SETTING:the year of The Light: 2333 | B-more Prison in B-more District of Charm City, a supermassive 12k sq mi. city in the (now) flooded mid-Atlantic region of the US | Quantico District | The Corner | The Circle | The Swamp
CONTENT WARNINGS: forced drugging | unsexy sex | non-graphic situational non-con | tasteless humor | probable cannibalism | gonna warn again for the humor | too many characters | mentions of clowns | grossness | nothing is sacred
SUMMARY: Lowbrows walk the land like zombified addicts, endlessly searching for their soulmates to rid them of their painful need to feel complete. Meanwhile, the elite enjoy a carefree life from on high, ruling all and easily finding and binding to each other by their fated markings scrawled somewhere on their bodies. Will Graham (of the infamous Dr. and Mrs. WillabyGraham Grahams), has carried the burden of his embarrassing soulmark for thirty-two long, arduous years. He’d forced himself into seclusion over The Fence to avoid meeting the cretin who should mouth the saying etched into his forearm, but now that he’s about to serve an overwhelmingly long prison sentence for a crime he did not commit, all that is about to change.
Even psychopaths are blessed with doting soulmates. Especially Willaby Graham II.
SPONSORSHIP: This WIP is “fortunately” brought to you by your favorite non-bovine dairy alternatives MELK®ORIGINAL and new MELK® UNORIGINAL flavors. I am contractually obligated to say that MELK® does not interfere with the hormonal development of Charm City youths. It is 100% certifiably safe as declared by the Jersey Board of Genetic Discrepancies and is highly effective at staving off a myriad of childhood ailments including: Bark Lung, Black Mouth, Syphilitic Encephalitis, PPS (pre-pubescent soulsickness), and mild childhood dementia when consumed daily as part of a balanced diet.
Please “MELK® Me!”
CHARACTERS
WILLABY GRAHAM II – bleeding heart | loner | full of shame | oral fixation | gross moodboard (coming soon)
DR? HANNIBAL LECTER – eats bleeding hearts | eats loners | full of himself and others | oral fixation | unnecessary moodboard (also coming soon if I get to it)
THIRTY+ OTHERS – from across Hannibal and the HEU | even some obscure ones | unsurprisingly, Mads’ characters fit right into Charm City | the fancy Dancy boys do not, c’est la vie
LINKS
WIP FIC: In Poison Pen/Charm City – This fic originated as a one-shot on AO3 based on a curiosity I wondered on Tumblr, “What if someone mixed a prison AU with a soulmate trope?” The attention it received was excited enough to warrant further exploration. I don’t know why I decided to make it 20+ chapters, but there we go. BTW, this one-shot will get a massive overhaul when I begin uploading the final fic (I’ve doubled the length of the one-shot for chapter one). If you are interested, bookmark or subscribe to the one-shot and I will let everyone know when it’s been overhauled.
Also, if you comment (or already commented on the fic), I LOVE YOU AND WILL REPLY TO YOU WHEN THE FIC IS NEARING COMPLETION!! I have NOT ignored any of you! I’m simply working on my replies between chapters.
PLAYLIST: Youtube| Clutch, Notwist, NIN, dubstep and the ilk.
WRITING UPDATES & STATUS=
CURRENT STATUS: first draft | 154,540 words | 24/? chapters
EVENT LOG (most recent entry at the top):
03/16/19 – Chappy 24 down the drain. As far as you know, I hit 155k. The end is nigh.
03/09/19 – Hit 150k words. Working on ch 24. Wedging in as many eel references as humanly possible.
02/25/19 – 143k words. 23rd chapter done. Nadsat has begun. Season one title challenge complete.
02/23/19 – 4300 in single a day. God make it stop. 140k total.
02/18/19 – Decided to make a WIP page on Tumblr to share updates and plan my escape. 21 chapters. 133k words. 37 characters, guys. It’s a new record for me. My last record was 5. New MELK® shipment received. It was Original. I am no longer a man of god.
02/02/19 – Just began chapter 19; 128k words. Help is still needed in the form of two-ply toilet paper, stickers, coffee, or Mangy Moose Saloon tees from the 1980s.
