I absolutely get Will's frustration in season 2. He was locked up and could only count on other people to find evidence. But at the same time, both Jack and Beverly didn't do such a great job.

Beverly was extremely obvious that she suspected him. She almost told Hannibal straight forward. She risked too much by inspecting his whole basement, she should have taken the thing she found in the kitchen and run.

And Jack? Jack went to Hannibal's dinner party and straight forward asked to choose the food to take home in a container. He was asking him for evidence straight forward.

So obviously Will was snarky and frustrated when he was the only one who could play this game right. He was more strategic and manipulative and he had perspective.

Well Jack had to ask Hannibal for his permission otherwise it would be stolen evidence and not admissible in court. I think he also wanted to gauge Hannibal's reaction tbh

the fact that even just saying you like jkr gets you forever labeled a bigot but all the ppl who openly supported depp get to quietly withdraw back to normalcy. no one sees an issue with that? especially considering one beat a woman & the other has donated millions to women. with the utmost sincerity, if you genuinely think jkr is some sort of dangerous transphobe I think you’ve got to be one of the dumbest fucking people on the planet. you lack the most basic critical thinking skills and follow along with whatever you’re told like a naive child. I mean it’s been years now and it genuinely baffles me. not once has she said anything bigoted. no one can even back their arguments of this claim. it’s just been decided and so the crowd follows.

https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy

Stages of Decomposition, Embroidery by calicoranger @ Etsy

I don’t think there’s much in the way of disagreement in the fandom regarding why Will probably wasn’t able to make the definitive choice to be with Hannibal in s2, but I was rewatching the back half of s2 recently, and this bit in the ortolan scene struck me particularly hard as an indicator of his uncertainty regarding where he stands with Hannibal.

Hannibal has been all-in for quite a while.  But Will has no way of knowing that, of knowing he’s special.  From his point of view, he’s probably just another one of Hannibal’s many pet murderer projects, like Margot Verger or Randall Tier… or Abigail, whom Will believes he’s killed, despite having had an obvious personal affection for her.  

He’s very clearly stating his conception of what he is to Hannibal in this scene: a delicacy, perhaps, and to be valued (savored) as one, but still something that will inevitably be consumed by their interaction.

And Hannibal, because he is the biggest dumbass in the entire show, doesn’t even try to reassure him.

Honestly!! I think it just legitimately NEVER occurs to Hannibal that Will needs reassurance about how Hannibal feels about him!!! Even though Will comes pretty close to directly asking him “am I even special” several times!!!!! I don’t know HOW Hannibal expected Will to know that Hannibal really actually thought of him differently than he did all those other people when he absolutely REFUSED to give Will anything concrete to hold onto for reassurance!!

Yes of course Hannibal does a bunch of things for Will that he wouldn’t have done for anyone else, but Will Doesn’t Know That!! All Will really knows for sure is that Hannibal has a tendency to collect protégés and then leave them worse than he found them. He knows that Hannibal was perfectly willing to murder a child he loved, that he knew Will loved, for no reason other than that she became a liability

How long before Will becomes a liability? Will is already a liability, and the moment Hannibal finds that out Will expects to mcfucking die

And Hannibal apparently has no idea about this?? He’s like “I’m being so open and loving with Will and Will is getting attached to me and we will run off and get married and raise Abigail together 😍” and apparently just doesn’t realize that Will has plenty of reason to not see quite so sunshiney a future??? And to not feel Great about going into an unknown future together that will almost certainly end in his death???

Wisdom absolutely is his dump stat. Stop talking in weird incomprehensible metaphors for one fucking minute and say what you mean, Hannibal. It would save everyone an awful lot of pain

l

(from the replies, since the above reblogger deleted what they had previously posted to add it to the replies A MONTH LATER)

When you reblogged this post a month ago with a longer version of this rebuttal, I was like “this is definitely too egregiously stupid to bother responding to,” so I just complained about it in the group chat like an adult.

