No but can I make a serious observation about this? Because it’s easy to joke that Fuller failed in his original project but I don’t think he did.
Fuller’s original plan was to explore platonic (as in nonromantic and nonsexual) male friendship in Hannibal, right? The point of this should’ve beent to create a deep and affectionate amical love that was different than the many male friendships you see on TV and in real-life where, especially in the american model, there’s this normalized pretense of detachment. Fuller has unsurprisingly gone on record saying that he thinks bro culture is gross. That’s what he wanted to do different in his show, and that’s also why he cared about heterosexual!Will Graham. Will was supposed to be a straight character that’s far from a dudebro, who isn’t concerned with not looking gay, is emotionally available in a friendship with another man, ok with being vulnerable in it, and displays gestures of tender amical affection.
But, hear me out. Dudebro rituals and affectations are all built around the goal of distancing yourself as much as possible from the concept and the practice of male homosexuality, intended both as sexual intimacy and as same-sex romance. Dudebro culture revolves around creating a false dichotomy in male relationships between amical behaviors on the one hand, and romantic/sexual feelings and behaviors on the other. That’s artificial because in reality the two virtually always mingle, even for people we genuinely only want to be friends with. Holding hands, for example, can be both amical and romantic. But where for women it’s more acceptable to blur the line, for men much less so. In short, dudebro-style friendship is centrally preoccupied with A) exorcising the threat of homosexuality/homoromanticism, B) prevent as many chances as possible for homosxuality/romanticism to happen.
The contrary of this is also true, though. A model of friendship that’s more tender, intimate and full of gentle touch as means of affection, is a model that actively entails the blurring of lines and admits the existence of male/male romance and sexual desire. It’s a model in which those are recognized as possibilities that are not entirely other than the practices found in friendship. Homosociality and homosexuality have lots of contact points and intersections in this model; there’s nowhere near the same complex system designed to make sure one doesn’t tip over into the other as there is in dudebro-style friendship. The ‘risk’ (by dudebro standards) of ‘becoming queer’ is ever-present, but more than that, it’s actually much easier to ‘slip’ into queerness.
That’s the whole point. When you construct a friendship like that, unlike what happens in dudebro culture, it’s a friendship constructed on the premise that it could turn romantic, and it’s a friendship whose practices are much more blurred with typical romantic practices. Nothing is stopping it from happening if not other factors (prefer the person as friend only, no attraction, rational decision, etc.). A factor could also be incompatible orientation, like if say at least one of the people involved were straight, but this slippery model of friendship is still based on the premise that currently identifying as an incompatible orientation doesn’t necessarily dispel the chance of evolving into romance, and still has a mode of displaying affection that easily blurs with romantic. That’s why dudebro culture is so afraid of it, suddenly there’s no safeguard. And with Hannibal and Will’s relationship, Fuller absolutely succeeded in creating a friendship of this type. Hannibal and Will are never concerned with policing each other’s gestures or their own to not ‘look gay’, and long before any realization that they’re in love they show affection in ways that can both be amical and romantic (e.g. covering the other with a blanket for comfort, touching hands tenderly…). And simultaneously they were written as coming quickly to share a deep, layered intimacy that is normally non-existent or mistified in dudebro-style friendships. Theirs is simply a slippery-type friendship that at some unclear point tipped over into romance (and likewise might tip over into sexual intimacy later).
So whether he realizes this or not, it’s not that Fuller failed in his original plan but rather it’s that, exactly like he wanted, he created a friendship that by design entails a certain romantic/sexual fluidity no matter what you identify as at the moment. And that simply happened to carry a previously heterosexual-identifying character into queerness because of how that possibility for fluidity came into being for him.