01/12/19 – The rest of the story is being scrawled on toilet paper. If this fic doesn’t kill me, all this complementary MELK® I keep getting in the mail will. It tastes like you swallowed a mouthful of granulated sugar if the sugar was actually ground up glass mixed with imitation rum flavored ash. I told them I didn’t like Original. Fingers crossed they send me Unoriginal next month.
12/10/18 – I have run out of wall. 108k words and I can’t open the basement doors. I’ve been physically cockblocked by UPS. I should not have ordered all those cocks. Alexa is unresponsive.
11/25/18 – 106k words. Must characters make the beast with two backs? It’s so gross and dirty, and I can’t see my page by the bear-grease candlelight. Also, my typewriter keys are stuck due to the extreme moistness of the basement. I’ve resorted to writing the remainder of the story on the wall.
11/15/18 – The box contained MELK®. It was my advance.
11/14/18 – 90k words; fixed a major plot hole thanks to nosy friends. I received a mystery box in the mail. Will keep you informed.
11/11/18 – 5 chapters; 87,300 words. The basement is very dark, and I need sustenance and perhaps a medical kit. It burns more than I expected, but I’m writing! Yay!
09/13/18 – 68k words. “In Poison Pen” was completely rewritten, but remains unpublished. I think I found my creative spark, and it only burns a little!
08/20/18 – I sent a text to my friend stating, “I really need to finish Charm City,” so I locked myself in the basement as a precautionary measure. Gonna finish soon!
08/18/18 – Renamed “In Poison Pen” to Charm City on AO3. I think I’ve forgotten how to write for a minute. No worries.
08/12/18 – Posted “In Poison Pen” as a one-shot on AO3. Hope you all like it!
08/11/18 – Started writing after posting to Tumblr and having a brainstorming convo with a dear friend. I love friends and late-summer! The cerulean sky is so mind-clearing. I love life and creativity!
A Hannibal S4/Fortitude crossover concept with two vignettes …
No Fortitude spoilers below.
Hannibal and Will are on the run post-fall when an idea for a temporary home strikes Hannibal. He knows of a secluded spot to hide, out of the reach and jurisdiction of the people hunting them.
Rated: G
At the top of the world, ice blankets the frozen, forgotten landscape.
Barren.
Cold.
Desolate.
Emptiness at the end of the earth.
Flying to this place is out of the question – too many eyes, too many trails.
Good evening, Mr. Overgård. They hear it everywhere now, his new name the only thing that follows them – no APBs, no FBI, no second glances. They travel up and out – to Norway – hidden on trains with forged tickets until they find what they are searching for: a nearly out of work American fisherman. He agrees to drop them at an outpost close to a Russian mining town deep in the Arctic circle.
However, they never catch the fisherman’s name, never divulge their own, never shake his hand. He drops them – spouting warnings of a dying economy, trigger-happy men, and man-eating bears, but is met with no questions asked, no answers given. Only Will’s mind reels with the potential danger.
Is this survivable? Can he limp across this barren wasteland? Will Hannibal kill him when his guard drops? Can he stop this monster in a frozen prison or is an icy valley where a cold-hearted killer thrives? Can they trek across the endless tundra with only packs and heavy, stumbling steps?.
Jeg vet ikkeI don't know..
Kicking snow from their boots and tightly donning hats and gloves, they fight the cold and the wind until their joints ache. They fall asleep in a tent, turned away from each other, the only warmth shared being the heat of the fires in their bellies and their eyes.
Lonely and lost, a husky finds Will and won’t leave his side. The dog is hungry and reminds him of his own pack – also lost or abandoned, not by choice, but by necessity – and a warm finger of familiarity plucks at Will’s icy heartstrings.
Much to Hannibal’s disgust, Will feeds it the last meal they’d packed.
Nook. Will name’s the dog Nook and Hannibal scoffs again.
Over rocks. Over snow.
Past the outcropping marking their way, it follows.
Quickening winds bite cheeks. Nook nips and whines.
Rocks give way to a ridge and the dog howls. The men look over a small, quiet town – a frozen, forgotten place nestled on top of the world.
Space – privacy – everyone is friendly, so they say.
The only part of consequence: just four police officers await them.
Unsuspecting townsfolk see an educated former doctor who speaks French and Italian and a scruffy looking stranger who is very comfortable around boats. Neither were considered suspicious in Fortitude. Most of the current occupants are running from the law themselves or plain old Russian miners.