But since you INSIST.  I will give you the attention you clearly, ardently want and tell you exactly why this is stupid.  

Let’s bring back the original text of your reblog for the full effect, shall we?

Anything that starts with “Telling Will…” - HANNIBAL IS A LYING LIAR WHO LIES, AND WILL KNOWS THAT NOW.  No, I don’t care what Mads says about Hannibal being essentially truthful - that’s a valid perspective and an interesting one to play around with in fic, but it doesn’t change the fact that, fundamentally, Will’s mindset any time Hannibal is making mouth-noises at him in s2, is Hannibal Is a Lying Liar Who Lies.   Hannibal abused his trust in s1 in all the most over-the-top ways possible.  That means that whatever he says to Will in s2 is fundamentally suspect.  

Literally everything Hannibal says to Will about his attitude toward Will can easily be attributed to Hannibal being a manipulative motherfucker, and the thing I was calling attention to/laughing about in the OP was that he very prominently skipped saying some things that…. might not have altered the outcome of S2, but would at least have given Will some more things to think about.  

He hasn’t done that yet in this scene in Ko No Mono.

He’s been in the FBI’s crosshairs.  Literally everything about his prominence with the FBI stuff was under his own fucking control.  He thought it was fun and amusing to participate, so he did.  He could have said no to Jack.  He instead chose to fuck around and find out.  That had nothing to do with why Will should or shouldn’t trust him.

“Fuck around and find out” is Hannibal’s key MO.  How the FUCK is that supposed to help Will understand that Hannibal genuinely loves him in a way that’s distinct from all the previously-documented ways Hannibal has interacted with his pet fledgling killers?

IN A SENSE WILL ASKED FOR IT.  

Can you fucking hear yourself?! It wasn’t clear!  From Will’s perspective that scenario was “lol I’ll send one of my murder protegés off to kill the newest murder protegé and see what happens.  And I will be pleased with any result :3.”

Alana was only ever a tool.  An enjoyable, clever tool who probably smells nice and is good in bed, but Hannibal could have been fucking her ten years ago, if he’d wanted to for genuine reasons.  He chose to start doing it when he did because it was useful to him.  Nothing about his relationship with Alana has much at all to do with genuine desire or intimacy - and whether or not anyone wants to argue about that, if nothing else that’s 120% how Will sees it.  From Will’s perspective, Hannibal began a sexual relationship with Alana as a power play (he knew about Will’s unrequited interest in her) and a threat (”I wonder how many more people are going to get hurt by what you do.  I’ll give Alana Bloom your best.”  - Futamono).  

How Hannibal behaves later in the season, when he has both of them to dinner, is still entirely him fucking around for his own amusement.  He’s not stupid; there is exactly zero chance that he wasn’t aware of the potential for awkwardness and sniping, inviting both Will and Alana to dinner.  Furthermore, he’s socially adept enough that he could have kept things lighter and more civil there if he’d actually wanted to.   Instead, the whole thing was tension you could cut with a knife, because that’s Hannibal’s idea of fun.  

I’m not sure what to say to this one, except to express my condolences that your high school English teacher failed you this spectacularly.

That’s not what he says, though!  It’s all allegorical in a way that implies intimacy while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability.  “Achilles wished all Greeks would die, so that he and Patroclus could conquer Troy alone.” Yes, of course he’s talking about himself and Will, but not in a way where it’s clear what his intentions and attitude are, from Will’s perspective, even if we set aside the fact that Will doesn’t fucking trust anything he says.  Also, this speech is in Tome-wan.

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but Will doesn’t fucking trust anything he says, in part because he only ever communicates about the emotional reality between them in allegory and metaphor.  The only times he’s blunt about it are when, from Will’s perspective, he’s transparently lying (saying he doesn’t want Will to be in prison, when Will is in prison solely and specifically because of Hannibal’s actions).  Also, this is, as you’ve noted, Mizumono, where everything is spiraling to a finish.  

