#edgar allan poe | foreigner

[theconstructsworld]

November DWC 2024 Day 4 - Surrender / Tranquil ((Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' has always been a favorite, this is a little spin on it for The Construct!))

Long have I been serving, heeding; while this foreign soul lies pleading, seeking something sacred that it has not ever known before. Thus I worship in his splendor, yearning for a sweet surrender, of merciful affections well permitted in times of yore. Let this wanderer’s fate be freed or take him only to adore. This I desire, and nothing more. 

Now I’m drifting ever farther, losing sight of my departure, not surviving, only thriving in these ceaseless times of war. My path my own to be carefree, treading lightly out to sea, choppy waters were something I had never learned to abhor. I sink to the depths, never glancing upon the tranquil shore. Waiting, hoping, nevermore.

@daily-writing-challenge

[whencyclopedia]

Washington Irving

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was an American author, essayist, and diplomat best known for his short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. He was the first professional American author and also the first to achieve an international reputation.

He influenced such notable 19th-century authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman; "The unorthodox fantastical sensibilities he displayed in his tales … set the stage for the Romantic and Gothic writers that followed him" (Bradley, vii). Many of the characters in Irving's stories have become household names: Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, and, of course, the Headless Horseman. He was a notable innovator, with a sense of style and form that kept his writings fresh, and his short stories and sketches have endured as the first fictional chronicles of the American experience.

Early Life

Named after General George Washington (1732-1799), Washington Irving was born in New York City on 8 April 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolutionary War with Great Britain. He was the last of eleven children born to a prominent Manhattan merchant family. His father, William, was Scottish-born while his mother, Sarah, was English-born. There is little evidence to suggest that Irving attended either public or private school. As a child he read widely in English literature: William Shakespeare, of course, but also the English essayist Joseph Addison as well as the Irish novelists Laurence Sterne and Oliver Goldsmith.

In 1804, he showed signs of tuberculosis, so his brothers sent him to Europe for two years where he kept extensive journals. Upon his return to the United States, he studied law under Judge Josiah Hoffman and passed the bar. Although he would practice law for a short time, he preferred to write. His extensive travels throughout England and the United States fueled his love of writing: "I was always fond of visiting new scenes and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels and my tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city to the frequent alarm of my parents" (quoted in Bradley, 9). Irving came from a very close-knit family who encouraged his writing; this closeness was something that would remain part of his life. Writing was commonplace in the Irving home. For recreation, his brothers wrote poems and essays. His brother Peter had a newspaper The Morning Courier, and at the age of 19, using the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle, Irving wrote a number of satirical essays on the theater and New York society. In many of his writings, Irving often used pseudonyms, such as Jonathan Oldstyle or Geoffrey Crayon.

Continue reading...

[girllfaillure]

“you bewitched me..”

Wilbur Soot | Will Gold x reader (she/her pronouns used) ~ fluff <3

Sypnosis: Falling head over heels in a bookshop was the last thing Will expected on a November morning. Perhaps it was for the better?

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The bookshop that morning reeked of pure nostalgia. It reminded Will of his childhood, or some kind of comfort he didn’t know he needed. He brushed the tiny snowflakes off his beige trench coat with a soft flick and gravitated towards the history section, American History to be exact. He observed the bookshop, taking in the soft lighting and interior - definitely a cosy place.

At that moment, he found his eyes landing on a girl behind the counter. She had been typing away by the computer at the desk - she seemed focused with a warm drink clutched in her hand. Will felt something flutter in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t like any feeling he had known before. It was almost aching, but a good ache. A warm ache. He felt his gaze soften and his lips part. An almost foreign desperation clawed at him and it was like tiny sparks igniting and burning at his bones. He felt the profound urge to just embrace her then. He wanted to kiss her forehead and tell her sweet things. He wanted her. He wanted her like nothing he’s ever desired for before.

In that moment, feeling something practically scorch holes into her, she looked up too. And it was like time stopped moving around the two. Her eyes softened and she felt a little smile tug at her lips as she caught the eyes of the tall stranger in the room. She felt as if she had known him twenty years, rather than twenty seconds. Like they had been together in past lives or something like that.

Reality soon swept them back up and she immediately went back to typing on the computer, trying to purge this feeling but it wouldn’t die, it grew and it grew and she wanted to be swallowed by it. Will noticed her eyes turning away and was met with a sudden shyness. He could have talked to her if he wanted, he was Will Gold. He was the lead singer of a band on the rise to fame, a well-known content creator yet he felt so nervous to even step closer to the stranger. He exhaled a shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding in and continue to peruse through the books on the shelves.

Her eyes found him again, taking in his appearance. She studied his brown curly hair, his lanky frame, his long fingers - which were grazing the books in a precise fashion, like his touch could kill if he even pressed too hard. She wondered what it would be like to hold his hands in hers, or feel him trace every scar on her body. She wondered what his hair would feel like, what scent would it carry. She wondered how his frame would feel next to hers in a hug or a cuddle. She wanted to extinguish these thoughts and fantasies but they were so strong…ceaseless. He was bewitching.