Vinden har snuddThe wind has turned..
With no questions, they settle in a newly unoccupied house outside of town. Cash. Ignore the blood. Here’s the key. Welcome to town. The door is shut behind them.
Xenial is what he calls this place through an obnoxious, fogging huff from his nose: friendly, hospitable. Will finds neither to be true. It is not friendly. It’s tolerant. It is not hospitable. It’s bitter and frozen, like him.
Yoke-devil is his new goading nickname for his comrade-in-arms. You choke me, he sneers. You stumble, I fall. He bites and snarls. You drag me down with you. He fights, but he also cries. Not in front of Hannibal – never – but he will in his room when the house empties of man and beast. The chill of the house is nothing compared to the fostbite in his chest. It burns. He throws his fists and insults with ease, but Hannibal never acknowledges except with biting glances and grinding teeth. He has his own flowery language to use with the color-starved locals.
Zoilist. His lover is a zoilist, bless him. It rolls from Hannibal’s tongue with no explanation despite the confusion on the faces around him. Will has to look it up. He is Hannibal’s charming and faithful, though rude and hateful critic. Such a fussy, acrid man who yoked himself to the devil.
At their new freezing, minimal bungalow, Will’s idle hands fuss and rattle his proverbial chains. The food is nauseating, the ground frozen, the company Hyperborean to a disgusting degree. He needs new food, new friends, new hobbies. He becomes overly obsessed with taxidermy. Keeps his hands from choking the devil he’s tethered to.
But to Hannibal, this new obsession of Will’s is fascinating, endearing even. Will finds it his only outlet in the frozen prison he’s trapped inside.
Caribou, foxes, an occasional seabird – he studies with a local man and his unmountable messes turn somewhat arresting after a few rigorous weeks. When not in the workshop, he spends every waking moment studying Hannibal – writing, sketching, logging it all in his mind. This is not a honeymoon post-fall. This is and always will be about the last man standing.
Dan Anderssen, Chief of Police and fellow big hat enthusiast, questions Hannibal one afternoon. Nothing major, just a few issues with the townsfolk hearing strange noises coming from his and Mr. Graham’s new, husky-protected home.
“Elk? Bears maybe?” Hannibal crosses his legs. It’s strange to try to seem formal in a very informal place. He’s still dressed in his fur-lined coat and stocking cap. No ties and jackets for miles.
For five weeks they’d avoided the police station. They rarely spoke to anyone except the grocer and a few outcasts in their neck of the woods – the shaman taxidermist included. This is the first time Hannibal’s seen the inside of the station. It’s minimal – clean – seemingly too high tech for a cut off town. But there’s a research station in Fortitude. The town needs to stay in the know.
Glass walls are the most striking feature in the station: holding cells. Three. They’re highly protected – keypads and windowless – solid glass walls reminiscent of Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Hannibal leans back in his chair opposite the chief’s desk. “I have yet to see a bear, of course, but I hear stories from the townspeople. Tear a man apart.”
“Indeed they will, Mr. Overgård, but no. These were human noises, not bears. Screaming. Clawing. Begging for help. We know bears here, and they don’t beg for help.” When Hannibal doesn’t answer, he asks, “Do you have another explanation for the noise?” No answer, then a long pause.
“Just a skulk of chatty foxes trapped in your shed then?” wonders the chief.
“Kennel’s not soundproof. Could be the dog.”
“Lying to the police is not looked at kindly, Mr. Overgård.” He glares. Hannibal glares. They glare at each other – a cold, striking scowl that fights, then bends angrily into forced amicability in the middle of nowhere.
“Maybe I’m not lying,” said Hannibal. “Maybe the wind plays tricks. Maybe my dog’s restless, and maybe bears should beg for help. I’m sure they don’t appreciate the melt.”
“No, I bet they don’t.” The chief scowls. “Because I am so trusting and you are so innocent, I’m sure you won’t mind me popping in on occasion. Newcomers don’t know the lay of the land yet anyway, and I haven’t properly given you a tour of the town.”
“Obstructing your duties is not my intention, but are the police truly the welcome wagon here? Seems you have more important tasks.” His hand flicks to a large cork board by the sergeant’s desk. It’s covered in papers, lists, and photos of a bloody patch of ice and snow.