Will’s awareness that Hannibal wants to be his friend, as he says to Chilton in Yakimono, doesn’t mean he understands that he is exceptional in a way that will matter to him (Will).  He has identified that Hannibal likes to encourage violence in people he has influence over.  He has also identified that Hannibal likes to fuck around and find out (”Wind him up and watch him go.” “He was curious to see what would happen.“).  

Randall Tier might well have killed Will, when Hannibal sent him after him.   That Will would come out on top in that altercation was not at all a foregone conclusion - far from it, even; Tier had several advantages.  

From Hannibal’s perspective, maybe this was Will proving how amazing and suitable a partner he was, but from Will’s perspective, this was Hannibal blithely rolling the damn dice with his life.  He never, in s2, has any solid reason to believe he’s different from any other murder protégé of Hannibal’s.  He’s aware that Hannibal is interested and invested in what his murder protégés do, but that’s not the same thing as prioritizing their well-being at all!  (See: Randall was a murder protégé, but he sent him into a death match with Will.  Margot was a murder protégé, but he all but spelled out the fact that she was trying to have a baby to Mason!  Being Hannibal’s murder protégé does not grant anyone immunity from the fuck-around-and-find-out-ness, far from it.)

So, back to my original point: Will has no credible reason to believe he’s special to Hannibal, in s2.  Anything Hannibal says is suspect, because he’s a lying liar who lies.  All of what Hannibal does just reinforces the idea that Hannibal occasionally enjoys Hunger Games-ing his murder protégés, and isn’t too fussed about who comes out on top.  Maybe Hannibal wouldn’t have fed Randall Tier a perfectly-roasted ortolan bunting after a successful kill, but Will has no way of knowing that.  

He hasn’t done that yet in this scene in Ko No Mono.

Yes he did? He gave up the Chesapeake Ripper to Chilton, a man he barely respected, and when Will came back to therapy he said the Chesapeake Ripper is over. Considering how angry he was about Gideon taking the credit way back in S1, this says a lot. 

He’s been in the FBI’s crosshairs.  Literally everything about his prominence with the FBI stuff was under his own fucking control.  He thought it was fun and amusing to participate, so he did.  He could have said no to Jack.  He instead chose to fuck around and find out.  That had nothing to do with why Will should or shouldn’t trust him.

No he was not in the FBI’s crosshairs in s1 or before that. Literally no one knew or suspected who the Ripper for years even while Hannibal was toying with them. By getting Will out of prison and killing all those people, Hannibal put himself under heavy suspicion and scrutiny. Jack investigated him three different times. If the evidence for Chilton being the Ripper was found to be suspect, he could even end up jailed. Hannibal made immense sacrifices for Will.

“Fuck around and find out” is Hannibal’s key MO.  How the FUCK is that supposed to help Will understand that Hannibal genuinely loves him in a way that’s distinct from all the previously-documented ways Hannibal has interacted with his pet fledgling killers?

He literally told Will he was unique, starting way back from season 1. “You’re alone because you are unique”. Will echoes this back to him, saying “You’re right. We’re both alone. And we’re alone without each other”. He understood Hannibal. As for how it’s different, Hannibal didn’t kill Will when he was a liability or danger to him, when he killed others for way less. For example, Will thinks Hannibal killed Abigail because she saw what he truly was. Considering Hannibal didn’t kill Will for the same reason, that puts him in a privileged position. Also, Will understands that what Hannibal did was for his rebirth into a killer, as he tells Hannibal when he resumes therapy.

IN A SENSE WILL ASKED FOR IT.  

Can you fucking hear yourself?! It wasn’t clear!  From Will’s perspective that scenario was “lol I’ll send one of my murder protegés off to kill the newest murder protegé and see what happens.  And I will be pleased with any result :3.