Will tried grasping at any courage he had in his body. Too many times in his life had he let fear stop him from potential lovers but none of them even compared to her. She was so, so compelling. She was angelic. She was something you’d worship. And he wanted to, for the rest of his life. He took shaky deep breaths, trying to think of things to say. A comment about the weather? No, that’s boring. A forward compliment? He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable - besides he was internally battling a fear that she was already in a relationship. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was, she was utter, complete perfection. But he knew if he let her slip away, he’d never forgive himself.

In that moment, he felt a voice behind him.

“Excuse me?”

Will turned his head and there she was. Her soft eyes looking up at him, like an innocent baby animal. He felt blush paint his cheeks a rosy colour.

“Hi.” He smiled and she smiled too.

“Do you need help with anything?”

She was soft-spoken and sweet. A voice he knew he could never get tired of hearing.

“Yeah..actually. Do you have anything by Edgar Allan Poe in stock?” He asked, trying to look anywhere but her face. He knew if he looked at her, his knees would buckle and give up underneath him.

She thought for a second, trying to recall if they did have any books by Edgar Allan Poe. But she didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity to talk to him. “I can go to the poetry section and have a look?” He nodded and she led him to the poetry section. She stood on her tiptoes and flicked through the book spines until she found one by the writer he had requested.

During the search, Will found himself looking at every little thing she did and he thought she was the most adorable person he had ever encountered. Every single thing, he felt himself smile to himself. He was falling more and more inlove with her each second. After a while a blue covered book was passed his way. When he took the book, his hand brushed hers and he felt his heart skip a beat.

“Thank you.”

“It’s okay, I’m glad I was able to help you.”

She smiled up at him and Will noticed the little pin clipped to her shirt, with her name in a pretty font.

He found himself repeat her name in his head. Reciting it like a vow or prayer. A pretty word coming from pretty lips. It wasn’t long before Will approached the counter and she was there, smiling.

Will smiled too. It was contagious.

She scanned the book and looked up at him.

“That’s gonna be…£8.89. Is that gonna be cash or card?”

“Uhm…cash..” He placed a hand in his pocket and fiddled for the money from his wallet.

She accepted the money and placed the change on top of the book, along with the receipt tucked into the cover. She looked back up at him, “Have a good rest of your day. I hope to see you here again soon.”

She smiled up at him.

He blushed and nodded. “Yeah..I’ll definitely come again soon. It’s a nice shop and you seem like a lovely person.”

Will could of sworn he saw her cheeks turn red. She nodded and watched him leave the shop, a flurry of snowflakes replacing his presence.

He sighed and felt the winter breeze nip at him, he opened the book up and checked the receipt curiously. Of course, the details and such were typed on to the paper, but there was an extra little piece of text at the bottom.

‘ xxxx-xxxxxx <;3’

‘i thought you were pretty nice and was hoping i will see you more often, rather than in the shop. i think you’re pretty cute anyways. i hope i’ll see you around more.

- [name] <3’ Will felt his eyes widen, his heartbeat gradually quickening. She had given him her number...she wanted to see more of him. He smiled to himself, which accompanied the butterflies in his stomach. Them meeting was clearly fate - true love at first sight.

[wifetomegatron]

you flare, you flicker, you fade (and in the end, all your tomorrows become yesterdays) [ megatron / reader ]

" I don't have a heartbeat,” She sighed sadly.

He regarded her, standing by the window. Under the half-light, her limbs look almost translucent, pale if not a little blue. That's what happens to organic skin when it oxidises to rot: tearing at the seams.

" Neither do I."

In which Megatron believes the personification of his guilt against humanity has come to haunt him in the late hours of the night.

rating: not rated, sfw! + themes & mentions of death relationship : megatron / f!reader fandoms: transformers (idw generation one) / idw 2005 / mtmte & lost light characters: megatron (transformers), ratchet (transformers), terminus (transformers), rodimus | rodimus prime, minimus ambus (transformers), rung (transformers) additional tags: angst, tangst with a happy ending, pov third person, idk how to tag this, refrences to edgar allan poe, references to ancient greek religion & lore, inspired by corpse bride by tim burton, the reader is referred as she and there's no usage of you but she/her , mentions of myth & folklore, euthanasia warning, death warning This is reposted from ao3 as it’s quite long (3,171 words)

" She said: when will we meet? I said: A year after the war ends. She said: When will the war end? I said: When we meet" — Mahmoud Darwish

01. After Trepan — after everything — Megatron doesn't dream. He can feel his processor spin and think during recharge, but he never dreams. And so when he dreamt for the first time, he almost forgot it was possible. Almost. 

His dream was a kaleidoscope of images, a flurry, a blur. His body was moving, but he remained still, watching a memory that didn't belong to him. And he knew this because he could hear the sea.

The universal translator is too gentle. There wasn't a word to describe the great ‘seas’ of Cybertron. Back when he toiled under Nova Point, he assumed — like everybody else —that liquid water was a rumour. And then he saw it, deep, silver mercury, unlike anything, roaring beneath the horizon. Yet he dreams of a sea he never saw, dark and vacuum, sealed under a storm.

Rodimus banged on his door. He was forcibly woken. Even when they were talking by his doorway, Megatron could taste salt in his denta: so foreign his intake nearly rejects it. 