“Police are in charge of many things in this town – keeps us well informed. I can either stop in and give you a quick, painless tour, or I can set you free to fend for yourself with a plate of lutefisk as a welcome gift. You’re choice, but I wouldn’t take the lutefisk.”
“Quite a tempting offer, Chief … but as much as I’d enjoy you dropping by, I think I’m suddenly craving a little lutefisk.”
Right after their arrival, Will obtained a crabbing boat despite every sailor he met telling him it’s a dying business. He’s back to his pre-Hannibal self, nervous around people, only now he’s dealing with his own questionable morality while living with a killer in his head and in his makeshift home. He justifies life on the outskirts as doing what is necessary for the greater good: quarantining himself and Hannibal away from the unsuspecting populous.
Sergeant Eric Odegard and Will venture out on his boat, not by Will’s choice, but at Eric’s well-meaning insistence.
The boat rocks as Eric leans on the rail, watching Will endlessly tie and untie the knots connecting each loop to everything else. “Fortitude’s an interesting town to settle in, Mr. Graham. Takes a certain type of man.”
“Undeniably so, but I’m not settling,” he says with an icy, stuttering sigh. “The ground’s too frozen to dig in roots.”
“Vacationing then?”
“We travel. We explore. We happened upon a map of Fortitude, it looked good for now, so we bought a house.”
“X marks the spot,” he snickers. “You’re not staying for the long haul then? I assumed you were here specifically to study with Tavrani. He said you’re a natural with flesh and bone.”
Yes, Will was a natural. Dissection – evisceration – skinning. It all came so easily now.
“Zoonomy is a relatively new hobby of mine,” he says, coiling a wet rope around his arm, “not that animal behavior and physiology hasn’t always seemed fascinating to me. But this place offered my first taste of preserving their physical form. Seemed useful to know.”
Aching, burning breaths catch in Will’s throat – the frozen air cutting his mouth and tongue. He tries to suppress the sting – hide his failing health from the sergeant, but succumbs, doubling over as he hacks and coughs against the boat rails.
Bears only kept some new folks out of Fortitude. The isolation and chill kept out the rest.
Coughing. Hacking. Mumbles of apology. I must have a cold, he says. It’s the dry air. It’s an old wound.Sometimes it acts up.
Den gudene elsker, dør ungThose whom the gods love die young..
Eric lets him compose his struggling lungs, then looks out across the endless sea. The truth is that no one really settles in Fortitude. It’s a dying town in need of help, but the winds whipped those pleas from its mouth before they had a chance to drift overseas. “Why’d you leave the States?”
Frozen fingers drop the rope, and Will sniffs his running nose. “That is a very long and boring story.”
Go figure. Eric gestures into the silence around them and laughs. “Bore me then.”
“Health concerns and a failed love interest, maybe three. My old boss became overbearing. It was all the consequences of staying in one place too long.” He got to know people. He got to feel them. He let himself get too close and paid the price.
“In the end,” he continues, “I only had one valid reason to leave, and no legitimate reasons to stay.”
“Judging by your sudden move here, it must have been one hell of a compelling reason.”
“Kismet,” he says. “Called by a higher power.”
“Luck?” snickers Eric. “You don’t strike me as the religious type.”
“Morality is still a higher power, as is destiny and fate – no religion necessary.”
No one else is out on the water so Will cuts the engine and they drift for a bit. Just seabirds. Silence. A restless crew of two.
“Odd jobs seem to keep you and your … ?”
“Partner,” finishes Will. “He’s my partner.”
Questions might have followed, but Will is prepared. He and Hannibal didn’t act like lovers. They acted like quarrelling adversaries hell-bent on destroying the other in every feasible way. They rarely went into town together.
“Right …,” continues Eric. “The work you do with Tavrani probably keeps you busy, and your partner seems to have his hands full doing … whatever he does, but you should talk to Dan anyway. If you plan to stay for a bit, we could always use a few steady hands at the station – bears are coming down and other things – and you told the chief you’ve been trained.”
Steady hands. Will huffs at that.
Training, he had, but what the purpose of all that training had been, Will hadn’t a clue. “A few steady hands for what exactly?”
“Uh …” Eric half-heartedly smiles and nods. “I guess we don’t get a lot of crime in Fortitude – theft, drunken fighting, out past curfew–”
“Vermin jump ship as soon as their fur freezes. But isn’t that ideal up here?”