Will basically asked for it because he said he longed for the feeling of power that came from killing someone and that Hannibal stopping him killing Ingram as a mistake. After that Hannibal sent him Randall, after they had a whole discussion about Will killing with his hands “to claim his power”. And Hannibal makes it clear to Will that Randall is a gift meant for his Becoming. Will also recognises it as a correspondence between equals, because he says it’s Hannibal’s favor in return for Will sending Matthew Brown. You’re trying to make it seem like Will had negative feelings about Hannibal sending Randall to him, but he smiled after returning the body and allowed Hannibal to bandage his hands. Will later continues this game between them by sending Mason Verger after Hannibal. He knows it’s not Hannibal setting up Will simply for fun, it’s part of the “chess player” dynamic that they have which Hugh Dancy talks about. 

Alana was only ever a tool.  An enjoyable, clever tool who probably smells nice and is good in bed, but Hannibal could have been fucking her ten years ago, if he’d wanted to for genuine reasons.  He chose to start doing it when he did because it was useful to him.  Nothing about his relationship with Alana has much at all to do with genuine desire or intimacy - and whether or not anyone wants to argue about that, if nothing else that’s 120% how Will sees it.  From Will’s perspective, Hannibal began a sexual relationship with Alana as a power play (he knew about Will’s unrequited interest in her) and a threat (”I wonder how many more people are going to get hurt by what you do.  I’ll give Alana Bloom your best.”  - Futamono).  

How Hannibal behaves later in the season, when he has both of them to dinner, is still entirely him fucking around for his own amusement.  He’s not stupid; there is exactly zero chance that he wasn’t aware of the potential for awkwardness and sniping, inviting both Will and Alana to dinner.  Furthermore, he’s socially adept enough that he could have kept things lighter and more civil there if he’d actually wanted to.   Instead, the whole thing was tension you could cut with a knife, because that’s Hannibal’s idea of fun.  

Will essentially told Alana to back off after she inquires into their relationship and told her that he and Hannibal know where they are with each other then smiled smugly at her. His jealousy was clear. Also, no, Hannibal did not have a shared dinner for “fun”, it was to have an interesting interaction between those characters and set up Freddie’s potential death. Hannibal failing to discredit Alana’s suspicions about him and Will and not even backing her up showed how far Will had pulled him in. His luring had worked.

And you say he isn’t stupid but your whole post was essentially calling him stupid for not making it clear to Will he was special.

I’m not sure what to say to this one, except to express my condolences that your high school English teacher failed you this spectacularly

If you missed the signs that Hannibal considers Will his god, then I think you missed a big part of the show. In Ko No Mono, when Will asks him what god he prays to, in the script it says Hannibal “looks at Will as if the answer is obvious”. Hannibal was basically calling Will a divine being in that dinner. And there’s more hints throughout the show that they are each other’s god.

That’s not what he says, though!  It’s all allegorical in a way that implies intimacy while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability.  “Achilles wished all Greeks would die, so that he and Patroclus could conquer Troy alone.” Yes, of course he’s talking about himself and Will, but not in a way where it’s clear what his intentions and attitude are, from Will’s perspective, even if we set aside the fact that Will doesn’t fucking trust anything he says.  Also, this speech is in Tome-wan.

Yes, Tome-Wan is after Ko No Mono, so it’s after Will said the whole thing about being roasted. And if Will didn’t trust or understand what Hannibal was getting at, why does he try to get Hannibal to kill Jack after that speech? He picked up on that Hannibal would have killed anyone to have Will to himself and used this to his advantage to get him caught. 

Also, why are you calling Hannibal stupid for not picking up on Will’s metaphor (which he did pick up on btw) that he hasn’t been roasted or whatever, but you think it’s totally fair that Hannibal’s metaphors would fly over Will’s head? Hannibal and Will communicate almost entirely in metaphors so the idea that Will didn’t understand Hannibal has no basis.

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but Will doesn’t fucking trust anything he says, in part because he only ever communicates about the emotional reality between them in allegory and metaphor.  The only times he’s blunt about it are when, from Will’s perspective, he’s transparently lying (saying he doesn’t want Will to be in prison, when Will is in prison solely and specifically because of Hannibal’s actions).  Also, this is, as you’ve noted, Mizumono, where everything is spiraling to a finish.  

