#fannibalcascade

1. Shipping goggles

The fannibalcascade blog has stated in their introductory post already that they want to view the s3 finale without shipper goggles. So far, so good. However in this post they reveal the existence of a sideblog they have. It's been edited out by now and I'm unlucky not to be able to provide that evidence but said sideblog was revealed to be @/lecterlure. lecterlure has also been participating in replying to other blogger's responses to baiting anons, basically giving the typical fannibalcascade takes. As a benefit of the doubt I will also say however that according to themself the fannibalcascade blog is run by three people and lecterlure could be either of them. It adds up timewise for me since the first content on the lecterlure blog is from the beginning of January.

I'm bringing up lecterlure in the context of shipping goggles because as of me writing this there are just over 60 posts on the lecterlure blog which focuses on the book and Hopkins film version of the Hannibal canon. Half of the posts on that blog are unambiguously about Clannibal. (Yes, I counted.)

Nothing wrong with Clannibal, of course! You do you. The reason I'm pointing it out is just because it seems that the Hannigram faction is not the only one with shipping goggles. Considering they claim that they ship "neither", I just find that very untransparent.

EDIT: in the notes of this post lecterlure said that she is one of the three but NOT the one mainly running the fannibalcascade blog. My assumption that the two are the same people is therefore null and they are to be regarded as two people! She is only little involved in the blog's postings, merely sharing theories with thel and reading over the posts. Nevertheless, I'll bring her up again in some points since she is associated with the fc blog and whether that is her intention or not her interactions do reflect back on the fannibalcascade blog.

2. Cherrypicking

When they were called out for cherrypicking metas, they replied they didn't. The metas they've reblogged are from bonearenaofmyskull and mendelsohnben respectively. Said metas had been posted in the years 2015 and 2016. You'd have to do some digging to find them to reblog them straight from the ops.

Not to mention that there is a huge amount of Hannibal meta posts around when you search the tag for it. So to claim that out of those many, many meta posts, you organically found metas from over 8 years ago that apparently agree with your viewpoint - the view point of a minority in the fandom - does not come across to me as very believable. You've got to have searched for those.

3. How they talk about Hannigram shippers and handle criticism

Most of the criticism they received for their bahaviour around sending anons, cherrypicking, and reblogging ship posts to exercise "fandom critique" was, admittedly worded quite harshly and I don't endorse that. That said, it's not entirely unfounded.

There is two posts I'd like to highlight for this point. In this one they refer to the people who criticise them on anon as "pathetic teenagers" or "teenage conspirators" with "delusional takes". The "delusional" take being that fannibalcascade is behind the anons that people have received. While I can't 100% make the claim that fannibalcascade is in fact behind those anons - and I don't actually think they are behind all of them - I find it suspicious how the anon activity coincides with the activity of the fannibalcascade blog and how you can find the lecterlure account participating in the notes. The only other clue I can offer is how this anon highlighted the blog name in red, which is a very fannibalcascade thing to do since they like to highlight things in red in their posts.

The other post I want to highlight in this regard is this one where they mock shippers for thinking that getting validation from a bigger blog means they're right, and "How naive does one have to be to rely on someone else to stand for their points?" Which is rich coming from someone who reblogs the (old) metas of other bigger blogs to validate their own point, and are incapable of forming their own meta since their original meta posts are basically just repetitions of those they've reblogged. This is, for example, is just repeating this one by bonearenaofmyskull, but cherrypicked, reblogged only hours earlier.

In this same second post, they also point out how contradictory the statements of Hannigram shippers are, as if that was some big "gotcha". It's very likely that the people they mean here are, well, different people with different view points about the same thing. This is only a "gotcha" if it was the same person.

So my point here is: I find their handling of criticism and stance on shippers condescending, devaluing and not indicative of someone who's interested in a discussion on equal footing.

3.5. Middle school-isms

This is only a minor point but I wanted to point out how very middle schoolish their "arguments" sometimes are. They act all innocent when called out about adding their "shippers are delusional" takes to joke posts, the anon thing, and their down-talking tone. Examples: [x] [x]. Especially the whole thing about "my blog, my opinion" and "So I can't share my opinions now?" are such lackluster takes at this point. You're talking like a boomer who gets called out for a misogynistic take on Cpt. Marvel, like come on now, do better.

Also since I'm assuming they're the person behind this ask (linked above already)

I'm perplexed at this appeal to authority. "I'm older than you, therefore I'm right". Again: come on now, is that really the take here? This is some kindergarten level of arguing. By that logic every Hannigram shipper older than them would actually be right. As crimsondinnerparty correctly says: that's not how it works.

That's the post I saw that made me "wow, that's cringe, I'm gonna write this big ass post".