“We’re too cut off for the really bad ones; you’re right. Crime is definitely not what we want in Fortitude.” He pauses for a minute, the frigid breeze and uncomfortable silence blanketing them from all sides as the boat rocks. “Not much crime,” he says again – prideful this time, but a little weary. “This sleepy little town sure does like to sleep. I think it’s all the snow.”
“Xmas all year ’round,” says Will. “Towns like this lull all the good little boys and girls to sleep right along with them. Makes you wonder what happens when they finally wake up.”
Many years ago, while writing A Thousand Dreadful Things, I came up with an idea for a Hannibal/Firefly crossover. Only about 10k words came to fruition, but an entire world had been built in my mind and on my computer. I had diagrams, backstories, timelines, and even graphics of each character’s homeworld. Since I will probably never actually write it, I figured I’d share some of my ideas here.
In my AU, Will’s home planet is Whittier in the Kalidasa system. It’s a bluerock, with over 90% of its surface covered in water. Whittier is the site of the largest privately-owned fish hatchery in the ‘Verse. The Alliance use Whittier to cultivate rare breeds of fish for entertainment and culinary purposes. (All Firefly canon, FYI.)
The desolate and cold moon of Whittier is named Ita. It’s a dry dock and salvage yard and, strangely enough, was where Hannibal was born in my AU, but that’s not relevant at ALL (nope, not at all). Ita was also used as a terraforming testing ground but all hell breaks loose after a catastrophe occurs on the small moon’s surface causing the deaths of 8,000 colonists. (So most of the Ita stuff it canon, I just gave her a tragic past, if ya know what I mean, *wink wink* )
Basically it’s Firefly if Hannibal was the new doc on the ship, not Simon, and Will was River. Simon and River are still important characters, but Simon had never been able to smuggle River out of the hospital. Will and River were in the same Alliance program at The Academy.
That little divider I made for the fic. It’s Serenity. I made a few actually; one for Mal’s ship and one for Hannibal’s. Hannibal flew in a Peregrine Class ship, seen below, flying around Will’s homeworld.
Will & his watery Whittier
This is Whittier, Will’s waterlogged homeworld.
Will’s mother died in childbirth so he was half-heartedly raised on this water planet by his drunkard father who was a fisherman and ferryman for the researchers attempting to stock the oceans with life. Will lived his whole childhood on a boat, learning from the scientists he met and basically never touching dry land until he turned twelve. He suddenly began hearing voices and becoming emotionally unstable. His father, wanting to rid himself of his “crazy” son, sent him to Beaumonde (the capital of the Kalidasa system) where Will was assessed and found to be “gifted”. He was then sent to Capital City on Osiris to be enrolled in “The Academy” and was never heard from again … (not true, but DRAMA) …
An old sea chanty from the seaman: “Oh Ita, bring us the tide. High for bait, low for shell. Oh Ita, let us brave your tide, keep us straight, o’er your swell.”
Here is what it looks like from the surface of Whittier. It has beautiful nocilucent clouds and lots of rain- and moonbows due to the large amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. When the sky does clear of clouds, you can see the Core, the stomping ground of the Alliance which appears as a small galaxy high in the heavens. Transport ships are constantly arriving and leaving the surface, causing streaks of water vapor across the sky. They also deposit large amounts of dust into the atmosphere causing very high clouds of ice crystals that create a sky filled with circumhorizontal arcs, sun dogs, moon dogs, and a plethora of other optical phenomenon. Will clutches onto the memories of the beautiful sky of his home world as he attempts to survive while in the custody of the Hands of Blue who probe his brain at The Academy.
From the fic:
The immensity of this black abyss was a sight Will had rarely seen, but it’s majesty was nothing compared to the brilliance of the sky over Whittier. The blue heavens of his aqueous home world were continually diffused with rainbows, radiating through the mist-filled atmosphere. He’d grown up comforted by a dense blanket of foggy heat, a colorful spectrum continually circling his sun like an ever-present eye watching over him. At night, as he’d follow Ita on his father’s ship, he’d witness the twilight illuminated by arcing moon bows and silvery noctilucent clouds.
Hannibal & Ita, the moon of Whittier
The Peregrine Class is an Alliance ship from the early chapters of my WIP fic. It’s the ship that’s transporting Will when Hannibal happens upon them on the Rim.
