❧ Entry No.8 | text

[avoirfaim]

[ The message that comes through on the system is text, with no preface and no explanation, a day after his return. It is, in a way, a note pinned to a communal board with a fingerprint pressed in blood. In his new room on the tenth floor, Hannibal carefully monitors the responses, making sure that any remain private. The last thing he needs is for someone with a grudge to air his dirty laundry. ]

"It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another."

H.L.

Comments

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[radiopalkiller]

You know, most people just quote the bit where he goes 'It's alive! It's alive!' and call it a day.

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[avoirfaim]

Still chatty I see. Did you ever find that tongue of yours, or will your wit continue to be reserved to the written word?

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[radiopalkiller]

Technically speaking it was never so much lost as permanently put out of commission.

[ A scenario probably worth wondering about for somebody with half the mansion after their head, although as far as shots go that one just seems as obvious as it is cheap. Speaking of trivial technicalities, however-- ]

Out of idle curiosity, is this a return, or are you just officially resurfacing?

[ Philip did wonder about those two particular absences, how could he not, but for all its limits Wonderland still makes a decent place to hide, at least half the time. ]

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[avoirfaim]

If you really consider it permanent, then you have no longer have any use for it. A chatty tongue is a terrible thing to waste.

And I would say that it's a bit of both.

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[alayne]

[ what does she say?

does she say anything? sansa has grown, certainly and no part of her shall ever forgive him, but perhaps a part of her still cannot work out the way.

men can be evil for power or because they are childishly cruel and stupid as joffrey was. but he isn't a fool and he has nothing to gain.

and at times he can be kind.

the direwolf at her side, lifts her head, growls her discontent but sansa still speaks. ]

You have been gone for quite the long time.

[ it wasn't a time of relief, not at all. ]

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[avoirfaim]

[ People like Sansa want to be loved, but not admired. They are the too often burned, who strive not for retribution or escape but for a return to something resembling normality. People like Sansa are easy to handle, if he feels up to giving her what she needs.

He's not sure he is yet, not after what he needed was so recently taken away from him. Giving, he is not. Not right now anyway. Still he smiles, a conversational quirk that does not meet his eyes. He has reverted and restarted, and not much will. ]

Not as long as I thought, it seems. Are you doing well?

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[alayne]

[ in an odd ( frightening ) manner, he reminds her of littlefinger. sansa has learned how to tell apart petyr from littlefinger and learned to be fond of one and dislike the other and learn to accept they are both side to the same coin.

but littlefinger was playing a game and this.

she's drawing a blank on what this is. ]

as well as wonderland allows us to be.

[ which is well enough, considering. at least until the next strike of chaos. ]

TEXT

[improvident]

[What Hannibal really wanted was a message from a new, unknown sender. If it helps (and it probably won't), the label on the communicator reads Yroo Xrksvi.]

I PREFER THOMAS HOBBES, MYSELF.

THE LIFE OF MAN IS SOLITARY POOR NASTY BRUTISH AND SHORT.

TEXT

[avoirfaim]

[ No, that's not helpful. It's just gibberish to store in his mind-palace until it becomes clear that it is, in fact, useless gibberish. ]

An interesting choice to focus on his negative opinions when he was, in the grand scheme of human relations, an optimist.

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[improvident]

ISN'T THAT HUMANITY IN A NUTSHELL.

[You disappoint him, Mr. Smarty-Pants McCannibal. Bill thought you might recognize an Atbash cipher.]

EVERYONE LIKES THE DINNER PARTY UNTIL THE WEIRD GUY SHOWS UP BUT THEY DESPERATELY CLING TO A HOPE THAT HE'LL LEAVE SO SOMEONE CAN BREAK OUT THE GOOD TEQUILA.

BUT YOU KNOW ALL ABOUT THROWING DINNER PARTIES, DON'T YOU.

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[undealt]

"What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?"

Welcome back.

