Will's Insight | Opt-In Post

[empathicfault]

In the series Hannibal, Will Graham is shown to have a unique ability- he calls it 'interpreting the evidence', whereas Hannibal calls it 'pure empathy'. It lets Will know what the people around him are feeling, often to Will's detriment. Will frequently appears to be overstimulated by the outside world, slumping in chairs and avoiding eye contact. He finds comfort in dogs and being alone.

However, this ability can often be extremely useful for determining motivations, desires, and fears. When he uses it at crime scenes, the series shows murders taking place as if Will were the culprit. He sees fantastical visions and metaphorical imagery as he places himself in his target's place, seeing the world as they see it.

I'd like to write out some of this imagery in narration as I roleplay, but I also don't want to infomod. So if you are interested in letting Will into knowing your character through this ability, please reply here.

What I'd like to know (feel free to copy+paste, or just write out what you'd like)--
<b>1. What would you like him to be able to suss out about your character? </b> He works in emotions, so fears, desires, motivations, immediate wants, all that sort of thing is good. <b>2. Is there a character trait or emotion you absolutely do NOT want brought up?</b> Will isn't magic and he's not always right with this ability. It's easy to veer off of any topic you might want to avoid. <b>3. Is there any visual imagery you associate with your character, and/or is there anything specifically that you'd like Will to visualize?</b> Sometimes he sees things that don't seem to make a whole lot of sense until later- I tend to interpret that as him integrating evidence that he hasn't logically noticed yet. <b>4. Any plot threads or development you'd like to actually get going through this mechanic?</b> Let me know, I'd love to plan with you! Will could be a good way to weasel info or feelings out of someone who would otherwise keep them hidden, if that's something you'd like. I'm also very happy to just see where things go.

Thanks, and please let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to know or talk over with you.

Comments

[lestercraft]

1. What would you like him to be able to suss out about your character? So Arthur and John (greatoldjohn) are basically a bonded pair, in that John is an eldritch monstrosity trying very hard to know what it is to be human, by living in a man who has been through more love, grief, heartbreak and anger than would be fair or reasonable to ask of anyone else. Arthur Lester is an orphan, a widow, a once-father and even lost his best friend, literally the last person he had left in the world before John, and he carries the weight of his grief on his shoulders as a constant reminder that his mistakes are his to own, his burden to carry, and his sins to not be absolved of. But apart from the obvious magical ties to John, he's a pretty normal human being: an ex-pianist composer, a current detective specialising in missing persons, and a petty criminal in the pursuit thereof, from the year 1934. Also much younger than his cold, calculated demeanor of someone not to fuck with suggests.

2. Is there a character trait or emotion you absolutely do NOT want brought up? Nothing OOCly!

3. Is there any visual imagery you associate with your character, and/or is there anything specifically that you'd like Will to visualize? When John is with Arthur they are joined at the eyes, and in the past I've had too much fun going off on what this looks like aesthetically; you can also assume any of John's own imagery is mixing with or overlapping Arthur's own. When he's alone, however, it's markedly different: Missing eyes, missing left hand/foot (the parts that John possesses), bleeding wounds on his chest from bullets, a stab wound through his abdomen, his right leg shattered in multiple places, running water, light through water or being soaking wet (it's Lovecraft he's a soggy protagonist in a very literal sense), a melancholy piano tune, the sounds of a baby crying, the shadows of the dead surrounding him, or a broken golden crown.

4. Any plot threads or development you'd like to actually get going through this mechanic? Anything to do with the death of his daughter will get an extremely hostile response, and would probably bait him to violence very quickly. However anyone else - including his parents, the mother of his child and his best friend - would get still hostile but markedly less aggressive reactions.

[empathicfault]

Oh man, those pictures are so cool- I will keep that in mind! Sounds like Arthur is something extremely familiar with loss, which Will tends to be at least a little sensitive about. So we'll see if he hits any buttons there. Will would probably pick up more quickly on the detective stuff than some of the rest. But he'll also be fascinated by the whole partnership Arthur has with John.

Thanks very much for filling this out! Hope to have them run into each other on the ship sometime.