I was still deciding between making this a legit fic with a plot and good-ish writing, or just having Hannibal and Will screw in space a bunch and then meet up with the Serenity crew. It’s so hard to decide between good and evil.
Ita is a cold, barren satellite of the water-covered planet Whittier located in the Kalidasa system. The moon is capped with ice on both poles and holds a wobbling rotation around it’s primary. It’s a relatively unstable moon, but as it is used as a terraforming testing ground and a stopping point for the ships from Whittier, the Alliance ordered it terraformed for habitation.
In 2460 AD, Dr. Simonetta Sforza-Lecter and her husband, Dr. Hannibal Lecter I, began their life-long work in the terraform sciences on Ita. Processes to liquify water began and single-celled life was introduced. Gravity on the moon was altered to steady the orbital wobble. Colonies were established on Ita during the terraforming efforts for the research team and the workers in the dock and salvage yard. Colonists lived and worked on the moon, but the instability of the tilt and unpredictable storms made life difficult.
After ten years of research and rapid atmospheric temperature fluctuations, flora and fauna growth was deemed unsustainable, the wobbling tilt returned, and the gravity alteration failed. Ita was considered a lost cause and terraforming efforts were ordered to cease. The Lecter’s were the only scientists to remain on the moon in an attempt to compete there decade long research into RACS (rapid atmospheric composition shifting). In 2472, the Lecter’s gave birth to their son, Hannibal. Five years later, their daughter, Mischa, was also born on the small moon.
In 2480, Dr. Sforza-Lecter, in a desperate attempt to advance her and her husband’s careers and not let their failing research be in vein, attempted a final terraforming experiment without Alliance approval. A chemical agent was detonated below ground, filling caverns with a reactive gas. This agent was to combine with preexisting chemicals within the soil composition to create a stable atmosphere. However, a faulty quarantine caused the underground gas to spread beyond the containment bubble and across the entire planet’s service, overwhelming the atmosphere wth CO2 and methane. This catastrophe plunged the already unstable moon into a cataclysmic ice storm, dubbed later as the “Great Ita Winter”.
No scientist or civilian escaped the moon due to raging storms on the surface and the tragedy killed eight thousand people. The Alliance presumed all men to be lost and no search parties attempted to brave the storms to search for survivors. The research family was forced to remain and wait out the unending storm in the safety of the research station. The station was eventually overtaken by surviving workers and both Dr. Sforza-Lecter and Dr. Lecter are killed. Their seven-year-old son, Hannibal, begged for his and his sister’s life but the starving workers killed and consumed the three-year-old sister, blaming the Lecters for their plight. They imprisoned the boy, keeping him alive and in chains to torment and starve (occasionally feeding him pieces of his sister and parents). The colonists and workers assumed that they would all die of hyperthermia or starvation in the coming months.
After thirteen months of raging ice storms, the experiment was partially successful as the moon’s atmosphere slowly stabilized. Nine workers and the boy were rescued during this “summer” period and taken to Osiris where Hannibal Lecter II was assessed and dubbed a child prodigy. He was offered a home on Osiris with Chinese adoptive parents, money, and a formal education to continue his parent’s work in Terraforming. He declined to continue in the field after the tragedy that befell his family.
Scientists, now unwilling to work on Ita, left the terraforming efforts of Sforza-Lecter to stagnate and the moon, once again, plunged it back into it’s previous cold, dessert-like climate. It was then dubbed a “greyrock” planet and continued to be solely used as a dry-dock and ship salvage yard.
Though ultimetly unsuccessful, Dr. Sforza-Lecter’s experiment would be used on a larger scale and be proven moderately successful. This form of terraforming would also be the cause of Bowden’s Malady on Regina when the Sforza-Lecter Process is introduced to rapidly terraform the eastern hemisphere of the planet. The chemical reaction underground causes the atmospheric conditions to excel the growth of a bacteria that cause a degenerative disease targeting the muscles and bones.
The Timeline
(character backstories and plot spoilers below, but I doubt this will ever be written)
2460 AD – Dr. Simonetta Sforza-Lecter and her husband, Dr. Robert Lecter begin their life-long work in Terraform Sciences on Ita, a moon of the water planet Whittier.