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[avoirfaim]

Thank you. I hope I haven't missed anything interesting in my absence.

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[undealt]

[just me encouraging sansa to become a badass queen who can mow you down, bro.

i mean what.]

A brief jaunt in an arctic wasteland. I'm certain you hardly needed the healthy dose of paranoia that came with it.

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[nascensibility]

[After everything that's happened - after the time he either spent truly away or buried somewhere underground, not unlike Philip had a couple of years back - Evelyn had fostered a vain hope that he might be gone for good. How reassuring it would have been, how symmetrical, to follow Moriarty's footsteps back out of Wonderland.

Of course, things are not quite so simple as that - even history can be diverted the second time around.

The Network is therefore treated to another one of Hannibal Lecter's narcissistic platitudes; it doesn't take a literary scholar to understand the subtext all but being screamed at a bleary-eyed, Monday morning audience. When Evelyn drew the sword that day in the flat, she considered not what she was intent on killing, but what she was allowing to live.

Man, she would like to say, how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom.]

Dragging yourself out of the gutter, I see.

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[avoirfaim]

Into the gutter actually, unless you would consider Florence lacking in comparison to our gilded cage.

[ You do have a certain fondness for willing blindness to captivity, don't you? ]

Thank you for your concern, Evelyn.

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[nascensibility]

[Some people aren't lucky enough to leave.

Some are the self-appointed caretakers, the watchers, the custodians of this place because they haven't the choice. If given, Evelyn would rush home to pry her son from the clutches of an old foe, but Wonderland affords borrowed time. She was once lax with it. She won't make the same mistake again.

And so, once more, for the people in the back:]

My concern is not for you.

My concern is for others.

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[stoptheviolence]

...I think I saw a horror movie like that once.

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[avoirfaim]

No doubt you did. Do you know where the quote is from?

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[stoptheviolence]

Well, yeah. It's from you. Duh.

You wrote it, and I read it.

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[nevar]

"Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless." And then something about feeling miserable.

[Jefferson recognizes the quote. He met the good doctor himself once, so it only seemed polite to read the book once he had access to it. He doesn't know anything about the author of this text, but he commiserates with the sentiment.]

Cheerful.

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[avoirfaim]

[ As far as he's concerned, everyone should recognize the quote, though he's hardly surprised that some don't. Sheep will be sheep, mindlessly consuming. ]

Captivity isn't supposed to be. Anyone who thinks differently is lying to themselves.

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[nevar]

When you put it like that, I've known an awful lot of liars.

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[lifeskills]

<sub>[Unmistakable, to someone who has read the source of that quotation more times and with more self-interest than most English scholars could claim in a lifetime of study.

Being so intimately related to the novel in question, what else can he do but respond?]</sub>

Interesting choice.

-- V.F.

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[avoirfaim]

[ There are many things that the two doctors have in common. Aside from the obvious fascination with playing god and pushing human limits to see the musculature twitch and jump, they both have a strong drive towards complete understanding. Of course Victor would read his book upon knowing it exists; Hannibal did the same. ]

I'm glad you think so, Doctor Frankenstein. I imagine you have a good deal to say on the subject.

[lifeskills]

<sub>[Something about seeing his name printed out like this strikes him as strange. It'd never been so before Wonderland, but being here now had glossed his identity over with new context. Even so, it's reassuring that he's not the only one whose reputation proceeds him.

He recognizes Hannibal's initials loosely, from impressions not altogether positive. Familiar feeling.]</sub>

Did you expect I would recognize it?

_{[Victor certainly has his issues with believing he's the center of the known universe at times, but in this case he's not so arrogant to presume the quote had been left for him and him alone. It does call into question whether the man had picked it with that consideration in mind, though.]}

It is possible I may, as many of us outside the norm would. I cannot say they are words I would have chosen, however.

_{[The Shelleys have an unexpected knack for invading his privacy, another thing he'd come to learn in Wonderland.]}