02. It started with the humming. It was so quiet that Megatron wouldn't have registered it if it wasn't for how foreign it sounded: non-mechanical and soft. Too soft. A glitch in his audials was likely, with the fool's energon slowing his processor. Yet he remained sharp, vigilant the moment the sound rang from down the hall. As he tried to listen to the silence, the ship thrummed underneath his pedes. Everything else was in the right place: electric, electronic, the usual clicks from the coolers, the vents drumming above. And yet the tune remains, faint if not fading. Drift was soundless. And he was trying to focus. So when the mech asked him what was wrong, Megatron blamed the startle on the fool's energon.

03. She watches him from the corner of his peripheral. Playful. Shy. His optics drifted from the PADD — carefully, to not alarm Minimus — to make sense of her. Ratchet said internal hemorrhaging of the wires could lead to hallucinations, where the cyberium that lined his cables would inflate and leak; poisoning the Energon.

Behind him, she waved, wrist and elbow sharp and jutting, in contrast to the smooth, metal backdrop of the office. He diverted his attention to the conversation just in time. And when Megatron raised his helm again, she was gone.

Ratchet gave him the clear; he wasn't in any way incapacitated. And when he tells the CMO about tasting salt in the back of his intake, all he gets is a funny look. 

04. Cybertronians don't have taste receptors for sodium chloride: ‘salty’ doesn't exist in their vernacular, only recently introduced through the translator. The closest word they have to describing Energon is that it burns. Just a little bit. Alkali and acid dissolving against the dentae: bubbling like sea foam against the sand.

05. She is the name of the unknown. She died in Cybertron many, many years ago — in a time before him, in a time before the war. So those who walked after her used the pronoun to describe the unfounded. Those without dichotomy, those without truth. The Lost Light is she, and so is the vastness of space. Nautica — who is she, herself — refers to her unsolved equations as her, and so does Perceptor. She is the graveyard of hypotheses, waiting to be kissed alive.

So it’s only natural for Megatron to think she 's lab-made. An experiment went wrong, a failed refraction of light. Brainstorm did say he was experimenting with holoforms. And yet the scientist never recharges in his room down the hallway: always too busy and never wanting to be alone. So Megatron observes her like she is a creature out of a petri dish.

The ghost blinks. Once. Twice — eyelashes, batting against her rotting cheeks. 

It's rude to stare. She laughed. The sound was an airy, feathered thing. 

She doesn't seem perturbed by the fact that the left side of her jaw is hanging by the threads of a torn muscle. With the epidermis of her chin loose and gorged, he could inside her anatomy.

Dark red and wet, not even Brainstorm would replicate something like this.

Forgive me.

She held the wilted bouquet in her hands a little bit tighter.

It's usually bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. Do you believe in that?

Megatron doesn't know what he believes. He lies on his slab with her sitting by his window, and he thinks of the question as recharge swallows him whole. He was on a ship, lightyears away, and all he could think of was the texture of her throat as it flakes and cracks.

He doesn't believe in bad luck, yet humans have many names for it: karma, kismet. Megatron wonders by which name he should call her.

06. It takes him milliseconds to learn. Everything he needed to know about humans was handed to him on a silver platter, convenient and superior. Is this why he had thought of himself so high compared to them? Self-fulfilling prophecies who were so Darwinian and slow and stuck in their ways.

 (Yet, in the end, weren't they like that as well? Eons to live for, and yet they waste it on killing one another. He wasted it.)

He has lived through the birth of her first rivers, the christening of her people, and the rise and fall of empires as they pile atop one another. The passing of thousands of eclipses that humans can only dream of witnessing once within their finite lifespans — and yet here he was.

The humans would call him Icarian; held together by wax and pretending it was metal, plunging to his hypocrisy as he strays further from the sun.

07. Why a thing so innocuous? So naive and so docile.

A girl in a wedding gown. 

Even when his mind tries to conjure up something beautiful, he still finds a way to corrupt it. Maybe that's why she's undead, ribcages peeking out of the tear of her dress yet never heaving to breathe. He buried his guilt, and she decayed. It's perverse and he loathes himself for it.

Megatron tells himself that's why she's here. To make him answer for corrupting her soil, and even if his pillage on Earth felt like a lifetime ago, he remembers.

The only bride that he could think of was a dead one. What does that say about him?

Without Soundwave, at least not directly, he was safe in the knowledge that no one aboard the ship could spy into his thoughts. They would find him appalling — more than they already did.It was a good thing that she very rarely approaches him when he’s outside his quarters. And in the rare instances she did, no one would acknowledge her.

The end of her dress, dragging across the floor.

Ravage tries to convince him he’s been tampered with, that it’s shadowplay. He threatens to tell Soundwave and Megatron lets him. He tells him to do whatever he wants, as long as he leaves them alone — unless, of course, he’s content with listening to an invisible orator. And so the panther slinks back into the dark resentfully, muttering to himself about how the mighty Megatron’s gone mad.

He has, hasn’t he? 

08. She remembers nothing except the ocean, cold and majestic. Where she emerged from the tides — and he notes that her predecessor, their goddess of love, was also born out of foam — flush with the sheen of the sea. 

