with regards to her captor (Hannibal), Abigail is clearly not experiencing hallucinations or delusions, as is apparent in her appeal to Will when they come face-to-face.

The Class Difference of it All

As a cis white man with a professional degree, a station wagon, and a home, Will obviously has a lot more freedom and privilege than Jane ever does; but he is implied to have come from a working class background, and his dress and residence bear the markers of the values implicit in that. Hannibal, on the other hand, is a Count, and in his manner and his expressions of taste, endeavours to represent this.

This puts Will at a social disadvantage relative to Hannibal, in a way that parallels (though in no way equals) Jane’s disadvantage with respect to Mr. Rochester (a landowner and her literal employer).

The Pursuer vs. the Pursued

A significant difference between the two works is that whereas Jane often seems to be the one yearning for Mr. Rochester to provide clarification on his feelings for her, in Hannibal, it is the titular character who visibly years for Will to affirm his affection.

The Tragic Backstory

Another interesting difference is that where Jane Eyre gives its heroine a tragic backstory and survivor guilt (outliving her friend Helen, who dies of tuberculosis at the orphanage where they were both housed), NBC Hannibal awards a similarly harrowing backstory to its eponymous antagonist (Hannibal survived a situation of prolonged starvation, which his sister Mischa did not; though this is better elucidated in the books and in fannon than in the actual text of the show). Will, by contrast, gets very little backstory, at least in the show — we are aware that his mother left, and that his father was a low-wage, itinerant worker; but this is not dwelt upon — possibly because, whereas Jane’s tragic backstory was simply a character foundation within a bildungsroman, Hannibal’s backstory appears to have been applied in order to partially humanize a popular, but uncomfortably evil, character.

[unfortunate-eggs]

This analysis was truly amazing! Thanks for the insights :)

[unfortunate-eggs]

Does anyone have any suggestions for episodes that would be good to analyse the Gothic romance of it all in Hannibal? I have some ideas of my own, but it's been a while since I've rewatched the whole series, so if you have any thoughts, please share them

[willgrahamsballsack]

[hannibal-lecters-cock]

Sometimes I take off my rose tinted Hannigram glasses and go, “Wait… he is literally a cannibal.”

Then I put my rose tinted Hannigram glasses back on and say, “Anyway, that sounds like a Will Graham problem.”

[martopiaaa]

You and I have begun to blur

[tinylilemrys]

When Shane joins the centaurs, Ilya arranges it that he gets the locker next to his. He's not passing up the chance to flirt with his half-dressed husband before and after games. Being captain comes with perks.

"You're lucky to get this locker," he tells Shane before their first practice. "Everyone in this room is always fighting to get it."

"Why, because it's the one next to yours?" says Shane, tugging a curl at the back of Ilya's head just hard enough to pull his head back playfully.

"Well, yes," laughs Ilya. "But this is also the magic locker."

Shane has that look on his face that Ilya knows means he's not sure if he wants to laugh or roll his eyes.

"The magic locker?" he says with a skeptical eyebrow and a fond smile. "I'm scared to ask what that means."

"You'll see. Is very mysterious. Science cannot explain it. You will soon see its power for yourself."

And Shane's laughing now.

"How about you get dressed so that you're not late for practice, Cap? The only power I want to see right now is your ass on the ice."

And Ilya has this stupid grin the whole way through practice that only gets wider when Shane gets back to his locker to find his favourite post-practice protein bar and an ice-cold can of ginger ale. There's a small post-it stuck to the protein bar that says "Welcome to the team, Hollander. Love, the magic locker elves. xx" It's unmistakably Ilya's handwriting.

"See?" says Ilya, delighted at how much Shane is smiling. "Mysterious."

"Super mysterious," he says, pressing a small kiss to Ilya's cheek. "Tell the elves I say thank you."

And every practice or game after that, there's always something small waiting in the locker for Shane. Because his locker is magic.

[mybloodstream-caffeine]

Just up thinking about Ilya's lil fuck boy smirk when Shane goes in for that second handshake at Saskatchewan. Soooo fucking smug cause he thinks he's got Hollander's number. He thinks he's got it alllll figured out. The blind fool. You don't even know that you just met the other half of your soul, numbnuts. THAT LIL BOY IS GONNA REARRANGE THE CENTRE OF YOUR ENTIRE GODDAMN UNIVERSE!!!! HE'S GONNA CUM FOR YOU HANDS FREE THE FIRST TIME HE DOES ANAL!!!! YOU KNOW FUCK ALL!!!!

[unfortunate-eggs]

Feeling like I'm going through life hiding a secret relationship... and I am. Its just not mine. Its the relationship of some fictional gay men 🥲🥲🥲

[unfortunate-eggs]

And you know what the worst part is... I didn't even tag the ship I'm talking about most of all...