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I was reading your Orpheus and Eurydice AUs for the BoB ship again and I was thinking, ya know, the only popular couple who can succeed at this is either Speirton or Ack-ack/Hillbilly. What do you think?

the Orpheus/Eurydice AU's for those who haven't seen it

I mean... I guess? but if they do succeed it wouldn't be Orpheus and Eurydice, ya know? like. because the point of Orpheus/Eurydice is that Orpheus turns around and will ALWAYS turn around, no matter what. because he Loves Eurydice. Turning Around is an act so engrained in Love that to Not Turn Around is more damning.

simply put: "Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?" -Ovid, Metamorphosis

in the post i made, I titled it: "bob ships as orpheus and eurydice, and whether or not they'd turn around and why" and you'll notice that i always reiterated, in both the tags of the original post and in the reblog, that the answer is always going to be Yes, they ALL turn around. because they Love each other. it is always guaranteed that they will Turn Around. hence, the real question i was trying to raise with that AU wasn't "will they succeed?" it was always "WHAT will make them turn around?"

because while the Love is consistent, how these couples might love each other is totally unique to them. for winnix, their love was always marred with doubt, and in order to soothe that doubt, they must always Turn Around. for baberoe, their love was always a yearning to help the other and a yearning to simply be around each other, something they must Turn Around to accomplish. for webgott, their love consists of validating each other, always answering back when one speaks into nothingness, and to do that, they must Turn Around. for luztoye, their love means they gave each other strength and help when they would otherwise never ask it from anyone else. again, they must Turn Around to do that.

Speirton and AndyEddie are no different. under the cut tho, bc it got long:

gonna be real, i already wrote a Speirton version of the orpheus and eurydice au that played massively with Speirs being a Dead Thing From the Beginning ("accept the fact that you're already dead") and Lip Understanding This more than Speirs ever thought he could and that being the reason for Turning Around. I also snuck in references to the parable of the Scorpion and the Frog crossing the river with speirs and lip taking turns being the Scorpion and the frog. not to toot my own horn but I thought it was clever. I just never HAHAHAH i never posted it bc I didn't think anybody would want to read it. but if you do! just ask, and I'll dig thru my sticky notes app for it. it's actually a little happier than the other ones, mostly because i imagine them both being very comfortable in hell. Speirton, to me, are like. a Freak4Freak couple, ya know? there is something fundamentally Wrong with both of them. I played heavily with that in their version.

as for AndyEddie though like. they already ARE orpheus and eurydice? Orpheus and Eurydice's story, at its core, is a metaphor for grief. Orpheus turns around because grief will ALWAYS make you look back at the past, at what you once had. Eddie died before Andy did. and then Andy died. and the general consensus in the AndyEddie fanon is that Andy dying was directly correlated to his grief over Eddie's own Death. Andy let the the grief so consume him, try as he might to go forward for his men, that he's so distracted by Eddie's ghost/the absence of Eddie (i.e. ghost as concrete absence instead of ethereal presence) he makes the fatal mistake of missing the sniper. an action we could read into as his Turning Around Moment. literally. i've read enough AndyEddie fics to know that in general fanon/fics Andy, moments before his own death, is often depicted either turning bc he was so used to Eddie being at his side and was going to speak to him, before being struck dumb by his loss all over again enough to become an open target; or because he thought he saw Eddie in the corner of his eye and, in his deep grief, threw all logic away to catch one last glimpse of him, making him an open target. either way, that split second reaction, so clouded in grief, is what gets him killed in the end. if it's not either of these two, it's always some sort of iteration of Andy's grief over Eddie's death Dooming Him.

the way they died in The Pacific already had the same narrative beats as Orpheus and Eurydice's story. that's why if I ever were to find myself writing a The Pacific version of the Orpheus and Eurydice AUs, I won't need to write anything for AndyEddie because... well. it's ALREADY their story, ya know? they are their own orpheus and eurydice.

anyway. read this whole thing again but this time I want you to read ever mention of Turn Around the same way its sung in Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Me playing Persephone actively warning Orpheus of the dangers ahead specifically because I didn’t want him to turn around too early from doubt only for him to turn before Eurydice could exit the underground thus dooming them both to one of the most proliferated endings. Oh lord “Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?” And “'Cause here’s the thing/To know how it ends/And still begin to sing it again/As if it might turn out this time” we in it now…

Metamorphoses and Hannibal

This is probably going to be disorganized so I apologize now. Let me preface all this by saying I don’t think any person in a relationship is either Orpheus or Eurydice; I think both people can be and are both characters depending on the circumstance. Orpheus and Eurydice’s love is complicated, just like real life. It’s a spectrum, a sliding scale. Its all circumstantial on who is on which side. Same with Will and Hannibal.