Will was in prison because Hannibal was forced to put him in prison for self preservation. He makes it clear to Will that he regrets it and doesn’t want Will in there. Will understands this and takes advantage of Hannibal’s need for friendship, appealing for his help. He has a dream about the Ravenstag leading him out of his cell (the symbol for their relationship). He has a dream about Hannibal calling him his Beloved and telling him he wants him to reach his potential. He knows. Even Hugh Dancy said Will knew Hannibal needed him and took advantage of Hannibal’s need for friendship the whole season.

Will doesn’t trust anything he says. Okay. That’s why Hannibal says he wants him to believe in the best of himself and that he can trust him and kept reassuring him throughout the season. So your main point, that Hannibal doesn’t try to reassure Will at all, is completely wrong and you missed half the show.

Look at that! Hannibal is such a dumbass he didn’t try to reassure Will at all!

Will’s awareness that Hannibal wants to be his friend, as he says to Chilton in Yakimono, doesn’t mean he understands that he is exceptional in a way that will matter to him (Will).  He has identified that Hannibal likes to encourage violence in people he has influence over.  He has also identified that Hannibal likes to fuck around and find out (”Wind him up and watch him go.” “He was curious to see what would happen.“).  

He tells Hannibal they’re both alone, that they’re alone without each other. Will understands that Hannibal is lonely and that he is the sole person who wants to be seen by Hannibal and that Hannibal wants his partnership. His whole plan as he laid out to Jack was to enforce codependency.

From Hannibal’s perspective, maybe this was Will proving how amazing and suitable a partner he was, but from Will’s perspective, this was Hannibal blithely rolling the damn dice with his life.  He never, in s2, has any solid reason to believe he’s different from any other murder protégé of Hannibal’s.  He’s aware that Hannibal is interested and invested in what his murder protégés do, but that’s not the same thing as prioritizing their well-being at all!  (See: Randall was a murder protégé, but he sent him into a death match with Will.  Margot was a murder protégé, but he all but spelled out the fact that she was trying to have a baby to Mason!  Being Hannibal’s murder protégé does not grant anyone immunity from the fuck-around-and-find-out-ness, far from it.)

So, back to my original point: Will has no credible reason to believe he’s special to Hannibal, in s2.  Anything Hannibal says is suspect, because he’s a lying liar who lies.  All of what Hannibal does just reinforces the idea that Hannibal occasionally enjoys Hunger Games-ing his murder protégés, and isn’t too fussed about who comes out on top.  Maybe Hannibal wouldn’t have fed Randall Tier a perfectly-roasted ortolan bunting after a successful kill, but Will has no way of knowing that.  

I don’t know why you’re turning Will into such a dumbass. His whole fishing operation was predicated on knowing he was special to Hannibal and making him dependent on him until he has no one else.

Hannibal made it clear to Will, multiple times, that he loved Will and that he would burn down the whole world for Will. If Will didn’t get this, he wouldn’t tell Chilton Hannibal didn’t simply kill him and that he let him out because he wanted him to be his friend. If Will didn’t get this, he wouldn’t dream of Hannibal telling him he loved him. If Will didn’t get this, he wouldn’t have gone on to lure Hannibal in the first place. If Will didn’t get this, he wouldn’t try to manipulate Hannibal by telling him all that they have is each other. If Will didn’t get this, he wouldn’t have tried to get Hannibal to kill Jack in proclamation of their friendship. Furthermore, I forgot to add this to my Achilles and Patroclus point, but by comparing himself to Achilles, Hannibal basically told Will that he would grieve for Will’s death greatly and would kill anyone else for Will. Hannibal bandaging Will’s hands with such gentleness shows Hannibal that he doesn’t want Will to be unnecessarily injured. Hannibal also told Will that he has great faith in Will. So he obviously did not want or expect Will to die. 