2470 – After 10 years of research, Ita is considered just a dry dock due to unsuccessful terraforming efforts and is used as a dock and landing zone for ships visiting Whittier, a water-covered, fishing planet. Colonies are set up on both Ita (during terraforming efforts) and on Whittier for fishermen and their families.
2472 – Hannibal is born on Ita while his parents continue their research.
2477 – Mischa is born, also on Ita.
2480 – Hannibal’s mother tries one final terraforming experiment on Ita (without Alliance approval) as she is sure it will be successful and after 20 years of research on a single moon, she’s beginning to feel like a failure. The experiment fails, plunging the moon into a severe ice age dubbed later as the “Great Ita Winter”. No one can escape the moon and the tragedy kills 8k people. All men are presumed lost, so no search parties attempt to save them. Hannibal’s family is forced to remain and wait out the unending storm. The Lecters are found by surviving workers who overtake their home, killing Hannibal’s parents. Hannibal (7) begs for him and his sister’s life saying they have enough dried fish from Whittier that they can live for over a year. The starving workers kill and consume Mischa (3) anyway, blaming the Lecters for their plight and sure that the winter will last forever. They imprison Hannibal, keeping him alive to torment and starve (occasionally feeding him bits of Mischa or his parents). They all assume they will die of the cold in the coming months.
2481 – Nine workers and Hannibal are all rescued during the “summer” (after 13 months of raging ice storms) and taken to Osiris where Hannibal (8) is dubbed a child prodigy. He’s offered a home on Osiris with Chinese adopted parents, money, and a formal education to continue his parents work in Terraforming as his parent’s work on Ita was partially successful after the winter storm ended (the moon began to show earth-like features only months after their rescue; though it eventually failed again, Dr. Simonetta Sforza-Lecter’s experiment would be used on larger, uninhabited moons later). Hannibal is mute after the tragedy and disinterested in terraforming, so he’s sent to live with his great (maternal) uncle Adelai Niska on his space station, the Skyplex, which orbits the his planet Ezra (in the Georgia system).
2482 – Will Graham is born on Whittier (small watery planet covered in fish hatcheries; look it up, that’s a Verse planet). It is the home planet to its moon, Ita. His mother dies in childbirth and he is left in the care of his inattentive fisherman father who is looking for any excuse to get rid of him.
2483 – Hannibal (11) begins speaking again. In a fit of rage, he kills a man in a shop on Ezra, which is naturally covered up by Niska who thinks of Hannibal as his son. Hannibal quickly learns of his taste for human flash and begins his training with and cooking for Niska and his men.
2486 – Malcolm Reynolds is born on Shadow // At Hannibal’s (age 14) insistence, he leaves Niska’s Skyplex and is sent to med school on Osiris to study medicine/neuroscience and indulge his passion for human anatomy. Neuroscience is a field in which the Alliance is pouring money and effort into expanding, so his education is paid for due to his gifted talent in the field and is parent’s work in the sciences.
2490 – Simon Tam born on Osiris.
2492 – Hannibal (20) performs surgery on a man who was a survivor of the “Great Ita Winter”, intentionally (though secretly) maiming him, but the man survives only to be tortured and consumed by Hannibal while the man is conscious and in recovery. This begins Hannibal’s killing spree through the hospital and surrounding planets. He takes random leaves of absence to work on the outer planets, making a name for himself as a guilt-ridden philanthropist (helping the injured on satellites that were damaged by Terraforming practices) when in reality he is tracking down and consuming the men that killed his family during the “Great Ita Winter”.
2494 – Will (12) begins hearing voices and becoming emotionally unstable so his father takes him to Beaumonde for physical/mental assessment. They can’t help him in their research facility, so they send him to the inner planets were they end up at the thriving neuroscience department in Capital City on Osiris. Neurosurgeon Hannibal (22) does an exploratory surgery on 12-year-old Will’s brain, calling the structure “unique” but otherwise disinteresting to him.
When the Hands of Blue ask if Will would be a good candidate for a special study, Hannibal assumes so (unknowing of what the Hands of Blue are intending) and Will is encouraged into “The Academy” because of his empathic abilities, brain structure, and strange aptitude for telepathy. He is randomly cryofrozen for years at a time during which experiments are performed.