Orpheus is sometimes seen as a moral failure. His fragile heart is due to his mortality; he’s weak. But Orpheus loves Eurydice more than I think most people can comprehend. There are many different versions on how/why Orpheus turns around before Eurydice successfully leaves Tartarus, thus her dying again. I think it all stems to love itself is fragile and flawed, and there is no perfect way to give or receive love.

In one tale, Eurydice trips and Orpheus turns around to help her. Why wouldn’t he? His wife is hurt, and he loves her. He thought he was helping. Now, every time Will is hurt (whether by circumstance or Hannibal putting him there), Hannibal comes to the rescue. He thinks he is helping, because he has a very specific vision for Will. However, more often than not, he ends up causing more harm. He ends up pushing Will away and losing him more than saving him.

Another version is Orpheus turns around because he feels he is being tricked. Eurydice is so silent, and he knows the gods can be tricksters, so he turns around to make sure Eurydice is still there. Regardless, the end result is the same, he loses her. He acted rashly when he needed to trust her. Hannibal does this, too. He felt he was being tricked by Will and fucking guts him in his kitchen. He nearly lost Will physically, but definitely lost him emotionally. That night was not one Will could move past very easily. I’m not saying Hannibal’s paranoia was unfounded; but Hannibal’s faith wavered. Will even considered running away with Hannibal if given the chance, just like Eurydice would have left with her husband. Both were robbed due to mistrust.

In yet another version, Orpheus gets too excited to see his wife again. He followed all the rules, he exits Tartarus, and he turns around. Too soon, Eurydice needed to exit, too. She was still inside, so he still loses her. After Muskrat Farm, after Hannibal witnesses Will bite a man’s flesh in defense, spitting it out in protest, seeing how his influence sparked violence in Will, Hannibal gets too excited. He assumes everything is fine and dandy when they are back in Wolf Trap. He assumes Will “left” to join him. But he hadn’t. Will was still teetering on his morale high ropes, he was only tolerating violence while Hannibal still delighted in the wickedness. Yet again, he loses Will.

And here we go again with another version (don’t you love mythology and creative freedom?) In Gluck’s opera, Orpheus cannot tell Eurydice the plan. She feels unloved and abandoned. Orpheus knows his wife so well, he can feel her pain. He can tell her heart aches, and he doesn’t want that to happen. All he wants to do is comfort her, the love of his life. He turns around to quell her troubles and… you know the rest. This kind of connects back to Hannibal trying to help Will and it pushing him away, but this adds another layer. Will feels abandoned, he even tells Hannibal he was supposed to be his paddle. Hannibal was his paddle, just not in the way Will anticipated. Hannibal tried to show more support, but it backfired, because he was ultimately looking out for himself.

Now, obviously Eurydice is more forgiving than Will is, but Will’s had a much harder relationship with Hannibal than she had with Orpheus.

“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”

I know the image often used is Will drowning in Mizumono, but I argue that his second death was the fall. He finally connected with Hannibal, finally accepted the fact he was loved. He’d been robbed of his family, stabbed, and beaten. Will literally did not complain. There was acceptance in his voice as he said “It’s beautiful”. Now that Will has made peace, he begins to shift from Eurydice to Orpheus. Orpheus wanted his wife to leave Tartarus, he wanted her alive again so they could spend their lives together. Will took this a step further. He knew Hannibal could not leave hell, his hands were too tainted. There was no true peace within or with Hannibal. Still, Will did not want to abandon Hannibal, to leave him behind, to make him feel unloved. He did what he thought he had to and simply joined him. He threw them both off the cliff so neither had to be alone. Ultimately, Orpheus wanted to be with his wife. If given the choice, he might have joined her in death, too. But that was not something he could do. Will took the pen and wrote the narrative that worked for him. He was not going to play by the rules anymore.

“Orpheus, I can forgive you, then, there’s not a soul alive who wouldn’t have looked back.”

Now, this quote is less telling about how others view Hannibal as much as how Hannibal sees himself. He feels he is above everything. He doesn’t make mistakes, just inconveniences himself a little more than intended. So for him, he sees that he had no other choice. He had to do all those things to Will because he loved him and he wanted what was best for him. Hannibal forgives himself because he cannot guarantee it will come from anywhere else. But his own forgiveness is enough. It has to be.

Now, for the rambling part that is more for fun than anything else. The story of Orpheus is in two books in Metamorphoses. Book ten has several different stories, one of which is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. I know the other stories aren’t inherently related but let me discuss a few of them and you can see why I freak out.