Does Will think Hannibal has candlelit dinners with all his proteges? Does Will think Hannibal risks his life, profession and livelihood for all his proteges? Nope. Will only met Randall because Randall was involved in a case he was working on. Hannibal was not having intimate dinners with him or risking himself for him, he was a past patient and Hannibal had not spoken to him in years. He met him coincidentally. Hannibal was not planning on burning his entire life in Baltimore for Randall or run away with him. This is another way Hannibal put himself at risk by exposing his patient files to Will and trusting him to burn them. 

Will might have doubts, but not because Hannibal was a dumbass who didn’t try to reassure him.

If you think Hannibal telling Will things is useless because “he’s a liar”, if you think him showing Will he’s special is useless as well, then I go back to my original sentence, I don’t know what else you think he could have done.

Long post

I’ve been thinking about Will brushing off Hannibal’s romantic overtures, and I know we’ve had our fun with the soup insult and the cow analogy and how adorable it is that Will gets away with so much, but it strikes me how sad and hopeless those moments really are. 

In Dolce, Will may be drugged out of his mind but he still reacts to the absurdity of Hannibal talking about doing normal couple things while spoon-feeding him soup that’s supposed to make his brain taste better. “The soup isn’t very good” isn’t really a bratty remark, it’s Will feebly fighting back in the only way available to him at the time: gallows humor of the darkest order. 

In TWOTL, Will can only partially unpack what Hannibal is saying to him, which is, “I’m such an asshole that instead of simply telling you that I care about you, I will talk about how inconvenient it is for me to care about you, and then I’ll make up for it by eagerly taking a bullet for you and not letting you get killed and hope you’ll catch my drift”. All Will probably hears is, “grr I wish I could just stab you with this corkscrew”. The concept of Hannibal having compassion for him still registers as absurd, and he states what he thinks is the brutal truth of their relationship. Depressingly enough, Hannibal is teetering on the brink of not being an asshole here, but it’s his fault and his only that Will isn’t equipped to recognize that. Over many years, Hannibal has unwittingly conditioned Will to associate his presence with pain and suffering, and even realizing that Hannibal loves him changes nothing for Will. He feels that his own need for Hannibal is punishable, and that Hannibal’s need for him is merely something he can use to dole out said punishment. 

Based on this, one of my S4 headcanons is that post-fall!Hannibal is in a markedly healthier place than Will. While their love for each other has undone them both, all Hannibal needs to be okay again is constant reassurance that Will does in fact love him and isn’t going anywhere, and maybe some physical affection now and again. What Will needs to hopefully eventually be okay is a whole lot of therapy and “reprogramming”, and only then constant reassurance and physical affection. 

Hrm, not so sure about this latter section. At work now, so I’ll mull it over.

Heh ok, as it happens I’ve been mulling over the former section because it occurred to me that Will couldn’t have been reacting specifically to the absurdity of Hannibal talking about wanting to show him Florence while feeding him brain seasoning. But he did know he’d had his turn at freeing himself and that it was now Hannibal’s turn, and based on the fact that Hannibal had yet again drugged and immobilized him he had probably sussed out that something terrible was about to happen. Still, it’s debatable if the soup remark and the even more important “what’s for dinner?” question were Will’s dark sarcasm seeping through the drug haze. 

Well, Will did just tell Hannibal he was going to watch the Dragon kill and defile his body. I think it would be hard to react positively to that.

by ghost‏

Portrait by Dan Beck

VIBE CHECK

This has nothing to do with the Dornish, but I really don’t understand the appeal of making Renly Brienne’s best friend in so many fics. Like…from my perspective, the whole point of Renly is that, for all his charm, he’s got very little that’s actually likable. Underneath it all, he’s this highly arrogant, deeply unpleasant person that has literally never done anything useful in his life. He wants to send assassins after a pregnant teenager, he can’t resist the urge to be cruel about his own niece, and, oh, yeah - he declares war on his brother for the sake of getting the throne he would have eventually gotten anyway.