me, bursting through your bedroom wall in a shower of dust: bUT that hug before they go onstage is what we’ve always wanted from One Direction, and that’s what makes them unsustainable as a phenomenon. What we always wanted from them was what they did not give to us intentionally
you: wh
me, briskly removing my shoes and shaking fragments of rubble out of them: One Direction is perhaps the first band to exist entirely within the Panopticon, from the very beginning, and yet even that was not enough for us. Can you imagine how difficult it would become to hold onto a “self” when what people want most from you are the moments of your life that specifically are NOT FOR THEM? It wasn’t just what they DID, we wanted to know what they FELT, constantly. We demanded to know but we did not want to be TOLD. The knowledge could only be “authentic” if it was not meant for us
you: why are you in my house
me, climbing into your bed and pulling your blankets up to my chin: The endless “documentaries,” the social media – we had an unprecedented, and unprecedentedly intimate, degree of access to these people, and still what we valued most were secrets and accidents. What we wanted was their interiority, and when we could not have that we invented it. Wouldn’t you resent having to constantly be GRATEFUL for that grasping, rapacious love? I would
you: are you crying?
me: We wanted to love them by devouring them, and now we have nothing to eat but our own hearts. can you bring me a hot water bottle
There’s something intensely unhealthy going on when parents discourage age-appropriate independence. A 13 year old should probably be allowed to go see a film with their friends most of the time. A 16 year old should probably be allowed to drive/ride a bus/bike to a friend’s house most of the time. An 18 year old should probably be allowed to travel overnight with their friends most of the time. A 20+ year old should be allowed to come and go as they please, with some common-sense “Let’s talk this ‘move to Finland’ plan of your over before you follow through on it” exceptions.
Parents should want their children to enjoy going out and doing things on their own and with their friends. They should be delighted that their child wants to have a life of their own. A rich, fulfilling life outside the home and distinct from parents and family is important, and parents should want their child to have that.
Today on “I think a white person wrote this”
Umm…No. this isn’t a “white person” issue. I’m Black & EVERYTHING she just described in the post is 100% relevant. We gotta stop writing off discussions about unhealthy & overly strict parenting as “white people shit”. It’s so old and tired. 😒
Parents need to give children space to discover who they are and give them certain independence because one day they’ll be on their own, and they need to know how to solve issues and move through life. Overprotection is as damaging to a child as neglecting them.
Chlorine dioxide is basically bleach that gets peddled as a cure for autism.
Parents give this to autistic kids either by mouth or as an enema.
They assume the distress, pain, and mucus being vomited or pooped out is “ropeworms” aka they assume it is the autism “leaving the child’s body.” This is actually the mucous membranes from the child’s digestive tract being burned off.
These awful, horrible, very bad people are destroying their child’s body and causing them immense pain and distress because they want to cure autism. The child learns that if they act autistic, they get hurt, so they stop acting autistic and the parent calls that “cured”.
Any parent who does this should be in prison for child abuse.
If you know of a parent who is doing this to their child, report them to the authorities immediately and get those children out of that abusive home.
So I read up on it and what’s actually happening is much more nefarious than even what the post says. Well-meaning but dangerously misguided parents are unintentionally poisoning their kids, and it’s making it impossible to tell who’s doing it on purpose and who’s not.
So a mixture of sodium chlorite and hydrochloric acid is being sold under the name Miracle Mineral Solution, presumably to sound like a wholesome, “natural” treatment for a wide range of conditions including autism and Alzheimer’s. I also came across an article advocating its use to treat cancers.
In the body these chemicals combine to make the same kind of bleach you use to clean the house with. It’s dangerous and can’t feel good, but it usually isn’t lethal. The way these sick fuckers have tricked people into killing their kids is so sneaky it’s hard to tell what the parent’s intents are.
The way that the bleach becomes chlorine dioxide, a much more powerful, lethal bleach, is that people recommend drinking fruit juice with or directly after it. To most people this would seem harmless. “Fruit is all-natural and always healthy” they might think, but it acidifies the bleach, turning it into chlorine dioxide, which kills.
I have a feeling one reason they did this is that if chlorine dioxide gets banned or people realize what chlorine dioxide is, their product doesn’t technically contain chlorine dioxide, and unless people understand the chemical process, which they probably don’t, they still won’t realize the kind of damage they’re doing.
So don’t just report them if you know they’re using chlorine dioxide, report them if you hear them talk about Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) or if you see a bottle that looks like this.
Also, if you know anyone who’s using this to treat a condition, warn them. The 1 person I know of who’s died from this was actually an old man who was self-administering it.
"Technically, you killed him." 