Then is grief born out of the sea? Megatron thinks. Did the Olympian create it at the same time she created love?

No. But people fight for love and love to fight. So love married war. She explained. The dyads then became synonymous.

And is that what we are? He asked her. A sequence of two, bind together to marry?

She smiled at him — bright enough to distract Megatron from the bone of her jaw that shifted from the movement. Until death do us part.

He wanted to laugh.

09. Terminus told him the ancient world was pitch black, and if anyone from today were to travel back in time to witness it, the emptiness would blind their optics if not drive them mad. A shadow so greedy that it crowds the air with its emptiness. That time, Megatron had briefly wondered if such nothingness existed. Yet, the same darkness had forged Solus: intelligent and beautiful, she was one of the first, flares of light. 

He thinks of the Prime as she offlines at the hilt of Megatronus' Star Saber. And even in her death, the last words she spoke were about love. Was that the start of the chain reactions that lit up Cybertron? Which of the two sparked the lucidity that charged life into the millions of dormant sparks? Her death or her love? 

(He has to remind himself that the same love killed her.)

10. The truth is symmetrical, cogs in the right places. Perceptor argued. 

Nautica rubs the side of her helm with both servos. Her tools, messy on top of the table.

Yes, but you see, we won’t be travelling in linear time. We’re planning to break free from that. If symmetry is your truth then where will that leave us once we go on a loop?

Something inside him hitched. Oh.

All optics were on him.

What? Rodimus urged.

Nothing. He lied. I didn't know we could get stuck in time.

That’s what happens when you don’t move on. Brainstorm shrugs. Time freezes you. So you have to learn how to melt it.

11. She says she feels cold. He assumed she felt nothing, numb as she fluttered her fingers experimentally on the shell of his armor. Numb with the same indifference she had with the lack of oxygen aboard the ship.

He didn’t stop her, trying to etch the feel of her curious touch. It felt like nothing, feather-like and ghosting across the surface like a stray draft of wind. He has to mentally fill in the gaps himself, and if Megatron thinks hard enough, he can pretend the warmth exists. That it lingers and clings to him.

Her fingers run along the ridge of his chin and the underside of his palm. Yet he's still not enough to chase away the cold. 

No matter how hard she tries, her kindness has no source in his stout and unyielding world. And so he is left to wonder what it would be like if she didn’t oscillate in and out of time and space. To feel her, whole and alive, would be mercy. That would be unfair.

Time and time again, he'd ask her: why are you here?

I'm waiting for my husband. She'd tell him, small against his open palms. We're going home.

Megatron feels as if the air compresses when she speaks.

Where is home? He'd ask her. Intake dry as he swallows salt.

The darkness of his habsuite doesn’t seem to touch her features, which appear bright, as if a private sun were hanging above her brow. She'd motion for him to come closer and brush her tiny lips against his. It felt like nothing. She was a shadow that had casted herself across his face.

The sea.

12. Megatron observes the little trinkets littered across Rung's office. They were tidy and upright, great big ships, each marking well-known voyages and exoduses. He imagines them cutting through the galaxy's undercurrent, great, metallic sails, reeling through the vortex of nothing.

Then he catches it, the small, black figure tucked away at the top-right corner of his shelf. 

Rung turns around in his chair to follow his line of vision.

The humans call it a raven. Of course, they don't come in the same size. They're small, as are all things Earth.

Laserbeak is sleek and sharp. Sentio-Metallico down to his core. Yet this bird — the real one — is a void with shadows. Slender beaks made of meat, and bone for claws.

Humans called them omens. 

And who would gift you a warning?

The psychiatrist looks out the window, round-rimmed glasses, clever under the light.

I don't remember. He lies, and the next time Megatron enters his office two days later, the bird is nowhere to be seen.

13. If she is born out of the sea, then that must make her a siren. She still hums a tune he’s never heard before. And it did lure him. And when Megatron tells her this, she shakes her head.

But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.

Cybertronians don’t cry either. He told her. And the look she gave him was withering as if he had trapped all the light and left her to sit in the dark. He was, after all, empty if not made of black holes. Is that why his spark feels heavy all the time, dense with the magnitude of his sins? And when the weight becomes unbearable, he tears himself apart, and with it he cuts through the fabric of space. The anti-matter was now leaking out of his optics, crawling past the sutures, wringing him iode by iode. 

Someone was calling him, but he couldn’t hear. The forcefield was cracking, shattering with him.

It was excruciating. Yet amidst the throes, he feels it, the light-headedness, the gradual rise and lull — in a way, he was crying. Maybe he was also made of oceans.

14. Megatron found a flaw in her story. Love didn’t marry War, and before they eloped, Love had married Creation; Solus has always been fond of metallurgy. That was her alchemy. And Venus used to seek refuge in the fire of her husband’s forge. Yet she was unhappy — why is that?

Why was he?

You could have been a creator. His corpse bride mused. That’s why you wrote.

I still do .

Do goddesses feel remorse? He thought maybe she didn't. War seduced her. And she had let him corrupt and penetrate and ravish. Megatron reminds himself it was symbiotic; she loved his wrath and his power. The Sun was their witness, and he claims she was unhappy because Creation was unkind to her. So she stared into the abyss.