It was pretty clear that Stannis and Selyse were never going to have a son. And Stannis very explicitly referred to Rhaenyra as committing treason for fighting for the throne. Since she was the elder and her father had named her his heir…the only reason Stannis has to believe her a traitor is that he believed that the prioritization of the male line over the female meant that no woman should sit the Iron Throne. Since Stannis is a principles zealot, that means Renly was it. Even though Stannis later tells his bannermen that Shireen is his heir and that they should fight to seat her on the throne…that seems to have only been the case because there was no one left to be his heir. So Renly would have been next in line! He contributed to ripping the realm apart for no reason!

Even if you set all that aside because Stannis isn’t the world’s best dude either - though that’s a whole rant in and of itself - and most fic writers seem to ignore Shireen and whatever and just look at the way Renly treats Brienne…he doesn’t actually care about her. He looks at her as someone that’s useful to him. Not a friend, not someone whose feelings matter, just someone whose loyalty he can gain through no effort - just a smile and a dance when charm has always been easy for him. He knows she’s in love with him. He knows both that all she wants is to die for him and exactly why that is.  Renly insisted upon calling his own niece, a little girl that had done nothing at all to him or anyone, ugly for no reason. There’s no way in hell what Loras relayed to Jaime was inaccurate. So that means even though he mocks her in private and calls her ridiculous, he’s willing to use her as a human shield because he feels so entitled to her devotion. He would never be willing to put himself in harm’s way for her. But he feels her doing it for him is his due, and not just because he’s her liege lord, but because she cares about him as a person.

It’s especially ironic, because as terrible as Robert is, I think his charm has more depth to it. Robert didn’t charm people because he wanted something from them, he did it because he couldn’t stand the idea of not being liked. It borders on pathological, and it’s one of those traits that we see far more of the negative side of in Robert than the positive, but it’s genuine. Renly, though - Renly is a nice veneer with very little that’s likeable below it. His charm is a strategy, rather than an intrinsic quality.

And then you have Brienne: a wide eyed idealist, so used to cruelty that someone extending basic manners won him her loyalty for life. She wants so desperately to believe in chivalry and true knights that she can’t see Renly for the selfish person he is. Not because she’s stupid, but because she has to believe in something, someone, and Renly, in theory, has the traits of a good king. Brienne is loyal to people and a set of principles, not causes, and she’s deeply, fervently. loyal. Sansa has come to believe no one will ever love her for her, just what she can get them. Brienne has come to believe that even the island she’s the heir to isn’t enough for someone to love her. She’s, what, eighteen? Ish? And she’s been battered down by cruelty. When she cares about someone, it’s completely. So she deserves friends that actually care about her. And throughout the story, the only thing close to a friend we see her with is Jaime! Which is really, really depressing because for most of the time while they’re wandering around the countryside together, he’s trying to crush her dreams, make her stop believing in what matters to her. It’s painful and it’s him trying to help in the worst way possible and it slowly evolves into an actual friendship. It makes all those fics about Brienne and Renly’s friendship even worse for me by demonstrating just how little Renly ever cared about her.

Is this a show thing? Because Renly got so much adaptational heroism? Because I genuinely don’t understand what about him makes people view him as a good dude.

So is there any reason you decided to write a huge anti Renly post in the Renly tag itself? Exercise common decency please. Renly is an easy candidate for Brienne's best friend because Brienne doesn't interact with many people (and because of the gay best friend trope). Besides, these are fanfics. These are AUs. It doesn't mean the author views Renly as a good person.

this pride month instead of giving money to corporations for tweeting a rainbow once put your money where your ally mouth is and kill woody allen

“what does killing woody allen have to do with pride???”

I’m gay and it would make me happy.

aesthetic: the three headed rat queen from the russian nutcracker movie and her three headed rat son

don’t ever talk to me or me or me or my son or my son or my son again

british ppl be like……today is chewsday