2496 – Hannibal (24) continues to kill the rude and affluent on Osiris as well as his enemies during his outer planet pilgrimages. He is touted as an amazing neurosurgeon, removing tumors from victims of radiation on outer planets. Much of his Alliance money is being spent on his travels. // Meanwhile, a strange killer is on the loose in Capital City and he continues to outsmart the Alliance. They have dubbed him the “Chesapeake Ripper” due to the underwater forest of bodies they found wighted and dropped into a great sea on the planet. Body parts are missing from each victim. They call him “Chesapeake” from the old Earth-that-was word for “body of water”.
2500 – River Tam is born on Osiris.
2506 – Unification War begins // Miranda project fails // Reavers are created
2511 – Mal and Zoe fight at Serenity Valley // Unification War ends // Simon (21) get an internship under Hannibal (39) and they work very closely, inevitably learning more about one another. Simon finds Hannibal odd and intense and they don’t work particularly well together but Hannibal passes much of his surgical knowledge onto Simon. There are brief mentions of Simon’s 11-year-old sister, River, to Hannibal. He is disinterested in learning about Simon’s family.
2513 – Hannibal (41) is “caught” by Simon (23) in an incriminating situation with a dead body (butchering it in the hospital, late at night). Hannibal threatens Simon’s career and he agrees to keep the incident under wraps but Simon will never trust him again.
2514 – River (14) is accepted into “The Academy” and paired for experimentation with Will (32 though he appears 22 due to extensive cryofreezing). // The Alliance calls Hannibal into question when Simon finally fingers his odd behavior around the hospital as “Ripper-esque”. The Alliance attempts to question Hannibal but he’s already taken off to hide in deep space as he attempts to find the last few survivors of the “Great Ita Winter”.
2516 – River (16) is sending out messages from “The Academy” that have Simon suspicious. She mentions “Will” being taken from her. Simon has no idea she is referencing a person and thinks they are taking her willpower or her strength to continue so he begins looking into The Academy. What he finds disturbs him and he begins his journey to bust her out. // Will is cryofrozen and shipped out to deep space for long range telepathic experimentations … when Hannibal find the ship he’s being transported on (Chapter 1).
2517 (Firefly TV series begins) – (Chapter 2) Jump six months … Hannibal (45) has Will (35 though he appears 25 due to cryofreezing) sedated and back in his box and is looking for a ship to transport them to an inner planet where Hannibal can gather the supplies he needs to work on (or possibly treat) Will’s oddly psychotic behavior. Mal (31) welcomes them on board Serenity.
Annnnd are you now hooked? I was. All that shit, btw, is true to canon. Every planet, every city. Hannibal and Will fit so well in this world, don’t they?
… in which Hannibal Lecter is a medical illustrator whose drawings feature the uncanny likenesses of high society figures who have gone missing in and around Baltimore.
Rated: G
Dr. Will Graham, a mortician and adjunct professor of materia medica at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is the only person suspecting of Mr. Lecter’s possible nefarious deeds. He approaches Mr. Lecter who appears cordial and welcoming, and Lecter begins inviting Dr. Graham to dinner. They enjoy sumptuous feasts and long-winded discussions about Mr. Lecter’s personal philosophies and Dr. Graham’s emotional well-being which the dear professor finds nothing short of embarrassing. A budding friendship quickly forms though not without some protesting from Dr. Graham who finds himself accepting invitations just to poke around Mr. Lecter’s drawing room.
Meanwhile, more bodies are showing up at the morgue – strange bodies, stitched bodies, bodies missing pieces – and Dr. Graham is now plagued by images of these mutilated corpses. His teaching is being disrupted by memories and visions of these heinous crimes, and when new illustrations mirroring his nightmares suddenly cross his desk, he takes the drawings and his concerns to the Chief of Police, Jack Crawford. The Chief, however, refuses to listen to the professor’s overly emotional diatribe about prophetic dreams and murdering illustrators, dismissing his concerns as those of a madman.
Feeling backed into a corner, Dr. Graham enlists the help of seedy Irish gang leader, Matthew Brown, to help him follow and expose Mr. Lecter’s crimes.
It’s only a matter of time before Mr. Lecter discovers the Irishman lurking in the shadows, and his retaliation and subsequent gift to his dear friend Dr. Graham is far beyond the professor’s wildest nightmares.