And Megatron understood.

He thought of staying idle and evanesce under the mines, private and forgotten, without having dented the surface of his homeland. Now they tell stories of him, and his name is forever carved into the macrocosm. If not by words through wounds. And as the universe ages into senescence, will the pain — which echoes and expands like the gases under Croteus 12 — continue to bleed through generations to come? 

Outside, he could see the field of flowers. Ebullient blue, swaying gently with the wind. With the sun on the horizon and dusk to chase away the chaos of the night, Megatron stared at Terminus, worn and confused — and refused.

This won't be my legacy .

15. In another life, she promised, you could be a creator .

And what will I create ?

She was small, so small that he had to lift her up to his face, where she could make a motion to hug the side of his cheek with her body.

(Destiny had always made him feel small, she even more so.)

Love. You will love me.

He supposed that’s possible. He wanted, once a very long time ago, to be a medic. And maybe he could even be an explorer as he was aboard the Lost Light. Searching for lost things. Searching for her.

The blue, luminescent light above him flickered. And even higher above — two, three levels up in the sentencing chamber — the jury was deciding his fate. Footfalls chased away the sound of the sea. And so he pulled out his Rodimus star, crumpled and yellow, sitting in the middle of his palm. 

She smiled sadly at that.

And will I love you well ? He asked.

You know you will. 

16. It’s like falling asleep. She promises.

He was falling into recharge, but the word sounded garish, rough. Sleep sounded more like drifting. Sinking. She was there when he laid across the slab, where the monitors beeped and chirped as they pumped fluids into his cable — and he let them, drawing the curtains close.

She tells him to inhale, teaching him how to breathe. (The juxtaposition of it all made him smile inwards.) And when the air rushes past his intake, he could taste it again. The pull, the push, the hum of the great, big tides. They roll and crash into the sand, disappearing into froth. He dreams of standing across her, now at the same height, face to face.

No longer was he her resting ground to haunt. 

On the branch of a tree that appeared above him, a raven swooped down. The beating of her wings, tumbling through the mist.

My dear , the creature spoke.  He belongs to the gardens with the rest of my brother's creations . You belong to the sea. With me.

His bride was pleading, telling her that life has parted them, so it would only be right for them to be joined here.

And as if pausing to give her words a thought, the Raven turned to the west and crowed. Though you may not remember it, we have been here before. It will only be fair if I would send you both back. But know that the end stays the same. What is mine is mine, and what is my brother's is his.

Megatron doesn’t dream, but now he lives in one — where reality is no more than a distant memory, an echo from another, linear time. And so the ferryman lets Megatron guide his bride atop the boat, so they can sail out together, into the sea. 

17. De ja vu , she called it. A memory she had lived through before, even if it wasn't hers.

We are traveling in a loop. It's true. The quantum jump had worked, and now they all live in a forever dream, conjured up by Brainstorm and Perceptor's simpatico. The Earthling ran a nervous hand down the creases of her clothes, hesitant with her next question. Yet, Megatron was patient. (Waiting, it was as if they were both used to that.)

I think we met in a previous life. 

The glass atop the tabletop gleamed, and in the space of Swerve's bar — where the bartender was too far away to intrude — Megatron could hear the song of the ocean. There was no point in lying. He did come looking for her. And here she was, whole.

I think we did.

"And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea." — Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe

[the-crooked-library]

"You and I Have Begun to Blur"

This is eating my brain from inside, so here's the thing: one of my favourite aspects of Hannigram as a ship is their balance - the way they mirror and complete each other, functionally two halves of the same whole; but what is even more fascinating is that, in a literary sense, Hannibal and Will are, in fact, inspired by two opposing aspects of the same man.

It all begins (like many other things) with Lord Byron; specifically, the summer he spent with a group of friends at Villa Diodati in Geneva, and the dare, that each member of the group would write a ghost story - one of which was Dr. Polidori's The Vampyre. This novella, which introduced the vampire legend to Western popular culture, defined its archetypes for centuries to come; and as such, Polidori's Lord Ruthven, who was based on Lord Byron, became a blueprint.

He is dark, foreign, seductive, dangerous, hypnotizing, hedonistic, possessive; his relationship with the main character, Aubrey, is markedly homoerotic - and these qualities endure as the archetype is passed down the generations. From Ruthven, we get Carmilla, Dracula, Lestat - and, indeed, Hannibal Lecter.

From this:

To this:

he is still, recognizably, a Byronic villain. Whether he operates within an overtly supernatural genre, or a psychological thriller, he is still confident, dominant, manipulative, and always representative of forbidden (queer, interracial, extramarital, etc) desire and temptation.

However, The Vampyre was not the only piece written for the same dare, not the only piece that left a legacy within popular horror, and, most importantly for this context, not the only piece that featured a Byronic character. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein introduced a second such archetype into the gothic genre - inspired by her own understanding of Lord Byron; so, while her Victor Frankenstein shares the same dark hair and pallor as Polidori's Ruthven, there is an ocean of differences between the two.

