What To Read
I'm not organised enough to be much of a reccer. Or at all. I was thinking about that while I was angrily reading other people's recs of Hannibal fic that turned out to be bad. Why aren't they reccing better stuff! WHY AREN'T PEOPLE DOING ME FAVOURS THAT I WANT.
My inability to rec comes from being generally disorganised (I forget to do it, I forget what I read, I waffle over whether I could rec this without qualification, I get annoyed at whatever platform I'm using and fail to bookmark) and from my weird compulsion to delete my ao3 history. Stories I wanted to revisit are lost to me forever because I can't stop myself from clicking that button.
To help and punish myself, I used my browser history to retread my path. It's doable right now, because I've only been reading Hannibal fic for a month. I still recognise the stories I dropped behind me as I meandered.
I've also read enough in the fandom by now to know my wants and my do not wants.
Wants: anything that captures the ridiculous level of deliberately pretentious #aesthetic that is the show. Anything that believably replicates the style of the dialogue (there's a post that went around tumblr a while ago with stuff clipped from reddit about writing Hannibal dialogue - 'pretentious statement + "Tell me, Will" + question about how this pretentious statement relates to Will'. It was perfect and accurate and obviously I can no longer find it.) Detailed looks into Will Graham's experience of the world - be it his magic profiling ability, his tendency to mimicry, his attempts at social interaction. Will and Hannibal experiencing each other in a way that could follow from the show. Outside POV of their interactions.
Do Not Wants: alternate universes. Really, anything where Hannibal is not a cannibal. WHAT IS THE POINT. I mean, I know what the point is, but I don't need or want that. A/B/O, for fuck's sake - another thing where I know what the point is, I just don't want it. Stories where Will and Hannibal aren't mutually obsessed, ha ha. I read some stories written after s1 or midway through s2 that were noticeably less romantic than the show itself. Like, the fanfic author extrapolating from the text failed to take it as far into OH MY GOD THEY DID IT FOR LOVE as the show itself. A reasonable reading or just failure of imagination? idk. Taking Will's rage and thirst for revenge in s2 as too unconflicted, I guess. His attempts to kill Hannibal as a true denial of any connection. And Dark!Will. Serial killer Will, or unresisting murder husband Will, or even unconcerned with collateral damage Will. I mean, it's a spectrum, and I'm willing to go a ways there (as is the show, obviously) but the moment it stops feeling like a natural extrapolation, it stops being sexy. I just noped out of a story where I'd previously nodded along because Will killed to cover his own tracks. It felt kind of gross and banal. I didn't want to read that. Maybe a better writer would have sold it. That goes for everything, I suppose. There's a very good writer in the fandom whose plots or devices don't always convince me (as based-on-canon characterisation, etc), but in-story I'm down because everything is internally consistent and beautifully written.
...
...
weeks pass
...
...
uh... I wrote all that and then just... left the entry open and unposted and went about my business for several weeks. During those weeks I read a bunch of stories. I read a bunch of stories that were the things I don't want but I liked some of them anyway, just to be contrary. Some setbacks, of course... Recently I read one that was very long and decently written. For the first 120k words or so, I was along for the ride, I was going okay, okay, yeah, I feel this, I can see it, no problem. And then - and I did see it coming, sort of, but I was in denial because it was a long, decent story and those are rare enough - it was as if the writer gave up trying to plot Will into submission, and just let Hannibal take over the Will characterisation.
When your story reads like fanfic written by Hannibal, you've officially noped me out.
However! I did make a valiant attempt to stop deleting my ao3 history. I've got like seven pages there and it HURTS me every time I look at it, but I haven't deleted! I mean, like, all of it. I've deleted the bad stories. And if there's more than one story by the same author, I delete those. I bookmarked a few and then deleted those stories from the history. Right.
Maybe my next project will be answering comments. The struggle is real.
My inability to rec comes from being generally disorganised (I forget to do it, I forget what I read, I waffle over whether I could rec this without qualification, I get annoyed at whatever platform I'm using and fail to bookmark) and from my weird compulsion to delete my ao3 history. Stories I wanted to revisit are lost to me forever because I can't stop myself from clicking that button.
To help and punish myself, I used my browser history to retread my path. It's doable right now, because I've only been reading Hannibal fic for a month. I still recognise the stories I dropped behind me as I meandered.
I've also read enough in the fandom by now to know my wants and my do not wants.
Wants: anything that captures the ridiculous level of deliberately pretentious #aesthetic that is the show. Anything that believably replicates the style of the dialogue (there's a post that went around tumblr a while ago with stuff clipped from reddit about writing Hannibal dialogue - 'pretentious statement + "Tell me, Will" + question about how this pretentious statement relates to Will'. It was perfect and accurate and obviously I can no longer find it.) Detailed looks into Will Graham's experience of the world - be it his magic profiling ability, his tendency to mimicry, his attempts at social interaction. Will and Hannibal experiencing each other in a way that could follow from the show. Outside POV of their interactions.
Do Not Wants: alternate universes. Really, anything where Hannibal is not a cannibal. WHAT IS THE POINT. I mean, I know what the point is, but I don't need or want that. A/B/O, for fuck's sake - another thing where I know what the point is, I just don't want it. Stories where Will and Hannibal aren't mutually obsessed, ha ha. I read some stories written after s1 or midway through s2 that were noticeably less romantic than the show itself. Like, the fanfic author extrapolating from the text failed to take it as far into OH MY GOD THEY DID IT FOR LOVE as the show itself. A reasonable reading or just failure of imagination? idk. Taking Will's rage and thirst for revenge in s2 as too unconflicted, I guess. His attempts to kill Hannibal as a true denial of any connection. And Dark!Will. Serial killer Will, or unresisting murder husband Will, or even unconcerned with collateral damage Will. I mean, it's a spectrum, and I'm willing to go a ways there (as is the show, obviously) but the moment it stops feeling like a natural extrapolation, it stops being sexy. I just noped out of a story where I'd previously nodded along because Will killed to cover his own tracks. It felt kind of gross and banal. I didn't want to read that. Maybe a better writer would have sold it. That goes for everything, I suppose. There's a very good writer in the fandom whose plots or devices don't always convince me (as based-on-canon characterisation, etc), but in-story I'm down because everything is internally consistent and beautifully written.
...
...
weeks pass
...
...
uh... I wrote all that and then just... left the entry open and unposted and went about my business for several weeks. During those weeks I read a bunch of stories. I read a bunch of stories that were the things I don't want but I liked some of them anyway, just to be contrary. Some setbacks, of course... Recently I read one that was very long and decently written. For the first 120k words or so, I was along for the ride, I was going okay, okay, yeah, I feel this, I can see it, no problem. And then - and I did see it coming, sort of, but I was in denial because it was a long, decent story and those are rare enough - it was as if the writer gave up trying to plot Will into submission, and just let Hannibal take over the Will characterisation.
When your story reads like fanfic written by Hannibal, you've officially noped me out.
However! I did make a valiant attempt to stop deleting my ao3 history. I've got like seven pages there and it HURTS me every time I look at it, but I haven't deleted! I mean, like, all of it. I've deleted the bad stories. And if there's more than one story by the same author, I delete those. I bookmarked a few and then deleted those stories from the history. Right.
Maybe my next project will be answering comments. The struggle is real.