4. Arguments (or lack thereof)

As alluded to above, they barely make points of their own that aren't noticeable inspired by the metas they've reblogged from other people before. Nothing wrong with reblogging posts you agree with, per sé, but that is very much not the same thing as leading a discussion with someone. On this post they proudly announce "Here I debunked another theory" when they've had no input on the post that was originally made by youweresoafraid with an actual worthwhile addition from bonearena. You didn't debunk anything. You just reblogged a post.

I find that case worth mentioning because some anon went to crimsondinnerparty's inbox to say that "Fannibalcascade also debunked the sailing thing" when evidently, fannibalcascade didn't add anything to it.

Another post that stuck out to me in terms of leading an argument was this one about whether or not Will is a murderer.

The answer:

For a blog that promises deep metas and values the nuance of the show, I personally find this a very shallow take. If this is the promised deep meta and nuance, then I'm sorry but good night.

Not to constantly bring her up but bonearena also expressed frustration with how fannibalcascade is only capable of circular arguing [x] and their lack of evidence to support their claims. Despite fannibalcascade (or rather lecterlure in the notes) constantly crying for proof themself.

Taken from this post's notes.

Edit again: While, as noted, lecterlure is not the same person as fannibalcascade, my argument remains that the members of the blog don't actually provide evidence of their own but constantly demand it from others.

So general conclusion to this point:

I personally think that fannibalcascade is just pretty annoying. Really, what else is new here on the interwebs? There's annoying people, wow, big revelation. They're not capable of properly debating and I don't think that they even want a proper debate. I find their approach to opening a debate insufferable, especially when they go "oh, I'm just asking questions? What's wrong with asking questions? Can't I have an opinion anymore? If you've got proof, why don't you bring it up? Oh, that means, you don't have any after all. Checkmate." entirely childish. People don't wanna talk to you because nothing you've said or done indicates a genuine openness for a debate on eye-level. The sheer audacity of calling themself "the only logical person available in the fandom now" - assuming that anon is them, even if not my point is still supported by their other posts - absolutely flabbergasts me. It's this condescending tone, the implied sneering of "you're all illiterate but I've eaten wisdom with spoons and I'm your logical saviour" that absolutely rubs me the wrong way.

That their blog also focuses entirely on the s3 finale is another thing I find very counterproductive to any genuine debate because the s3 finale is their only reference for anything. The majority of their meta posts (reblogged and original) focus only on Will pushing Hannibal and himself off the cliff. That is the only thing that is ever "debated" on the blog, and especially in regards to the whole "does Will love Hannibal back?" question is an extremely narrow frame of reference.

The entire "debate" they want to introduce is also entirely pointless as, as I said, focuses on the s3 finale and whatever could possibly happen in s4. The reason I find this a pointless debate is because s4 doesn't exist and every meta or theory or what have you is only fanfiction. We're all getting upset here over each other's fanfiction, like jfc. For all we know the fall transported them into some anime Isekai world.

"Fandom critique"

According to their tagging system, fannibalcascade is also motivated by offering critique to the fandom. Which I'm not against in the slightest conceptually. Personally, I think there are many things that can be criticised about fandom, any fandom. Just to give examples, two problems I see within fandoms is 1) the lowkey misogyny is fandoms dominated by m/m pairings or 2) the everpresent problem of people reposting other people's fanworks without permission. I think tackling such issues could actually improve a fandom.

What doesn't improve a fandom is telling shippers that they're delusional teenagers for shipping the main characters of a show that is explicitly centered around their relationship. Even while making their silly little posts, Hannigram shippers are entirely aware that in a real life context that relationship would of course be toxic and terrible. The reason it's such a big ship stems largely from an actual acknowledgement of the show's nuances. It's precisely those nuances and their engaging character dynamics that make them such a compelling ship.

Here's the point where I want to acknowledge all the beautiful metas people (who ship Hannigram) have actually written. You can find something about everything in the show. You can find meta about the religious symbolisms. Meta about the character's clothing styles and what they represent in which scenes. Meta about the most inconspicuous things in the background. Meta about shot compositions. It's there.

So why limit yourself to the last three minutes of 39 episodes worth of television? Like c'mon, step up your meta game.

Coming back to the point of fandom critique, both sides are just fighting windmills. We're already biased in our approachs, we're not going to change each other's minds like this. So why not employ some standard internet/tumblr etiquette and leave people be? What people ship is not a value judgment of their irl morals.

So again, I want to clarify:

I don't think fannibalcascade is a bad, immoral person. Despite all the things I've listed in this post, I don't hate them. I don't want to encourage any harassment against them. I don't mind at all that they're presumably partial towards Clannibal. Couldn't care less, really. They're allowed to dislike Hannigram. Couldn't care less. I'd even say it's a valid take, just badly argued.