Victor Frankenstein is a Tortured Genius. He is odd and wild, passionate, prone to isolation; a misfit from the start, always lonely despite the few connections he has, and never truly understood. His intellect is both a gift and the source of his ruin, and he is plagued, in equal measure, by both pride and guilt.

In both looks and character, he passes almost unchanged - from this:

To this:

Even centuries later, he is still the smartest man in the room, he is always tormented, and his counterpart is always a Monster. We see him pop up throughout horror media - as poets, composers, detectives - reflected in Edgar Allan Poe's Roderick Usher, Lovecraft's Henry Wilcox, or Spencer Reid of Criminal Minds. Unlike those of Ruthven's lineage, these people are usually either frail or sickly, socially awkward, uncertain of themselves except for a specific area of expertise, and their sanity commonly tends to be in question.

Despite such differences, though, all these characters are Lord Byron's legacy, weaving their way through history - on the page, on the stage, on the screen, it matters not. By the time they meet again in NBC's Hannibal, they are as separate as two entities can be - yet entwined more closely than any other genre would allow.

Frankly, it drives me feral.

There is so much here to unpack - they are a whole, and yet separate, each with his own archetypal history. Does something within Will Graham's bones remember Frankenstein when he stands in the forensic lab, surrounded by corpses?.. On the Doylist level, does that inform the acting - however subconsciously - in any way?.. Does Count Hannibal Lecter have Lord Ruthven's smile - or Lord Byron's?.. Does he know?

How much is reality?

How much is fiction?

How much is lost through interpretation? How much is remembered? How much does anyone ever really Know us, truly, when two of Byron's closest friends saw entirely different people in him?

I don't know. We can never know. What is evident, though, is that Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham are two halves of the same soul - and that this soul aches to be complete.

[deftexulansis]

♱ exulansis:

noun. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it —whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness— which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog.

˚̣̣̣ ꒷︶†︶꒷˚̣̣̣︶ ͡𑁬♱໒ ͡ ︶˚̣̣̣꒷︶†︶꒷ ˚̣̣̣

exulansis ╱ exu. ✶ she / they, minor.

INTP, 5w6. social media addict. bi.

not safe for work accounts ╱ men DNI

TW . . . . . . . . . . . . sometimes i reblog ed posts

︵‿୨ ♱ ୧‿︵

SIGNS. sagittarius sun. scorpio rising & moon.

MOVIES. girl, interrupted. perfect blue. gone girl. edward scissorhands. howl's moving castle. the gruffalo. how to lose a guy in 10 days. (500) days of summer. whiplash. fight club.

AUTHORS. franz kafka. fyodor dostoyevsky. sylvia plath. edgar allan poe.

MUSIC. lana del rey. the cure. the smiths. deftones. anything, really.

SHOWS. skins (uk). bojack horseman. regular show. watamote. nana. saiki k. serial experiments lain.

[historic-haze]

ABOUT ME

•Name: Victoria

•Pronouns: she/her

•Age: 23

•National identity: Argentine/Canadian

•Education: Bachelor in Music, would like to do a Master's in Musicology

•Interests: music, literature, books, poetry, storywriting, history, ancient Greece & mythology, culture, animals, languages, films, drama, internet aesthetics, going on walks, nature

•Languages: Fluent English & Spanish, very minimal French, German, & Italian

•Instruments: piano, violin, viola, composing

•Favourite composers: Chopin, Rachmaninov, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, Gershwin, Carlos Gardel, Astor Piazzolla, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, Alma Deutscher, Joshua Kyan Aalampour

•Favourite books: The Secret History, If We Were Villains, Frankenstein, Dracula, 1984, Vicious, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Binding, The Outsiders, The Sun and the Star, The Thief Lord

•Favourite authors/poets/playwrights: Donna Tartt, Rick Riordan, V. E. Schwab, Mary Shelley, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost, Alexander Pushkin

•Favourite subjects: music, history, literature, English, foreign language, geography, philosophy, drama

•Favourite foods & beverages: chocolate, alfajores, tiramisu, pizza, pasta, empanadas, tomatoes, bananas, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, fruit smoothies

[bungou-stray-dogs-archive]

Edgar Allan Poe card - Summer Festival

Leader skill - Grilled squid & the mastermind Increases amount of gold received when stage is cleared 15% Active skill - I must be careful not to overeat Recovers 20% of hp Sub-skill - There are... so many people... Activates when a Guild character is in the team Reduces enemy dmg by 25 for 1 turn (50 at lv.5) Memo Poe is touring the stalls at the behest of Karl, who is following the scent of grilled corn drifting from the stalls. While overwhelmed by the atmosphere of a foreign festival and its crowds, the taste of grilled squid seems to have put a smile on his face. Quotes "This is an unfamiliar sight, but... a mystery novel with a festival as its motif... could be interesting." "Grilled squid is surprisingly delicious... And most importantly, Karl seems to be enjoying himself as well." Affiliation: The Guild Emerald affinity Atk: 840 (Max) | 132 (Base) Hp: 5135 (Max) | 710 (Base) Special type

He's available from the Countless Summer Festivals event (EN & JP)

[anti-dazai-blog]

Second Anniversary Special

As many of the long-time followers of this blog know, I originally started out on the classic literature side of tumblr, which is what lead to my venturing into bsd. As an homage to my roots as a classic lit enthusiast, I’ll be going through all the works that I’ve read written by bsd authors:

The Spider’s Thread by Akutagawa

This short story is brought up in a lot of animes, which is unfortunately the most likely way western bsd fans. I could make an entire separate post of commentary on how the American school system doesn’t cover most foreign literature (outside of English [as in from England] and French works), and that is an absolute travesty. However, that’s not what we’re covering right now. 