The story of Cyparissus is about a boy who has the companion of a stag that he tames. He accidentally kills the stag while it slept and he was hunting. Obviously, Will didn’t kill Hannibal (what happens after the fall and whether or not they died is a different debate that no one can win because the show is cancelled). The obvious symbolism and connection is that Hannibal is the stag and Will is Cyparissus. I mean, Bryan Fuller did that one for us; Hannibal is a stag in the show, no questions asked. However, you could argue Will tamed Hannibal as Cyparissus did his own stag. Yes, Hannibal still killed pretty mercilessly and often times impulsively, but Will changed him. They had an equal effect on each other. Now again, Will didn’t kill Hannibal, but he did have a hand in their interpersonal destruction. He betrayed Hannibal and lied to him. He did that while Hannibal’s guard was down, while his trust was high, while he was “sleeping”. After the accident, the boy turns into a cypress tree, and that tree symbolizes mourning. There is an undeniable mourning that happens with Will. Yes, over Abigail, that’s obvious. But there is a sense of loss for Hannibal, too. He lost a friend, the only person who seemed to understand him. He built a boat to sail to him for crying out loud. Trying to reconnect, build what’s been destroyed. To salvage a wound.

Also, the story is often linked to social customs of ancient Greece called pederasty, which basically means a younger man in a romantic relationship with an older man. Granted, Will is not a child, but Hannibal is notably older than Will by at least a decade. This is a bit of a stretch since pederasty typically involves a boy but I will not touch that with a twenty foot pole. The younger partner undergoes transformation, sometimes alluded to as “death”. Will goes through a huge transformation that I don’t think I need to dissect. The failed love and betrayal between Cyparissus and his stag also connects to Orpheus and his “failed” love and protection of Eurydice.

Now, Ganymede is a beautiful mortal abducted by the gods to serve as a cupbearer. Now, I know this connection is a little weak. But Hannibal, who sometimes sees himself as god, or at least as powerful and privileged as god, sees utter perfection in Will, or at least the potential for perfection. This obsession elevates Will to godlike in Hannibal’s eyes. Ganymede was never turned into a god, but he was turned into the Aquarius constellation. I don’t know about you all, but Will has an intense connection to water. Ganymede literally became the watercarrier. I’ll end this one here because it’s all I got, and I know I am pulling at straws.

And then there is Pygmalion. Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with his statue. I know, it’s a little heavy on the nose. Many argue Hannibal fell in love with Will when they first met. I think his interest was piqued, more than it ever was. But Hannibal was not in love just yet. He quite literally gaslit, manipulated, and shaped Will to how Hannibal thought he should be based on where he thought Will could go. Yes, Will always had that beast inside him, as tamed as he could keep it. But there is no doubt Hannibal had a hand in its shape. He convinced Will he was a killer. Even when Will knew it was Hannibal, even after he was acquitted, he was inherently a different person. He accepted that while that violence did not happen by his hand, it could happen. Then Hannibal sent Randall Tier as an assassin giving Will a chance to embrace killing and see beauty where he previously only say ugliness. Once Will was sculpted, Hannibal fell in love. Truly, deeply, utterly in love. He’s still toxic as shit but that’s a different argument. That’s why he was so betrayed in Mizumono. He thought his art piece was complete. But Will was not done evolving; he had his own influence, his own path. He stole the hammer and chisel from Hannibal’s hands. Will’s statue came to life and walked away from Hannibal. Hannibal is insanely jealous; he had no choice but to destroy his art. If it could not bring him joy, it couldn’t bring anyone else joy.

Now in Book eleven, Orpheus dies. He was torn to shreds for worshipping the wrong god. Now, I don’t think Hannibal needed Will to worship him or even see him as a god, but the theme of betrayal still holds. Hannibal eviscerated Will for following someone else, for maybe being on Jack’s side. At the very least, even if Will wasn’t with Jack, he wasn’t completely with Hannibal either. Now, the person who kills Orpheus has blood all over their hands. When they go to the river Helicon to wash the blood off, the river sinks and they can never wash themselves. They are stuck with those sins stained to their hands. Hannibal will never truly be able to live down what he has done to Will. I don’t even think Will could truly and completely forgive Hannibal. Hannibal is tainted by his sins, and they won’t simply wash away. They won’t be easily forgiven. Even a plunge into the Atlantic, bodies slamming to the sea, drenched and drowning in water, is not enough to free him. Every time he looks at Will, he’ll see the pained face of his devitalization. He’ll hear him cry as Abigail’s arterial spray drenched him.

By no means is this exhaustive. There are literally dozens of interpretations of Orpheus and Eurydice, and I only pulled together a few. I also am not to most psychologically in depth when it comes to psychoanalyzing Hannibal and Will. I just had to share my ramblings because its been bouncing around in my head for weeks if not longer.