Anyway. The Spider’s Thread is a very short story—like two pages at most. You can go read it now. For all the other entries I plan on rating the novels out of 5, but this one’s truly too short to rate. If you wanna read it you can find a hundred pdfs online. The same probably goes for most works of classic literature, so. Go wild enjoy the wonderful world of free online pdfs.

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

I was probably assigned other works by Poe, but this one is most likely his most famous short story. I was assigned it in middle school/high school/ and at least twice in college. Again, very short short story—you can read it in a few minutes tops. 

5/5 for the sole reason of it aligning with my personal sense of humor. I get that it’s not supposed to be funny, but unreliable narrators are and will always be hilarious to me. I love a guy insisting that he’s not crazy while he’s off murdering a guy. Cask of Amontillado-core protagonist. Funny because E.A. Poe also wrote Cask of Amantillado. I’m out here starting to suspect that E.A. Poe just really loved writing his unnamed unreliable narrator protagonists.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I’ve never read Tom Sawyer, but in 11th grade my class read Huckleberry Finn. 3/5 because I don’t like the way it was taught in class, but I did enjoy analyzing it more than some other books we did. 

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

Currently reading it so I can’t give much feedback, but so far I’d like this guy (Raskolnikov not Dostoyevsky) to meet Meursault from The Stranger. If anyone’s made this crossover, please send it to me. And if not and you wanna go make it yourself—please I’ll love you forever.

Dracula by Bram Stoker 

I mean we’ve all done Dracula Daily. Or at least I’ll assume you’ve heard of it. 5/5, Mina’s best girl, Quincey’s best boy, I have very basic opinions but I’m standing by them.

--Bonus

The Stranger by Camus

Meursault the prison is clearly named after Meursault, the fictional character who famously goes to prison, right. We’re all on the same page about this, right? 

Anyway if you’ve never heard of or read the stranger, [spoilers] it’s about this guy who kills a guy for no reason (“it was just so hot outside, idk what happened but now there’s a dead guy, this is a good enough criminal defense right? You’re not gonna send me to jail for just this one little mistake---oh you’re giving me the death penalty? Ah. I see.”) Solid 4/5—points deducted for being a little slow by some parts (although I can’t vouch for how it is in the original French, this was only my impression from the English translation I read)

—————

After making this list, it’s clear that I haven’t read too many books my bsd authors, so next years my anniversary special will be more about the classic literature I have read. I do plan to keep posting until then. So please enjoy another year of the anti-dazai blog!!

[leahsfiction]

yknow i'm pretty wary of sinologists as a whole but this is... pleasantly okay for something written in the 40s:

(Translater's [sic] Preface to Three Murder Cases Solved (Judge Dee #1), R. H. van Gulik)

For many years, Western writers of detective novels have time and again introduced the “Chinese element” in their books. The mysteries of China itself or of the Chinatowns in some foreign cities, were often chosen as a means of lending a weird and exotic atmosphere to the plot. Super-criminals like Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu, or super-detectives like Earl D. Biggers’ Charlie Chan, have become nearly as familiar to our readers as the great Lord Lister, or the immortal Sherlock Holmes himself. As the Chinese have been so often represented—and too often misrepresented!—in our popular crime literature, it seems only just that they themselves be allowed to have their own say for once in this field. All the more so because this branch of literature was fully developed in China several centuries before Edgar Allan Poe or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were born.

[thomthinks]

The Complete Poetry Of Edgar Allan Poe

✓Not my cup of tea

But still a damn good cup of tea. I mean, it's Edgar Allan Poe. He doesn't need me to praise his work.

Now, i must confess that I'm not big on poetry in general, but i think my biggest problem with this book stemmed from myself, in the sense that English is not my first language and considering these poems were written in the 1800s... I struggled a bit with understanding them. Some poems were specially hard to read.

If you, like me, aren't a native English speaker, I'd probably hesitate in recommending this particular book; but if you are a native speaker and a fan of poetry, or even a foreigner studying English literature, you should definitely go ahead a give it a try.

Overall, i had a good time. My favorite poems were these:

🖤 A dream within a dream

🖤 Al Aaraaf (part 2 >> part 1)

🖤 Alone

🖤 The sleeper

🖤 Bridal ballad

🖤 Dream land

🖤 The raven

That was all, farewell for now ~

[that-gay-jedi]

Kiddie me in grade 3 (~8 years old): Alas, the planet is slowly becoming a hellworld! So many wonderful species are going extinct! Water is becoming scarce! Adults are useless and don't care about the future! People keep telling me I'm smart but they don't do what I tell them they should! I am an alien among my classmates, the egg the cuckoo bird laid in a foreign nest, I cannot endure among these people! And I can't even buy alcohol about it, ALACK ALAS!

Scholastic book "The Raven and Other Poems" containing a short biography of Edgar Allan Poe and a selection of his works beginning with "Alone", a poem which I still have memorized to this day: Hey this famous author was also a tortured sad-sack whom nobody understood or listened to until it was too late

Kiddie me: Say no more

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Masque of the Red Death (Corman, 1964)

It's been many moons since I've read the story this is adapted from, and while I don't consider this as an especially great failing given the circumstances, I always felt the ideal movie adaptation should be realized with grotesque, taboo-shattering explicitness. Given that this is a mid-'60s gothic horror, there is only so much you can show in terms of satanist debauchery without pissing off censors. A dancing child and a dog for entertainment? Maybe if they were eaten after the performance, that would be pretty messed up. No nudity, aside from a carefully blocked scene of Jane Asher getting out of the bath, although Hazel Court provides plenty of heaving bosom. There is a gorilla suit in a more sinister and horrifying context than I'm used to (which automatically makes this a good movie, regardless of what I'm rambling on about at the moment). So the movie has to suggest depravity and evil with a bit less showing and a bit more through atmosphere, meaning that it tasty in other ways. To be perfectly honest, I'm just chewing over some pretty minor reservations, but I'd like to see a version of this that plays like a more engaged Caligula (minus Bob Guccione's additions).

Whatever my (extremely minor) misgivings, this is a really engaging work. This is the first Edgar Allan Poe adaptation I've seen from Roger Corman, and on the basis of this, I'd definitely like to dig further. One thing he does that's really smart is find great actors for the material. People like Vincent Price and Patrick McGee look natural in the renaissance faire costuming, and are able to imbue wit and mischief into their fancy schmancy dialogue. Both are clearly having a ball. And Jane Asher provides a nice, sympathetic centre, grounding the movie's flamboyance, although I can picture another version where she's a bit more tempted by Price's evil, debauched ways. And as mentioned above, Hazel Court brings certain obvious... *clears throat* ...charms.

And the movie is just gorgeous to look at. Despite Corman's frugal reputation, this movie looks credibly lavish, likely because they were able to save some money by reusing the sets from Becket. Corman as always gets the most bang for his buck, having us creep along during the many scenes in which characters walk down the corridors, which along with the gorilla suit automatically makes this a good movie. This was shot by Nicolas Roeg, who with the help of the production design, floods each frame with bold colours to simultaneously eerie and decadent effect. I wouldn't quite call the look of the movie experimental, certainly not as much as Roeg's directorial efforts or his work as DP on Richard Lester's Petulia, which has an early form of his fractured editing style, but the ambience the movie achieves feels bit more off-kilter than the usual gothic horror costume piece. A high point is the nightmare sequence in which Court is attacked by a slew of scary foreigners, with the ghastly green hues and dissolve-heavy editing by Ann Chegwidden casting a palpably sinister aura over the scene. And if the climax is less graphic than one might hope thanks to the censorial limitations, the bold use of red certainly gives it a kick.

[hydragoon513]

Essentially a redo of a 2 year old illustration of mine. My Foreigner class servant: Edgar Allan Poe. Didn't really change much besides leaning more into the red and giving him claws. Could do a lot more but I'm happy with how he is currently and it gives me the option to repurpose him later

[majestativa]

Two words – two foreign soft disyllables – Italian tones, made only to be murmured by angels dreaming.

Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

[ao3feed-fyozai]

A New Case (Just for You)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/YomsVjX

by Marwiwish

Life isn't very interesting to Dazai. He clocks in sometime around noon, pretends to work as he annoys Kunikida, and waits for Yosano to leave so they can go drinking with Ranpo. Days and nights pass with nothing significant happening.

Until one day, when he finds a case about the murder of a foreign company's employee sitting on his desk. He can't help but feel this might just be the excitement he was waiting for.

Or

A strange Russian man asks the ADA for help solving a murder case.

Words: 5432, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi

Characters: Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Bungou Stray Dogs), Nikolai Gogol (Bungou Stray Dogs), Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs), Edogawa Ranpo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Lucy Maud Montgomery (Bungou Stray Dogs), Izumi Kyouka (Bungou Stray Dogs)

Relationships: Dazai Osamu/Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Bungou Stray Dogs), Edogawa Ranpo/Edgar Allan Poe (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke/Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Lucy Maud Montgomery/Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Ozaki Kouyou/Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Edogawa Ranpo & Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Fyodor Dostoyevsky & Nikolai Gogol (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu & Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Bungou Stray Dogs)

Additional Tags: Dazai-Typical Suicide Mentions (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu is a Mess (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu is a Little Shit (Bungou Stray Dogs), Protective Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs), Lesbian Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs), Kunikida Doppo Is So Done (Bungou Stray Dogs), Edogawa Ranpo is a Little Shit (Bungou Stray Dogs), Edogawa Ranpo Knows All (Bungou Stray Dogs), Nakajima Atsushi is So Done (Bungou Stray Dogs), Doctor Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs), Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Murder Mystery, References to Depression, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Complicated Relationships, Drinking & Talking, Can't believe I'm not gonna add the best damn character, It's Chuuya btw, obviously, No beta we die like Odasaku

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/YomsVjX